User talk:Aaron Brenneman/Archives/8

Ok, I'm through with cranky. Content - brenneman ^{L} 08:22, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Trigger Happy

Dear Administrator: I, like you, am an editor; I create articles and make edits. But, many, I am sure many other people out there, are tired, frustrated and angry with the behavior of many Administrators. I am certain that it is appallingly easy to revert an article, that someone has undoubtedly spent allot of time and effort writing. I have, in the past spent hours, researching, planning, writing, checking and revising an addition to an article only to have the whole lot deleted forever three minutes afterwards.

I know that deletion of material is essential in a free-to-edit encyclopedia, but if you see an article that someone has anonymously devoted their time to writing, why could you not revise it, change it or give a reason for you action? They deserve one.

I know all Administrators are not all Drunk-With- Power-Trigger-Happy-Nazis, many of you do an excellent job and you know who you are. The world owes you. I owe You.

In closing: Create, don’t Destroy. Make a distinction between “what is right, and what is easy”. Be enriched and enrich others with the knowledge of other people.

And keep that finger off the trigger.

Dfrg.msc 01:44, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Oi

You're not leaving that easily! C'mon, lad, there's work to be done. Hup, hup, hup!

(my email is over there <------ somewhere) Mark Gallagher 14:29, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

You never struck me as the huffy type. What's up? At least come and talk about it. --Doc ^ask? 22:03, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Give him some time guys, I know how he feels, or felt. I needed the entire month of May to remove the stink of corruption here from my life. Karmafist ^{Save Wikipedia} 02:42, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Sigh why everyone is leaving, this is just horrible, u, SlimVirgin, Phaedriel, possibly Linuxbeak, for what, a bunch of idiots like Brandt trying to control this site. I give up as well, this is too much, the community is just breaking apart because of this. Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 04:35, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm just a newbie that happened to cross paths with you a few times, but while I wouldn't call you the most level-headed--I thought you brought valid insight into discussion. I wish you the best in all endeavours. Kotepho 19:20, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

• This is terrible, you've been doing great and suddenly you're going with a couple of other fine sysops. What is the world coming to? - Mailer Diablo 01:28, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

• Brenny hasn't deleted all his pages, just archived them in a bit of a nonstandard way. I think he got stressed and is taking a bit of a break. He's done it before after all. I have every expectation he'll be back.. the taking one's ball and going home bit isn't his style. All IMHO of course, and with every wish for a restful and relaxing recharge. ++Lar: t/c 05:14, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Montsalvat Article

Thanks! I do agree it needs more sources, but I am having difficulty finding some, I disagree that sources close to the subject arnt as reliable as one further from it, it's just that they can't be as trusted most of the time, and any other sources information would have to be obtained directly (or worse, indirectly) from the subject (ex: sigmund jorgensen) and then it becomes second hand or third hand information, it isnt as good as first hand information.

I do agree though that if more sources can be found on things to do with Montsalvat other than its history, they would perhaps be better than the source of sigmund jorgensen himself, but for the history, I think you can't beat the son of the guy who founded the colony, unless those who were a part of it back then were still alive and wanted to share their info.

I created the article about "A symphony of mud and stone" because it is a real book that exists and thought I'd supply all the info I could about that source, but if it isnt as many here say noteworthy then I wont complain if it gets deleted. The articles must be neutral but the editors can be brutal, is that the way it goes? if so, very sad.

Thanks for bringing these things to my attention and for taking interest in the article, but mostly for providing some positive feedback! Its all well and good to say object and then say whats wrong with it...yeah? well what needs to be done to make it better?? I get frustrated with some editors on wikipedia somtimes I do.

The photos are okay I have some better ones and if I ever have time I'll update them, and I apologise for the late reply cause our internet connection died a few days ago. Nick carson 06:35, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

This is done.

Tony and the RfC

Hey, I just got your e-mail, after I submitted a request to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR. You can see it on the bottom there. AmiDaniel won't block him, but does feel that there is some aspect of 3RR going on. He thinks it would be better to block for something like WP:POINT and/or for causing a disruprion. In any case you are free to do as you please, but if you want to look, all the diffs are at AN/3RR. Later, Chuck^(척뉴넘) 07:06, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

My userpage

Heya,

I see that on the 30th you changed a word on my userpage. However, I feel that the original word is more appropriate. The picture doesn't look silly. It looks gay. :) No, really, it does, and I totally admit that (but by no means is that to be taken as me implying my own homosexuality, which does not exist). Search4Lancer 22:26, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Your archives

Is there a reason why you don't link to your archives from here? Its relatively easy to put an {{archivebox}} or just links so that people can have easy access to them? Ansell 04:36, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Ansell:I've reverted your change to Aaron's user pages. People do not HAVE to make easy convenient archives if they do not wish to. This page was blanked by Aaron for his own reasons, well within his aegis to do so if he wants to as long as he's not ignoring warnings or whatever. He's on break, he can blank the page completely if he so desires. I am sure he'll revert me if he does not agree with my reversion. ++Lar: t/c 02:15, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I heard back from Aaron via email, but I wasn't quite able to parse out what he was telling me, whether he wanted it left that way or not. So I dunno. ++Lar: t/c 05:49, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Block

If you don't return to editing soon, I'll be forced to reblock your account. You must ask permission to leave you know.--MONGO 06:06, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

...and I'll UNblock him! Ooh! Wheel War! YES! I'll be flying the rouge flag before you know it! ++Lar: t/c 13:49, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you that really helped me.

I am very thankful for your email, it has really helped me through this, thank you very much. ILovePlankton 04:35, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Huff

Moved to User:Aaron Brenneman/Userpage items/Poems/21

(Not an insult in rhyming couplet form, but you do have many admirers of your sysop work here. Happy to see you back) -- Samir धर्म 08:27, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! This shall go into the oddities jar, but I've got a three-archive backlog right now. - brenneman ^{L} 13:03, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Just to say Bye

You're the only admin i've come accross who does not conduct himself like a power stoned narcissist. I have a short fuse when it comes to being treated like shit by the community and it seems to me that everyone here has an admin friend who they spend a lot of time sucking up to and who is ready to help them out when necessary, which empowers them. I refuse to do that. I'm not a power hungry narcissist and i'm not a sheep. As such I don't see how I can fit in here. Wikipedia is an organisation with a Bullying culture that it actively turns a blind eye to. I can't justify putting any more time and effort.

If I could make any suggestion it would be that what is needed is a comprehensive anti-bullying policy. But I can't see that ever happening while it's the psychopaths who make the policies.

So thanks for everything. I wish you all the best and I hope you get somewhere with all of your endeavours. Factoid Killer 12:50, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

See you later, FactoidKiller/JebusChrist/Jimididit/NSWelshman. Snottygobble 12:58, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

My comment above prompted a storm of new vandalism against me and everyone else who has ever stood against this sock farm. Vandals were Jebus Of Nazareth and IPs. Vandalism was to label us all psychopaths, per FactoidKiller's statement above. All five accounts have now been blocked - NSWelshman (the puppeteer) for a month, and the puppets indefinitely. Snottygobble 01:52, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Also User:JimboJim is another puppet. Snottygobble 01:55, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Get over yourself phsycho. What on earth makes you think your little message triggered all that? You should do some reading on your specific condition Narcissistic personality disorder. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jebos Chroist (talk • contribs).

I haven't looked at the vandalism, but I'm sorry that you've copped it sweet. I can only say that if presented with the same information that I had when I was involved with this user before I'd make the same decision. I always reckon we should give folks a chance at converting in a positive manner. If they choose not to do so, that doesn't mean we were wrong to give them the chance. - brenneman ^{L}

That sounds about right to me. My personal view is that people are most likely to reform when forced to bear the consequences of their actions. I know I had a bit of a crack at you a month or so ago, but I really wasn't criticising you this time. I was just keeping you informed of new chapters in the book of NSWelshman. Snottygobble 05:18, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Welcome back

Hopefully it'll go better this time. --Cyde↔Weys 13:05, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, and as always if you see me screwing up please tell me. - brenneman ^{L} 02:42, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Too negative! Be positive! --Cyde↔Weys 02:44, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, but saying "While a good deed is its own reward, I prefer you to slap me on the arse" got me in trouble at work, so I'm afraid to say it here. - brenneman ^{L} 03:03, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

You and Tony would make much better friends than you realize. --Cyde↔Weys 05:10, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

External links in gaming articles

I notivc eyou ve been trying to remove excess links from lots of pages. Chill out with your shoot first approach to gaming links. Did you even click on any of them to see their relevance? When an article eventually matures to be referenced., those links will be imporetant. ANd most of the links you got rid of are perfectly valid. I would recommend staying out of the CVG space, as we're pretty good at self-regulating these kinds of things. And btw citing Wikipedia:External links in your comment doesnt justify what youre doing, especialyl since youre rmeoving stuff that does not go against policy. --larsinio (poke)^(prod) 01:22, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. The game articles are particularly susceptible to linkcruft. Any editor can edit any topic as long as he does so responsibly, and Aaron's edits in this space seem like plain good sense. Could you identify a specific herd-culling he did that was inappropriate? Nandesuka 01:27, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I am really getting annoyed by brenneman's removal of external links. In the cases I've seen (specifically the LUEshi article), you've defended your actions by spouting nonsense and pointing to the external links policies. It's one thing to delete cruft- it's another thing to remove external links that are 100% relevant to the subject at hand. Use some common sense, kiddo. 172.147.192.250 06:12, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

In Asteroids (computer game)

In particular, the removal of hte following sources

• Asteroids at The Killer List of Video Games
• Asteroids at MobyGames
• Article at The Dot Eaters, featuring a history of Asteroids

and btw I forgot to re-remove that psp version. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Larsinio (talk • contribs).

Again, after having re-reviewed these none of them provide a resource that should be linked according to the guideline. Moby games is almost always instantly deletable as providing no information not widely available elsewhere, and dot eaters would be possibly acceptable if used as a reference (please in the "Cite" style not in-line refs!) but as a bare external link it is not.
brenneman ^{L} 02:31, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

KLOV is exclusively used to fill the infobox items. Most pages in the CVG space have items listed in the external links that were indeed used as references in the article, which is why it is important to NOT remove links. Mobygames is an issue constantly under debate, and I dont really care either way on that front. Typically items int eh external links eventaulyl move up toa references section. --larsinio (poke)^(prod) 18:37, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Any external links that are in fact references are always available in the history. There is no need for them to be "stored" in that manner in the artical. Move them to the talk pages if you must but other wise they are just external links under a different heading. Next time I pass through, I'll check if they've been made into "cite" style. - brenneman ^{L} 11:03, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

In Puzzle Bobble

• Aaron Brenneman/Archives/8 series at MobyGames
• Aaron Brenneman/Archives/8 at The Killer List of Video Games
• Arcade-History.com entry
• Puzzle Bobble at GameFAQs
• Bust-A-Move at Neo-Geo.com (reviews) 1 2

these links cahracterise the gameplay of it, which relates to the context of the article.

I'm not going to respond individually to something that you can't be bothered to format correctly... but rest assured that I did look at every page. - brenneman ^{L} 02:49, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

In Winnetka, Illinois

• [Winnetka Public School District web site http://www.winnetka36.org/]

If you cant link this here where can you link it? ITs relevent to the town.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Larsinio (talk • contribs).

This one's actually a fair call. I was going to move this up into the education section and convert all the in-line refs into "cite" style when I got distracted by blind reversions of my edits. - brenneman ^{L} 02:19, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

IN regards to my comment about staying out cvg space

ALl im saying is that the members of the WP:CVG wikiproject actively discuss these matters about relevent links, which are items you may not be aware of. Like gamefaqs links are useful references for many games, as they contain loits of gampleay information, information about items and levels, and what not. Just by linking to it does not violate WP:NOT. Lots of fangames and items liek that are obviously crufty, all IM saying is look before you delete. And if youre not 100% sure just post it on the talk page. --larsinio (poke)^(prod) 01:41, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

We have lots of problems with editors, who are good editors of other spaces and projects, try to apply the same delete-all cleanup without really understanding the context.

Welcome back

You'll get no chow from me, buddy :) MONGO

Aye, and now that I've adjusted my definition of "trolls" somewhat, you'll be seeing a much quieter brenneman, as well. ^_^
brenneman ^{L} 02:35, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I appreciate your hard work...time to kick ass, take names and sleep till noon.--MONGO 02:39, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

• Welcome back - Cheers, Mailer Diablo 11:15, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
  • All done. :) - Cheers, Mailer Diablo 22:56, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Re: Warnings you're handing out re sigs and disruption

Thanks for the reminder, I've intended all along to do exactly that. :) RadioKirk talk to me 03:16, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the ducks. I do maintain it violates "disrupting Wikipedia to make a point" and hence WP:POINT, but I appreciate the heads-up. :) RadioKirk talk to me 03:50, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Request for Arbitration

You have been listed as an involved party at a request for arbitration. Please go to Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#User:Tony_Sidaway to make a statement. Thanks, Chuck^(contrib) 05:06, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

re: Socks

While I appreciate your note, I think that you probably are mixing me up with somebody else, as I haven't really been dealing with too many sockpuppets lately (well, a few, but not in the way you're talking about). Plus, I haven't criticised you lately... sorry for the confusion, mate, but I think you've got the wrong chap. If I am the right fellow, could you clarify what you mean? Sorry again, and doubly for acting the eejit. Snoutwood (talk) 06:38, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

• Sigh. Snotty/Snouty, gobble/wood... it all made sense at the time. That was the most nicely put "are you on crack?" I've gotten in ages. Sorry for the confusion. - brenneman ^{L} 08:59, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

• Don't worry, no bother. See you around! Snoutwood (talk) 15:07, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
• Oh, and it's good to see you back, of course. :) Snoutwood (talk) 15:08, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Email

If you want to send me one for the next couple of days, use my alternate. If you don't have it already, ping my talk and I'll send *you* an email, whomever you may be. - brenneman ^{L} 09:02, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Ping me baby... ++Lar: t/c 20:06, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Done! - brenneman ^{L} 03:14, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Fundamental Surprise

Hmmm... Well, let me put it this way... I've got the flu, and that article resembles what is streaming from my nose! :) Seriously, my guess is that it is neologistic "management speak" from disaster-prepared people, apparently some of them Israeli. I'd certainly AfD it, and I swear, on a day like today, I could support an A1 speedy, because it does verge on indescipherable.

I checked my email yesterday, and got yours; but now I see the pink box, and I don't know where to send a reply. Go ahead with your plan to give me the Brenneman overhaul, about which I am quite excited. While you're combing through my contribs., please wander over to James F.'s talk page and see if I did anything to deserve the WP:DICK treatment he gave me. That sort of thing from a person "on high" is what makes a volunteer want to crawl in bed and take his Tylenol. Best wishes, Xoloz the sneeze 15:09, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Oi vey. Thanks for that, hope you feel better soon! - brenneman ^{L} 03:24, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions about KAS?

[Removed due to avoid threatened actions BitterGrey 15:07, 22 June 2006 (UTC)]

I've sent out the clarion call, since I tend to work slowly. - brenneman ^{L} 03:26, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

If someone can tell me what to look for or what to put on watchlist I can try to help. ++Lar: t/c 14:46, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The bitter/kas problem

I am guessing Bitter contacted you recently about KAS. He sent me emails, which I believe were sent to you, for the greeting wasn't my name, but yours. I think both sides of this arguement should be kicked off wiki for a while. What ever arguement they have with each other has nothing to do with this article and both sides have taken this a little too personally. Not even I fought you with personal insults and I did try to keep it limited to the article contents. This fight between KAS and Bitter should be removed from Wiki, as Wiki has nothing to do with this fight and Bitter is trying to drag others into the fray. --OrbitOne ^[Talk|Babel] 12:52, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks?

I appreciate your comments. I think I'm going to change it to one of those.

Mr. Bagel ^{leave me one} peteg913 20:24, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Check it out now

peteg913 ^{leave me one} 20:42, 12 June 2006 (UTC) Thanks!

I still say redirect your user-page to your talk page. If you do, I'll help you put mag wheels and a big mural of a girl riding a dinasaur on it. In fact, anyone who redirects their user page to their talk I'll help fancy-fy their talk to duplicate all functionality they need.
brenneman ^{L} 09:20, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks again; I was away and just read your message. I'll take a look at your diff, too, if you have time. peteg913  ^{leave me one} 17:08, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

This does not convey the full horror, as I was mostly using preview, but: use goggles when viewing.
brenneman ^{L} 06:14, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Why I Hate Template:NPOV

Hi. Please visit Fethullah_Gülen and Talk:Fethullah_Gülen and help me knock some sense into people who seem to be having some trouble getting out of their rut. Nandesuka 16:51, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Done. - brenneman ^{L} 01:32, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Blah

Do you mind helping at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Highways/Workshop? I need some input from people that actually know what vandalism is and isn't. --SPUI (T - C) 01:47, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

• I was just leaving you a note asking what you wanted someone to look at. You also said at ANI I think that there was some trench work that you thought that ArbCom was ignoring? - brenneman ^{L} 01:54, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
  • They don't seem do be helping at all on the non-proposed decision pages. --SPUI (T - C) 01:56, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Ouch, I don't like the sound of the precedent set by Making arbitrary decisions -> Accepting an arbitrary decision. No, sir, I don't like it at all. - brenneman ^{L} 02:06, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Regarding your comment on the Image:Playboy 0603.jpg discussion on Bornhj's talk page

Out of the last forty fair use claims I've seen this is actually one of the best.

Is what you stated on James's talk page about the Out of me and James, who is this comment in reference to?

Jean-Paul 19:02, 14 June 2006 (UTC) Talk to me!

From what I understand it means the fair use claim is fine. Thanks for clearing it up - I'm not all the experienced with fair use or any of that huuhaa. --james_{(lets talk)} 22:44, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

And the expanded fair use rationale is much better. --james_{(lets talk)} 22:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome

Hi Aaron,

thanks for the welcome. I will have a look at those links you sent and may even create an account!

Regards

Gordon Cheng

Bikini

Moved to Talk:Bikini#External_links.

Average Homeboy

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Average Homeboy

May I ask why this article was deleted? There are so many less popular internet memes on Wikipedia. A page that was very popular and at the top of the google searches when searched for 'Average Homeboy' is deleted. He is going to appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live. I think that is grounds enough for him to atleast have an article. I worked long hours revising and editing and researching the article, that I created, only to have it deleted. I know you have a lot to deal with, but please reconsider, as it was a popular article. Thank You. tynews2001

I'm always happy to re-examine any adminstrative action I've made. I'll have a look again, watch this space for a reply.
brenneman ^{L} 08:15, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Talk: Lolicon

Out of curiosity, what did I say on Talk:Lolicon that was uncivil and/or commenting on another user rather than another user's edits? Powers 00:45, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Bugger. Sorry, that was meant to be a general comment. But, um, *shakes finger* please do try and avoid stirring things up by saying "filth" again. Or something. - brenneman ^{L} 01:05, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Yessir! Powers 12:13, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Delete

Template:Delete has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Wisden17 19:47, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that. - brenneman ^{L} 06:48, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Subpages at DRV?

Why? So much more complicated, this is. I thought you joined me in hating them. Xoloz 18:14, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I do indeed hate them with a passion that borders on the monomaniacal. However, I bow to the pressure of the people. Three things: A) Getting any early stops them from going to per-unit subpages. I had to do some quick-stepping to un-do that not long ago. And 2) If we don't like it we can change it back and then I'll have more ammo to resist it next time. And Γ) I get some small credit for being flexible and following consensus.

However I've organised a meeting of E.A.G.A.D.S. (Editors Against Gross And Disgusting Subpages) for midnight tonight, behind the shed in my back yard.

brenneman ^{L} 01:44, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Who said the people wanted them? Xoloz 12:52, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Also, while we're on the topic of DRV, could you please close-out Mending Wall, if you get the chance? It is unanimous, but I am ineligible to close it, being a heavy participant. Xoloz 12:55, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Mending wall done, and a saw this and this as saying that I was outnumbered on the subpage thing?
brenneman ^{L} 11:07, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Re: My missing "E"

Thanks for letting me know about Tony's opt-out list. (Actually, I saw it yesterday; sometimes I look at Tony Sidaway's talk page when I'm not finding enough stress around here.) I'll consider it, but I think his "do not refactor" list is kind of a kludge at best. I'm not a proponent of long signatures with 12 color changes and the flags of my city, state, and country, but I think Tony's "refactoring" is his attempt to enforce a policy when there isn't a clear, definitive policy to be enforced. nathanrdotcom, as an example, had several people hammering on him about his signature, and that sort of thing represents a community consensus that signatures that long are undesirable. On the other hand, when Tony "refactors" just about any signature that has a font color change, or CSS, or a link, then that smacks to me of enforcing policy. (Interestingly enough, he's never refactored Cyde's signature, even though the pink color and cursor change are unnecessary to get the point across.)

It doesn't bother me terribly much that my signature could be "refactored", but it does bother me that one user is trying to set policy, based on his personal preferences, without real community consensus. My belief is that policies and guidelines should come from the community, with certain exceptions, like if Jimbo needs to put the foot down on something that could damage Wikipedia. Even at that, he hasn't put the foot down on people as harshly as some admins have. Look at the userbox debate as an example -- Jimbo politely requested that people remove religious and political userboxes. Certain admins took that as an endorsement to move toward a wholesale deletion of userboxes. In the process, a request that could have strengthened the community has instead caused rifts in it.

I think I'm rambling here instead of simply acknowledging your message, but sometimes things like this need to be said. --Elkman 22:29, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree with almost everything in that statement. Especially the bit about you rambling. My feeling on the signature fights is very much like my feeling on the userbox imbroglio: Utter waste of time. But to be more specific:

• Even the very longest signatures have never presented even the slightest trouble to me as far as "finding" comments or editing. I hear a few other people claim that they do have problems. Considering that thousands of wikipedia discussions occur every day and we rarely hear complaints, I'd guess most people also have no problem editing.
• Signatures are for identification, and I use the colours, symbols, etc to identify people. I have found the occasional signature to be "too much" for viewing I admit. But you can tell a lot about a person by their signature, be it clever or eye-gouging.
• I've only very rarely seen someone refuse to change when asked nicely. Really nicely, not "do it or you'll be blocked" faux-nicely.
• I'd agree that it's poor form to attempt to forge policy based upon a very view (if quite vocal) opinions. I often wonder about why some people are happy to hold pitched battles over ephemera.

Finally, your comment about whom has been refactored and whom has not was an interesting one. I'd love to see a table made with the number of times each editor's signature has been refactored, with notes on number of characters etc. My totally-baseless impression is that it has been far from even-handed, but I'm too lazy to track that down right now. A massive list of diffs in chronological order with every sig refactoring would be a great task for some compulsive wiki-gnome to create.

brenneman ^{L} 02:33, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

PS - Please do both use and promulgate Tony's list. Only good can come of it, and even people who have not yet been refactored might think of signing on.

re: Automatons

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that bots generally are more damaging than helpful to the project. They seem to be frequently fired off by a single person with a sense of purpose and they propogate throughout the project faster than consensus can emerge.

Using them while a dispute is actively being discussed is, of course, even worse since the launcher clearly does or should know that consensus for the action has not been reached. Unfortunately, bots have become so easy to use that they will be extremely difficult to stop. I don't know how to put this genie back in the bottle. Rossami (talk) 05:19, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I had a couple of quick thoughts.

• Hope that social pressure will do the trick? Tell the person using AWD or BullBot or whatever, "Please don't do that again" a few times.
• Shouldn't we have a "revert everything" button for this sort of thing?

I know that a mass-revert seems like the worst kind of buggery. However, the more I think about it, the more reasonable it seems. If it takes someone no effort to make a MFT of edits, then reverting them with no effort should be the same as one "real" reversion.

brenneman ^{L} 05:30, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

No disagreement. It can take a block to stop someone who's really going. And that's not really appropriate if they are well-intentioned but merely mistaken. I like the idea of a "mass revert". I could see it being very helpful in vandalism patrols as well. But it could also be easily abused. Something to think about anyway. Rossami (talk) 05:44, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Without comment on whether it's a good idea to revert everything or not, the functionality to do so exists. See User:Voice of All's scripts. With all of his stuff installed (a bit daunting, to be sure) I can look at the last N contributions of a user and press "master rollback", everything they're top on gets rolledback, at least. I've never actually done it but others have. You need a LOT of memory as it uses loads to do its work. ++Lar: t/c 15:56, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Arbitration precedents

It may interest you to know that I've added cases to the Wikipedia:Arbitration_policy/Past_decisions page. You can now tell people not to flabnitz per case Foo to your heart's content. --David.Mestel 16:56, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Today's Star shines upon...

File:Blue-star.gif

...my dear Aaron,
one of the greatest talented
persons to ever grace this place,
who is always present when a word of kindness and a lighthearted
gesture is sorely needed.
I hold the deep affection you've
gifted me over and over so dear,
that even to think about the moment I feared you had left fills me with sadness, and the joy
to see you here is immense.
I am so happy to call you my friend,
my dearest Aaron!
Phaedriel

Trounced

• 20:11, 20 June 2006 Tony Sidaway →Wikipedia:Conservative notice board "Close, kd, strongly endorsed"

Shouldn't we be celebrating the fact that this blatant attack on our most basic principles was comprehensively rebuffed? Wiped out. Stamped into the dust. Smashed. This is the one thing we can all agree on: that Wikipedia is neutral. --Tony Sidaway

I'm sorry to say that when an adminstrator closes a review of their own actions and then edit wars over the highly biased closing notes, it's my most basic principles I see getting stamped into the dust. - brenneman ^{L} 11:51, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, the thing is, I don't agree with Tony's in this case, but it is something so minor, that is truly insignificant. I mean, within a week it will be off the "Recently closed" list, as a new month will start, and a decision of "endorse" between "strong endorse" is by all effects equivalent. A few more holes in a potential case to overthrow it, but hey, if someone wants to fight it, I'm not the one who is going to waste time to defend my actions.In this case, I'll just pick a different battle to fight, as Sun Tzu recommends. Titoxd^(?!?) 23:46, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

*Meaningful sigh* You're as always correct. Moving on to greener pastures, thank you again.
brenneman ^{L} 01:20, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I've got no problem with stamping your principles into the dust. We're not here to uphold those. To describe "strongly endorsed" as highly biased in the circumstances is simply inaccurate. A blatant attack on Wikipedia was crushed by a strong endorsement, and I'm very proud of that. --Tony Sidaway 18:48, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussion moved to User_talk:Tony_Sidaway#If_not_mine.2C_Tony.2C_then_whose.3F__Yours.3F

Re: Dark thoughts

We're not having dark thoughts are we lad? - brenneman ^{L} 02:07, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

It wouldn't be a normal day for me without dark thoughts. Besides, when the agreement changes from, "If you ask, I won't refactor your signature except on my talk page and WP:AN," to, "If you ask, I won't refactor your signature unless they're causing excessive clutter," to, "Even if you ask, I'll still consider your signature as clutter and refactor it, and don't ask in terms other than my own," I get a little cynical. Moreover, since there isn't a real decision as far as what "clutter" means, where does it end? Clearly, vanity articles about people or their bands meet WP:CSD, and deserve to go -- they're clutter. 730-byte signatures with three images are excessive, as well. Featured articles probably aren't clutter, and can stay. But in the meantime, there's a lot of gray area. For example, someone could say that Peavey-Haglin Experimental Concrete Grain Elevator is just an insignificant tower in St. Louis Park, Minnesota and doesn't deserve an article. Or, Talk:Glacier National Park (US) has too much chit-chat on it about what needs to be done with the article, and not enough productive editing. Or, my large number of edits to List of Registered Historic Places in Minnesota could have been condensed into just a few edits, reducing database space on the server. I'm not sure. --User:Elkman 22:05, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I must admit I am often weilding a scythe, so it would be hypocritical of me to simply *nod* in understanding. I can point out that deleting things doesn't save any space, but that's an aside. More importantly is to have a look at the wider picture (something I often fail to do) and see that Wikipedia is thriving overall. If there are some areas that need improvement than let us make them better. Dispute resolution needs an overhaul, especially at the request for comment end, for example. Or the calmer waters of article space. Lots to do there. But keep your powder dry, there's always another hill. - brenneman ^{L} 06:01, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Re: Your signature

Well, it was the first signature I made, so I thought it had to be colorful °≈§→Robo°_°maeyhem←§≈°^Talk 00:10, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Wow thanks for all the colorful sigs! Ive chosen one and modifyed it to make it link to my talk page, etc. Thanks! °≈§→ Robomaeyhem: T/←§≈° 00:41, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, well...

Let's see... I closed a DRV the way some folks didn't like, so the malcontents questioned my competence, and Mackensen (metaphorically, I hope) threatened to kill me at ANI. Kelly added her dash of fun, Kelly-style, Cyde and I had a reasonable discussion, Rossami stood up for my choice, a disamb. got created as a compromise... all in a day's work! And my talk page got moved to "Nigger" around the same time for good effect! Ugh. This place is not always welcoming to its volunteers, ya know. :) Best wishes, Xoloz 15:01, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

"Malcontents"? Ugh. --Cyde↔Weys 15:07, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi Cyde, After the fun you had at Rossami's talk gloating "You lose!" as if this were kindergarten, I wouldn't police my language if I were you. You certainly sounded like a malcontent over there... Xoloz 15:18, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, metaphorically. I was simply using the language of the parent poster. I've certainly no desire to kill anyone, least of all a fellow admin, Mackensen (talk) 15:32, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Goodness! It's been simply weeks since I've had such a collections of esteemed individuals on my talk page. If only we could use our powers for good, instead of bickering. While I've been known to jump on my "kick Cyde" scooter, on Rossami's talk he's not veering to far into "malcontent" in any pejorative way, barring that he is dissatisfied. Kelly was shockingly incivil, though. Looking further, the ANI thread is a train-wreck, and I'm a little bit dissapointed in almost everyone involved in this particular round of madness. We do love to argue though, don't we all? - brenneman ^{L} 00:35, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Moving an article to /dev/null

I need a process-wonk down on aisle three stat! We were fighting a minor skirmish in the long dark German spelling war when all of a sudden people are trying to delete an article through the "requested moves" procedure :) See Talk:Voss-strasse. Maybe someone should make a "procedural nomination" at AfD or something. Haukur 00:02, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

*quick look* Arg, my eyes, it's voting! The goggles do nothing! I'm sorting through the discussion, I'll wait until I can comment intelligently to do so. - brenneman ^{L} 00:17, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

A question

Many reasonably seasoned editors have not been through the Deletion review process, and the page does not seem to direct whether we rehash the AfD arguments, try to formulate new ones, whine about procedure, or just bring the whole thing to a new audience without comment. A little guidance on the page to avoid the verbose responses if they are inappropriate would be helpful. Sorry to have bored you. Carlossuarez46 01:06, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Away with the verbose vagabonds! Cast out the prolix proletariat! *brenneman is among the first carted off, protesting loudly and at length*

• I'd suggest that both the beauty and the downfall of DRV is that it is all of the things mentioned above. It is very flexible, and despite some grumblings I beleive that it works very well, and if people want to wax on, I think they should be allowed to do so.
• I surely meant no offense with my comments, and apologise without reservation. I am at times careless with a turn of phrase, and always welcome being told when I'm being a jerk.

brenneman ^{L} 02:06, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

• • Prolix (great word). Thanks for the note, your apology is unnecessary, however. You did not offend me; I think of myself as thick-skinned and thick-headed. Something I have learned here is that chaos is its own reward, and that "Wikilawyer" is the worst insult one can heap on someone else and not be cited for civility (or is that WP:Civil disobedience?) Any way, being new to the politics (no offense intended), I decided to be boldly boring and prolix (still a great word), figuring that debate could be closed at any moment and I wanted my say, gosh darn it. And, I am often quoted as saying "bits are cheap", but see bit (money); again, I digress into prolixity (what a great word, it takes inflections too). Carlossuarez46 02:58, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Primetime

In typical fashion, after having posted a comment with this summary:

• I'm not Primetime, by the way, asshole.
  

User:I discovered America has now admitted that he's user:Primetime, but complains that I'm not letting him "finish [his] business". God only knows what that business is. -Will Beback 06:42, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

• I just like things to be neat and tidy, because I'm lazy. When someone says "this person did this and so does this other person" I like to see some diffs so that I don't have to scratch around for them. I also agree fully that copyright is an area where we cannot afford to be lax. However I do think that we (collectively) need to learn to be a little nicer when we're showing people the door. Firm, but kind, with a full head of hair. That's the kind of admin I would like to be, at least. - brenneman ^{L} 11:04, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't question your review, and just wanted to let you know of the outcome. FYI- I have been an admin for about a year now. Though I don't habituate the RCs or other areas of random users, I figure that I have seen a wide range of behaviors ranging from POV pushers to trollish, vandalistic, sock puppetry, puerile humor, hoaxes, etc. Even so, I've found Primetime's case to profoundly disturbing. Perhaps that's partly because I'd edited with him at length and extended good faith. He has been found to be such a bald-faced liar, such an unapologetic plagiarist, such an effective weedler, such an active vandal, that the collective good faith I feel towards other editors has gone down a notch. We're still correcting the copyvios he planted, and he's still trying to sneak them back into articles. I expect another couple of months activity. Cheers, -Will Beback 10:43, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Links and the Laundromat

I tell you what. You can be the very first person to whom I will reveal this project:

User:Nandesuka/WikiProject Laundromat

Your input would be welcome -- feel free to edit the project page in whatever way you think useful. It's related in a tangential way to Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam, but is not simply focused on eliminating commercial links. Rather, the idea is that laundry lists are almost by definition unencyclopedic (not counting an article that is explicitly "List of yaddas in yadda"). Out of control external links section are, of course, a special case of this, but for an idea of what I'm talking about, consider the laundry lists in Wizard and Fairy and their histories.

Whaddya think? Nandesuka 14:50, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

It's legendary. - brenneman ^{L} 07:22, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Revolutionary, shurely? -Splash - tk 20:18, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Need admin help!

Hey there Sjakkalle! You were one of the first fellow admins I could spot on the recent changes list as being active right now. Could you respond to my WP:AN/I request? There's a revert war going on right now at Oprah Winfrey, with a two-day-old user! Thanks in advance if you can. Harro5 09:50, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid you tooke me for my better. But not so much harme, good Harro, for I was looking o're this already.
brenneman ^{L} 11:51, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

External links

Baha'i Faith

Moved to Talk:Bahá'í Faith

Jack Napier (porn star)

Moved to Talk:Jack Napier (porn star)

MusicBrainz

Moved to Talk:MusicBrainz

Porn

• Edits with summary "rv vandalism by Aaron Brenneman": [1][2][3][4][5][6]
  

Editing

Let's face facts here...at least as far as I am concerned, what brings me the most enjoyment out of this project is creating my little stub articles, some of which I do expand to something more, but with a half hour or a little more, I can write up a stub and turn a red line into a blue one...it's not much, but it's a start. In many cases, like in the National Wildlife Refuges and or Wilderness areas, there simply sin't much material to source from, so the articles are naturally never going to be anything more than a stub until somebody else comes along and makes it better. But, the truth is, my computer skills are modest, so for fellows like yourself, you are able to do more benefit than I can with the Afd's and etc...sometimes, I am simply dense, and in one case it took two users about three tries to make me understand that for one template, they wanted me to do a move of the entire history and not just a cut and paste plus a redirect...duh. That must be frustrating when someone comes to me for "help" on an admin level. Keep up the good work, we all have our niche.--MONGO 04:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Requesting admin help

there is an admin that is using vile curse words in their edit summary and a photo of their privates on their page : Freakofnurture

In reference to: according to what Wikipedia is not

1. User pages. Wikipedians have their own user pages, but they may be used only to present information relevant to working on the encyclopedia. If you are looking to make a personal webpage or blog, please make use of one of the many free providers on the Internet. The focus of user pages should not be social networking, but rather providing a foundation for effective collaboration.

the freakofnurture is in direct violation of the above.

the response I received from first request:

I know it may appear raw and inappropriate at first sight, but almost everything on that page is a reflection of some component of Wikipedia culture. For example, the phrase "This administrator knows how to spell his fucking words" refers to wikipedia's rogue admins. Someone accidently spelt "rogue" as "rouge" and the joke has stuck ever since.

The "meta-template for hate reflects the controversy surrounding meta-templates. The "This user is often a dick not censored" reflects a controversy surrounding a picture of breasts in a userbox. Most of the categories at the bottom reflect controversial articles or arbcom cases. So you see, there is much more depth to the page than a quick glance may suggest.

I hope this helps explain some things. Have a nice day. The ikiro

can you do something?

Thank You Narrow is the way

I try and take every request seriously, although the word "vile" is a bit tedious. "Debauched" is much more fun. Anyway, I will have a look at some stage, albeit a quick one. As to the use of explicatives, I might have done so before and not recall. I always suggest that adminstrators, like every editor, should try to be as civil as possible. If, for example, something I said or the manner in which I expressed myself offended you, I'd try to engage you in meaningful dialog.

But since you've included no links to diffs in this request, I can't comment on this occassion with regards to "curse words". Diff would not only have been helpful, they would have made me quicker to examine any issues.

brenneman ^{L} 07:43, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I've looked at the userpage in question, and I understand that you feel confronted by the words and images there. However, presuming that the text above accurately represents your discussions with FoN, he appears to have taken your query seriously enough to compose a sensible reply. I've left a note on his talk, as well as having a brief discussion via IRC. This seems to me to be well in order. - brenneman ^{L} 03:28, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Corn on the Cob has a Mother?

Drink this, you'll thank me in the morning.

Hi,

I applied at RfA on the rationale that I'd keep DRV running, and it's what I do. It's a simple, repetitive task of the sort I'm perfect for. Since you chimed in, though, it just so happens that the bottom three now are things I've commented in, so I'm ineligible to close. ;) Have fun! By the way, I don't know whether I'm more drunk than I am fat, or more fat than I am drunk; but, I am both drunk and fat. I gotta drink on July 4 to reconcile America's great potential with its recent retarded record of mismanaged global mayhem. How hard is it to emigrate to Australia? Best wishes, hoopydink... no, wait it's Xoloz 03:47, 5 July 2006 (UTC), I'm just in love with hoopydink's name because of the alcohol!

Mate I would be happy to join you, however, in a toast to independance: To independance of spirit, and the willingness to speak out of the same.

brenneman ^{L} 04:27, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Re: Bury Nothing

I got rid of that warning because I have already contacted him (He is giving out [[Template:Test2a|Please do not remove content from Wikipedia. It is considered vandalism. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Thank you. ]] Warnings because he revealed what a censored word was when it said Not to reveal it. So he reverted it and gave anyone who reverted it back a test2a. °≈§→ Robomaeyhem: T/←§≈° 04:19, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Aye, I wasn't at all questioning the facts of it being an incorrect tag. Just that the best thuing to do is to simply put the paragraph above under the comment and leave it there. The talk help has a little section about it. - brenneman ^{L} 04:27, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

In response to your comment on my Talk page

Wow, dispute resolution! Who are you and what have you done with Zoe?

Hey! User:Zoe|^(talk) 01:17, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm sorry, I wasn't upset in the least.  :) User:Zoe|^(talk) 21:30, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Surf breaks AfD

AfD inuse?? Writing a novel? Hehe... can't wait. - CrazyRussian talk/email 03:18, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Good decision. Very wise.Blnguyen | rant-line 04:44, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

stop it please

I am not spamming, leave the link. Theres nothing being sold there! Im making forums and a full hair loss support community. Its not hurting anything, and its not spam. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.98.130.19 (talk • contribs).

FCS

I've replied to your edit on Talk:Federation of Conservative Students

JASpencer 08:55, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh the shame...

This is someting I'll simply have to live with. I have good support: friends, family, drugs. I'll pull through, over time. --Coil00 00:40, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Ahh, see, I usually console myself frieds: chicken, potato, mars bar, etc. - brenneman ^{L} 00:48, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Frying mars bars is a bit, mmm. Dude frying crack up aint that far away from it, like. Esp if yer up trolling Tony Danza articles at 2.3am, (cough), like me. --Coil00 01:33, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

WP:WING

Moved to Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_is_not_Google™#Banner.

abuse

stop abusing your admin privileges. you are deleting and protecting pages without a forum for discussion. that is abuse. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.225.167.24 (talk • contribs).

STOP removing unsourced content

You seem to be overly convinced of your assumed righteousness. Just because a paragraph is unsourced doesn't mean you can immediately delete it. This is not your encyclopedia. There often exists a high probability that the content is verifiable upon doing a little research. If you want to help, why don't you find the citations or make it more encyclopedic? And you need to be consistent in your spelling - unsourced is not spelled unsrouced. I'll be watching you Brenneman. --Amit 20:06, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I can't speak for Aaron Brenneman, but please reread the verifiability policy. I'm not sure exactly what your particular issue is. If Aaron Brenneman gave reasonable notice, for example by marking items with the {{citation required}}, then there shouldn't be any issue.

The verifiability policy is quite specific: The obligation to provide a reputable source lies with the editors wishing to include the material, not on those seeking to remove it. Nothing in the policy says that it is good enough for there to be "a high probability that the content is verifiable upon doing a little research." If "a little research" is all that is required, it's reasonable to ask that editors inserting the material do that little research before adding content, and certainly should be willing to do so once they've been asked to supply a reference. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:23, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm assuming you're talking about the Speed dating article, and it does not appear that Aaron Brenneman gave any notice, but it shouldn't be a big deal. Add the sources and reinsert the items. I've done one of them to get the ball rolling. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:28, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

For the edit changes that I reviewed, Aaron Brenneman did not give any notice. It would be useful if he were to use the {{citation required}} tag rather than directly removing the unsourced sections. I believe it is also responsible behavior to initiate a discussion topic and place the relevant text there, before removing it from the article. This way there would still be some hope that someone in the future would cite sources. --Amit 00:41, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

In my personal opinion, yes, I agree with you, Amit: it would have been more courteous of him to have tagged them, waited a while, and then moved the unsourced items to the Talk page. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:24, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you both for the input.

• I do, in fact, often use that approach. I also often move material to the talk page for discussion. I'm also known to actually add sources.
• But experiance shows that the {{fact}} tag has very little effect, and if you'd like I'll provide a long list of talk page discussions I have with myself. The majority of the time my "I'm going to remove section foo" is answered only by crickets.
• If someone is upset enough about a removal to mock my spelling, I can only know about that after the fact. I don't fully understand it, as no damage has been done to anyone or anything, and the wiki-linked phrase "Use verifiable sources for encyclopedia content" appears every time an edit window is opened. That doesn't diminish their affront, of course, however I only rarely intend to offend.

Amit, if you'll review my talk page you'll see that I attempt to answer every question or complaint with courtesy. I'd suggest that it is much easier for me to do so when I'm approached with courtesy.

brenneman ^{L} 01:59, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Rep Beep

Hm, yeah, good point. We're talking about original research I suppose. Whilst I think my comments there were in substance correct, they were also rather acidicly made. Thanks for keeping an eye out. -Splash - tk 12:54, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi Aaron

Moved to User:Aaron Brenneman/Userpage items/Poems/22

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Counter-Strike maps.

Um, as you closed it last time. Not vote soliciting, mind. Proto///type 14:32, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

*lol* Oh my, that was so weak! I love it. There doesn't seem to be much discussion of verification going on in this, and my deep respect for HP doesn't mean I can't disagree with him. I'd strongly object to direct observation being used as a source, be it video games, movies, of the taste of apple pie. Once all unsourced material (like where people like to hide, etc) is removed, there will remain only very bare location description even if we let the primary sourcing issue slide. These really should all be trimmmed and merged, as they may be useful redirects. - brenneman ^{L} 02:25, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

AfD fodder

Have a look at the sources for the items on List of shopping malls in North Carolina - brenneman ^{L} 02:18, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

what sources? Or was that what you were driving at? :) ++Lar: t/c 15:18, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

nommed. ++Lar: t/c 15:33, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Rocco Siffredi Image

Moved to Talk:Rocco Siffredi

Regarding WP:ANI/I

Thanks for your helpful advice, Aaron. Nice name, too. ;) --AaronS 01:55, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Stalking

<snip>
Regarding your comments on DRV: You're correct to some degree. I watch Tony Sidaway's edits very closely. While Tony calls this "obsession" I call it "monitoring a problem user with more than a handful of RfCs and RfArbs, who's proven remarkably resistant to community input." ^_^

With regards to "wiki-stalking" in a more general sense, the inventor of wiki (way before wikipedia) has said that the use of "recent changes" to track the edits of other users is one of the strongest points of the system. It means that oversight and transparency are trivially easy to maintain. I'll dig up the reference for that if you'd like.

This isn't to say that it can't be destructive and/or disruptive of course. But I encourage you to stalk me and if you think that I'm doing something wrong to let me know.

brenneman ^{L} 06:27, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
</snip>
I would consider just looking over user's edits as passive stalking, which would be pretty well harmless, depending of course on your motives. (In fact, if you are just looking at their previous edits to try getting a feel for their actions in general, that's not even stalking, that's acquainting yourself with their behaviour.)

My biggest complaint would be that filling the entire day's DRV with closures betrayed a rather unbalanced interest in the behaviour of the editor in question, and had a significant chance of starting an argument. It's not like Sidaway will be swayed from his rather, shall we say, "singular" administrative practices by people following him around and DRV'ing everything he does anyway. If early closure of AfD votes is disruptive, then mass DRV'ing isn't much better. Basically, as I commented there, I would think that leaving it to the editors of those articles to decide whether they think a DRV is appropriate would be the best course. --tjstrf 07:41, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I can well see the logic of what you're saying. While I was looking for (and recieved) a general consensus of "err, bad form on some of those closes," I accept that A) It raised some stink and B) It may have little impact. I am frustrated by Tony's almost pathological indifferance to the input of others, and am rapidly running out of ways (short of ArbCom) to deal with the behavior of this problem user. Thanks for taking the time to reply, I'll consider your comments next time a situation like this occurs. - brenneman ^{L} 12:17, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

More concisely and to make it less like I'm dodging - I'll try to not do it again. - brenneman ^{L} 00:03, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much. It sounds like you were acting within good faith, and it didn't explode in our faces after all, so not much harm done. Also, I'm crossposting the left out portions of this conversation between our two talk pages for the sake of readability, hope you don't mind.--tjstrf 00:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of stalking, could you take a look at this User_talk:Tobias_Conradi? There are several threads there but among Tobias's allegations are that pschemp and myself are stalking him. I prefer "monitoring a problem user with more than a handful of blocks, already banned from .de, who's proven remarkably resistant to community input and advice from admins." (to paraphrase someone)... if your review suggests pschemp or I have erred, there's a thread on AN/I already where you could point that out. If you think she, or I (and TexasAndroid and others) are spot on, a post to that effect might be good on his talk page. That statement from Ward about use of contributions to ensure transparency seems particularly apt. Thanks and happy editing. ++Lar: t/c 14:46, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Oops. I missed this message the first time around... I'll have a look in the near future. - brenneman ^{L} 10:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the AFD on "Everywhere Girl"

More high praise added, if I may: Barnstars? Phah, You Rock! --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 21:27, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Everywhere Girl (2nd nomination)

Hello, Aaron. I just wanted to express my regret at your castigating the people that sorted the AFD votes into sections. I will admit that it appears to be a violation of standard policies, but personally I feel it was justified, given the effort by the Inquirer to try to rig the vote. Perhaps, even an effort to make it easier for the closing admininstrator to sift out the dross and figure out consensus. By any means, I think that in light of the subjects linking to the AFD vote, I would consider doing something like that an exceptional case in which unusual measures were appropriate to take. Now, while I'm here, I felt the need to express the sentiment that I'm sure a lot of the supporters felt on the article's deletion, but in rhyming couplets, if I may.

Moved to User:Aaron Brenneman/Userpage items/Poems/23

Oh, and by the way, I agree with your evaluation of consensus, your closing statement was otherwise pretty much spot-on. Happy editing. :) --Kuzaar^-T-C- 13:21, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

• Oy, nice one. ^_^ I must admit I had been watching this one to see which way it fell. I was trying to stress that it can be hurtful to the people "sorted" thus as opposed to shaking my finger at whomever did it. Some closers don't mind, but I still sort through the history and it makes it harder for me. Was I too school-marm-ish? *goes to look again* - brenneman ^{L} 13:34, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you came off as too schoolmarmish at all. If it makes it harder for the closing admin, it's not a good thing, and it is technically against policy. I just thought it might sit better if I brought up the fact that sometimes extenuating circumstances call for unusual measures. Cheers, --Kuzaar^-T-C- 14:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi, The Inquirer has just published an article in their website directly attacking me and Wikipedia, this would explain why my user page and my talk page is getting vandalized. [7] Dionyseus 13:26, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd have thought I'd cop something for my troubles... - brenneman ^{L} 13:34, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

And if gets bad enough that it needs s-protection just ask. - brenneman ^{L} 13:39, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Moved to User:Aaron Brenneman/Userpage items/Poems/23

Deathphoenix ʕ 14:12, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

What! No insult? You don't get into the curio case without an insult, you know. - brenneman ^{L} 14:17, 14 July 2006

Hmmm... okay, how about this:

Moved to User:Aaron Brenneman/Userpage items/Poems/23

--Deathphoenix ʕ 14:32, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Or this...

Moved to User:Aaron Brenneman/Userpage items/Poems/23

++Lar: t/c 14:39, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

*contended sigh* - brenneman ^{L} 14:44, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

"contended"?? what on earth did you want to be contentious about? I contend that was not merely a typo and will not be content till you get a grip, man! ++Lar: t/c 14:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Your response wasn't better than norm, because it wasn't in rhyming couplet form. --Deathphoenix ʕ 18:22, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

High praise

[8] "I salute Aaron for one of the most cogent AfD closures in living memory" - JzG... Well played my friend! ++Lar: t/c 22:33, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

External links on Bob Dylan

Hello there. I will be restoring most of the links you blew away on Bob Dylan. Dylan has a huge and active Internet presence and the majority of links you deleted are valuable sources that have been linked from Wikipedia since 2002. I'll wait a day or so to see if you've posted an objection at the Dylan Talk page before proceeding. JDG 14:25, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. - brenneman ^{L} 14:31, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Shorten sig

Hello Brenneman, having seen your comments on User:Tony Sidaway's page I took a look at your signature and saw that it's code could be shortened. Here is a shortened code version of your sig that you might wish to adopt:

• Newer version: [[User talk:Aaron Brenneman|<span style="color:black;">brenneman</span>]]<span class="plainlinks"> [{{fullurl:Special:Log|user=Aaron+Brenneman}}<font color="black" title="Admin actions">^'''{L}''' </font>]</span>

• Older version: [[User talk:Aaron Brenneman|<span style="color:#000000;">brenneman</span>]]<span class="plainlinks"> [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&user=Aaron+Brenneman<font color="000000" title="Admin actions">^'''{L}''' </font>]</span>

Cheers! (→Netscott) 01:16, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that, mate, deployed already. I'm often irritated by how much code it takes to make my simple looking sig. But I like my "L" too much to give it up. If "Special:Log/Aaron_Brenneman" was supported like "Special:Contributions/Aaron_Brenneman", but oh well. - brenneman ^{L} 04:36, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

However, since I'm stupid and had forgetten that I'd already been told that $cleansig expands the fullurl anyway. Perhaps after I try it three mre times I'll remember. - brenneman ^{L} 04:42, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe there is a way around $cleansig. If you make a page in your user space say like User_talk:Aaron Brenneman/cleansig and put the code for the newer version in it and then add {{subst:User_talk:Aaron Brenneman/cleansig}} into your signature pref I think it won't expand. the fullurl: bit isn't like a regular template and its impact on the servers is negligible. Hope that helps. (→Netscott) 12:49, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Userpages

I was simply creating user pages for all the members that are a part of WP:AFL and adding them to the required categories of Category:Australian Football League supporters. There's no problem with that is there? Rogerthat ^Talk 06:47, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

External links in Computer prank

• (Moved to Talk:Computer prank)

Thanks for the note.

I wasn't aware there was a legitimate spelling "organise", but now I see that that is the British variety, so I've learned something new. Thanks! By coincidence, "organize" being the American spelling is more appropriate for use with the American topic of Ms. Hilton, so I was right, but only by accident.

Btw: cheeka? Cheers, Kasreyn 06:06, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

AfD on Individual Counter-Strike maps

Just wanted to inform you of Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Individual_Counter-Strike_maps (July 17, 2006). I'm alerting everyone who had more than 2 edits in one of the previous AfDs. Kind regards, David Bergan 19:21, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

you rang?

get on IRC mate, I dunno what you want exactly. Or answer your email. Or something. ++Lar: t/c 01:51, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Deleting protected articles

Yes, thanks, about 2 minutes ago!

Admin needs admin assistance

Moved to User:Aaron Brenneman/Userpage items/Poems/24

--Tyrenius 19:56, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Micronation#External_links

Pretty much any link to angelfire/geocities, etc. is worthless. User:Zoe|^(talk) 18:52, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of tango singers

I agree with your assertion that "Ideally each entry on the list should have a Wikipedia article". Well, that is waht they want to do - give anyone there an article. It still does not answer my problem with Oleg. As I said, this one is in fact at the same time a redirect to Russian an Rus' monarchs called "Oleg" (but there is a problem there) and a list of famous people called Oleg. There was a consensus there to delete these famous people (note: in Russia and Ukraine, "Oleg" and "Oleh" are official names, you never call someone "Oleg" when you already know him - this sort of list is of no use in Russia or Ukraine). However, if you look at the rest, you will see the problem: most of the other links for disambiguation are red (in fact, I think the list of famous people called Oleg is just there to hide that fact).

And that is not all: at least two Olegs here (Oleg IV and Oleg V of Chernigov) may never have existed - they are only mentioned in obsure and incomplete annals - so if they did exist, chances are that they are not really Oleg IV and Oleg V, but Oleg VI and Oleg VIII. But we will never know, obviously, for finding other material on these guys will be tantamount to the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls. As for the other, also obscure Olegs, who definitely existed, after the tiff about Oleg IV and Oleg V between Ghirlandajo and Briangotts, no Russian editor is going to touch those even with dirty and radioactive hands, although there must be something on these guys in their libraries. Note that this page is actually hindering people in their search for Oleg, which will probably be Oleg of Novgorod. Thanks for your willingness to mederate the Tango list deletion. --Pan Gerwazy 22:00, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

That's a lot to absorb at one time for the unitiated! ^_^
brenneman ^{L} 10:32, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your view in my recent RfA

Thanks for contributing to my successful RfA!
To the people who have supported my request: I appreciate the show of confidence in me and I hope I live up to your expectations!
To the people who opposed the request: I'm certainly not ignoring the constructive criticism and advice you've offered. I thank you as well!
♥! ~Kylu (u|t) 07:42, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't have any insults in rhyming couplet, but I do have thanks for the suggestions I can use to improve my editing. Is that good enough to be treasured? :D ~Kylu (u|t) 07:42, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Any act of kindness, however small, is to be treasured. This includes a "thank you." I hope you don't mind, I refactored your box... too much light red for me! - brenneman ^{L} 10:38, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

ZOMG Refactor!???!?!!!?! Report to RfAr immediately, young man. ++Lar: t/c 14:27, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Hehe, my thoughts exactly :) Haukur 14:29, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Resurfacing

Hi Aaron, I've moved from absurdly overloaded to merely overstretched, so I thought I'd return your recent Ping. I've been doing a bunch of things, including slow progress on my project to categorize economics articles using the JEL classification codes. My latest adventures include an unanticipated dispute about Category:Monopoly, where my view that basic economic concepts should take precedence over board games has not gained much support. I'll probably try again later on this one. JQ 11:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Robot wars

Why do you think that they should be dleted and no clear concensious mean that the pages should remain on wikipedia as clear concensious to delete is required to delete the pages.--Lucy-marie 12:11, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Based upon the sloppy recomendations, a reasonable close could have been simply deleting everything and waiting for whomever cared to come to a talk page to sort it out. I extended the debate, and quite a few more merge recomendations appeared. Why are you giving me grief for this? - brenneman ^{L} 01:32, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I got your e-mail the other day...

...wasn't sure if you got my response, but it's a thumbs-up on this end. Let me know what you need. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:19, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, thanks, will do. - brenneman ^{L} 23:30, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Redirects with egg salad

Well, perhaps this grandma could use a few egg-sucking lessons. :) The difference between "keep and redirect" and "delete and redirect" still seems fairly trivial in this particular case — the end result is a redirect that any user could, if they wished, turn back into an article (although such a transformation would be against apparent consensus, and wouldn't last long). Anyway, thanks for the clarification. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 16:52, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Parsi et alii

user:MARVEL

Hi, yes of course. here are some of his recent vandalism:

1. [9]. He has changed persian gulf to read Arabian gulf and has changed the text from iranian islands to: are Emirati islands occupied by Iranians in 1971.
2. [10] He has changed Arvand/Shatt al-Arab to shatt al-arab only, cuting the persian name of it, prviously he had moved that whole article to shatt al-arab, i moved it back, then today (User:True Path] moved it back to shat-al arab.
3. [11] He moved khoramshahr which a city in Iran to Al-Mohammerah, changing its name to arabic.
4. [12] Here he has moved persian gulf states to arabian gulf states

Thank you for paying attention to this. --Spahbod 14:06, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Also i didn't know that image on signatures causes problems, i have taken it away. :)--Spahbod 14:07, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Removing of categories by User:Fullstop

Hello, please take a look at this: [13]. This is one of his deletions of categories from persian mythology and Zoroastrianism related articles. Not to mention he has done alot of other stuff with those articles too in the past. --Spahbod 18:57, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

About the Parsi

Greetings; I think protecting the page is an excellent idea. I would suggest, though, that you protect it to a version prior to the fighting by Fullstop and Spahbod. Currently, the protected version is precisely the one that has sparked all of the controversy. I would like to request that you roll it back to a version prior to Fullstop's extensive edit. Thanks! Anthony Krupp 12:09, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

You know that bit where it says protection is not endorsement? There's a reason for that, he purposefully picked a random version so that it wouldn't endorse one of your views. Just wait a day or so, and it should be unprotected. (Also, would Brenneman like me to take his talk page off my watchlist?) --tjstrf 12:37, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

::tjstrf, I do understand the reason for non-endorsement, which is why I suggested that the protected version should not be precisely the version by one of the users involved in an edit war. I am a neutral party here. Please read the relevant talk page, so that you can better understand the issue here. Thanks, Anthony Krupp 14:12, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Anthony, you'd have to go back to the version of 6 December 2004 or 11 March 2002 to have a version prior to one of mine ("one of the users involved"). -- Fullstop 14:22, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

::::Sigh. Thanks for the clarification. What I was noting is that the version of 16:06, 17 July 2006 by Fullstop marks a significant change from the previous version of 03:34, 17 July 2006 by 172.129.227.19. It was this change that sparked the edit war. Anyone reasonable will agree with that. I am not immediately invested in either of these two versions, which is why I addressed this question to another neutral party (Aaron Brenneman). I think it will be clear to anyone reasonable that I was suggesting we just back up a few versions before the fight. I do not mean to suggest that we must purge the article of all traces of work by Fullstop or Spahbod. Hope this helps.Anthony Krupp 14:44, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Good Mr. Brenneman, protector of Parsi,

You got the wrong version; the fight went too far, see?

Anthony Krupp 14:50, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

There's actually a meta page just about this issue, humorously enough. Unless he accidently selected a version that was blatant vandalism, I believe this falls under the scope of m:The Wrong Version. (Even though you are a 3rd party.) Basically, as protection on the "wrong version" doesn't endorse that version, protecting a page on the "wrong version" can actually be superior as a way of forcing discussion and resolution to having it on a pre-edit war version, and does not harm the page any more than the ongoing edit war did.

That is extremely funny! Thanks for the link to m:The Wrong Version, which lightens my day, and also for the explanation. I'm still new here, so wasn't aware that protecting a contested version can actually be A Good Thing. I appreciate your input here, and I hope that the other editors do as well. Cheers, Anthony Krupp 18:10, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, is this edit war seriously about whether the Parsi can be considered Indian? Because that's just lame. Can't you just say it's at least slightly contentious, cite someone who says they are Indian, cite someone who says they aren't Indian, and move on with the article? Of course, it never goes that simply in actual practice... --tjstrf 17:24, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I've cross-posted with followup at Talk:Parsi. -- Fullstop 11:05, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Parsi

Please see Parsi talk for my last comment. I beleive reverting to a neutral version that nor me or fullstop disputed is the best way to start. Dont you? he himself said the old text was his. and i keep saying i never edited one word from any version of this article. Regards. --Spahbod 00:57, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Fullstops repeated personal attacks

Please read my last post at the Parsi article:[14]. He has been behaving so from the start and after i warned him several times. His latest attack: "Spahbod's sad assertion". I really had enough of his attacks. --Spahbod ☼ 18:29, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Extreme personal attacks by User:Sohrab Irani

Hi, please look at this: [15] and this: [16]. User:Sohrab Irani sending these attacks, caling me cluless, calling my edits ridiculous, and is cursing. --Spahbod ☼ 05:53, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I had already left one note with this user regarding civility, it looks like another is in order. It helps if you're careful to link to diffs though, as for example the second link above was broken. the one you wanted was this one I think. - brenneman ^{L} 06:57, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, sorry about that, but there is a limit one can take personal attacks, you know? lol. Specially if one has a temper. Again sorry that i behaved like him. --Spahbod ☼ 07:37, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi, sorry to bother you again, but it seems i can't catch a break. User:SG sending personal attacks like this: [17] He wrote: The least you could have done was spellcheck your edits to the article. --Spahbod ☼ 05:03, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Greetings, despite my repeated warning, Fullstop has not stopped deleting categories, changing or deleting wholes of sections from persian mythology and so on, and inspite of that and his incivility he sends me warnings with more incivil behavior. I really don't know what to do with this individual at this point. Please do something about this or if you don't have time i could ask aother admin? --Spahbod ☼ 10:55, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Being deified?

Take it as you will! Good call on that Starcraft AfD, by the way. -- H·G (^words/_works) 19:40, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Notice of deletion review - Starcraft units and structures

Hi Aaron! Thanks for your input on the fantastically esoteric way to spend time that was the Starcraft units and structures AfD. I posted a deletion review at Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2006_July_19#StarCraft_units_and_structures, and thought you might want to check it out and add two more of your cents. Thanks! - Reaverdrop (talk/nl/w:s) 23:31, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

acne scars

In my opinion, I feel that the acne scars section can't be found on the scar section. For example, Microdermabrasion can't be found. Some articles that were linked to the acne scars section are now gone such as Laser_resurfacing and Subcision. While I do realize that those articles are only stubs, the removal of the scars section made me modertly uncomfortable. If it is possible can you bring back the acne scars (don't want to start an edit war) or expand the scars section (I am horrible at adding infomation, expanding, and cleaning up.)? Thank you. Please respond on my talk page as I am horrible at checking at other users' talkpage. -ScotchMB 01:21, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I see, the majority has spoken that it doesn't care. Or rather here, not speak at all. Thanks. By the way, I sorta reverted your edit a month ago without asking you. Sorry about that-ScotchMB 02:33, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

V. Alexander Stefan

Nice job. - brenneman ^{L} 10:26, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. By the way, I've only started getting heavily into RC/AFD patrol thing for the last month or two. I've got 2156 edits to my name (636 in main) and since you're an administrator yourself, I was wondering at what point before I'd have any realistic chance of being nominated/accepted for adminship? Just curious = ) --  Netsnipe  ^(Talk)  14:51, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

As the orginator of the now-defunct nomination cabal I'd be happy to look over your edits and see what dirt I can dig up how they look. Have a browse Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Sean Black 2 it's a great example of how the process can work oddly at times.
brenneman ^{L} 23:41, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

SPSS

Could you give a little more explanation why you removed the links from SPSS " Removed links per Wikipedia:External links". I've read the policy but can't discern your reasoning. Cheers Clappingsimon talk 10:50, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Cross-namespace redirects

You are receiving this message because you previously voiced your opinion on a Redirects for deletion of a cross-namespace redirect that was originally deleted but then went to Deletion review and was then relisted at RFD. This is a courtesy notice so you are aware that the issue is being discussed again and is not an endorsement of any position. --Cyde↔Weys 13:26, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

You dirty rotten spammer! ^_^ Thanks for that, been there and done my dash. - brenneman ^{L} 23:42, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Collusion

Hi, I saw your name recently on another editor's page where you were discussing their signature and policy. I have had the recent misfortune of working on an article that is "guarded" by several who wish a particular POV. I doubt there is much that you or anyone can do about that, however, I would like your help in the near future about a particular editor among that group whom has a particularly bright fancy signature. I don't mind that people in general have signatures as such, but this particular editor has a habit of following me around and addressing nearly any comment I have on any article I happen to edit. If you think that you could help me explain to him about this matter, I would appreciate it a great deal. I am basically afraid to even speak to him anymore. Anything that I have ever said is purposely miscontrued, backwards, twisted, upside-down, however. Please let me know, and I'll keep an eye on your page here for an answer. Thanks. Ste4k 14:28, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

That was too vague for me to be able to respond intelligently, I'm afraid.

In a very general sense, I'm the wrong person to be talking to about "wikistalking." First note that I've got my own personal list of "stalk-ees" at the top of this page. Then have a look at this interview with the father of wiki where he states that "the ability to see what other editors are doing" is vital. I'm sure I'm stretching his ideas a fair bit, but still, there it is.

If you can be more specific I can give a better answer.

brenneman ^{L} 23:41, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I think there is a big difference between watching something compared to using information to purposely try and cause problems. In anycase, though, I didn't want to be specific so I'd be sure to get a neutral answer. The main problem was in regard to the signature and your opinions. Thanks though. Ste4k 16:33, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

External links

Aaron, since you have been valiantly culling external links, could I solicit your opinion on the train wreck here? In short, the subject of the article is an snimal rights activist who has been consulting for a bunch of charities, and the edit war is over the British_Anti-Vivisection_Association, a charity the lady has not been involved with. SV keeps adding it because it's "clearly relevant", I have removed it because it isn't. Dr Zak 13:01, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Some informal help and judgement

I have an ongoing content dispute regarding Thomson (unit), Mass-to-charge ratio and now Mass spectrum. I was wondering if you might drop in for a little bit, with no obligation to solve anything and finish anything and give a few words of advice and clarify parts of wikipolicy. Some of the dialog is excessive perhaps only the last few entries might be the best reading. I ask in good faith that you clarify to User:Kehrli that the removal of disputed tags without discussion is inappropriate and that verifiability applies to usage and not just to the possible usage that is consistent with guidance documents. By this I do not mean to say that the possible usage is not verified but that without a single intance of use anywhere perhaps it doesn't meet proportionality guidelines. You are of course free to disagree with me. My hope is that these clarifications will foster better discussions and we will work things out ourselves or at least act civilly in a stalemate.--Nick Y. 17:33, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Crikey. This looks A) Complex and 2} Entrenched. I may have nothing intelligent to say, but I'll look it over. - brenneman ^{L} 04:50, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

CTMU

Sorry to bother you—I notice you just closed the deletion review for Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe as "kept deleted". By my count it was neck and neck, and had a few hours still to go. Could you let it run its course, and check the count then? Thanks. Tim Smith 02:07, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Let me have eleven minutes to take a second look at what I've done. - brenneman ^{L} 02:13, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I've just re-checked my work from before and I still get the same answer. I take your point about the two hours ten minutes left to run, but once the accounts with very low participation are set aside, there does not exist consensus to overturn. I'm not willing to un-do the close myself. Depending on how brave you are feeling, it doesn't take any adminstrative powers to close a DRv discussion, so it is also a normal editorial action to unclose one. Leaving a note in the discussion that you've done so would be a requirement, by the way. - brenneman ^{L} 02:38, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I've been bold. Remember that relisting does not require consensus, but just a non-majority of endorsements. The newest users seem to be User:Byrgenwulf (the AfD nominator) and User:Serpent's Choice (both July 2), but that's one for each side. It's really very close. Tim Smith 03:16, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Bloody good for you! But you cheeky monkey, reminding me that it's simple majority. Notice that "(diff) ← Older revision" is greyed out there? ^_^
brenneman ^{L} 03:34, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey, not bad! Though in the current version it's just the lack of a majority in the other direction. Could make a difference, you know... Tim Smith 04:15, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

To Do

Look these over for deletion/cleanup:

• Civiq_Society
• Colloquy (society)
• Giga Society
• Helliq_Society
• International High IQ Society
• International Society for Philosophical Enquiry
• Intertel (group)
• Marilyn vos Savant
• Mensa International
• Nathan Haselbauer
• Olympiq_Society
• Prometheus Society
• Ronald K. Hoeflin
• The Ultranet
• Triple Nine Society
• World_Intelligence_Network

Remove red links from:

• Special:Whatlinkshere/The_Ultranet
• Special:Whatlinkshere/Mega_Foundation

And

• Special:Whatlinkshere/List_of_one-time_characters_from_The_Simpsons

If you like well-sourced articles ...

Aaron, if you like well-sourced articles, Rudolf Vrba is currently up for featured-article status :-)

I'll take a look at List of animal rights/animal welfare groups. I've not had much, if anything, to do with them as I recall, as I try to stay away from Lists of ... But just for you, I'll look. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:50, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Muhahahahahahahaaaaa

I have STOLEN your WHUFFIE. Nandesuka 14:08, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

AfD Advice

Dear Darth Brenneman,

Thanks for your comments on my Talkpage regarding my first AfD, my original reply is there. I understand now that AfD probably wasn't the best answer for this article, and a result of "Keep and Merge" seems likely. Since I'm the one who opened this can of worms it only seems reasonable that I should sort it out and do the work myself, but I have more questions:

1. Would it be absurd to change my position and vote against my own AfD?
2. Should I wait until after AfD to begin working on the article, or can I start immediately?
3. When the time comes to merge, will you help out? It will be another wiki-first for me...
4. If I change my position will I be in danger of losing my Dark Side credentials?

Thanks in advance for your assistance on this, I really appreciate your help! --Doc Tropics ^{Message in a bottle} 16:27, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I see from looking at the afd that these answers will all come too late but: No, Now, Yes, No. On that last one especially, if you lull them into a false sense of confidence by finding sources and writing articles...
brenneman ^{L} 07:55, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, thanks for the help, but I've decided to never, ever nominate an article for AfD again. I promise, really...cross my heart! --Doc Tropics ^{Message in a bottle} 08:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Spoken like a true inclusionist but never fear, you will. Heck, Brenny just (by pointing to one crufty list) instigated me into nomming not one, but 50 different lists for deletion. And i started out a HUGE inclusionist! ++Lar: t/c 16:02, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Ironically, I had always assumed I would be a die-hard inclusionist, but probably 3/4 of my AfD comments have been "Delete". I suspect it has more to do with the quality (or lack thereof) of articles, rather than our philosophy. --Doc Tropics ^{Message in a bottle} 17:04, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

NWA Virginia Junior Heavyweight Title page

Administrator: regarding the NWA Virginia Junior Heavyweight Title history and all pages related to NWA Virginia please note the follow e-mail from Rick O'Brien, owner of NWA Virginia:

---

From: Rick [18] Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2006 4:10 PM To: [name snipped] Subject: Re: Wikipedia: confirmation of permission

[name snipped],

Mr. Jeff Capo does have permission to use any material from our website. Jeff is a trusted member of my staff and a close friend. I hope this helps satisfy whatever regulations that are necessary.

RIck OBrien NWAVirginia

---

Original Message -----

From: [name snipped] To: siwrcw03@comcast.net Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2006 3:15 PM Subject: Wikipedia: confirmation of permission

Dear NWA,

I am writing to confirm whether permission is granted to use a page from your website under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License GFDL. A user with the username JeffCapo has pasted in text from your website http://www.nwavirginia.com to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text concerns various NWA championsips and was copied from pages vatitlehistory , vatagteamhistory , and vajrhvyhistory. These contributions by JeffCapo were deleted. This user has claimed that he has permission to use the material, but for the pages to be present on our site, we need further evidence that this is the case. The articles will be undeleted if permission is confirmed.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to your response.

Yours faithfully, [name snipped], Wikipedia administrator

---

Please restore the NWA Virginia Junior Heavyweight Title page.

Thanks,

Jeff Capo Senior Referee - NWA Virginia —The preceding unsigned comment was added by JeffCapo (talk • contribs).

I confirm that I have contacted the website and that I have received the above letter. Jeff Capo thus has permission to use materials of http://www.nwavirginia.com (even though they're mistaking me for a miss), and the article is not a copyvio. I am surprised that the deleting admin ignored the message on the article's talk page. I am restoring the article now. Conscious 07:42, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Re: AFD at Dr Who Series 3

I guess I just don't really see the harm in keeping it as a redirect; if anything, it discourages future recreation. I do think that, even if trivial information is merged, a redirect is the proper conclusion. Consensus was that the information in the article didn't belong in Wikipedia and I think this result still reflects that. (ESkog)^(Talk) 15:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

re-creation of deleted article

proteus71 has re-created the just-deleted Reverse Cunningham article, with an inflammatory message. Crabapplecove 16:49, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I've left a civility warning for the user. - brenneman ^{L} 23:32, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Sigh?

• *sigh* ?

C'mon, cut a guy a break! ^_^ - brenneman ^{L} 02:49, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Heh, no breaks needed for you, as I was sighing at the decision, not the closer (like any good admin, you were just following the consensus). You're one of my favorite people around here, in any case, so if I'm sighing at you, you'll know it! ;) -- nae'blis _(talk) 14:12, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of wands in Harry Potter

Could you rethink your decision in regards to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of wands in Harry Potter or relist it to try and achieve consensus? You decided to keep the article, yet there were no users that wanted to keep the article. All the users that participated wanted to delete or merge the article. (if the article were merged into Wizarding World or somewhere similar, then the article itself would have to be deleted anyways). Thanks in advance for your help! hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 03:54, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

• Bah. I was pretty unhappy with this decision, actually. I left a note on the talk page, but at the time I didn't feel there was much else to be done within the reasonable auspice of administrator jurisdiction. I'll have another look now. - brenneman ^{L} 04:00, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Platz. No, there isn't much wiggle room for me there, it's a "no consensus to delete" and there isn't a policy reason to over-riding the consensus (or lack thereof.) I'd note that we don't (usually) delete an article that has had information from it merged due to the GFDL requirements to keep a change history. I'd say start with a page move to a better title (for serch hits) and a redirect to the target you've mentioned. Start a thread on the talk page of Wizarding world with a perma-link to a pre-redirect version of the page with a note "What needs to be merged from this?."
    brenneman ^{L} 04:14, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
  • OK, sounds good. Thanks for taking another look at it. I'll go ahead and execute your suggestion, as it seems to be an excellent resolution! hoopydink^{Conas tá tú?} 04:24, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Deletion

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Montgomery Burns' state of mind

I noticed that you deleted the page on Montgomery Burns' state of mind, and I think you acted a bit rashly. The votes showed four "Merges" against five "Deletes", and I think that that was a bit close to warrant your wiping out the page, especially as you didn't even contribute to the discussion. Rusty2005 12:17, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I've re-examined that close, and while it was narrow I don't see any reason to change it. It would have been inappropiate for me to contribute to the discussion and close it. With regards to the deletion itself, there was consensus for deletion. 140.163.254.129 did not present any new arguments, so I discounted that opinion. I have no objections to it being taken to deletion review if you'd like. - brenneman ^{L} 23:39, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

External Links

• With regard to external links on the ISPE page, I see that I did the Guinness World Records incorrectly and I thank you for fixing that. Could you please cite specifically from the external links guide as to what was wrong with the link I had to the calculator you deleted. I can't find anything the matter with it. Thank you.--Tstrobaugh 01:28, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
• I just corrected your "correction" to Guinness World Records maybe you should brush up on Wikipedia:Hyperlink--Tstrobaugh 03:16, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Heads up! Monty Python user template TfD...

Dear Aaron,

You are the only admin I know that commented on this issue, so I would like to bring it to your attention that Fredil Yupigo closed the discussion only one day after a compromise was proposed. I have asked Fredil Yupigo to revert his closure, however, if the user doesn't respond or responds poorly, would you be willing to look into this matter or suggest someone look into it?

I know that user templates are very low on the importance scale of things on Wikipedia, but they are still a part of it whether people like it or not. I am just trying to do my part in gaining some sort of control of them. I am a fan of most of the subjects of which I have made master user templates, which should tell people that even a fan can see when the peer group is getting a bit ridiculous. This is the case with the Monty Python templates. And now Fredil Yupigo has come along and closed off discussion.

If you would, please respond here.

Thank you,
—Lady Aleena talk/contribs 09:13, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

PS. There is getting to be a pretty large backlog in Templates for deletion.

PPS. The closure was removed by Fredil Yupigo, all is well. - LA @ 20:23, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

AfD regarding health reform articles

Hi, Aaron. I noticed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/United States health reform 1912-1920 that the articles regarding Nixon, Carter, and Clinton are still in place. Can you check on this, please. Thanks! Medtopic 16:59, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I haven't learned how yet, or I'd finish moving them myself. Thanks for putting them in my Userspace, that was perfect. If you could move the rest when you have a chance I'd appreciate the help. After all this "productive" effort, I'm planning a ritual sacrifice to the dark side later...--Doc Tropics ^{Message in a bottle} 17:23, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Aye, that was left half-done due to the "loss of session data" gremlin. It took me an hour to make five edits yesterday, but that also included a cry for help to another admin. This has now taken two three four attempts as well, so I'm going to shift machines and try again, lest I go berserk with frustration. - brenneman ^{L} 23:20, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Ack, sorry for the technical difficulties. It looks good now, thanks! --Doc Tropics ^{Message in a bottle} 05:41, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Closing AfDs

Wow, you really hate me.

I'll take a look. Nandesuka 23:53, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

AfD

I noticed you just copied a talk history to an AfD I closed. Can I ask why you did that? And what purpose it serves? SynergeticMaggot 01:52, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I often double-check closes, and would expect that people do the same to me. I'm examining contribution histories as we speak. This looks to have been closed against a guideline without much in the way of real discussion. Testimony of wikipedia editors isn't a reliable source and I was looking over the options. I would have talked to you before doing anything further, though.
brenneman ^{L} 01:55, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

No problem. Just wondering. And which guideline would this be? You can respond on my talk page if you prefer. When you are no longer busy of course. SynergeticMaggot 02:04, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Replyign here to keep it together.

Yeah, this was an odd discussion, not much meaty discussion, nor any mention of the influx of very very new users. The problem with a debate like this is that people are encouraged by the afd instructions not to participate in a debate whose outcome looks clear. Once we discount the WP:ILIKEIT from people with under ten edits, the outcome is actually not that clear. I'd suggest that a good thing would be to re-open the debate clearly tagging all users with their edit counts. The other option would be to re-nom, but then the few experianced editors who opined already either have to weigh in again or get their wishes ignored. But I'm not that excited either way, just doing sue-diligance - brenneman ^{L} 02:11, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I also plugged myself into Kate's tool for fun, and including deleted edits I'm now at 23365 edits and my first edit was on 2005-07-05 at 07:27:06. Death to editcount-itis! - brenneman ^{L} 02:15, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah I see. Well I just close the AfD's, I dont pass judgement on them. If all votes point to keep, its kept. As a general rule of thumb, I never close an AfD if fewer than 5 people have said keep. I also will not close an AfD if one person says delete, even though I was told that if one or two deletes were there, I could close as keep. If you want, we can tag them all and relist, or...we can bring this up to the nom and ask him/her to renom it. Either wat though, my method of closing is based solely on not making a decision myself on the AfD, so I can be totally objective. I can see now that its flawed.

I use AmiDaniel's edit counter. I'm almost to 5000 edits in 3 months :) SynergeticMaggot 02:22, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to suggest that there was anything wrong with this close. I'm a pretty "forceful" closer and have been to review multiple times, but this was a clear keep. No pressing reason to do anything about this one, I might actually stretch my editing legs a bit and see if some sources can be found...

More generally, it's always a thin line to walk between looking over the debate as it exists and enforcing one's own will on the crowd. As a closer, though, we're meant to be making decisions.

brenneman ^{L} 02:31, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I had thought about that. But what kind of a decision can I make if all I'm looking for is a consensus for keep? heh This is where you made me think that there might be faul play among the editors casting a delete of keep. I think I'll be looking it over before I close from now on. SynergeticMaggot 02:35, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Wait. Did you think I was an admin when you said "as closers"? I'm not an admin if thats what you meant. SynergeticMaggot 02:38, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Wanker

Such cheekiness!!!! As if I needed WP to get dates, I have more than I can handle already. ++Lar: t/c 12:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Jim Hawkins

Hi, Aaron. This is a response to your post on Talk:Jim Hawkins. I recommended that the Jim Hawkins article be deleted because he requested it and because he is non-notable, in my opinion. The AfD might have succeeded if the nominator had not chosen Hawkin's request as the only reason to delete the article. Saying that you want an article about yourself deleted virtually assures that it will be kept on AfD. He has been belligerent, which is not helping his cause, either. He has also threatened that he is getting "legal advice" to have the page removed.

He has not made any attempt to understand what Wikipedia is about and what its rules and etiquette are. Here is a quote from him, "I really couldn't care less what Wikipedia frowns upon, to be honest, but thanks for initiating the deletion process." Here is another, "He doesn't want an entry on Wikipedia, but for some ridiculous reason he's unable to delete his own entry on the site without being accused of `vandalism'." That was a comment that he put into the article itself. He keeps saying (on the articles talk page and on the AfD nomination) that he should be able to delete an article that is about him. It is like he thinks he owns the article. I doubt that the BBC (his employer) would remove an article from its website because the subject requested them to do so. If we had access, they would also probably be upset if the subject blanked the article him or herself. Since it is a wiki, I guess he thinks that he can do whatever he wants. Also, I think that he may be one of those people that object to the idea of an encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

As for specific objections, there was an early version that he claims was full of errors. He removed some information in two edits and then removed the entire article except for the first sentence. In subsequent edits he mostly blanked the article (most of the IPs in the history are him). Sometimes he just removed some of its content. I think his objection is that the article exists. Also, while some of the information might have been inaccurate, I think that he does not want people to know things about his life (like hobbies and what schools he attended), even though they are not negative or sensitive, with the exception of his date of birth, which could be used for identity theft.

I do not know what is to be done about this. He is so hostile that I do not think that it is possible to reason with him. People have tried to explain about Wikipedia, its etiquette and processes, but he responds with snide remarks. I suspect that he will threaten the Foundation and they will delete the article because it is not worth fighting about. Talk to you later, Kjkolb 10:39, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, to be sure, I rather think his main objection is as to the existence of the article, not to any particular information contained therein (ostensibly akin to Angela's objections relative to the article apropos of her); I gather that even were it exclusively hagiographic he'd want it deleted (notwithstanding that all of the information, per WP:RS, of course, is readily avaiable elsewhere). Pace Kjkolb, I think it unlikely that, were he to contact the Foundation (either individually via OTRS or formally through a lawyer), the article would be summarily deleted; he is volitionally public and notable, and the article does not tend toward the defamatory, and so, even as the Foundation always likes to avoid litigation, this is one situation in which Jimbo's pronouncement that, even as we ought to treat decorously subjects who are not happy with the encyclopedic treatment accorded them, we ought not to accede to their wishes where our articles are otherwise consistent with our policies and guidelines (even the altogether pernicious WP:BLP recognizes this). Joe 19:03, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Nomination cabal/Potential nominee list

Hi Aaron, any idea what to do with this page? The "nom cabal" concept didn't really go anywhere, as far as I can tell, but enterprising young editors are still finding this page, and then adding themselves and being largely ignored. I've imposed some order on the page chronologically, but I'm not sure it's current backwater state/location are helpful to either the nominees or the concept of crafting better RFA noms...thoughts? -- nae'blis 15:01, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The futility and non-desirability of fixing schools

Obviously, what the schoolies mean when they say that "it is policy to keep schools" or that there is "consensus to keep schools" is that there is consensus among schoolies that this be policy. The rotating cast of dissenting voices quickly tire and move on to more productive tasks, I really hope you will do the same. There is a lot of useful work that needs doing outside of the schools ghetto. As someone who gets invited to contribute to "real" encyclopedias, let me assure you that there are areas of Wikipedia that are really very very good, valuable, and a real benefit to the world (eg hard sciences). These are areas where any sane and reasonable person can make valuable contributions. There are also areas that need constant tending (eg popular culture). These articles get read, and used. They matter. I suggest rather than valuing WP by the quality of it's most frivolous content, that you try viewing WP's quality by it's most frequently accessed content. Since most school articles are unlikely to be read by anyone other than the author, their existence is really no cost to WP. Possibly more importantly, if one assumes that some proportion of the schoolies are motivated more by the social networking aspects of their contributions to WP than the relevance of the data contributed, there is the risk that if NN schools disappear from WP, that these editors will focus their attentions on other parts of WP, where more effort may be required to keep standards high. At present count, there are 1,293,988 articles in the English wikipedia, even if the schoolies manage to make an article for each of the paltry 112,494 US schools already documented at www.publicschoolreview.com it'll keep them busy and out of everyone else's hair for years to come. Cheers, Pete.Hurd 19:50, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of one-time characters from The Simpsons

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of one-time characters from The Simpsons
  • Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2006_August_4#List_of_one-time_characters_from_The_Simpsons

With respect, I disagree with the way this one was closed. Although I acknowledge AfDs aren't votes I'm beginning to fear that that is being used to reinforce the closer's opinion. But I don't want to antagonize you; that's not my accusation against you. Regardless of whether there was a consensus to delete, to say that some opinions should be discounted because they were sockpuppeting or failed to address the article strikes me as wrong; only one looked like a sock on my quick inspection, and while some people questioned the AfD they added opinions on why they think the article is notable. I was one of these, and I sincerely hope you didn't disregard my opinion. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 19:11, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Before I even go and review this close, two things:

1. Every adminstrator should welcome feedback on their performance, so there's no fear of antagonising me. I think that if someone doesn't like having their admin work triple-checked or doesn't want to defend thier decisions, they should stick to regular editing.
2. If I have a strong opinion, a personal opinion, on the outcome I won't use sysop privledges as a "super-vote." I try very hard to be as even handed as possible.

I'll go and look over this now.

brenneman ^{L} 12:11, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I've made some comments on the talk page of the AfD. The closing notes I left were not the best I've ever made, and there was one clear mistake on my part. However I'm still comfortable with the decision... but am willing to admit it was a skinner. Maybe have someone else look over my notes, see what they think. And I'll look at it again in a little while.
brenneman ^{L} 13:41, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

AfD

Just notifying you on my nomination of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Homer Simpson's jobs. PMA 07:45, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Bah. How am I meant to respond to this? I am afraid to even look at this discussion now. I've never edited this article, so unless there is some compelling reason for notifying me, all this does is makes me look bad. - brenneman ^{L} 14:12, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Double bah. Colour me cranky... and now saying sorry. I was having a reaction to a combination of events, plus it does look like you're calling in the hatchet man in light of the comment above. But really, it shouldn't matter if someone asks me to close something, it's not like I'm not already selective in the AfDs I give attention. So again, please accept my apologies for the kick.
brenneman ^{L} 11:07, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

List of virgins

Would you be interested in closing Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of virgins? Haukur 19:50, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Hehe, sorry. Hadn't noticed the crankiness above when I made this comment :) Haukur 12:11, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Time to archive

I think you ought to archive your UT :D Computerjoe's talk 20:38, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Boston-Montreal-Boston

Hi there - you asked for reliable sources ... One , you can look at Brevet (cycling) and that mentions Boston-Montreal-Boston. Two, in the wiki page i included the BMB website which should be the most reliable source. The BMB cycling event is the american counterpart of PBP. They are both famous ... i guess ... if you bike 2-3-4-5oo km at a time

-)

My goal is to make the BMB page a disambiguation page.

But i am not very experienced. I just started with wiki.

Maybe you can help me do that. THANKS --BogieD 01:53, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

History merge?

do you know how to do same..

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Undelete/LinkedWords and look at the history of it, as well as the history of the userified page http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Alan1963/LinkedWords&action=history .... I can see now that the page I userified was a recreate of the deleted one I think. The histories should be merged and I dunno how. Maybe you could walk me through it on IRC??? ++Lar: t/c 23:49, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh the pain... I keep meaning to learn how to do the history merge, but have not to date done so because Wikipedia:History merge scares me. I also canna do IRC right now, more the pity. - brenneman ^{L} 00:03, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Sigh... you two should be ashamed of yourselves! :P

1. Go to the page with most of the substantial edit history (usually, the older one)
2. Move the old page over the new one.
3. Go to the new page's history, and undelete the deleted revisions
4. If necessary, revert to a suitable version of the "new" page before it was deleted.

Titoxd^(?!?) 00:07, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

See, whinging pays off again!!!! Innit great??? Off to try this. ++Lar: t/c 00:09, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Totally did NOT work. I think I lost the revisions too. ++Lar: t/c 00:16, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... everything looks ok here? Titoxd^(?!?) 00:22, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

No, actually it did work.... I just fell prey to the display bug that the complete instructions describe. However now I'm addled and scarred for life and no way am I ever doing that again. ++Lar: t/c 00:24, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for your comments on the Kelly Martin issue on WP:AN/I. I've long respected your ability to clearly and rationally present your thoughts, and those thoughts are almost always well-founded and worth heeding. I'm trying to be the same way on this issue but the words always come out less ... Brenneman-like ... than I intend. =) Thanks again. Powers 14:49, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

For making this edit. Lt Powers says it above: you've got a way with words. I attempted a reply, but scrapped it when I realized your reasoned response is clear and to the point. Anyway, thanks. Happy editing! :) --Firsfron of Ronchester 02:09, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah

now i feel appreciated. --Striver 15:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

So you are confirming a double standard? --Striver 15:46, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

(I'm going to respond here from now on to keep the conversation together.) It's a quadruple standard with a backflip. We keep articles on radio masts, have you noticed? The only way to stay sane is to take a long term perspective, and to understand that articles come and go, but wikipedia stays. Getting too wound up over any one article's fate right now is almost never helpful. Baby steps. Writing a core good policy, clear and concise, that will take another few years until it's stable. Then applying that policy consistantly to the millions of articles, that will take another five years probably. - brenneman ^{L} 15:54, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I didn't enjoy it either :(

If it's any consolation, you can go do the same thing to me with "Harrison Bulter" listed in the same log. Karma keeps all things in harmony. Best wishes, Xoloz 16:25, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I think I was obsessing over it too much anyway! - brenneman ^{L} 16:29, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Opinion sought

Aaron, if you have a little time, I'd appreciate you looking at this page and giving me your opinion. No rush, though if you can reply by the 17th that would be nicely symbolic. -- nae'blis 03:24, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

You've got a Thank you card!

File:RfathxAaron.jpg

Open your card!

Dear Aaron, thank you so much for your beautiful words, your kidness and your trust in me! My Request for Adminship is finally over, and the support and appreciation that the community has gifted me will stick in my mind as long as I live. I have no way to properly express how grateful I am to you for all you've done for me, and all I can tell you is, I'll try not to disappoint you nor anyone else with my use of the buttons... and if I mess up, make sure to come here and give me a good yell! :) Seriously, tho, if you ever need my help, either for admin-related stuff or in any other way, you'll always be welcome to message me, and I promise I'll try my very best.
Dear Aaron, first of all, allow me to tell you I'm incredibly, utterly and terribly sorry for letting all this time pass without messaging you. So many, many times I was "this" close, and I even once wrote a poem to "vandalize" your page... but after I read it, I thought it was just too silly and unworthy. I hope you can forgive me, please... :( However, one thing I can swear to you, and I have witnesses! ;) is that you've always been a very special and dear person to me. The most important thing to me, is how you've stood by me every time my way of being is questioned, and that is something I'll never, ever forget. You are a person I constantly look up to, and the fact that you considered my modest contributions worthy of your support is a great flattery, beyond our friendship. And, regarding your thoughts at my RfA, I beg you that if you ever see that the mop is changing me, don't bother to file a RfC - just hit me with the flamethrower, please! :) You are simply great, A ;) With a big hug, your friend,

Phaedriel ♥ tell me

Insult

Call me a nob? I think you're a yob!

Rentwa 19:03, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, best I could manage.. Rentwa 19:28, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Some random commentary

Here are your rhyming couplets

Not only is his userpage nothing but a redirect

But what's "Kunstkamera"? Don't expect

Us to know what that means, as if

We're encyclopedicians? Swing and whiff!

And as far as your mistakes?

"Sift through my contributions and anything that I've done wrong, paste it here in the appropiate section."

It's "appropriate". --Lkjhgfdsa 00:29, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Finish up

Special:Whatlinkshere/Cantr_II - done

Re: Pettiness

I'm no good with sound effects ;-)

As far as the proposal: it's a decidedly bad idea for a variety of reasons, and I don't really see why we need it. If we require some sort of emergency policy deciders, we should just use the ArbCom, which has, at least, community support for its membership. Otherwise, our existing methods seem to be coping with policy formation.

(I would think that a more intersting idea would be some manner of high-level discussion & recommendation-issuing group put together using representatives from active WikiProjects, actually; but I doubt this would be feasible.) Kirill Lokshin 01:41, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Re: Brittle

I Lady Aleena give you, Aaron Brenneman/Archives, the sun and the moon for taking time out of your busy day to help the little people of Wikipedia. - LA @ 08:30, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

"While I was distracted, I think I may be looking in the wrong place for problems. If you'll point me again, I'm happy to look.
brenneman ^{L} 07:13, 14 August 2006 (UTC)"

I am sorry, can you tell me what you are referencing? - LA @ 07:21, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Nope, it was Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 August 7, not categories.

What I would really like is for these four TfDs to be finished to get them off of my mind. They are all unopposed, so there are not toes on which the closer would step. They have all been cleared of transclusions as well.

• Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 August 7#User chess variants - 1 template
• Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 August 7#Card game user templates - 28 templates
• Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 August 7#Idol series user templates - 2 templates
• Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 August 7#Newspaper types user templates - 3 templates

Would you be willing to close them out and delete them? You said once that you don't do templates for deletion (at all? often?) I just want those four TfDs off my conscience. If you do take an interest and decide to close them, just please be careful of the master templates.

The thing that has me flaming mad at the moment is currently sitting at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2006 August 13#Two user templates. I am angry that they were deleted without consultation nor a TfD. - LA @ 07:56, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

• I don't avoid that area based on anything other than having plenty of other things to do, but I'll have a burl at closing the TfDs.
  brenneman ^{L} 08:01, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • First few done, going to dinner, all will be done in short order however!
    Note to self: Watch out when asking if I can "do anything" next time. Thirty three deletions, sheesh. ^_^
    brenneman ^{L} 08:13, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

  Flattery will get you everywhere. These are all linked to your userspace still (plus one or two in other user spaces), and I've left the links at Wikipedia:List of userboxes since it's auto-generated. - brenneman ^{L} 13:02, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

It is around 1:30 am in Eastern US, are you poking about at the moment? - LA @ 05:26, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Cantr II

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cantr II

Why did you delete this article? The voting was 5:3 in favour of keeping it so far and a few other people and I were in the process of rewriting the article to make it adhere better to Wikipedia's standards. We had added quite a few references to awards and the like given to this website already, but another admin deleted them from the article. Cantr is only technically an MMORPG, its gameplay is nothing like that of any of the games in that category. That's because in reality it is an experiment in sociology and as such it is endorsed by universities and schools in several countries. But even if it was an ordinary, non-notable MMORPG as there are thousands on the net, I don't see how you can delete the article when Wikipedia has an own MMORPG category (Category:Massively multiplayer online role-playing games) with already close to 200 entries, clearly showing that game info is as much a part of this encyclopedia as, say, linguistics (Category:Linguistics). Junesun 08:58, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

If you'd like I'll restore the article into user space to give you material to use for a re-write. I must stress that the "ratio" of delete to keep "votes" grotesquely misunderstands the way that deletion discussions work. While anyone (even IP addresses) is welcome to contribute facts based upon reliable sources to a discussion, statements like "as valid as any other RPG article" would be very light-on coming even from a vested contributor. If you decide to attempt the re-write, please study very carefully the guidelines on web content as well as the afore-mentioned reliable sources. With regards to the 200 MMOPRG articles, we don't play to the least common denonimator here. If any of these fail the inclusion guidelines, please do bring them to my attention and I'll probably nominate it for deletion. Often things that eventually will be deleted are around only because they haven't been noticed yet. - brenneman ^{L} 12:11, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

AfD relisting

And as you've requested, reminder for you to relist the AfD debates with insufficient votes, in particular ~80 of them at 8/5/2006. Hop over to WP:AFD/Old! Apologies if it's a bit early, I'm turning in for bed now. ;) - Cheers, Mailer Diablo 13:13, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

WP:RECALL

Hi, I think you might find this policy proposal at WP:RECALL relevant, and I would be curious of your comments there and on the talk page. Thanks! rootology (T) 17:29, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Please don't come into a discussion that dozens of people have been participating in for days and archive everything without discussing it at all, including archiving discussions that are minutes old. THere is never any reason why you should cut off a discussion like that. I'm moving the page back to restore the history. Archiving some sections would be appropriate; destroying the history by moving the page is not. Karwynn (talk) 12:49, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Whoops, I can't. Please unmove the page so that the history can be restored, or delete the talk page (save the text) so I can move it. Karwynn (talk) 12:52, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed the first message while beavering over the talk page that you're objecting to. A re-factor is often a good idea when discussion gets both diffuse and heated at the same time. I've made a little "summary" section where all the ideas that people have had can hopefully live, without the venom. I could use help making the mass of rambling text into something bit-sized, though. - brenneman ^{L} 13:01, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

It's not really your place to summarize everyone's comments, especially then there is active discussion going on. THis is a policy proposal. I'm sure you realize that disrupting this, particularly since it provides a way to desysop people, looks suspicious. I'm not saying you're doing it on purpose, I'm just telling you: it looks fishy. WHy don't you just let the discussion run its course instead of making controversial, unilateral moves to a page where dozens of people are discussing an idea? Surely you understand that doing this sort of thing to a discussion that's been going on for several days, as well as simply summarizing everyone's viewpoints they've spent so much time formulating, is going to be inflammatory and even insulting to those who participated?

In any case, I've nominated the talk page for speedy deletion so it can be moved back and the history restored. Ongoing discussion on the main talk page can be found/archived here. Karwynn (talk) 13:08, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

• Well, actually it's everyone's place to refactor if they see fit. It can be annoying when someone does so, and if someone is doing it to push an agenda (or just to be annoying) it's a problem. The talk page was 174 kilobytes long already. And, as nicely as possible, a great deal of it was repetative and sniping. By compressing the ideas then we can isolate them from the contributor. I urge you to expand any summary points that you object to and to put in any points that I've missed, but please do it as a simple statement of fact as opposed to a signed comment. - brenneman ^{L} 13:14, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Additionally, you completely changed the policy proposal. It is no longer the same process. If you want to propose a new process, start a new proposal. DOn't hijack one that's been worked on for days. Karwynn (talk) 14:13, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Err, no. I don't think I changed a single thing in the proposal. I removed a massive amount of repeated statements and overlinking, as well as obvious errors like use of shortcuts as words and link in section titles. But I'm pretty sure I didn't change anything. You do realise that this is a wiki, right, and that we're supposed to make changes in things? Have you seen the Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages guideline? - brenneman ^{L} 14:20, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[I have.] It doesn't say anything in there about modifying proposals without discussion, specifically modifying things (and numbers) that have already been agreed upon. THis is a policy proposal being actively formed. If you can't cooperate with other editors in forming it, you need to go make a proposal of your own and leave this one to those of us interested in pursuing the interests of the community rather than our own preferences. Karwynn (talk) 14:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

YOu are right that you didn't totally change it however, I got the wrong impression from some of the wording that it was completely different. Karwynn (talk) 14:51, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that at least. Karwynn, I'm trying to be gentle with you here, ok? You are wrong about so many things at once that I'm having a hard time doing so, but I am trying.

• First you need to read the Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page where it describes the consequences of moving as a method of archiving. This is actually the preferred method of archiving, and the one used on almost all wikipedia namepace pages like the adminstrator's noticeboard. It actually preserves the existing links, contrary to your statements.
• Then have good long look at the clean-up I did to the proposal. If you don't understand why having links in section titles is bad, the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings) explains it. There is also the deliberately obtusly titled Wikipedia:WTF? OMG! TMD TLA. ARG! which explains why use of arconyms is sub-optimal.
• Next, look over the Wikipedia:Refactoring talk pages page, and try to depersonalise the arguments that exist on the recall talk page. Do we really want another ten people to come and say the same things another seven ways?
• Finally, your suggestion that anything is "agreed" upon and that I was changing things goes against both the reality of the talk page and the praaxis of Wikipedia:How to create policy. If I removed an edge or two, changed a "6" to a "7", please understand that almost no one cares.

Yes, I took a bloody big broom to both pages, yes of course it was unilateral... but I put some thought into those actions. You reverted back to a version that did not have "consensus" spelled correctly. I'm not going to claim that I have some mandate because I've been here longer, or that I was "right" but you're even forgetting to sign your comments. Just calm down a little.

brenneman ^{L} 14:57, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Wow. Karwynn (talk) 15:09, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Characters in the Animal Crossing series

Hello. I draw your attention to Talk:Characters in the Animal Crossing series. - Mark 09:22, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, thank you, doing both things at once. - brenneman ^{L} 12:05, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Nice edits

Seriously. And thanks for the comments; the chatter on there and severely bad faith misdirection attempts especially by Cyde's trolling got me wildly aggravated last night. rootology (T) 15:08, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Back

Yes, here I am back wasting my time on useless discussions. If anyone comes up with a workable improvement on admin discipline let me know. But this isn't it. Even Kelly Martin at her most unpopular could have mustered 20% to prevent a recall supermajority. Anyway, see you around at the next pointless proposal. (We both seem to be addicted to them) --Doc 15:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

It's like junk food for the soul, isn't it? - brenneman ^{L} 15:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Shall we start Category:Wikipedians addicted to discussing proposals for increased accountability of admins? -- nae'blis 15:48, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, why not? That's what we're here for, right? To mock one another? Karwynn (talk) 16:54, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Who's mocking others? I think the three of us were mocking ourselves, no one else. If you'd like to add yourself to the category, feel free, but I don't feel this would be a situation where it's appropriate to add someone else (like all unofficial-and-yet-judgmental categories/userboxes/whathaveyou). Breathe, Karwynn, please. -- nae'blis 17:34, 15 August 2006 (UTC)