User talk:Beetstra/Archive 12

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Allfunksender

I noticed your "welcome to wikipedia" tag on a brand new page for "Allfunksender" dated 5/15/09, but the user also has what appears to be a fake post on 1/13/09 (I say this because it is virtually identical to a previous post). Do you have any insight into the situation? The editor knows way too much about wikipedia to be new, and showed up just to revert two weeks worth of posts to the Ibogaine article. I am not claiming that reverting those posts was a bad thing to do, from an editing standpoint, only that there is an appearance of both policy violation and deception. I have no intention of contributing to that page again, but honestly my faith in wikipedia has been shaken (perhaps I was naive) and I would be interested to know if, from your standpoint, there is any more information than what is available to me.Rose bartram (talk) 11:43, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I did not check, let me have a look at User talk:Allfunksender. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:46, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I did not notice the Jan 13 edit. Hmm, he may indeed be a sock, or maybe someone who edited a lot as an IP, so knows his way around. I now noticed the edit of yesterday, did not know if I agreed or not, but as they was not yet welcomed, I did so. I'll assume good faith for now. I don't know enough about the article to see if this is good or bad, maybe it is worth discussing with him on the talkpage? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:50, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Spamming

To say what I was adding was spam is presumptuous at best and at worst down right ignorant. Just because you are an admin of Wikipedia does not mean you can ABUSE your powers. That link was perfectly valid considering it linked to a spectral analysis of Aluminum Fluoride when the subject of the article was talked about this while the correct citation which was already dated was not to an easily accessible web page. You'd be wise to be less hasty with your edits and research before you change things.

97.76.15.204 (talk) 18:04, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, your link additions were quite a couple of times reverted, including this change of reference. Please discuss first before continuing. To give more explanation: Webpages don't need to be easily accesible, they need to be correct. They also don't need to be new, they need to be correct. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:06, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

They were reverted by myself at least twice because I was trying to get the ref tag correct. I didn't want to disrupt the page and when I saved it it came up as REF TAG INVALID and then to many REF tags present. Also the information on the web page I was linking to is just as reliable as from the previous source which couldn't even be accessed to verify correctness.

97.76.15.204 (talk) 18:11, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I stand slightly corrected, you were reverted once. Still, that is not a reason to change a link (it might be a reason to add an additional reference, though I am afraid, even while I am absolutely sure that your information is correct, that company webpages fail the reliable sources guideline). Much reliable data is behind pay-per-view walls. In combination with the external link additions to other pages, which certainly fail the external links guideline, I still suggest you to discuss the link additions before continuing. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:18, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Mistro12

What led to the decision to lift User:Mistro12's indefinite block? Can you point me to any discussion of the decision to unblock? Thank you. Finell (Talk) 03:47, 22 May 2009 (UTC) (To preserve the continuity of the conversation, I will watch for your reply here on your Talk page.)

Beetstra explained this at User_talk:Mistro12#Per_unblock-en-l.40lists.wikimedia.org, and also at User_talk:Abd#University_of_Atlanta_-_the_continuing_story. At this point, I don't see why he should explain more, but, naturally, he's welcome to. Has there been some new disruption? --Abd (talk) 13:37, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer. That's sufficient for me. Finell (Talk) 20:32, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome ;-). I indeed see no further need to explain this further, read my posts on the talkpage of the user, the pathway that is followed is IMHO clearly described, and certain emails are available to the wikimedia unblock en mailing lists. Hope this explains. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 22:56, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

hotspot-online.at

Dear Mr.Beetstra, can you please delete the link report (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:COIBot/LinkReports/hotspot-online.at) because there was a misunderstanding about website links. Last year I was a new user on wikipedia. Thank very much for your efforts.

Bests Regards Whotspot —Preceding unsigned comment added by Whotspot (talk • contribs) 09:02, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

I will handle this one later, when I am secured again. Sorry for the delay. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 22:57, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

XLinkBot and MySpace rule

Could I get clarification on a statement you made here [1] about XLinkBot? You say that XLinkBot reverts all MySpace links. Having deleted many myself, I came to a fairly exacting set of rules that gets relatively little negative feedback. However it appears to be more permissive than XLinkBot in special cases. Could you have a look at my "rules" and see whether anything strikes you about them? The text is here [2], and yes, it is intended to be more specific than WP:EL. -- I was getting a fair amount of reasonable feedback that the guidelines were conflicting and open to wide interpretation. Best regards, Piano non troppo (talk) 12:59, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I think your thoughts there are quite right. However, it is impossible to catch that with the bot. I have not too long ago looked at 30 myspace.com reverts by COIBot, and most of them were in the classes that you describe. Only one might have been fine (I personally would not have reverted if there is thé official site and the myspace, though even there one can argue that the myspace is superfluous already there). Some were plainly wrong, some not working, some were to the band-members where the band myspace was already there, etc. etc. If you know the rules, one can find quite some appropriate myspaces, but for new editors it seems better to revert, and to point them to WP:EL. Some cases are then left to revert again, but that are not many. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 23:03, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Article deletion - musicemissions.com

musicemissions.com (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (restore)

Hello, my name is Brian Rutherford, and I have been a music reviewer for eight years. First and foremost, let me apologize in advance if I have misused any coding or scripting here. About 18 months back I wrote an article on one of the sites I have been contributing to for six years. Here is the info on that.

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#musicemissions.com. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:13, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

More recently, about eight months ago, I spoke (chatted) with a fellow who was somehow associated with Wiki, I believe in Europe. I also believe I saved this documented consultation, but I do not have that conversation at this moment. The end result of the conversation was that MusicEmissions.com at the time, was not considered a credible source for Indie Music Reviews. After showing the representative various links that sourced MusicEmissions.com as a credible resource the representative saw no reason that MusicEmissions should not be considered a credible resource.

Here are just a few articles that reference Musicemissions.com http://www.sideonedummy.com/bands_interviews1205.php?band_name=Bedouin_Soundclash http://musicratty.com/article/6073b585d2aa4238a141f3a9b6403060 http://www.spraci.com/news/syndicated/413043/ http://www.papertrumpet.com/quotes/quotes.html http://www.musicianguide.com/biographies/1608004551/Alexisonfire.html http://www.clevelandagora.com/bands/info.asp?bandID=1291

Again, please accept my apologies if I have goofed up anything in this discussion. My ultimate bottom line is to get the MusicEmissions.com article retrieved from deletion as myself and other registered users find it to be a great source for independent music since 1999. The website has become a clear cut source for independent artistry to flourish at. Over the ten years it has been running, the website has written nearly 7.000 reviews that are constantly being referenced and sourced all over the world wide web. Please understand I do not say this in any kind of mean spirited fashion, and I do appreciate anyone who can assist me. Hstisgod (talk) 18:33, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I'll have a look at the article. The basic thing is, please make sure it is not advertising, and be very careful when adding links to your reviews to articles yourself. I really would encourage that you do that in close contact with a wikiproject, and as a specialist in the area, you must be able to offer more than just links.

Regarding the article (which I could not find, will have a second look when I am again behind my admin account), I would suggest that you write it in your userspace (User:Hstisgod/Musicemissions.com, e.g.). Then when you have a reasonable version contact some editors (from the same wikiproject), and let them have a look. If it is then suitable, someone can move it to mainspace directly, or after some rewrite. Make sure it has references from other sources than the own site (see Wikipedia:Reliable sources, the above links may help), is not advertising but neutral etc. I hope this helps. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 08:07, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Mistro12 again

Mistro12 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

He has been a staunch defender of the school in question, while also being evasive when asked questions that deserve answers. He had also made a legal threat, and then gave a non-retraction retraction. So don't go complaining to me. Your comment to me on his talk page, a week after the fact, yet, frankly is out of line. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 07:33, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

And on the U of A page you indicate what the real issue is - you alleged that we question your unblock of that guy. I don't care that he's unblocked. What I care about is that he won't answer direct questions. So even if he technically has no conflict of interest, he acts as if he does. Maybe instead of lecturing us who raise these questions, you could ask him to try and come up with some concrete answers to the questions that keep being raised. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 07:46, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

That still does not give editors a right to repeated cynical, snarky and bitey remarks. You may have noticed that I am on holiday/on personal business, I did not see the remarks earlier, and hence did not remark earlier. They made mistakes in the past, but I feel that your remarks to them are absolutely non-productive, and if your good questions are mixed up with remarks like the one on their talkpage about them taking a picture of himself editing the U of A page on a computer of the organisation, then I can understand that they is not answering to your other questions either. We are all volunteers here, NO-ONE has an obligation to answer, and frankly, if I am met with such continued assumptions of bad faith (as I feel implied on my unblock of Mistro12!), I would also not answer. It is probably very, very true that Mistro12 is trying to not have a very negative light shining on U of A (though from his side there has been no blatant advertising!), but you and Drawn Some seem to be very busy in putting more spotlights on the negative past. And that is why I ask, please leave such remarks out, as they are totally not helping. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 07:58, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I do not question the validity of his unblock, and I would very much like to see some evidence that this school has, in fact, turned itself around. He's not obligated to answer any question, but if he won't, then all we're left with is the negative information about the school. If he expects it to be otherwise, he needs to step up to the plate. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 08:08, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Also, I don't appreciate the assumption of bad faith towards me in the comment about the picture. I thought it would be kind of neat and nifty to see a photo of the school's computer room in the background with the wikipedia article about it in the foreground. That's something I would do if I were there. Kind of an amusing bit of karma, to me anyway. Maybe to no one else, but that's just how my brain works. It just seemed like a cute idea. That's why I was rather stunned that you would pick on that comment, of all things. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 08:12, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. Well, it is not like that they is the only possible source, they may just at the moment be the most convenient one, and I see no other things turning up yet.

Well, it is not a sole pick, I just get the feeling that there have been a couple of such remarks (by a couple of editors), where I indeed see on one side the humour, on the other side they may be interpreted as snarky, bitey, chilling, offensive. I know you are right one most points, but Mistro12's past mistakes (and what may be partial coincidences) have resulted in some pretty hard actions (indef blocks etc.). Let me put it this way, I think that Mistro12 does feel very intimidated (which I also sensed from off-wiki communications), and he faced very hard opposition. Such remarks, even when meant as humour (and my dark side also sees that it is funny!), may then not yield the results one expects.

I am generally impressed by your on-wiki remarks and discussions (in the other cases and on other venues where I see you commenting), but here it may not have had the right effect (partially because you did not know about the off-wiki communications, but I did mention earlier that the sometimes a bit more careful wording might be in place ..). I hope this explains. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 08:31, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

The user needs to understand (and maybe you have already tried to explain this to him offline) the extent to which his own behavior encourages sarcastic comments. When someone behaves in what appears to be a suspicious way, he's going to get jumped on about it. That sarcasm would end if he could provide some information to prove our suspicions wrong. Complaining about how he's being treated simply looks like a distraction, and further feeds the suspicions about his behavior. If he's not a native English speaker (which I sense from his writing style that he's not), then maybe he doesn't understand this. Americans are not given to what we consider excessive politeness. We're blunt and straightforward. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 08:49, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, I think they has been told these things quite a number of times already, I do hope they understand, and I think they do. You are indeed right, different people, different habits. I am not strange of blundness or sarcasm myself, though probably it is sometimes best to try and not give in to the temptation. It is the English wikipedia, which is read worldwide, and edited worldwide. Remarks may sometimes be difficult to interpret ('which meaning of the word does he now mean') by non-natives, and especially when one senses that, it may be good to be either careful, or to be very clear that one is being sarcastic, cynical etc. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 09:06, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Since he hasn't edited in almost a week, it seems that any progress on the article is pretty much at a stalemate, and hence the negativity continues to dominate. As I said, if anyone expects that to change, they need to step up to the plate with new information. Maybe that's going to take some time. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 09:10, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm. I'll check my wiki email as soon as I can (maybe there is info there), and as I said, there may be other sources, it is not like Mistro12 is the only U of A guru in the world, there may be even better sources thinkable. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 13:23, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

COIBot listing

Hi, I noticed COIBot isn't listed on Wikipedia:Bots/Status. You may want to add it there. Gigs (talk) 05:42, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I've added it there. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:51, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

COIBot

I find COIBot to be a great and underused resource. I have some ideas for improvement I'd like to discuss with you. If you are interested, I could even collaborate with you on the code since I am a programmer (albiet, not very experienced at Perl, so my Perl might look more like C++). Let me know when would be a good time to discuss this in a more realtime media, when you get back from holiday is fine. Just leave a message on my talk page. Gigs (talk) 14:24, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

If you are on IRC, come find us in the #wikimedia-external-links channel. On-wiki it is indeed an underused resource, but the cross-wiki anti-spam effort is mainly on-IRC. I can manage some C++, though it is rusty and not very well developed (I am not a programmer by education, but an organometallic chemist). I'll try and find you on IRC, or we can find another way of real-time communication. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Chemboxes etc

Hi Dirk Beetstra.

I noticed when I made a page just now for a compound for which I could not find a CAS number to put into the chembox template, it automatically added it to a category "Chemical pages needing a CAS Registry Number". This seems like a good way to keep track of which pages haven't had this field filled yet. I feel this is an important bit of information which would be good to have on all pages for chemical compounds, but some CAS numbers are hard to find especially for new or obscure compounds. Is it possible to make drugboxes with this field unfilled automatically add this category as well?

Also I saw the discussion for unifying chemboxes and drugboxes and this also seems like a really good idea as all drugs are of course chemicals also, and I've found difficulties in the past when there are chemical properties available but the drugbox has no field that such data can be placed in to, and vice versa. Not sure how difficult these kind of changes would be to implement but you seem to be quite active in this area so thought it couldn't hurt to ask!! Meodipt (talk) 06:00, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi! Yes, that is happening there, I think Physchim62 has programmed that into the chembox. We can do the same in the drugbox. It is a nice feature, and we are working very hard on getting those numbers filled and correct (you might want to check out our efforts with User:CheMoBot, and our communications with CAS, see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-05-18/Chemistry data). We do have very obscure chemicals around here (some of which are not even in the mainstream catalogues or databases!).

Converting the drugbox to a more chembox like working is more difficult, there are differences in how we handle data and visualise things. We have been discussing it, and it is certainly possible (I am thinking about forking the chembox, so they can be the same, though look different, and here and there handle things different). In principle they are fully compatible, the chembox has a 'module' for pharmacological data ({{Chembox Pharmacology}}), and the rest is all covered in the other fields (or they can easily be added to it). For the compounds which are also interesting as chemicals, it is often better to use the chembox in stead of the drugbox. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:44, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I added the parameter to the drugbox, that should not result in drugboxes without CAS being categorised, but it may be that we have to wait until the server refreshes, as I did not see any yet. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

It is working now. Thank you. Meodipt (talk) 21:54, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Craig Silvey

Hi Beetstra Apologies fo confusion around Craig Silvey entry, but it's not actually a copyright violation as The Big Issue allows all copyright to remain with the author. Copyright is signed away from the author by many publications, but The Big Issue allows authors to keep their copyright and, if they don't publish it on their own site, encourages them to re-produce their own work online so long as there is attribution. Hope this clears things up. Noodles —Preceding unsigned comment added by NoodlesRomanov (talk • contribs) 22:28, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I think so, just revert the bot, it will not revert reverts (hope that is clear). Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:02, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks so much

Dirk,

I can't thank you enough for your encouraging words. I now realize how seriously people take new submissions and you have helped me better understand why. It was quite terrifying being so quickly bombarded by the Wikipedia police, I thought I was going to be arrested!!! At least I have gained back my sense of humor. I will be in touch, and thanks again. --Crepesuze (talk) 12:02, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:04, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Dirk, I just looked at your changes and they are great. Thanks. I still have a lot to learn about how Wikipedia works, as I couldn't figure out how to format the references like you have. I didn't realize how much of a learning curve there was, so that things could be properly formatted for this site. As far as the warning notes at the top of the article, how does one get those removed? For eg. the note regarding neutrality. Also, who determines whether a subject is notable enough for Wikipedia? --Crepesuze (talk) 12:10, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

It is a bit dependent on the tags. If it is saying "unreferenced", and you add references, then you can safely remove it (that one is already gone). The notability tag generally gets removed by others after reviewing of the article, and should generally not be removed by main contributors to the article (article creator etc., as those are generally not necessarily neutral in defining that).

Now a difficult part: If you edit the page, it lists at the very bottom (way below the edit-box) some 'hidden categories':

• Category:All articles with unsourced statements
• Category:Articles with topics of unclear notability from May 2009
• Category:Articles with unsourced statements from May 2009
• Category:Category needed
• Category:NPOV disputes from May 2009
• Category:Uncategorized pages

Categories are groups of articles forming a tree, so you can find articles with similar 'topics', or, for these hidden categories, similar problems. There are users and bots who keep an eye on these categories, and try to keep them empty by resolving the situation (some are handled by WikiProjects, users with similar interest, see Wikipedia:WikiProject).

At the bottom of the page there is now an 'uncategorised' tag, if you add some categories, then you can remove this. The easiest way to find suitable categories is to go to e.g. a page of, in this case, another costume designer, and look in which categories this person is (edit the page, they are generally listed at the bottom of the 'page code' in the edit-box). Copy those which are appropriate, and paste them in the code of the page. But there may also be other categories the page may fit into (category of living people, category for people who were born in wherever, etc.).

I hope this explains! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:22, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Dirty harry and 'linkspam'.

I've reverted your removal of a wordpress blog as 'linkspam'. While I'm usually quite zealous about removing blog ELs, this one's got a clear and obvious relevance to this title, including lots of trivia and images not appropriate to the article. WHiel 99% of wordpress additions are bad, I think this one is worth retaining. Review the site yourself. ThuranX (talk) 14:26, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Have you seen how it was added? Or should I say 'pushed', 'spammed'? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:30, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I am going one step further:

Welcome •January 15, 2009 • No Comments

The 1971 movie, Dirty Harry, was filmed around the great city of San Francisco at real locations you can still visit today.

This blog shares my adventures to discover those locations, so that you can find them too, and also feel the movie brought back to life.

Some of the photos here are from the public domain and are referenced, but, most are my own. Navigate through the different scenes by using the PAGE links to the right of this post.

Dirty Harry can be purchased everywhere, including Warner Bros, and the soundtrack is available from composer Lalo Schifrin’s own website.

Enjoy this blog, and if you do visit, please respect the privacy and property rights of the community.

Enjoy.

This would fail WP:EL on several parts, as this linked page is not directly linked, it is a blog, etc. etc. Certain sub-parts of this may be a good reference for e.g. a page where the text says "this part of the movie was filmed here"... --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:34, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Question?

I added links that were very much relevant to the subject since, although this link was used many times by me, it goes to a website that has the history and works of this person. I am confused what I did do wrong, Please help! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Saintbridget (talk • contribs) 18:32, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, you could start with reading some of our policies and guidelines, and looking here: m:User:COIBot/XWiki/prophecyfilm.com. Please stop spamming and discuss first. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:36, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks :) + diphenylacetylene query

Hi, thanks for the advice :) This is how you send a message to someone isn't it?

Btw, do you know where I can find a citation which says that the IUPAC name of diphenylacetylene is actually 1,2-diphenylethyne? Presumably that is the case, since the iupac name for acetylene's ethyne

Alecjw (talk) 15:53, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Yep, this is how you contact others! I'll respond here, to keep the discussion in one thread.

Yep, the IUPAC name is diphenylacetylene (according to Diphenylacetylene, see the box on the right, there is a 'show' button next to the IUPAC-name. A reference, that is more difficult. I guess you need the IUPAC book for that, which may be available from their website?.... I don't think that 1,2-diphenylethyne is wrong, though. Hope this helps! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:58, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

No, no I mean I think diphenylacetylene is wrong, and that the page is incorrect listing it as the IUPAC name. I've found websites which refer to it as 1,2-diphenylethyne, but none of them say specifically that it's the correct IUPAC name, although it would make sense considering that the IUPAC name for C2H2 is ethyne

Alecjw (talk) 16:06, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll have a look. I added it for now as an 'other name', maybe someone can come up with a proper reference or have a second look. I seem not to be able to enter the commonchemistry website of CAS (see CAS-number in the box), that is generally a better way to refer to compounds, names are very often a problem as there are many 'official' names available. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:16, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I see you found the iupac name :) Alecjw (talk) 08:56, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Heh, yes. Those links to the databases (CAS, PubChem, ChemSpider, &c.) can be really helpful, often more correct than via the name of the compound. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:58, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Irano-Afghan

Thanks for you assistance on thr Ir-Afg page and the cleanup, I will however "readd" one link -Anthropological Morphologies Online Resources link, as well as the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, from 71, for ant students worldwide. Best regards 194.14.94.1 (talk) 14:36, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:44, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Vermaelen

Hi there,

I see you've edited the Vermaelen wiki page.

It says the following at the bottom:

but Arsenal scout Tony Adams claimed that Vermaelen was "not ready for the Arsenal", and that he was not a transfer target.[1]

This is actually wrong, Adams didn't deny that we are after him.

Please correct it.

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.3.24.114 (talk) 18:37, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

You can now suggest improvements on the talkpage, I just cleaned it out in my role as administrator. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:40, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

You might be interested in this document, though. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:41, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

ehow.com

Thank you for your comment regarding ehow.com and the whitelist. Point conceded. --CyclePat (talk) 06:58, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

No problem. Spam is a very difficult ballpark, and things are sometimes more complicated than what meets the eye at first. Thanks for the understanding. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:12, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/mathreview.uuuq.com

Dear Dr. Beestra:

I may have inadvertently violated two of your COIBot's red flags: submitting similar external links across several languages and, on just one of the pages, adding the link to the top of the external links section. In the latter case, I had added the link above the only other external link on the page, a link that was non-functional.

Is the COIBot flagging my edits for other reasons, and if so, how can I remedy the situation other than by just undoing all of my edits? The website in question must be viewed using a MathML-capable browser, by the way, and I apologize in advance if my question is misplaced or poorly formatted.

Sincerely, Frank

PS: It seems that perhaps I should have submitted my link for discussion before inclusion. Will that clear up the COIBot flag? Sorry to bother you while you're on vacation, and feel free to take your time to respond. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.103.19.9 (talk) 14:16, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I guess, especially for en.wikipedia, you should read through the external links guideline, the spam guideline, the conflict of interest guideline, and parts of 'What Wikipedia is not'. I am sure you have good information to offer, but we are not a linkfarm or something similar. The bot purely reacts on edit patterns, if your link gets picked up by others it will stop its notifications, but for now you are flagged red all over. It might be wise to remove the links and discuss them first (e.g. on talkpages, or e.g., for the English Wikipedia, with a suitable wikiproject (see Wikipedia:WikiProject)). I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:51, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes it does. I've gone ahead and deleted all of the links, but I noticed that the COIBot hadn't already auto-deleted my link on the Albanian page. I thought that this might be a bug in or an oversight by the COIBot. Regards, Frank —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.103.19.9 (talk) 16:24, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Heh, no, COIBot does not revert or remove, it just reports. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:31, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I wish I hadn't assumed that the COIBot was offering me a chance to auto-undo: in my efforts to undo what I did, I accidentally undid everyone else's edits and so had to go in and undo my undos. I hope that makes sense to you in case I left out an edit and somebody complains. Anyway, thanks again for your help! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.103.19.9 (talk) 17:40, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your whitelisting work.

It's not done yet, but thanks for what you have done. I've provided the additional information you have requested. I'd have spread out the requests myself, but I couldn't get to it, so that you did it made this all happen more quickly and it seems to have cut through the mess. I suspect that this whole affair, as to the disruption and tendentious argument it generates, is almost over. (Sheesh! Voluminous discussion all over the place about the original blacklisting and related issues, a user RfC, two MfD's, and an RfAr, that's quite a lot for a blacklisting that took few minutes!) Thanks for your part in that. --Abd (talk) 16:49, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. I don't feel confident enough to whitelist the whole site, as there is quite some resistance to that (and I still have thoughts as well). I would suggest for next whitelisting requests to format them like I did, include the information that you have (bibliographic information of the originals, and/or a brief and short discussion of the use), and then specific whitelistings should go very fast (originals are easy to check etc., I can even just assume good faith, and assume you checked and whitelist, otherwise I have to dig). Otherwise each case is going to be long and winding. The whitelisting page is not the place to discuss the original blacklisting, and well, for whole site whitelistings expect a long and winding discussion. Here they got mixed up, which made it unnecessarily long. Dirk sings: "You've got to keep them separated", and moves on ... --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:15, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I'll do that. I think I'll probably finish out the convenience links, get some of this used in the article, then make a proposal for whole-site whitelisting. What I really don't want to do is go back to meta without that. Dirk, I can get pages whitelisted, but most editors would find this whole thing far too arcane, they won't even try when they see that blacklist message. If I'd thought that editors from the anti-fringe contigent would pile in as they did, I'd not have requested it the way I did.

What happened here was that I listed the first half of the convenience links, and only one out of them had a true copyright problem, where it's reasonable to think that the author made a mistake. Rothwell prefers to get preprints in original document form, not copies of the published paper. I also intend to work on the overall policy/guideline aspect of this. I think we are probably being unnecessarily restrictive without any legal necessity, nor any reputation necessity. The requirement for "proof" of permission was removed from the guideline. It's too high a standard. But that's complicated, and I certainly don't imagine that I have some answer with certainty. Thanks again. --Abd (talk) 05:25, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it now seems to focus on legal things. But you see that there is still controversy about the original blacklisting. OK, there was no hardcore spamming going on, but (and I think that that was also true for newenergytimes.com), quite some editors seem to agree, while others strongly oppose. Difficult grey area. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:08, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

There was no linkspam, as normally defined. There were usages asserted to be improper as content. There was "pushing" of the site, i.e., non-article mention of the site name by the owner, mostly as his title "librarian, lenr-canr.org." (which is legitimate.) I think you have whitelisted all or nearly all of the links that were removed by the admin who blacklisted. So what did the local blacklisting do? Now, was this site being "spammed" globally? Sure, the two sites are the major sites on the topic. Lots of links are going to be added. But not in a flood, mostly, and not uncontrollable by means short of blacklisting. If an editor somewhere does add many links, in a flood, blocking the editor would generally be more appropriate than blacklisting, using your bot would be more appropriate than blacklisting. If done globally, and especially if shifting IP, or otherwise not blockable, then global blacklisting is the remedy, but it shouldn't become indefinite blacklisting unless the site truly is totally useless. There is only one reason there is "controversy" over this particular site. There is controversy over the article, and if you look at editors who commented here, you'll see a concentration of editors with a particular POV on cold fusion, that it is pathological science or pseudoscience, which is a claim which has been considered by the community, and which has been rejected. (Consensus has been that it is Fringe science, my claim is that it's still very controversial, but that it's what WP:FRINGE calls "emerging science]]). The latter is quite debatable. The blacklisting of lenr-canr.org is a poster boy for problem blacklisting to control content, as shown by ArbComm issuing a ruling on it, a ruling which should not be interpreted to mean that every usage of the blacklist should be strictly confined to linkspam, but which does cover in substance the blacklisting of this site. I don't want to argue this indefinitely with you, Beetstra, and wouldn't have said a peep if you hadn't written the above. I do intend to go to ArbComm for AE on this, but right now, it's not ripe, since you granted almost every request. I might take a denial of a solitary request for the whole site to Arbitration Enforcement, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. --Abd (talk) 11:17, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I still would call it a "(maybe misplaced) case of controlling abuse" .. It is a thin line, Abd. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:21, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

And, no, I don't think that all links that were removed before blacklisting are whitelisted. I see several links added by Pcarbonn which have been removed in time, and which have not returned, probably because they were used inappropriately. The links that have been whitelisted are only the ones that User:JzG removed, preparing for the blacklisting (quite a normal practice, actually, I just did the same ..). --

Linking to Common Chemistry

Beetstra,

Will you be available to talk on IRC any time soon? Tuesday at 1600h UTC would be best, but if not then, perhaps you could give us an alternative time? I'd like to see us implement the changes to the Chembox that PC set up last month, but we need you to advise us of any problems. Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 01:21, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'll try. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:18, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

COIBot, "redirectsite"?

My edits on Cynthia Dwork appear in WP:WikiProject Spam/COIReports/2009, Jun 5 with the explanation "(redirectsite) doi.acm.org/10.1145/1345189.1386170 on domain doi.acm.org is a redirectsite for portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1345189.1386170 on portal.acm.org". I am sorry but I can't understand what is wrong here and why COIBot didn't like this link. The report page says "If your username/IP appears here, COIBot has picked up an edit you have made for one of the following reasons", but none of the reasons listed seem to apply. Certainly the URL is a redirection, but how is that related to any kind of potential COI? Apologies in advance if I violated some Wikipedia guidelines; certainly this was not intentional. — Miym (talk) 21:31, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Heh. No, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this one. Let me quickly explain. Redirect sites are quite often used to spam sites which are blacklisted (they are also mentioned in the external links guideline), and COIBot is now detecting them (I did not put that in the header yet). However, there are a couple of really official redirect sites which are OK, and this is one of them (http://dx.doi.org another one). I did not know doi.acm.org, but I will whitelist this one immediately.

Thanks for telling me this. And you certainly did not violate any guidelines. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:23, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Business card

Beetstra - No, Wikipedia is not a linkfarm. Please take a look at my last edit. You'll see that all external links were removed a few edits ago. The only links are to those applications here on Wikipedia.org. I request that you undo the last edit. There are a lot of business card applications (especially for Windows) and it can be quite difficult to find a decent one. Please Google "business card software." This is a good resource for those who don't wish to spend hours sorting through second rate applications.—Preceding unsigned comment added by RayJazz21 (talk • contribs)

Hmm, I strongly get the feeling you have a conflict of interest, and still, see how many editors have reverted you, I really suggest you to bring it to the talkpage and not revert again. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:22, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

It has been brought up on the talkpage. --RayJazz21 (talk) 09:33, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:38, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Stubs

Hmm.. yeah I hate that. The pages are so much more aesthetic with the stubs in the article bodies. Oh well, I'll leave them be. Rocknroll714 (talk) 18:56, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Heh. Yeah. There are arguments to move them up (better visibility), but also to keep them out of sight (the article can still be fine without it being interupted ..). I see your point, but for now this seems to be the general way. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:58, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Spelling interrupt

Hi, Beetstra. Thanks for the message that you sent me, earlier today. Looks like you have contributed a significant amount to humanity through your involvement with Wikipedia. Noticed that you have an en-4 rating on your User page, so I hope you don't mind me pointing out that interrupt is spelt with a double r. I would have put that in a private message, if I knew how to do that. :) --BridgeBuilderKiwi (talk) 10:28, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, this is a private message in wikipedia terms (or you could use the email option, which would not be on-wiki). Took me a bit finding where I made the spelling mistake, but I see it now. No, I don't mind, .. but I say it is en-4, not native, so I know that I do make mistakes. I am actually not sure how and why I made this particular mistake, rr does makes sense, and I would expect me to write it like that, but I am not sure if this was an honest typo, or that my mind would have written it with one r .. thanks anyway, I'm sure I now know it is with 'rr' :) ! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:43, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Archibald Gardner

Dirk, thank you for pointing out that the blog not only may be an exception, it is. No editorial opinion, other than BYU's updating of Archie's grammar, has been added. That is, what is the basis of the resistance? You are asking that I defend against an unstated issue, or set of issues. I can guess what one or two issues may be --- but I am not a guesser. My real life hobby takes on math and economic history, reporting theoretical and practical issues in ways that 'thumb-nail sketches of history over look. In the case of Archie, I am not stressing any particular set of spiritual values that he lived by. Personally I like his Scottish secular values, values on which the USA (Adam Smith, and economic freedom's history) motivated him to build 36 mills, bridges and canals -- establishing an economic context for business to develoop in Canada, Utah and Wyoming. These are the only issues that I read into his hand written journal, the wheres, whys and so forth of his economic life. Best Regards, Milogardner (talk) Milo Gardner 6/12/09, 5:40 AM PST

XLinkBot was not the only person removing the link, there were also editors involved. I guess therefore it is better to discuss, especially since you may have a conflict of interest. Not worth edit warring over, I would say. I have no opinion on the link itself, I am not knowledgeable enough in the matter, but people on the talkpage may be. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:05, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Dirk, thank you for the comment. My reading of your comment says that you eliminated Archie's edited hand written journal based on a rumor. How professional is that? Please return the link, and let someone else remove it, and provide a meaningful explanation of their action, an action that seems beyond your interest to research (within a group that you maintain membership).—Preceding unsigned comment added by Milogardner (talk • contribs)

You read wrong, and I gave you the advice I meant to give. It has nothing to do with rumours, not that you have a conflict of interest, nor is that others removed the link as well. Please read our policies and guidelines. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:09, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Just to be sure, threatening or insults do not help your cause. Read the external links guideline: "No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justifiable." .. make your case at the talkpage, as suggested. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:11, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Dirk, it is sad that you feel insulted for not providing a reason for deleting Archie's edited hand-written blog. Your group has started the wiki-war, not I! Asking that I defend myself for adding a blog that contains no editorial opinion on my part is silly. Best Regards, Milogardner (talk)Milo Gardner 6/16/09

I did not start a war, I gave suggestions. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:17, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Bitwik

Our page was marked because Bitwik username overlaps with Bitwik.com domain name. We own Bitwik.com domain name. So there's no issue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.17.254.201 (talk) 17:04, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, exactly, there is, please see the conflict of interest guideline. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:53, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I have deleted the userpage. Wikipedia is not the place to advertise your company. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:56, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Another librarian

Albertsons Librarian (talk · contribs) Katr67 (talk) 22:11, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Left remark to coi guidelines. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:46, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

rogue wave audio page deletion

i was in the middle of adding further citations when i recieved a notice of deletion, i followed the instructions and added the give me time tag under the notice tag and began explaining why i felt the company should be included as an article page when i went to check who or what had taken exception to my page upon return it was gone even though i had not finished arguing my case. Quite simply my company is newly created to further expand our efforts to improve DSP Loudspeakers and more importantly to bring a new level of awareness to the public about the benifits of DSP Loudspeakers for home and home studio use. Currently the primairly use is in professional applications but recent developments in DSP controls has made the use in home applications practical. Why use Wikipedia as the means of public education, it would be virtually impossible for our website to explain the broad range of fields required to build a DSP Loudspeaker. I myself used Wikipedia frequently during the initial development of our current model. Please note that a notation of rogue wave audio exists in the list of loudspeaker manufacturers and for the initial page setup I used the other manufacturers article pages as a guide and I do not mention product as many of the others do, instead my page was developing as a multi-disipline educational article that used Wikipedia to cover current research and concepts in electronics, mechanics, acoustic, physics... As well as our own developments. I believe the article page had an issue with my username, company name and external links. The article page was to be an ongoing learning process as we developed my intension is to have a link on our website to the article in Wikipedia so that people could do guided research on the topics I had to learn to build them.

Thankyou

--Roguewaveaudio (talk) 01:50, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Not sure why you come to me, but from what I can see, a) the page was quite advertising, and b) you have a conflict of interest. I would suggest you try to rewrite the article in User:Roguewaveaudio/Rogue wave audio, keeping in mind that this is not the place to advertise your company. You may be interested to read the conflict of interest guideline, the advertising guideline, the business FAQ and the 'What Wikipedia is not' policy (and possibly other policies and guidelines as well). I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:40, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

ok after reviewing I believe I understand the conflict of interest, what do I need to do to clean this up? thankyou --Roguewaveaudio (talk) 18:27, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

If you want the version that got deleted, that can be arranged (I can undelete it, and move it to your userspace). Otherwise it may be better to start fresh. You can contact a wikiproject (see Wikipedia:WikiProject, that lists to a directory) to help you further.

The conflict of interest does not forbid you to work on the article, just that you have to keep it in mind, and be sure that you follow the other policies and guidelines. When people oppose some edit, discuss, and don't push it. If you do that, all should be fine. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:36, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I will start fresh in my user space and later ask for edit and review. thankyou Roguewaveaudio (talk) 05:01, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Reactionbox redundant templates

I've gone through simplifying the code, to try to avoid the huge numbers of separate templates that we have for the chembox. The following are now redundant:

• Reactionbox Entry
• Reactantbox Header
• Reactionbox Arrow Header
• Productbox Header
• Reagentbox Header
• Sideproductbox Header
• Reactionbox Name
• Reactionbox RSC ontology id
• Reactionbox Solvent
• Reactionbox Type

Physchim62 (talk) 12:24, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I am going to return to the Reactionbox Entry-construct, that allows for more protection, while other parts can still be edited. Also the Reactantbox Header is handy, as that can colour more parts, in stead of colouring parts. But others can be deleted, indeed. Will play some tomorrow. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:01, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure the Entry-construct does give us more protection. The maintenance work we have to do on the chembox is on the module templates anyway, which are all protected. the Entry template just changes parameter names around pointlessly (as I found out much later). Given that MediaWiki table syntax can cope with double |-, it seems better to keep as much formatting together as possible. I agree that Reactionbox Header is needed, but the call for Reactantbox Header is longer than the code it transcludes… Physchim62 (talk) 10:06, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

What I mean is, we can protect the difficult module-templates, but people can at least edit the line-showing ones, which 'create' the wikilinks. That may keep vandals and N00bs from breaking the box, as the lower templates are quite deeply hidden. It may also be easier to 'wrap' things if we would want that (give the entries all a slight colour, if that would ever be wanted). Advantages are small, but I don't really care about the server load so .. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:35, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Dissemination of Information

My posting of external links may be officially against the rules of wikipedia, but there is no fundamental harm in what I am doing. I would argue that placing relevant external links that provide a free service to inquiring users is what the internet was designed to do. If wikipedia disallows my post just because I operate the linked site, the fundamental reasons to have external links at all has been compromised. Think about it... why does wikipedia allow for external links? I would say to pursue more information related to the topic at hand. It all has to do with the dissemination of information. Wikipedia's strict definition of spam is contrary to the dissemination of information. There are many publishers of niche sites that have original and informative data that may otherwise go unnoticed if it wasn't for their efforts to create external links. The internet is unique in this way - those people that hold unique and small quantities of copy righted data can share this data with the world absolutely free. The data finds its way into relevant communities and adds valuable insight and perspective on what would otherwise be considered authoritative compositions. This is how progress and development on an individual and global level are achieved. I whole-heartedly disagree with wikipedia's rule about this action being considered spam. This is not spam. The links are relevant and useful to the wikipedia community. Originally posted on my talk page on 6-20-09 czimborbryan —Preceding unsigned comment added by Czimborbryan (talk • contribs) 00:29, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

There is also nothing fundamentally wrong with discussing with others, especially when more people have questions. We are not here doing what the internet was designed to do, we do here what Wikipedia was designed to do. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Sigma-Aldrich references

Thanks for cleaning up the links in the Sigma-Aldrich references. I'm probably the one that added most of those links, so I will make sure that in the future I don't add the unnecessary parts of the url. For the ones that seem to be dead links now, I'm not sure it's a good idea to simply remove them. Even though the external link doesn't work, I think the reference should remain in some way because it is important to note where the chemical data came from. I will go through the removed links and see if I can replace them with an external-link-less reference to the Sigma-Aldrich product catalog. Is that fine with you? -- Ed (Edgar181) 10:13, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I only removed a handful of dead links, . I saw you added some, did not see 'most', but I was pretty worried about Special:Contributions/Genomepop .. what does that tag mean?

I think these (specific) references are covered by our general Wikipedia:Chemical infobox#References references, linked in the bottom of our chembox.

By the way, where did you get the links with the tags you added, if I look for the info on Sigma Aldrich, I don't get these tags? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:22, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what the "referral" part of the link does, and I don't understand what Genomepop was doing. When I add chemboxes to articles, I often use PubChem as the source of structural information. PubChem sometimes has links to the Sigma-Aldrich website where I will get data such as mp, density, etc and I just copy the url from my browser into the chembox reference. So that must be why so many Sigma-Aldrich links had PubChem in the referral. -- Ed (Edgar181) 10:29, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I do the same, pubchem/chemspider or a catalogue. I do not reference them, though, as I tend to say there, that that info is referenced by the standard set.

I am afraid that Sigma Aldrich has these referrals to know where people are coming from, PubChem/Wikipedia, maybe more. Bit useless here, I have removed them all now as they are superfluous, I hope Genomepop will tell us more, maybe they is from Sigma/Aldrich or similar. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:55, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Regarding your comments on Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/User_page_indexing

There is nothing wrong with being able to find Wikipedia editors in Google, the userpage is to inform people who they are. If the information there is promotional, then it gets deleted, just as when information in mainspace gets deleted when it is promotional. Should we hence also NOINDEX mainspace?

There is nothing in the proposal that would keep users from using {{INDEX}} on pages that they actively want showing up on google. An issue is that userspace is both more lenient in what is allowed and less 'patrolled' than mainspace articles, hence userspace {{INDEX}} tags would offer a valuable resource for finding potential userspace promotional material that is perhaps not in violation of userspace regulations but have no legitimate reason for being google indexed. Unomi (talk) 19:44, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, and next, there is nothing against NOINDEXing the whole of wikipedia, and then only decide what gets indexed by adding {{INDEX}} to it?

This post is certainly not going to change my mind, Unomi. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:27, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Enlinkwatcher2

This bot is currently not reporting to #en-wikipedia-spam. I read through this page that you are an operator of it, so I'm posting to ask if you could you try to get the bot back online soon. Thanks, ThemFromSpace 00:56, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Strange, they lost connection. I restarted them all. Maybe a netsplit. Thanks for reporting this to me. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:40, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Policy question on deleting spam and blocking obvious spammers.

Hi Dirk,

I often am in strong agreement with you, in an *apparent* minority opinion, such as where you say at Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Archive_33:

No, MZMcBride, it is not that we want to keep to call this editor a spammer, I am all for archiving the stuff to a subpage, and replacing the page with a friendly welcome notice. But DELETING the data removes the track. See my example below with the 15 IPs. Did we sufficiently warn these IPs? I don't see ANY warnings. Still we decided to put the stuff on the meta blacklist. Why, because there are warnings. If the two editors that were warned had the stuff in an archive, but still the page revisions accessible, then all editors could immediately see which editors were contacted at some point. But that data is gone (for non-admins). And so for hundreds (if not thousands) of pages. You don't see the use, but we see the loss, does that also mean nothing? --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:50, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

In a related matter, I'd appreciate you opinion on the matter discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Xgsdev and User_talk:Nja247#blocking_of_users_with_.22inappropriate.22_usernames. Do you agree that the quick deletion of spam articles and userpages, and quick indef blocking of accounts, especially with templated advice "you can "abandon" the contributions under this username and create a new account, which is much faster and easier." is actually counter-productive in fighting spam, as it removes pattern evidence, and encourages the person to use a less obvious username? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:05, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

These are two different things. A spam userpage can be deleted, and if I encounter them, it will be deleted. That deletion is then clearly visible, and the reason as well.

Deleting a user-talk page where there are warnings left by others gets a reason "old unused talkpage", as will the deletion of other talkpages. From that moment on, non-admins can't see if a user was warned for a certain action.

No, it is not counter productive. It will be obvious that the user is the same. We follow the records of actions, and spam-socks are easily found. The user is allowed to make a new account, but with the strict advice NOT to continue the old pattern. I'll have a look. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:20, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Link Removal - White Listing (User Cdobregon)

I created a user account recently under the name “Cdobregon” which happens to be similar to the URL address names I wish to create links to, from the information pages relating to ´Ciudad Obregon´ Sonora Mexico.

The domain names “www.VisitObregon.com” (ENGLISH), and “www.VisiteObregon.com” (SPANISH) have websites uploaded with informative, none-biased, and non-copyright infringing content that has been developed as on ‘Official Guide’ for informing potential visitors and tourists about the city “Ciudad Obregon”. Visit Obregon was created in January 2009 to market Ciudad Obregon to the rest of the world and to promote and develop its visitor economy.

We created links to the Visit Obregon from Wikipedia on the EN, ES, FR and DE Ciudad Obregon reference pages to both the English & Spanish versions of our websites. These have recently been removed and I would like to know why this has happened.

The English version “www.VisitObregon.com” is the only website available on the internet that provides comprehensive relevant information and advice about the city in the English language. The Spanish version “www.VisiteObregon.com” is again the only Spanish website available that provides an in-depth guide to city.

It was recommended by several official bodies in Ciudad Obregon, to link to the above mentioned Wikipedia articles because, Ciudad Obregon receives many students from France and Germany and also many professionals who travel from Europe to come and work as teachers in the several universities that are located in Ciudad Obregon.

Due to financial and time restraints, our professionally translated French and German websites will not be completed until October 2009 that is why we linked the Spanish and English versions of out websites to the FR and DE Wikipedia reference pages until the official language websites (which will have country official domain extensions) have been completed.

If we have broken any guidelines, it was not done intentionally, we do not wish to spam Wikipedia or provide references to material that would be deemed as unsuitable.

Please can you help us resolve the issue of our links being removed from Wikipedia, and inform us of anything we need to do to become compliant with anything that we may have not been so far?

Regards

Bruce Corris Visit Obregon Tourist Information Coordinator (English)

Cdobregon (talk) 18:34, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I am sorry, I am on holiday. But I would suggest the following reading first: our conflict of interest guideline and the external links guideline. Furthermore of interest are 'what Wikipedia is not' and the spam guideline.

In short, don't just add links, that looks like spam, and they do not improve. As being involved with the organisation, you do however a lot of information (content) that you can add to the pages. You must know all about your own website, and about other related websites, and here and there they may be suitable as a reference (still, take care referencing to own work, and also read carefully through the citation guideline and reliable sources guideline (although all information on your website is true, it is probably not deemed to be a reliable source, there is no independent editorial oversight)). I hope this explains. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 09:28, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Cross wiki spammer

Hi - hope all is well. I came across a user on Commons whose only contribution has been attempts to promote a travel website over 6 months.... They have started here on en wp. Thought someone should know. Regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 10:29, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, some tagging may be in place. I don't think I will have time in the next weeks (now holiday, and then moving). Could you notify WT:WPSPAM? Thanks! --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 09:29, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

WP:PHARM:CAT

We need a third party admin to close-out the consensus question currently posted at WP:PHARM:CAT. Would you mind doing that for us? ---kilbad (talk) 00:23, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I would not mind, though I am on holiday, so it may take some time to read through the whole of the discussions. I hope you don't mind. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:59, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

CAS no. validation

Sorry! Should have got the hang of it by now. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 18:21, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

No probs, it is a field that is not doing anything in the drugbox at the moment (though it works in the chembox). We should also work on the drugbox there, but .. hmm .. how and what .. (colours are unclear, putting a marking also, we have to think more about that). Thanks for the remark! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:47, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

How do we do it?

Hello, dear. You removed my link to a video after another bot had already removed it before but I undid it. What should we do next? Is there any way to add an indeed relevant and interesting video from the YouTube to Wikipedia? Or should we drop the subject? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Contemplor (talk • contribs) 18:11, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, I am not a bot. I did however see your post on User talk:XLinkBot, and I replied to that. Please review our external links guideline. My personal thought: that link is certainly not the most important link in the list, and I kindly ask you to discuss re-addition on the talkpage first. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:34, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Oops. Sorry. I though it was some kind of second line of defense automated response, as it was so quick. I will not argue on that, I guess you have your reasons. If someone else will think it is worth including, let them do it. Thanks for your time and have a nice day! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Contemplor (talk • contribs) 14:57, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Whitelisting query

A search at Wikimedia turned up eight reports listing COI for me. I am not associated with any of the sites listed and was not spamming. Can this be considered a request to be whitelisted or do I need to take more action? Paul foord (talk) 04:01, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I've whitelisted you. Regeneration of the reports (if that happens) will now have your records with a strikethrough. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:47, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Paul foord (talk) 02:23, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Vitruvian Man 2

notes
some info
robtenberge.nl: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com Additions to nl and en. members.home.nl/robtenberge Additions to nl and en. Rob ten Berge (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam) Here, nl, de, it Vitruvian man (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam) Commons Robtenberge (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam) Commons 82.75.23.125 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot) Here, nl 82.72.152.82 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot) Here, Commons 82.72.150.84 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot) Here, Commons 82.72.152.118 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot) fr, bg, nl, pl, ru, el, de, pt, en

Dirk,

Graag zou ik mijn gebruikers-pagina gedeblokkeerd zien.(Blauwe letters: Rob ten Berge Ook wat externe links betreft: omdat versie 2 van Vitruvian Man er eerder was dan de overigens zeer mooie foto van Luc Viatour.

Inmiddels heb ik mijn werk ondergebracht bij Wikimedia Commons.

Let wel: Ik wil meerdere externe links kunnen hebben omdat er al genoeg pseudo-wetenschappelijke onzin over mijn werk gepleegd is.

Ik geef hier in de te verwachten "de-black-listing" hier vast een 2-tal voorbeelden waarom:

• [[3]]
• [[4]]

robtenberge Google: Vitruvian Robbie / Afbeeldingen (Vitruvian Maria, werkt ook goed)

Via "vitruviusman" op de Nederlandse Wikipedia kun je zien wie de vertaling van Vitruvius én da Vinci heeft gemaakt. En belangrijke correcties heeft gemaakt zonder het artikel te ontwrichten. Vriendelijke groeten Rob --Rob ten Berge (talk) 04:10, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Rob, this is the English Wikipedia, where we have our conflict of interest and advertising guidelines. Creating promotional pages is not in line with those policies. You are free to recreate a userpage, making it 'blue' again, as long as you abide by these. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:16, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Dirk have at least a good look on the two links here above before you're talking about the rules. Simple question: Is version 2 of Vitruvian Man better than version 1 or not? You can find Vitruvian Man 2 and other contributions you din't erase, because they have a proper licence on Wikipedia Commons. Vriendelijke groeten Rob--Rob ten Berge (talk) 00:08, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Sigh. I did have a look, Rob .. contribute, but don't only promote your own work. Discuss about that. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:50, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Beste Dirk,

Via: Google: vitruvian man: pictures, I found on page 45 of picture results a terribly fake entrance of: "upload.wikimedia.org vitruvian man" 1st. : Free Vagina Thumbnail pictures. 2nd. : NSWF 3rd. : Vagina Fotos It could contain viruses too. This is, what I think real vandalism, because those external links have nothing to do with anatomy, but commercial porno.

A German author, Klaus Schroeer replaced my 2 "external" links to wikipedia commons by 2 commercial contributions of his hand. Please replace the 2 newer versions of my work.

That "Sex change for vitruvian man" is also a dubious.

After 2 years I'm still a "newbee" here and will used your 45 pages long: Wikipedia: Manual of Style. My compliments! I think you deserve The Rob ten Berge Barnstar for it if you stop obstructing my contributions related to my 2nd version of vitruvian man.

Mocht je echt de o van Rob hebben ingevuld bij de twee externe links, die ik als voorbeeld heb gegeven hebben ingevuld én gekeken, dan sterft mijn linker hersencel nu echt een stille "dood".

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man

File: Vitruvian_Man_(2)_Rob_ten_Berge.jpgIsa 1:18

What's in a name? Rob 82.75.23.125 (talk) 03:46, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS, "If you do not want your writing to be edited, used, and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here."... sigh ... --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:33, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Dirk, Je hebt(nog) geen duidelijk antwoord gegeven op diverse duidelijke vragen, die ik aan je gesteld heb. De belangrijkste vraag was om die porno-bijdrage te verwijderen. Graag zou ik niet beledigd worden door te verwijzen naar OTHERCRAB. Mijn werk is zeker geen CRAP. Mijn bijdrage aan het lemma Vitruvian Man, waarvan mijn bijdragen uiteindelijk geaccepteerd zijn, doordat ik na veel moeite en tegenslagen, de juiste licentie heb gekozen bedraagt inmiddels zo'n 70%. (Wikipedia Commons)

Aan zuchten heb ik echt niets. Ik heb het woord CRAP opgezocht in het woordenboek en vond daar de termen uitwerpselen en onzin. Verder vind ik, dat je zelf meer dan een van de fatsoensregels van wikipedia hebt overtreden. Op de Nederlandse wikipedia ondervind ik moeilijkheden bij het verduidelijken van mijn bijdragen middels animaties, omdat door het blacklisten van mijn naam daarin mijn naam, waar dan ook op ieder segment van wikipedia problemen ondervindt.

Kort gezegd en duidelijk gevraagd: Leg mijn geval voor aan een arbitragecommisie.

Op wikipedia is het gebruikelijk om van iemands goede bedoelingen uit te gaan.

Kortom nogmaals: Ik wil mijn door jou beschadigde goodwill terug.

Daarom vind ik het helemaal niet erg als anderen dit ook kunnen lezen. Integendeel!

Vast vriendelijk bedankt voor je hulp.

thumb|180px|right|Lúomo come misura di tutte le cose, versione due --Rob ten Berge (talk) 01:28, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

The text was 'other crap', not 'crap'. You can contact the Arbitration Comittee on this wiki if you want, but this 'dispute' is not, by FAR, suitable for that. You could try to get a review of my actions and my comments on the administrators noticeboard first, I stand with my decisions (but if the noticeboard recalls them, that is fine). See you around. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:27, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

EnLinkWatcher2

FYI, link watcher isn't currently reporting anything to #wikipedia-en-spam. The bot is connected, but isn't sending any messages to the channel. --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:35, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I stopped & restarted the bot. I had temporarily stopped mysql on the server when some large thunderstorms came through last night.. not all of the bots took it nicely. It's reporting now. --Versageek 17:55, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Confirmed to be working properly. Thanks! --ThaddeusB (talk) 18:40, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks both! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:47, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

FYI, it appears have disconnected over night and isn't back online yet. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:49, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Fixed again.. my DSL IP changed twice last night, the bots don't like that very much either. --Versageek 20:57, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Notification of arbcom discussion

Your actions have been discussed here as relevant to an ongoing arbitration case. You may wish to comment. I have linked a prior version of the page because the person who added this material reverted it and then incorporated the material by reference to the reversion, so as to make it impossible for you simply to search for your name. (Hope that's not too confusing.) Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 17:34, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Sigh, thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:31, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, that was misleading. Your actions have not been "discussed," rather there was a list of editors who made comments in RfC/JzG 3, supporting a topic ban for me. No accusations were made, and specifically it was stated that the appearance in a list -- or even, by the time I'm done, maybe two or more lists -- meant nothing about "cabal membership." I see zero chance that you would become a person of interest in this RfAr, Boris was probably canvassing for people who might be critical. Of course, if you want to comment, you are welcome. This has been one drama-filled RfAr.... Sorry for the fuss. --Abd (talk) 20:49, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I already saw, Abd. Still, this is again interesting, and similar to the previous case. Drama-filled, that's what I expect. I'll have a read, and may comment (you know that I was critical, and I am not sure if it is fair to Boris to suggest that this is canvassing). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:16, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Music Emissions

Hey Dirk, just wondering if its at all possible you could have a look at the Music Emissions page, I'd love some feedback, find out what holes I'm missing thusfar.--Hstisgod (talk) 21:43, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

You mean Music emissions. I have done some cleanup, I'll have a second look later. Does not look too bad, I would say. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:04, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

File:Handel-Roubiliac.jpg

Hi Dirk.

I have provisionally uploaded this file from the V & A website

http://amethyst.vam.ac.uk/collections/sculpture/stories/Roubiliac's_Handel/index.html

It shows the sculpture of Handel by Roubiliac from a different angle which was required for the section on Alexander's Feast in Handel organ concertos Op.4. The left arm of the composer rests on several leather bound volumes of oratorios by Handel, including Alexander's feast. The image uploaded by the V & A team [5] does not show the bound volumes or Handel's left arm.

I have written a WP email to User:VAwebteam explaining why I uploaded their alternative image and asking whether there might possibly be a problem. If they need to certify or reupload the alternative image, could you possibly help? Many thanks in advance, Mathsci (talk) 09:26, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

They are generally quite good ith licensing, I would await their answer first. They are the specialist with those things. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:37, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. Mathsci (talk) 10:31, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

www.travel 2 macedonia.com.mk

Dear Mr. Beetstra,

as we are turning into a tourism agency, we need to straight things up here, about the spamblacklist. It was 2 years ago some kid we hired, managed somehow to place this very important Macedoninan domain into wikipedia's blacklist. We have spoken with him, since we have dismissed him and he has given your contact (Dirk Beetstra). Please can you explain in details about the spam removal procedure, since the travel2macedonia domain is of great value for Republic of Macedonia.

Thank you, Travel2Macedonia general manage contact[AT]travel 2 macedonia.com.mk —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.28.10.119 (talk) 08:53, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

The link is blacklisted on meta.wikimedia.org, see m:Talk:Spam blacklist. De-blacklisting can be requested there. Please note, that you may get as a response, that you have a conflict of interest, and that there was spamming, so you may already want to include why wikipedia has use for this link, and how. Have a read through WP:EL, WP:RS, WP:NOT, WP:COI, WP:SPAM, these should give some idea. I hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:39, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Dear Mr. Beetstra,

Thank you for your assistance. We will proceed there from now on :)

Wish you all the best.

Mr. Goran Atanasovski Travel2Macedonia manager —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.28.10.119 (talk) 10:23, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Dimethylamine

curious, how did this one get a chembox new again .. - I did it, when I fixed a vandalism in the Chembox. I copied and pasted from the Portuguese wikipedia (where the move chembox -> chembox new hasn't been implemented), and forgot to remove the "new". BTW, is there any way to import chemboxes from other languages? German, French, Netherland have chemboxes in their own languages, and it's an enormous (and robotic) work to translate each field. Albmont (talk) 13:07, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Heh, I thougth that I had them all, and every time I check there are again some. All fine, when I checked later I saw what happened (I was wondering if it was someone who came from holiday or something and missed the change).

Hmm, no, there are at the moment no automatic ways of doing that. One could write a script for it, though that would also be quite difficult. I could do it, but I have my hands full with a new job and writing on User:CheMoBot/verifying data/etc. etc. It might be a nice thing, though, bots that do cross-wiki infobox filling (just add a <!-- comment --> after the value of the parameter so it can be recognised). Maybe something for a WP:BOTREQ? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:17, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

There are some people at the Portuguese wikipedia who are doing exactly the opposite: a tool that changes the arguments of the Chembox from English to Portuguese. The problem, IMHO, is that editors should worry about what readers see - and a Chembox that is universal is much more useful than having each language with its own Chembox. For example, if someone improves a pt-wikipedia Chembox now, it's easily imported to the en-wikipedia, but if someone improves a de-chembox, it's not portable to any other wikipedia. Albmont (talk) 19:13, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

True, but then also the local tastes for infoboxes may be different. There are quite some high-tech boxes out there, and even within the chemicals department here we actually have to worry about both the {{chembox}} and the {{drugbox}}.

I don't see directly how we could make them 'language independent'. Some parameters are directly portable (CASNo does not have to differ too much with language), but others are not (boilingpt?).

I see your point, and I agree, it would be so much easier to have some 'global templates', but I don't think we will ever manage to really do that. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this {{chembox}} and {{drugbox}} duality is an unnecessary annoyance - I imagine that now it's an irreversible damage, but when the first boxes were set, why nobody thought about making just one box for both? Explosives are easily handled by the Chembox, probably drugs could also be a Chembox with a different color :-( Albmont (talk) 20:40, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Squinchpix.com

Hello Mr. Beetstra,

I maintain a web site: Squinchpix.com. This is a fully-indexed archive of pictures of European subjects and nothing else. There are no ads and no business model. I tried to add links to appropriate pictures on Squinchpix for appropriate articles on Wikipedia. The Spambot caught this and thinks that I'm spamming Wikipedia. I think that my pictures would add great value to the several subjects chosen. Of course all my links were removed and I'm threatened with spam status. Sorry if I caused any inconvenience but I don't see how my pictures are in any way inferior to those for the links that are already there. (In fact, they are mostly superior.)

My site is a search site. A typical link of the type which I put into the external links section of the Wiki 'architrave' page, for example, is:

http://www.squinchpix.com/searchn.php?dmode=gallery&zoom_query=architrave

This would cause my (totally harmless) searchn.php program to run and return pictures for 'architrave'.

I am always adding pictures to squinchpix and so the links will get more powerful in the future. I would like to add picture links to articles on Wikipedia. Can you tell me how I might be allowed to do that? Thank you for your attention to this.

Robert H. Consoli —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rconsoli (talk • contribs) 16:31, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your post. I see you have been warned for spamming. The wikipages linked from that template should give a first explanation (especially the external links guideline, and this and this section of 'What wikipedia is not'. Moreover, you really have to have a look at the coi guideline and the business FAQ.

However, your links may be useful, and maybe even, your images. I would suggest to find a suitable wikiproject (you can find a list via Wikipedia:WikiProject, something about buildings or architecture?), and contact the people there. For some of the pages I suggest you consider uploading images and linking those, or other. Plainly adding them to external links sections is spammy, and arguably does not improve (but there, discussion with a wikiproject would quickly help you further, and maybe they have other discussions).

Again, thanks for the post, I hope this takes you further. Regards, --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:38, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Irene Brodsky

My name is irene brodsky and I have worked very hard to become a new 62 year old writer. Why should anyone complain about my efforts to be on Wikipedia. If I have to make changes on my page, I don't mind and have already made such changes. I read many other articles about other people, some are famous, some are not. They are not that different from my article. My work is sincere No one writes for me I don't have a ghost writer I graduated from college at age 60 with a B average in Philosophy & an A average in english I don't need vanity publishers to take my money and leave me in the dust. And I have four 5 gold star reviews from Book Critics I have never met personally. Their reviews are impartial and based on my writings. Have you looked up my book on Amazon? They let you look inside the book to see at least 3 poems.

I think I deserve to be admired for my efforts to be a new writer instead of playing bingo in atlantic city. I also teach poetry at Brooklyn College where, thank God, my work is respected. I am very surprised that people I dont know would complain about me in any way. After all, they do not know me. if they did, they would like me! It is my goal to be a role model. I can't imagine why anyone should want to delete my page which is not an autobiography. It is just a way to introduce myself to my new world of readers. How else should I do that? I really can't think of a nicer way. irene brodsky Socrates 1x2—Preceding unsigned comment added by Socrates1x2 (talk • contribs)

Oh, and I do. That you are here helping us writing an encyclopedia is certainly something that we should be proud of. However, unfortunately all my fellow editors and I do have some rules that apply on this website. They don't forbid you to edit, surely, but with some parts you are asked to be careful. I see that XLinkBot (an automated account, there is not a real person behind that account, though it is steered by humans) has left you a welcome message and a remark. My I ask you to have a look around in our rules, I would specifically want you to read the conflict of interest guideline, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and 'What Wikipedia is not'. These are policies and guidelines which have been written by the many editors here. I hope that they explain a bit more. Kind regards. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:09, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I may be new to the writing world (since November, 2008) but my book is now listed in two libraries (New York Library and Brooklyn College Library) listed by World Catalog. (The 3rd library (Brooklyn Library)will be listed in September) And my page was set up for me by one of my readers who admired my work. My page is not an autobiography. It is just an introduction because so many people have yet to know about me. My book is on all major websites and my links are mainly to educational sites which are highly respected. My "Silly Kitty" is an educational e-book which is published on an online library that promotes literacy for poor children who cannot afford books. I am shocked anyone would have not respect me for helping children in need. I have been in the educational field since 1971, as a School Secretary and now as a College teacher of Poetry. I have also performed my poetry on live radio in Dallas Texas. And I have a television interview coming up on PBS television. I have been a long -time user of Wikipedia when I was an undergraduate student. It was always a great place to visit and find what I need. Now, it is my turn to join this very same Wikipedia and instead of trying to delete me, why not help me to fix up my page? So many things are missing. Seems like anyone can do that. My question is "why?" Let me know how to fix this up and I will. I do not appreciate anyone trying to undermine a 62 year old woman who has been a writer, officially, only since 2008. Book critics were much kinder to me!!! They all gave me 5 stars. You can see the reviews on Amazon, I never met these book critics and I had no personal contact with them at any time or place. Please advise. irene brodsky Socrates 1x2 Facebook.com/irene_brodsky —Preceding unsigned comment added by Socrates1x2 (talk • contribs) 16:19, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

My book can also be found via world catalog. As I said, please read the guidelines and policies in the welcome on top of your talkpage, I have linked a couple of them in my previous answer to you. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:39, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

What gives?

Why do you keep deleting my information - I'm not trying to direct anyone away from wikipedia just trying to add content for my company - there are MULITPLE competitors websites I've looked at todat that you've left alone. What gives?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Megan5522 (talk • contribs)

Well, I did tell you why. And for the rest: WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:31, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Why don't you please give me some tips then? Rather than calling my content crap.

Also, you thought what I posting was crap? - check out this propaganda posted by our competitor.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verifone you let this stay, but I can't list what products we make? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Megan5522 (talk • contribs) 21:54, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I gave you tips, read the welcome template on your talkpage. And I told you, that there was other crap, that is not to imply that yours is also. Your new version is much better, but we are NOT an advertising service for your company, no, also that was listed in the tips I gave you. In the meantime, I did try to help you, and give you more tips. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:57, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes there are good reasons for outward links

On organic semiconductors somebody (it may have been you) removed a link to a licensed full copy of a paper in Science posted on another website. Substituting a link to the journal itself forces the reader to pay for a copy of the paper. IMHO, this defeats much of the purpose of Wikipedia.

Similarly, a link to Smithsonian does not substitute for a link to the "Smithsonian chips" website of the American Museum of History, where information on the device in question is posted. These are in no way redundant. BTW, The Smithsonian is not a single museum or research institute, but a conglomeration of several (many huge), some as far away as New York City and Panama.Pproctor (talk) 01:53, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

It was me. It is good to know that others keep an eye and show me the other side of things. No, for the Science paper I totally disagree. That is a reference, references are needed for verifyability, references are not needed to tunnel people to that (your ?!?!) paper (yes, I do notice the 'coincidental' overlap between the domain and your username). To put it simply, that sentence is not properly attributed, it should be attributed with a citation to the original paper, and then it can include a link to a free copy, which is mentioned as such.

For the Smithsonian link, the situation is very much the same. There is an image there, I will have a second look at the licencing of the image, but I presume that that is all OK, telling that that is the real image of the object. Then the caption + the image where it is used properly attributes the object, there is no need for the extra link.

Knowing that you follow the pages strictly (this is quite fast after I made the edits), may I ask you to help me removing, or keeping out those sentences which are violations of WP:NPOV and maybe even WP:BLP. There were strong accusations in the documents, which are absolutely out of place here, especially in the language that was used. They may be true, but this is not the way that should be written in an encyclopedia. Seeing that you do have a conflict of interest in this, I suggest that you are especially careful. I will keep an eye on these articles, and suggest that editors who include that type of information are from now strongly warned, as that type of unencyclopedic edits are a form of disruption which is not allowed, they may result in blocks.

I will however have a second look at the attribution that you suggest. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:47, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Just a ping

Hello again, Beetstra … Just stumbled across you at the TfD for Twitter, and thought I'd let you know that I'm still out here doing that anon Wikignome thing, and still using the Flag templates for deletion warnings. :-) Happy Editing! — 141.156.175.125 (talk · contribs) _{15:57, 15 August 2009 (UTC)}

Re: Twitter

Capital idea! Sounds terrific. --Cybercobra (talk) 08:24, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Tetrabenazine

Thanks for carefull reading and correcting my drawings. I have added the missing oxygen atoms. The stereochemistry was checked carefully again by (a) my own knowledge, and (b) by ChemDraw 12.0.– Thus, the formulae on top is the (R,R)-enantiomer, the other ist the (S,S)-enantiomer (below). Please check by yourself. Comments are wellcome. Best regards, --Jü (talk) 16:04, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I am working on the verification (see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chemicals/Chembox_validation), so I am comparing structures against the common chemistry pages (to verify the CAS, for tetrabenazine we are talking about the page http://www.commonchemistry.org/ChemicalDetail.aspx?ref=58-46-8). I noticed the difference, and hence, did not dare to index the page in the verification index. Stereochemistry was only unclear, I was not sure, but I think it was better to check. I checked again, and added also Tetrabenazine to the index.

Thanks for the hard work, I noticed your name coming by on the IRC channels quite often. If you're interested in verification of chem/drugboxes, please let us know (we surely could have someone helping us with the drugboxes, they are behind ..). Thanks again! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:13, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the instant and friendly reply. I would be interested in verification of chem/drugboxes, as mentioned. However, I may need some advice in the beginning .... Best regards, --Jü (talk) 20:16, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

The process is described on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chemicals/Chembox_validation, what we basically do:

• Load a page with a chembox or drugbox. See if there is a CAS number.
• Go to http://www.commonchemistry.org/, see if they have the CAS number in their database.
• Do the two compounds match (including the stereochemistry), then you do the following:
  • Go to the toolbox (the box to the left of the page, in there there is a 'permanent link'-link. Right-click on the link, and copy it into your copy-paste buffer.
  • If the box is a {{chembox}} go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/Index, if it is a {{drugbox}} go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Pharmacology/Index. Click edit.
  • Go to the line where the pagename fits (we try to keep it alphabetical, though the bot apparently does not understand it), paste the link (don't press save).
  • Your link looks like 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Benzene&oldid=307574350', remove the first part until the name, and the '&oldid', so it looks in the end like 'Benzene=307574350', and press save.
• Ready, User:CheMoBot now knows that in 'revid' 307574350 of Benzene the CAS Number was correct.

If someone now changes the CASNo, then CheMoBot will alert us of that (and soon, it will tag the page by adding parameters to the {{drugbox}} or {{chembox}} on the page, which will result in categorisation of the box (see User:Beetstra/Propane for an example, see the bottom of the box and the (now lacking) categories; try changing the CASNo and wait until CheMoBot has tagged the edit (should be within minutes at the moment). See after CheMoBot how the bottom of the box looks like, and what categories there are).

Just give it a try, index a couple of boxes, and notify one of the regulars there. Or, if you want, you can join us on IRC (see JAVA based IRC client linking to the #wikichem channel), where we can show and tell more about this. Hope to see you around! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:29, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Looks somehow complicated to me – born 1948 . I try to be helpefull. I check boxes of chemicals and or drugs at Wikipedia regualary using data in the ACS-base science finder. If you have a specific problem regarding organic chemistry, stereochemistry etc., please do not hesitate to ask me for advice. Hopefully, you may be my buddy in order to act more efifcient and indipendant at Wikipedia. Best regards, --Jü (talk) 21:12, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Its not that complicated, but its fine. I think I saw you on IRC for a couple of secs. Thanks for the offer, and if you need help in return, don't hesitate to ask! Regards, --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:44, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

the road to recovery?

Dear Mr Beetstra,

I am an inexperienced user who has tripped the bot for my edits (PAHs, mycotoxins, etc.). My question is about the road to recovery, because now I better understand some of the principles (i.e. no external links in body text, no links to own organisation but suggest them in 'discuss section'), and I would like to get off the 'blacklist', or at least head in the right direction. As you can see from my history, I have only edited 5 or 6 pages and I think my mistakes can be attributed to "beginner's ignorance".

Any comments appreciated, 139.191.127.3 (talk) 08:43, 17 August 2009 (UTC) D. Anderson

Thanks! I am happy that you respond in this way. I was really afraid that we would have to use excessive measures to stop this, discussion is always the way forward. With note to the 5 or 6 pages, your IP has edited quite a number of pages, and has received at least 10 warnings for that. Moreover, links are not blacklisted (revertlisted in this case) without cause, it must already have been a problem before that. But that might have been someone else on the same IP.

Lets move forward. I think that you have a respectable organisation, and can provide us with specific know-how and information. We trying to write an encyclopedia here, more based on content than on linking to content, and I am sure that you can help in expanding/updating the articles. Information contained on your site may there be a good reference (see the citation guideline and the footnotes guideline), but I think you are also aware of information which is provided by others (other organisations, or open literature).

I will remove the link from XLinkBot, though please be careful and make sure to discuss. You can be bold, but I'd suggest that when you get opposition you stay in discussion, and when you are unsure, discussion is also better. If you have specific problems, please contact me, or another editor. Can I interest you in joining a WikiProject (those are places where people who have similar interests come together, see Wikipedia:WikiProject for links and a directory of them).

May I ask you to create an account. It is best that you do not create an account with the company/organisation name, but a personal account (I chose my name, others choose to use an avatar). It has a couple of advantages, e.g. history of your account, if people want to talk to you they are sure they reach you (and not someone else who uses the same IP), &c.

Hope to see you around. And thanks again! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:20, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

IUPHAR

My name is Chido Mpammhanga and will be referred to as blackbutterfly in the talk.. Please allow me entry to the chat on IUPHAR started yesterday 18th August. 129.215.239.166 (talk) 11:30, 19 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chido Mpamhanga (talk • contribs) 11:20, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Of course you have access to the chat, no problems. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:32, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Template:Chembox ExactMass ‎

Hi Dirk, Does the newly created {{Chembox ExactMass}} have an extraneous "}}"? All the pages with chemboxes seem to have "}}" at the top, and the addition of ExactMass seems to be the only recent change that might be causing this. Can you please take a look? Thank you. -- Ed (Edgar181) 12:43, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, probably in {{Chembox Properties}} .. I'll have a look. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:19, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I think it is solved now. Thanks for the note! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:25, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Everything looks fine to me now. Thanks for the quick fix. -- Ed (Edgar181) 14:53, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Good! Well, I broke it, better fix it quick! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:03, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Templates for deletion nomination of Template:Web presence

Template:Web presence 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. DreamGuy (talk) 16:20, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Infobox

It is {{Infobox royalty}} now,FYI. Rich Farmbrough, 19:52, 21 August 2009 (UTC).

{{Infobox royalty}}? So the capitalisation is gone. OK, I think I have to change that, though the bot should be case insensitive there. I'll have a look. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:31, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

There are 50 odd redirects although they are being gradually orphaned as they are hit. Rich Farmbrough, 21:30, 21 August 2009 (UTC).

When the redirects get obsolote, please delete them, and also remove the entry from the parameter in User:CheMoBot/Settings. Removing them from the bot will have a, probably drastic, effect on the speed of the bot. It can still easily do it, and I have space for more, but preventing is better. Cheers! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:32, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

BJCP

The filter looks like a better solution. I was thinking of making a partial page protection request to get the continued sockpuppet behavior under control. What do you think? --Ronz (talk) 20:37, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Not sure, page protections give collateral damage. I hope the filter is going to do the job, but it may need expansion. For the rest, RBI. I hate Joe jobs. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:39, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, is this another one (I simply reverted, very fishy)? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:28, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Did the IP use that edit summary: "BJCP spam or Joe jobbing"? Interesting! SilkTork *^YES! 21:06, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

No, that was my edit filter that did that. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:36, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

XLinkBot

The requests paged is getting a bit backlogged. I realize that you have a lot better things to do, but was hoping that you could look into it when you get the time. Thanks :) Corpx (talk) 08:39, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll have a look. Would be good to have more admins handling that. Cheers! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:42, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Linking to media, in particular videos

Perhaps the site www.trackel.com should be considered to be white-listed and linking to it permitted as some of the short videos about a place of interest on trackel.com seem to fit and supplement the respective wiki-article. Commons does have media, however, in general it is pictures and rarely do they feature a video. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.24.51.3 (talk) 19:20, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I see it being spammed, and well, at least here trackel.com links are to be avoided per our external links guideline. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:49, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar

	The Working Man's Barnstar
	for cataloging all the redirects to biographical infoboxes at User:CheMoBot/Settings and, generally, for putting (what is left of) your hair at risk in the overriding interests of data validation on Wikipedia. Physchim62 (talk) 22:30, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll wear a wig while coding User:CheMoBot, so I won't pull my own hairs. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:37, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Mathemagician57721 (talk · contribs)

Hi, Beetstra. I was thinking that an indefinite block on the above account might be a bit harsh, especially for a first offense. Perhaps we could reduce it to 24-48 hours or something? I'm not going to change the block without reaching an agreement with you though. Regards, Parsecboy (talk) 19:43, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Maybe, though it looks strongly that the same edits were also done by an IP and by another account (socks?) .. and it is quite blatant. But I can agree to a shorter block. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:50, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I had a second look at the other edits by this user, seems quite OK (though lost it here big time). I have shortened the block to 31 hours, and hope that the editor will proceed further by discussing. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:55, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I hadn't noticed the other account. Both seem to be editing in the same general pattern (i.e., primarily Pokemon-related articles), and the Mathemagician account was created about 2 weeks after Aruseusu (talk · contribs) became inactive, with the exception of this morning, of course. I've posted a question about it on his talk page; depending on the outcome I may take it over to checkuser. Thanks Dirk. Parsecboy (talk) 20:13, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

It does look like a sock, CU might be a good plan, just to be sure. Feel free to adapt blocks accordingly if CU confirms socking, if not I would let the 31 hours run out, and then see what happens. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:18, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Doing some more digging...turns out the IP was previously tagged as a sock of User:Oboeboy (which was apparently confirmed via checkuser by Raul654). However, I can't seem to find an archived checkuser case for Oboeboy. In any case, I've contacted Raul about it, so we'll see. Regards, Parsecboy (talk) 20:32, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

List of validated CAS nos.

Beetstra, if you have that list completed showing the CAS nos. where you have validated them against the structure, please can you send that to me so I can update my records? I'll start work on the gaps as soon as I have this. If you're around tomorrow, it might be good to get an update on this. Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 20:09, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I am going so fast through those lists, that you don't have to worry about that. The gaps will be minimal after I am finished with the last set (for the chembox I still have to do something like 800-1000 pages, many of which will not be available on commonchemistry (but that is a problem we will have to discuss later). After that the drugboxes will follow, but I think that in the end that will also go fast (I checked a set of 2500 bot-checks, resulting in about 500 additions of verified revids, and I think that it took me something like 2-3 hours). There are still about 100-150 'problem'-cases left (mainly where there is too much stereochemistry, or where the drawings are completely different). PC is working on some of those.

We'll discuss tomorrow what still needs to be done and how, I have given some points in the IRC meeting proposal (I'll try to be there tomorrow). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:29, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

This means, at the moment I don't have a set, but the bot should be ready with the chemboxes tomorrow, I'll save the page that is left, if you want to go through them, that would be nice. Then I can concentrate on some little problems which I have with the bot (nothing serious, but one thing needs to be looked at, as it did go wrong once in the first day). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:32, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry if I'm stating the obvious here, but I think it's best to be specific in advance of the IRC discussion. What Martin and I need, when you're ready, is a list of verified CAS numbers vs. WP article titles. Preferably, the format would be:

<CASRN><TAB><article title><TAB><verifiedrevid><CR>

I know that I can handle a text file in that format, and also make it useful for Martin. I also realise that the bot output will contain many "false negatives", wherever we have more than one verified CASRN per article: that's a minor problem for the moment, as far as I'm concerned. Physchim62 (talk) 00:32, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

These need to be ones where you (or another human) has verified that the structure matches the CommonChemistry structure. Thanks, and we'll talk with you tomorrow, Walkerma (talk) 00:54, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah, that is easy to pull from wiki. Is a matter of loading the index, and reading for every <article title> the <verified revid> and pulling the <CASNO>, and writing these three pieces of data to a file. I can then copy that file over to you. I'll do that ASAP (have to think for a sec about portability, as I also want to have the possibility to quickly read other vars, what if we next want to verify ChemspiderID, then the table should be the same, but just one var more, and we can run through such a table see if the ChemspiderID's match, update the ones which don't, and then we have the next value in the box verified). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:09, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Sounds perfect! Walkerma (talk) 06:32, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

July 2009 (Sonic X)

Sorry for the late reply...

Anyway, I think that deleted video would be proof enough that 4Kids was going to upload uncut Sonic X, or at least the fact that they uploaded a preview once, I mean, they called the video something like "Uncut Subtitled Sonic X Preview: Enter the Supersonic Hedgehog!" What else could that mean? "Enter the Supersonic Hedgehog" was the Japanese title for episode 1 of Sonic X.

Nonetheless, it's a done deal - I have better proof that 4Kids is going to upload the uncut episodes of Sonic X, on 4Kids' own internet blog. So never mind. Matty-chan (talk) 23:21, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Nah, it is not. It is a bit the problem here with not being a crystal ball, and having a reliable source. As you suggest, it is proof that they uploaded a preview, which does not mean that the real version will ever come in existence. But as you say, it is moot now. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:11, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Unblocking Xaman79

Thanks for this involvement. --BozMo talk 18:42, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:47, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

COIbot bugfix

Take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/UserReports/Hersfold. If you're listing a category, you need to preface it with a colon so the resulting page doesn't get put in the category. Cool tool! --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 03:48, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I have noticed on Wikia that all automated links seem to have a colon prefix, and I wondered whether it might have been so the code didn't have to bother working out when it was required. Johnuniq (talk) 05:00, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I missed a colon, indeed, I have put it there now. Err, the databases that COIBot uses are its own, so they don't have the colons there. I don't know if the wiki code puts the colon there, it is just that I should always bother about putting it there. And it is no bother anyway, also [[:this]] (on a normal page), results in a working wikilink, so I can just preface all output with a colon. Thanks both! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:58, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

TXT e-solutions

Hoi, het is je wellicht opgevallen dat ik flink aan het TXT e-solutions artikel heb zitten sleutelen. Nu heb ik enige (meen ik) door jou geplaatste sjablonen verwijderd. Mocht je het hier niet mee eens zijn of verdere suggesties hebben, dan hoor ik dit graag. Mvg. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 14:06, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Het was me nog niet opgevallen. Het ziet er goed uit, ik ben het volledig eens met het verwijderen van de sjablonen. Ik hoop dat de interesse-conflict accounts het een beetje in stijl laten. Bedankt voor al het werk! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:10, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Jij ook bedank dat je het artikel toch een kans hebt gegeven. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 21:17, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

WP:ENGVAR

This editor's heart was in the right place. I've informed him of the relevant policy. --King Öomie 16:21, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Fine, thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:24, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Sigh... maybe not. Who knew Engvar was such a point of contention? (Besides anyone who's seen the archives at Talk:Gasoline, that is...) --King Öomie 16:35, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I know, seen Phosphorus, Caesium, Aluminium and Sulfur, lately (especially Aluminium is really recent)? It will happen over and over.

If you mean, why did I not explain, I often choose not to warn on a first offense. (Quite) Some vandals tend to see success if they get warned, or will revert when they know they have been reverted. The records is still there, warning or no warning, and if the editor is persistent on one page, warnings will quickly reach 4 (skipping #2 and/or #3). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:41, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I forgot to link, my 'maybe not' comment was supposed to point to his talkpage, which now has a Final Warning and a 3RR notice for the same edit.

I was trying to avoid labeling him a vandal based on one edit I made myself at one point (at the time I thought I was correcting grammar), but apparently you had the right idea. --King Öomie 16:49, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

reply

Hello, Beetstra. You have new messages at User:Tiamut#Operation Defensive Shield - question.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

nableezy - 21:42, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

request

i wish you would reconsider the tone of your comments and the accusations you made about User:Tiamut. when read in context, her comments about "adding" information don't mean, "i was the first to add any and all of this," but instead mean "i just made an edit - adding information to the article, not removing it."

referring back to the diffs you provided, the second one says almost exactly that:

Jaakobou says: "If an IP comes on the page and restores a shit version from 2 years ago and removes content you can expect any decent Wikipedian to restore the article content ..." Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 16:13, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

to which Tiamut replies: "Whatever Jaakobou. You reverted all my original additions over the last few days too ..." Tiamut^talk 17:00, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

this alone should surely show you that she was in no way asserting that the IP's edit was her own "original addition." she was, in fact, distinguishing between the IP's edit and her "original additions."

i think you failed to assume good faith in a big way here. in assuming your good faith (i don't see any reason to think you would be malicious) my guess is that a simple misreading of the line in question (not seeing the word "too" perhaps? or not reading jaakabou's statement?) is what caused this misunderstanding. i would appreciate it if you could offer some sort of retraction to her. i think even editors who oppose her edits on that page would agree that they don't suspect her of being the IP in question. thanks. untwirl(talk) 05:31, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

---

Before I asked the question, and I did ask that question in very good faith, I did have a look. I am prepared to say I am wrong, but, well, lets put it this way, at the very least User:Tiamut, User:Jaakobou, and others were edit warring there, and I, as a totally uninvolved admin, would strongly consider that some form of restrictive action is necessary here, maybe on all parties. But lets set up a timeline (from 21st of August):

Parties:

• User:86.157.70.95 - London, England, UK
• User:209.6.238.201 - Watertown, Massachsetts, USA
• User:Brewcrewer
• User:Jaakobou
• User:Nableezy
• User:Nudve
• User:Rd232
• User:Tiamut

Timeline:

• • This part (until 21st of August) still under construction, but the situation started earlier:
• Before: diff, 15:54, 19 November 2007 (not the first insertion, that is further back)
  • From the 21st of August
• User:209.6.238.201 starts editing on 21st of August, three edits diff1, 02:47, 21 August 2009, diff2, 03:52, 21 August 2009, diff3, 03:53, 21 August 2009. The total of these three is diff4, 03:53, 21 August 2009
• User:Jaakobou reverts diff5, 12:55, 21 August 2009
• User:209.6.238.201 reverts diff6, 02:26, 22 August 2009
• User:Jaakobou reverts again diff7, 09:26, 22 August 2009
• User:Jaakobou starts a discussion on the talkpage diff8, 09:28, 22 August 2009, "open to discussion"
• User:209.6.238.201 reverts diff9, 04:57, 25 August 2009, 13:04, 25 August 2009
• User:Jaakobou reverts again diff10, 13:04, 25 August 2009
• User:Jaakobou adds a post to the thread on the talkpage diff11, 13:05, 25 August 2009
• User:209.6.238.201 does not see reason to discuss diff12, 08:09, 29 August 2009
• User:209.6.238.201 reverts again diff13, 08:11, 29 August 2009
• User:Nudve reverts "pending consensus", diff14, 10:12, 29 August 2009
• User:Nudve also posts on the talkpage diff15, 10:13, 29 August 2009
• User:209.6.238.201 reverts again diff16, 17:53, 31 August 2009
• User:209.6.238.201 says "that is not how the project operates" diff17, 17:55, 31 August 2009
• User:Jaakobou reverts again diff18, 03:05, 1 September 2009
• User:Jaakobou posts on the talkpage diff19, 03:05, 1 September 2009
• User:209.6.238.201 posts on User:Tiamut's page, seemingly unrelated discussion diff, 04:50, 4 September 2009
• User:209.6.238.201 reverts again diff20, 04:54, 4 September 2009
• User:209.6.238.201 adds a comment to User talk:Tiamut (diff, 04:56, 4 September 2009), noting the article Operation Defensive Shield.
• User:Brewcrewer reverts diff21, 05:36, 4 September 2009
  • Note, there are now three editors who oppose the addition, attempts to discuss have not been made (perm revid as of 12:15, 1 September 2009), yet it gets first reverted before it gets re-discussed. IMHO, this is a contented addition, and hence should be discussed before performed. There are discussion posts, but the following diffs still push the info before there is some consensus.
• Now User:Tiamut comes into the situation, first reverts diff22, 10:52, 4 September 2009.
• then posts on the talkpage diff23, 10:56, 4 September 2009
• User:86.157.70.95 (until now unrelated) posts on talkpage diff, 09:59, 6 September 2009, edit summary: "Have you ever been a suicide bomber?"
• User:Brewcrewer reverts talkpage edit by User:86.157.70.95 diff, 10:17, 6 September 2009
• User:86.157.70.95 re-inserts talkpage edit diff, 10:20, 6 September 2009, edit summary "No, I have not been a suicide bomber and I don't have any other conflict of interest either. Do Jaakobou or Ynhockey have conflicts of interest?"
• User:86.157.70.95 expands post on talkpage diff, 10:27, 6 September 2009
• User:Brewcrewer reverts talkpage edit diff, 10:35, 6 September 2009
• User:86.157.70.95 re-inserts, diff, 10:45, 6 September 2009, edit summary: "Another editor tells me it is wrong to ask this question of these editors and accuses me of vandalism - guidance please."
• User:Jaakobou reverts diff24, 15:11, 6 September 2009, noting what I mention in my comment just above, WP:BRD
• User:Tiamut posts on the talkpage (diff, 15:30, 6 September 2009), "Jaakobou has now reverted the material, without discussing, once again", further discussion there follows.
• User:Rd232 makes a whole set of edits.
• User:209.6.238.201 re-introduces the information, diff25, 06:54, 7 September 2009, some copy-editing afterwards
• User:Tiamut does more copy-editing
• User:Jaakobou explains edits on talkpage (diff, 14:35, 7 September 2009, diff,14:40, 7 September 2009, diff, 14:47, 7 September 2009, diff, 14:48, 7 September 2009)
  • Further discussion follows, not really reaching consensus about what needs to be included].
• User:Brewcrewer reverts again diff26, 02:42, 9 September 2009, will discuss on talk
• User:Nableezy reverts diff27, 03:14, 9 September 2009, "try explaining before wiping out productive edits". No, User:Nableezy, that is not how WP:BRD works.
• User:Jaakobou reverts again diff28, 04:55, 9 September 2009
• User:Tiamut reverts again diff29, 11:34, 9 September 2009
• User:Brewcrewer reverts again diff30, 15:21, 9 September 2009
• Then it becomes difficult, User:Tiamut and User:Jaakobou edit material throughout, bit unclear where it begins and ends, however:
• User:Nableezy re-inserts the contented data diff31, 22:24, 9 September 2009
• the info gets copy-edited by User:Tiamut diff32, 00:02, 10 September 2009, refs get added.
• User:Jaakobou removes/reverts diff33, 18:00, 10 September 2009 and diff34, 18:02, 10 September 2009
• User:Tiamut reverts diff35, 19:02, 10 September 2009, "in essence undo all of User:Jaakobou's reversion of what I added", yes, sure, but not only you, User:Tiamut
• Article protected.

Now we have a look at diff35 vs. combination diff4, then those two edits do quite some copy-editing in the top, but essentially, the only real section that is added is there by the IP, originally. The copy editing in the top is indeed mainly by Tiamut.

Now you are right, seen the nature of the IP, we will never for sure know who was editing there. I agree, it looks strange that it is [[User:User:Tiamut]], seen the location of the IP. I hope that you also see the similarities between the two cited diffs, which lead to my question, why did [[User:User:Tiamut]] here say that it was his original addition (twice!), yes, there were other things changed, but that was for a large part copy-edit, and the information was contested.

However, User:Jaakobou, IMHO, certainly was here on the right side of WP:BRD, the contested information should be discussed before inclusion, which many of the editors except User:Jaakobou failed to do. And I will leave it to others to see whether the right or the wrong version was protected.

I'll do some more reading, and will copy edit my timeline above (maybe add more talkpage diffs), but I hope I show where my concerns are. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:35, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I have done some renumbering on the diffs. Will add times etc. as well later. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:52, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Times added and usernames linked. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:39, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, based on my timeline and better reading, I have retracted the suggestion/accusation that Tiamut was using the IP. However, edits were careless, reverts were not discussed, etc., contested information was included before consensus was reached, etc. etc. I still believe that Jaakobou here was on the good side of WP:BRD. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:59, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

You are free to believe that. Other editors disagreed in this ANI discussion. Please note what User:Chamal N said in particular. Jaakobou writing "please discuss", is not an attempt at discussion. Its an attempt to appear as though he is discussing when he is not. I'm sorry that you were fooled by that. Tiamut^talk 11:50, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

IMHO, the proof is on the side of the person including the information. I say on your talkpage that I had also small concerns about Jaakobou, they should be more clear in opening the discussion. In all cases, what they did was more than what the IP did, who only pointed to policies, without explaining why those policies apply. That the IP did edit the talkpage does show that they did know that discussion would be there, and that they knew that there were concerns, even while unspecified. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:57, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

The IP editor is not a mind reader. If Jaakobou writes "please discuss", without stating what he found objectionable in the edit, that's not a substantive explanation. He might as well not have posted anything at all, since such an edit does nothing to actually further discussion.

When I requested that the concerns with the IP edit be specified, they were not. I therefore saw no reason to continue censoring the information, which was, and is reliably sourced, relevant, and addresses a glaring lack of balance in that section due to Jaakobou's enforcement of the status quo via multiple reverts over the last two years now. Do you expect editors to defer to the non-arguments of other editors and spend hours cajoling and pleading with them to respond to their requests for discussion just to get a discussion started? I have wasted hours better spent building content to do what Jaakobou and the others reverting the IP text should have done, break down the edit into pieces and discuss ( seehere and the talk page). For my efforts, I get accused of being the IP editor and warned by an admin canvassed by Jaakobou. Tiamut^talk 14:20, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I have asked Jaakobou to explain more when he starts discussions. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:03, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Again, he wrote, "Please discuss." That's not starting a discussion, its a way to appear as though he has tried to discuss to justify his revert. Better to have warned him not to revert away well-sourced and relevant information repeatedly, and perhaps to re-read WP:NPOV, since he seems to think that only Israeli perspectives and deaths are a matter of consequence, as evidenced by his last edits to the article. Tiamut^talk 14:20, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Tiamut, the material was contested by three editors, while included by one, and 3 editors had commented on the talkpage (though one only remarked slightly). Then you and Nableezy both inserted the information before discussing as well. You are right, 'please discuss' is hardly an invitation or an explanation, still, it is way more than you and Nableezy did. Well sourced or not, it was contested by three editors, not by him only. Sigh. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:24, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Dirk, three editors reverted the material multiple times without ever once explaining why. Reversion without substantive explanation is not contesting an edit, which is done on such-and-such grounds. What they did was simply reject the good faith edits of other editors, saying no over and over, and failing to respond to followup discussion.

And by the way, your timeline above strangely omits most of my talk page comments after Jaakobou reverted me, doesn't mention User:Tiamut/breakdown, and the total lack of response to the points raised there. I suppose that's why you feel comfortable concluding that those three editors did "way more than you and Nableezy did," in terms of discussion. You will excuse me of course if I prefer to deal with substance, rather than the appearance of propriety. Tiamut^talk 16:44, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

That still is not a reason to include it before discussing it.

No, it did not, it says "further discussion there follows", talking about the talkpages. Yes, after the reverting you discussed (same order for Nableezy), but in my opinion, you fueled the discussion by reverting 'first. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:58, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

You are right about the very first revert I made. I should have explained why before. Just because the three editors who reverted the text did not explain why they were reverting it, I should not have stooped to their level. Tiamut^talk 17:10, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

There is just one thing though. I looked at your message to Jaakobou again, and you write: One specific concern: You reverted the IP's unexplained edit, and the IP re-reverted. When you then re-reverted, you started a 'discussion' on the talkpage (diff). Could you try and be more specific in the concerns you have with an edit, inform the editor you reverted on their talkpage where you stated your concerns and opened discussion (I know, you never know with IPs if the same editor will read them, but at least you tried), and maybe even do it after the first revert (though the second revert is not too bad). Thanks.

My question is: Why is it "not too bad" for Jaakobou to wait until after his second revert of the IP editor's edit to open a discussion, whereas I "fueled the discussion by reverting 'first"? Tiamut^talk 17:24, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the understanding, I think that you get what I meant.

The difference there is between reverting a fresh edit, re-reverting, or reverting in something that is an already ongoing 'edit-war' (the former two were performed here by Jaakobou, the latter is more when you and Nableezy stepped in). I would have preferred indeed to have him discuss immediately in this case, and that is what I say. Jaakobou did mention why he reverted in the edit summary, sometimes that is enough. There is also the factor of who gets reverted, a newbie or an established editor (with whom someone already has a 'history'). I do believe it is a big neglect that he did not take it to the talkpage of the reverted editor, though! A newbie editor may not have noticed that a discussion on the talkpage was started (especially for an IP, which may have been in use by another editor before). I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:18, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

It does, and thank you for taking the time to. Tiamut^talk 19:36, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry though, one more question ... you called the edit by the IP "a fresh edit", but Jaakobou had reverted it away four times previous without any discussion, which the IP restored too (not blameless sure, but its an IP, not an established editor, and no explanation for the revert was given). Or am I missing something? Tiamut^talk 19:41, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, about the above, I got confused by the timeline: he made two reverts and the next two were interpersed by the two talk page comments stating "Discuss" and "Please discuss".

Funny, I found this in the article history. Looks like it was User:PalestineRemembered who first tried to introduce this text a couple of years ago. Jaakobou reverted him then too. Tiamut^talk 19:51, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I expected something like that, there was something about the IP, linking to WP:PRESERVE and WP:NPOV like a pro, the edit summaries, it must have been an editor who was here longer, and this proofs it. Thanks for the diff. Heated area, these subjects. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:22, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I'm not suggesting that the IP is PalestineRemembered at all. He wasn't banned or anything and can still edit. And the IP used WP:PREVENT before getting to WP:PRESERVE, indicating he was probably reading up and learning things as he goes (check the article history). What I find interesting about the diff is that it has taken two years for Jaakobou to accept including that one sentence about the "cycle of violence". It was retained in his last edit for the first time over this time period and it took mutliple reversions by multiple editors to get it in there because of his reverting without discussion, or with evasion, etc, etc. Funny how people see things completely differently depending on their experiences, eh? Tiamut^talk 20:45, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I looked around in the diffs around the one you gave me, the information is much older, and it was also there reverted by quite some editors, and it did not stick. You are right, first WP:PREVENT was linked, but still it uses the 'WP' shortcut for Wikipedia, and the first edit summary also suggests the editor was here before. That in combination with the fact that very similar information was already there earlier does suggest too strong that this is an older editor, I really hope that this IP is not a banned editor who is block-evading (IIRC, there are some in this area), or someone who is socking in some way. But patterns are emerging.

I am worried about your "it took mutliple reversions by multiple editors to get it in there because of his reverting without discussion", please choose discussion as the way forward, this sounds like edit warring until you get what you want. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:40, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Please WP:AGF (Both about me and the IP). All I meant by that was that if he had addressed the content issue substantively at any point over the last two years ago, the subsequent edit war and revert cycle that has followed, would not have. I have more than once confirmed to you that I understand that I should not revert without discussion. All I am saying is that Jaakobou has done precisely that for two years to avoid adding a perfectly reliably sourced sentence from a UN report he uses as a source himself for the other half of the information he is including. That's not NPOV and its not cool. You really should read the content. It might help you to understand just how disruptive this exclusion has been. Tiamut^talk 21:57, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I do. This is a heated area, where both sides of the story will be heated, and where on both sides there will be edit warriors. If I browse back from your edit, I do see that Jaakobou was not the first there to revert, and certainly not the only one, so I also ask you to assume good faith on Jaakobou. For the IP, I will assume good faith there as well, I have to. I was merely expressing concerns, and maybe it is good to be careful here. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:29, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Advices

Hi. First of all thank you for listening to me and giving me another chance. I am now more eager to learn and contribute more to Wikipedia, and I might start with the creation of Tourism in Algarve. I just wanted to ask your advice, considering my history do you think I should delete this account and start a new one for a fresh start? To avoid the prejudice for the fact I received warnings and got blocked. I'm quite motivate to have a fresh start in Wikipedia and make good and useful contributions to different articles, without making the same mistakes from the past. --Xaman79 (talk) 21:44, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I find that a difficult question. Sometimes it is an idea indeed to let the past go by, though people generally notice anyway who you are. A 'change of ways' is better, I think, then people see honestly that you change, otherwise if they find a reason (even an unrelated one), then they see you started under another account to 'bury your past', and may use it against you. On the other hand, a fresh start can also be good, it indeed avoids the prejudice. Just make sure that you don't use this account at all anymore if you make a new one (put in a scrambled password that you can't remember, e.g.). Happy editing! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:53, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for that. I'll see if it's possible to completely delete the existing account to make a new one. --Xaman (talk) 12:08, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Please see User_talk:Algarvean. You may want to take a look at luxo's contribs for Algarevan and luxo's contribs for Xaman79 with a focus on the pt contributions... (and please contact me offline if convenient for you). ++Lar: t/c 17:33, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Re: WP:PRESERVE

Ah, I'm glad you are at least familiar with this policy in light of your strange comments on User Talk:Tiamut. Anyway, my change is irrelevant since "try" is pointless overwording. This isn't pole-vaulting, it's typing on a computer. How could a person not succeed at preserving information were he to try? -- 209.6.238.201 (talk) 15:35, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Still, it is a policy change, and it is better to discuss it on the talkpage first. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:37, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Meh, I don't really enjoy silly arguments about the intersection of free will and the wikipedia editing policy which is what this would devolve into if history is any guide. I'm too hungover for that this morning, but I might get around to this eventually. -- 209.6.238.201 (talk) 15:45, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

The point that I am trying to make, that certain forms of information should not be retained on Wikipedia (that is not to say that the information you were adding is of that kind), and that is why the words 'try to' would need to be there. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:08, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Re: While you are here

Sorry, but I won't abide vandalism in violation of WP:PRESERVE and reverting vandalism is not subject to WP:3RR or similar restrictions. I was completely in the right per wikipedia policy, and reminded Jaak that he was free to add content which reflected his own point of view per WP:NPOV. -- 209.6.238.201 (talk) 15:57, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

'completely right', just as 2 years ago, I presume. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:07, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice

But now I'm just getting vandalism warnings for warning users about vandalism. It's looking fairly unproductive so far, but I'll let you know how it works out. -- 209.6.238.201 (talk) 22:27, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, using a warning template on User:Leuko would be discouraged per Wikipedia:Don't template the regulars (though I would agree, it would be a fightable principle ..). On the other hand, bit consideration from the other side would maybe also have been good, I would not call it vandalism, at most a good faith edit. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:32, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

It's such a big project, it is really hard to know who the "regs" are. Heck, I get a new IP every time my power goes out, and yet, still, I had never crossed paths with Leuko somehow. I pretty much keep my nose to the grindstone, trying to add content and not doing much else. Anyway, the matter seems to have sorted itself out. -- 209.6.238.201 (talk) 23:31, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

You really should consider to create a username. You won't be mistaken for a newbie anymore (seen your edits that is pretty clear to me, but someone who looks fresh at one or two edits sees an IP who has been here just a couple of weeks now, and you can't expect every editor to examine all your edits in full), and in case the IP was used before, you won't see messages not aimed at you or being accidentally blocked because a previous user of the same IP already behaved so badly that your first good-faith edit which shows some concern is deemed 'too much'. And there are more advantages to it. Give it a try! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:43, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Nedsoft studio

I fail to see how what I posted in Point of Sale and Adding a Page describint the history of Netsoft Studio is a problem. the history is Valid accurate content. no different the IBM, Microsoft, Target or any other company that has a history page on wikipedia. I tried to ensure the content was accurate history and not promotional. Yet you continue to remove it.

Under point of sale you have information about Hotel Industry. Adding information about the Awards Industry was also written accurate and without promotional material. So please explain how you consider what was added to be a violation of Terms. --Mdmatney (talk) 13:54, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Both the content of the pages you created and this text are promotional, advertising. I have deleted the pages and reverted the addition of these links. You are free to rewrite the text in a totally non-promotional way, but this is in violation of the policies that are cited in the messages that I have left in your user talkpage. You might want to have a look at the business FAQ specifically. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:19, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

WHY DOES TARGET have an extremly lengthy page about their company? WHY DOES IBM have an extremly lengthy page about their company? I could go on and on with a list of companies that have wikipedia pages. Are we applying prejudice here?

the following text DOES NOT have any promotionals. ITS A HISTORY.

NetSoft Studio is a software development company founded in 1999 with technology expertise going back to 1990. Their premise as a company was to enable industries with software solutions that did not have application software geared directly to their industry. Specifically, the Awards Store and Trophy Store Industry had no computer automation software capable of handling their unique requirements for business management.

The flagship product named BizWizard BackOffice was a point of sale and backoffice software solution designed and geared to manage the entire business model of an awards and trophy store from order taking at point of sale, inclusive of order scheduling to order tracking, invoicing, accounting and reporting. BizWizard BackOffice was unveiled in September of 1999.

NetSoft continued to expand its operations on a global scale, eventually with customers in 29 countries utilizing its web application solutions and point of sale solutions in the United States, Canada and Australia.

The needs of the Awards Store owners prompted them to step up to the plate to handle another much needed area of computerization for the awards industry to ensure they were enabled online via a unique shopping cart solution once again geared and designed specifically to handle the unique order taking requirements of the awards industry. Their launch of this new software product named ShopKart was unveiled in 2009 at the ARA International Awards Marketplace tradeshow in Las Vegas and Won 2nd Prize in the Technology category voted on by the entire international awards industry users. --Mdmatney (talk) 13:54, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Look at the difference in wording: 'technology expertise', 'their premise', 'was to enable', 'has no .. software .. handling their unique requirements', 'the flagship', 'operations on a global scale', 'custormers in 29 countries utilizing its web application', .. etc. etc. And you really should have a look at the tha manual of style, and at 'what about article X'-argument. And comparing yourself to IBM is .. quite a big step. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:30, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Wait, I forgot to mention the conflict of interest guideline, you might also want to read that. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:31, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I also compared what I wrote to IBM's page. your upset over using terms such as 'technology expertise' yet look at what IBM has in the very first paragraph. Id say what I wrote was extremly minor compared to the accolades about IBM.

IBM has been well known through most of its recent history as the world's largest computer company and systems integrator.[3] With over 388,000 employees worldwide, IBM is the largest and most profitable information technology employer in the world. IBM holds more patents than any other U.S. based technology company and has eight research laboratories worldwide.[4] The company has scientists, engineers, consultants, and sales professionals in over 170 countries.[5] IBM employees have earned five Nobel Prizes, four Turing Awards, five National Medals of Technology, and five National Medals of Science.[6] As a chip maker, IBM has been among the Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders in past years.

the next your upset about is 'their premise' which is just a way to say 'their goals', which is important to let people know why NetSoft Studio exists, their mission statement. I fail to see how the words 'their premise' is inappropriate since its just indicaitng the companies mission objectives as a busines.

'was to enable' is exactly what they did and do currently. Its part of the mission statement to enabled business that have no other software choice so they can be part of the computer revolution.

'has no ... software' - is FACTUALY. Have you attended an ARA tradeshow to find out what awards and trophy business have? They use Ledger Paper to handwrite orders. WHY? Because they HAVE NO SOFTWARE choices that will handle their business needs, and that is exactly what NetSoft Studio did was ENABLED their business to have an option of computerization. how is that promotional?

Handling their unique requirements. The awards business has unique requirements that no software program to date could handle. Thus the reason for that statement. Its accurate and valid.

'Operations on a global Scale' how is that any different than IBM stating " With over 388,000 employees worldwide, IBM is the largest and most profitable information technology employer in the world."

I did indeed look at the manuals you reference, and I fail to see once again, how what I have written is promotional and not valid accurate company history. --Mdmatney (talk) 13:51, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Concerning COI, how can a disinterested third party write about our company. Of course there is going to be bias. What I wrote was only FACTUAL information. Dates when we started busienss, a fact. Our mission objective, also a FACT. I was very careful to NOT include any promotional material, NOR to include anything that WAS NOT FACTUAL. I could have written a much longer article, but chose not to for fear you could consider it bias, so I stated FACTS only just to ensure it didn't go against COI. I feel like its a NO WIN SITUATION HERE.

Shall I have some of our customers write this instead? I mean WHO is going to know information about NetSoft Studio BETTER than NetSoft Studio?--Mdmatney (talk) 14:27, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

No, then the problem is with 'Shall', it would be nice if someone unrelated did it. Did you look at the manual of style? (Don't know why I ask, I see you did not). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:30, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I most certainly did look at the MoS (Manual of Style) which does nothing more than communicate simple english writing we learned in the 6th grade in school. I fail to see its relevance. As to a persons being able to write on a topic, the most qualified would be those that are educated on the topic in question. You indicating that I am not qualified to write about a company for which I am and have been involved with since its inception is like me saying you have no business writing on anything to do with chemistry because you majored in chemistry in college. Thus because you majored in it, you are knowledgeable and SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO WRITE ABOUT IT.

I find it extremely hard to believe Wikipedia is being managed by people with this philosophy. If anything I am seeing that this philosophy is highly oxymoronic to exclude authorship simply because one is associated or knowledgeable on the topic in question. Thus the only people left to write on a topic are those NOT knowledgeable, to which end creates a pedia that is inaccurate. --Mdmatney (talk) 19:53, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, the MoS tells you also about how articles should look, using the external link in the first sentence is not the way, e.g.

And no, that is not what Conflict of Interest tells you, and just because you disagree with what is written there is not a reason to insist, it may very well get you blocked. Conflict of interest has to do with advertising your own company: your initial attempts were, IMHO, more to make sure that your company could be found on Wikipedia, than building an encyclopaedic entry. It does not forbid you to write about Point of Sale software, just that you have to do it in a neutral way, not promoting your own company over others. You may find it hard to believe, but the guidelines and policies written here, have been written by a large number of editors who agree with it general wording. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:10, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

BTW Beestra, thanks for the (rather thankless task of) trying to educate this link-spammer. Dude, you can write about your own company. You can even write nice things about your own company. But you had better be particularly scrupulous that they are all accompanied by citations to third party WP:SOURCEs demonstrating that the favorable opinion extends outside your own marketing department. (And no, a magazine article in a trade journal that's reprinting a press release doesn't count.) 71.41.210.146 (talk) 19:05, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your review of Template talk:Chembox SMILES

I'd certainly appreciate some review, but do you know how to go about soliciting reviewers? Template talk pages aren't exactly high-traffic areas. Since it isn't a really radical change, I had considered just being WP:BOLD and changing it, then seeing if anyone complains. 71.41.210.146 (talk) 16:42, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

We have Wikipedia talk:Chemical infobox, maybe that would actually a good place to redirect all the talkpages of all sub-templates of the chembox to. You could be bold, and just do it. If there is anything that needs changing in one of the higher protected templates, just give me a call (is the SMILES template protected?). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:11, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the whole hierarchy is indefinitely fully protected. I'm a bit nervous making such a change; it seems like it would complicate editprotected requests by making it less obvious which pages they refer to. I just noticed that User:RockMFR has been messing with that template recently and asked him to review my proposed changes. 71.41.210.146 (talk) 18:43, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Oops, sorry, did not notice this thread.

Yes, we have fully protected some of these templates, as they can be used to link directly into the databases of chemical companies, which would give a company the ability to be linked immediately to >4000almost 6000 pages. Moreover, there is some difficult code in there, which breaks easy when people who don't know too much about it. High-risk, we call it.

You could work in e.g. Template:Chembox SMILES/Sandbox, just create the page and put the code in it as you want it. We can then easily test it by making the Template:Chembox Identifiers call the Sandbox version, see how it transcludes on a handful of typically difficult pages, and then revert the change to the Identifiers template, and copying the Sandbox code into the real template. I, for one, don't dislike this change, though I am not sure how it will render in pages which stupidly long SMILES (as that is the reason why they are behind a hide button, some page-displays break when there is a 'unbreakable' SMILES in it, and showing it standard, well, hardly anyone is able to read them, but not mentioning it is certainly not a way forward). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:07, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I find SMILES fairly legible. At last as legible as any linearization of a chemical structure can be.

Um, creating pages is a bit of a slow process for me. The last Template namespace page I submitted to WP:AFC took 52 hours to be approved. The one before that took two attempts. (Admittedly, one before that was nicely prompt.) Since I need your help to edit Template:Chembox identifiers anyway, would you mind:

• Creating a Template:Chembox SMILES/sandbox page with either empty contents or

|colspan=2| <small>{{Collapsible list |title_style=width:100%; background:transparent; font-weight:normal;" align="left |title=[[Simplified molecular input line entry specification|SMILES]] |list_style=text-align:right |1=<small><tt>{{{value|}}}</tt></small>}}

|-

• Adding a line to call it from Template:Chembox identifiers of the form

{{Chembox entry|par_name={{#if:{{{SMILES/sandbox|}}}|SMILES/sandbox}}|par_value={{{SMILES/sandbox}}}}}

immediately after the existing SMILES line?

Thank you. 71.41.210.146 (talk) 01:04, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh, P.S.: I figured out what the second two parameters to Template:Chembox SMILES do, and updated the docs. They add the page to Category:Chembox SMILES maintenance, which is empty, so the whole mess can be cleaned up if you're inclined to do so. 71.41.210.146 (talk) 01:04, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I have created {{Chembox SMILES/sandbox}}, and adapted {{Chembox Identifiers/Sandbox}} (sorry, caps difference!), you can now create a page in your userspace, or even, when editing a mainspace page change where it says 'section# = {{Chembox Identifiers' to 'section# = {{Chembox Identifiers/Sandbox', if you don't press save but only the preview, you see how it looks in a real page. If you want, you can use User:Beetstra/Propane, there is a test-page there (be ware that User:CheMoBot is also monitoring that page).

Regarding readability, yes, for chemists the SMILES is (for the shorter ones) reasonably readable, but for anyone else it is just a character-garbage. Also, the smaller ones for the large majority of the molecules don't pose any problem, they are either short enough to maybe shift a bit the columns in the box, or they will hyphenate 'properly'. However, for some browsers and/or browsersettings and/or some old browsers, some really long SMILES simply widen the box, and everything becomes useless (I had that even with a relatively new version of Opera on WinXP). In this way the box has always a relatively small size, and if showing those long SMILES screw your page-formatting, you click hide and everything is at least readable again.

The extra parameters where an early solution, put a displayable 'broken' SMILES in the shown one, and have also the other one available so it is correct, machine-readable (see User:CheMoBot) and maybe has better searchability in Google and the like. That solution never worked properly, so these parameters are indeed obsolete.

Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:48, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

new linkwatcher

The new multi-user Linkwatcher system is pretty cool, as it is reporting more link now than it ever did before. Unfortunately, it is also severely garbling titles with UTF-8 characters in them. Hopefully you can fix this. Let me know if you need some examples. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:59, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

P.S. If by chance you aren't the one running the new bots, please direct me to the correct user. :) --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:02, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I am, and I do. I am fighting with the encoding already for the last couple of hours (yesterday evening and this morning). I don't really understand, but it appears as if pumping data through TCP channels between the different modules of the bot makes it decode the data in a way which appears irreparable. Everything uses utf8 ('use utf8' in the beginning), but that does not seem to help. I have now managed to at least re-code the &-codes, but now the rest.

Bit of background, there is a main program that uses a handful of modules (of which there can be more than one active). There is a 'DiffReader'-module, which connects to irc.wikimedia.org, and reads all the edits. That module feeds data to the main bot, which then sends it to a 'Parser'-module, which loads the diff and parses out the links, if there are links, they get fed back to the main bot, and then go through an 'Analyser', and finally to a 'Reporter'. All communication between the modules goes through TCP. Somewhere along that way it loses the encoding, and I can't seem to re-encode it in the end either. Very, very annoying. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:28, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

FYI, "use utf8" only instructs the perl interpreter to recognize that there may be utf8 characters in your code - it has no effect on the values assigned at run time. --ThaddeusB (talk) 18:09, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Have you successfully sent Unicode over a TCP connection in other code? Years ago, when I did that, I had to explicitly translate the received raw bytes to Unicode. Forgive me if this is obvious to you, but for example, if the raw bytes are UTF-8, you need to tell some conversion routine to convert the UTF-8 bytes to Unicode. Again this is probably obvious, but a useful procedure would be to write a dummy send routine that sends some short Unicode data, say AB“C©D”EF (which is hex 41 42 e2 80 9c 43 c2 a9 44 e2 80 9d 45 46 in UTF-8), and see what a dummy receive routine gets. Johnuniq (talk) 10:08, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Err, well, no, it does not work, so I do think that that is the problem .. I will have to convert on every end or something. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:17, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

This is somewhat redundant to what I said on IRC earlier, but I thought I'd put it here since I may or may not be around when you get home & back on IRC... You definitely have to explicitly decode any incoming information, as the encoding is not part of the string. That is, when the program assigns a value to $input it will be a pure hex string. Perl will try to guess what the encoding is, but it will usually default to ASCII. Thus, any character that is greater than 1 byte in utf8 will be garbled. I believe $input = decode_utf8($input); will at least partially fix the problem. That assumes you aren't relying on raw string for any of the processing, which appears to be an accurate assumption as near as I can tell.

Now, the characters currently seem to be "doubly garbled" & I am not sure why that is happening. It is possible that perl is doing it when you combine the various string pieces. If not there, a decode might be needed somewhere else (one of the subprograms?) that I'm not seeing immediately.

I am pretty sure an encode isn't needed before upload. Perl should convert it from its internal coding to a format the TCP server expects automatically. The difference is that with incoming data Perl doesn't know what to expect and has to guess, where as with outgoing data it knows what to do since it is in control.

I should note, however, that this is all slightly speculative as I've never used POE::Component::Client::TCP but instead only POE::Component::IRC in my own programming. --ThaddeusB (talk) 18:09, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

The problem is indeed fixed. Congratulations! Was in just a question of decoding everything or was there more to the story? --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:59, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

There are three points of attention:

• decode_utf8 everything that you comes out of the TCP connection, as that is always wrongly encoded. On both sides you have to do that.
• take care what you get back from api.php. The pagename 'A&B' comes back from the api as 'A&B', so that needs a decode for the HTML entities
• and then it sometimes garbles when you construct strings starting with non-utf8 data and adding utf8 data to it (e.g. 'my $mynewstring = "blahdiblahdiblah" . $stringwithutf8encoding').

I think that the combination of the last and the first made a complete mess. It looks like perl found that $stringwithutf8encoding was of a different, lower encoding (but still encoded; $stringwithutf8encoding comes out of the api ..), made $mynewstring somewhere an inbetween encoding type, and then when I pulled that through TCP, it brought it back to plain ascii, resulting in a somehow double decoded string. So the first step of decoded_utf8-ing the data that came through TCP resulted in strings being sent to IRC which were in a somewhere half-way en/decode state. Perl is really annoying here.

What I don't understand is why the addition of an extra layer of TCP suddenly resulted in a total screw-up of the data. In the old bots the data came from the Analysers (where the actual strings for IRC are formatted), and were sent to IRC by the main body of the bot, now the body of the bot stores that same data, and then pushes it to the Reporters to send it to IRC.

Well, now it is hacked so it works ;-) Thanks for the suggestions! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:58, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

My Perl is extremely rusty (and I never used it with Unicode) but I think current Perl has a flag for each string to identify whether it is utf8. For data that arrives as a byte stream (like from a TCP connection), I imagine that flag tells Perl the data is not utf8, however in your app, it probably is. Bear in mind that interpreting arbitrary bytes as utf8 can give runtime errors (because many byte sequences are invalid utf8). I have no idea what Perl does, but in Python I seem to recall that the default in one routine I used was to throw an exception (there was an option to replace invalid utf8 sequences with a '?' error character). Johnuniq (talk) 10:25, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I am having a look if the modules have crashed overnight. The part of the main bot certainly did not give any errors on this.

Nope, also the modules have not crashed at all. This seems to go OK. Perl would allow to 'catch' the error ('eval{ };'-wrap), if that needs to be done I will put that in there. I think here it goes OK, since what goes in should be correct utf8, but we will see. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:34, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

WestEd entries

Dear Beetstra,

Thanks for your input on the WestEd entry. I will try to tone down the advertising language.

All best, Generalist —Preceding unsigned comment added by Generalist (talk • contribs)

You're welcome! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:52, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Dear Dirk Beetstra, I am new to wikipedia, and now I am branching out to other areas of interest (beyond education) and would appreciate your feedback on two entries I worked on today -- one is new, the other I edited:

• Luis Rolando Ixquiac Xicara (created new entry)
• Anibal Lopez (edited existing entry)

Do you have any advice? Thank you, Generalist--Generalist (talk) 00:42, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Nothing much, actually. Anibal needs some references (and I moved an internal link out of the external links section; not sure if that link is needed anyway, that link does not tell more about the person). I think you're doing well! Happy editing! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:16, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia External Link Removal

Noticed the article in your discussion page about strict external link removal and would love to assist. On the Wikipedia entry it links to IRC Chat Room and Mobile version as "Wikipedia is not a dictionary" WP:NOT these should be removed? Their is also WP:EL "Links normally to be avoided" points 4, 5 apply to wikipedia mobile website link. Point 10 applies to the IRC link. --78.105.115.195 (talk) 22:47, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, interesting. Yes, I would even say that they simply do not comply with the intro of the external links guideline, they simply do not give more info, they don't add to the page. But I think that this is best to discuss these on the talkpage (IMHO, these should both be in the dmoz ..). I hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:07, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		For writing and maintaining various awesome bots, and especially for maintaining the various "spam" IRC channels, I hereby award you this barnstar. Your efforts save other programmers effort and prevent duplicate calls to server, and thus make Wikipedia a better place. Thank You! --ThaddeusB (talk) 14:37, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, and you're welcome! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:59, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Power Outage

We had a power outage here tonight (actually, it's still out), my UPS did buy me enough time to shutdown MySQL with a shutdown command - though it wasn't as kind to the bots.. I'm hoping the database is in one piece.. I guess we'll know when the power comes back on. --Versageek 23:48, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh boy .. I'll do a check on some of the db's. I was running a transferbot .. aargh? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:55, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Nick Wolven

Can you please reinstate the Pain Hertz AfD warning? I put it there explicitly to comply with Wikipedia:Guide to deletion : "Place a notification on significant pages that link to your nomination, to enable those with related knowledge to participate in the debate. . Luminifer (talk) 21:37, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Have you read the text that you placed? And who is supposed to notify. You could write a personal message, but a copy of the AfD-remark which was intended for you is certainly not the way. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:43, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, that's what I was told to do at Wikipedia:Help desk :) Luminifer (talk) 21:46, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

nope. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:55, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

How so? I followed "Oh OK in that case take a look at Wikipedia:AFD#Notifying interested people, there are some templates listed at the end of that section for notifying people. ". Luminifer (talk) 22:00, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but this is a template specifically for you, talking to the creator of the article, and you post it on talkpages of mainspace pages, this was certainly not the right template. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:02, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess I goofed. Sorry about that. Luminifer (talk) 22:08, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

You could consider a non-templated message to the interested reader. Still, it reeks of canvassing, as you are on those pages more specifically asking readers who you can reasonably suspect to be pre-'keep' to the deletion case. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:44, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the policy should be changed. Anyway, I don't want to discuss this further, as I'm leaving wikipedia due to invasion of privacy... Thanks for the chat. Luminifer (talk) 20:46, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

You might want to explain that to me! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:13, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, it's not really your concern, but: [[6]]...

Yeah, get ready for a read. You think that AFD is a wall of text? --King Öomie 22:55, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I'll have a read. If I think the AFD is a wall of text, no, I think it is quite a good discussion (though some of the used arguments are impr... irrelevant), better than some others which are actually more a keep/delete-'voting'. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:27, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		Just wanted to show my appreciation for you being so civil and helpful in the deletion discussion. Luminifer (talk) 22:50, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! I really appreciate that! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:24, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Bucladesin

Ouch! I'll fix that ASAP. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 03:15, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

It happens more often, but generally the things are small (a stereocentre wrong). But when they are completely wrong, I remove them. And I think this one was the worst I have seen until now.

Question, IMHO, the CAS_Number in the drugboxes should now point to the official authority of the CAS Number, not to some (commercial) search engine. I know the latter provides more information (although .. is it all that reliable then). What are your thoughts on that? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:44, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

My feelings on CAS links are mixed—the NLM website certainly isn't the best, as it actually has entries for only a few drugs. I think standardizing Drugbox and Chembox would be a good idea; how is the coverage in Common Chemistry? It was quite limited at first.

By the way, the structure is correct now. Blame the former version on PubChem (which is amazingly inaccurate with even more amazing frequency). Fvasconcellos (t·c) 14:09, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

CAS has quite a lot, but the two databases have a different scope. We've done a full check of chemboxes, I am working on the drugboxes. Counts:

• CheMoBot is monitoring 4107 pages with a {{drugbox}}; 974 (23.71%) indexed on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Pharmacology/Index.
• CheMoBot is monitoring 5955 pages with a {{chembox}}; 2418 (40.6%) indexed on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chemicals/Index.

So these 3400 have a correct CAS linked to the commonchemistry site (I think that in a couple of days, drugbox will also be at about 35-40%; I still have about 2000 to go). For all other ones it is simple: we do NOT know if the CAS which is on the page is really the CAS Number from CAS, and/or if we are talking about the same compound .. the rest is a mixture of:

1. They were too difficult to check in high speed (if I don't see in one glance if it is the same compound, I skip it, will be done later.
2. there is now a wrong CASNo on the page
3. there is no CASNo on the page
4. there is no coverage on commonchemistry

And we have:

1. Pages which exist on commonchemistry and which we do not have.

When I finished with the current set, I will generate lists of the problems, and do another run to get more. We have pretty obscure stuff on wiki, where none of the externals actually has data. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:37, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

P.S. I commented out another one this morning. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:37, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Please let me know if you find any more. Best, Fvasconcellos (t·c) 21:23, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Spare Sock?

You've probably seen this user on parapsychology talk, 120.16.44.251 (talk · contribs), but just in case you didn't. Thanks, Verbal chat 11:06, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

hehe, ok I'm too slow it seems. Verbal chat 11:07, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

See also bottom ANI thread. RBI! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:07, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I can't do the second (B) so I have to shout about it, making the third (I) impossible.... Or I could trust others to do their jobs :) Verbal chat 11:14, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Not them at ANI, sure that someone will respond, if I did not see it yet (but I am going back to the lab, so may be slow). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:16, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm just about to leave my lab. Gave a 2 hour lecture after only being told the subject at 8 last night. And it wasn't a subject I know 2 hours of stuff about... Best, Verbal chat 11:21, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Dirk Contact

Hello Dirk,

You seem to be a respected professional on Wiki. I would very much like to speak to you about a pressing Wiki matter.

I am at ashkelonpcs@yahoo.com.

76.169.29.156 (talk) 14:01, 11 October 2009 (UTC) Michael - Detective

You describe yourself as detective, may I point you to the foundation, see WP:OTRS e.g. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:36, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Missing chemistry articles

Dirk, I'm wondering if, in your work with CheMoBot, you have a list of chemicals that have a listing at Common Chemistry, but do not have a corresponding article on Wikipedia. I think such a list would be a useful resource for the wikichemists if you have it (or could generate it without too much trouble). -- Ed (Edgar181) 13:04, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Edgar181, that is indeed a list that we are going to compile. I don't have the list here, but I think that Physchim can make that. I am mainly working at the other side of the list, the articles we have and their overlap with commonchemistry. We have now about 35-40% indexed. Doing things from the other side is going to be an even bigger task, as we will soon start with the other identifiers as well (I am preparing for ChemSpiderID).

That said, the list from CommonChemistry is certainly a good one, as CAS defines the compound on the list as the compounds that have been mentioned most in articles. It hence certainly are interesting compounds, and probably most of them deserve an article. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:23, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, thanks. It's nice to hear that it is something that is being worked on. And thanks for all the work you've put into validating chembox data! -- Ed (Edgar181) 14:48, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I promised at my RfA .. :-) --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:49, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Whitelisting java-samples.com

Recently we have purchased the domain java-samples.com. While searching wikipedia for this domain, I found the site is listed under the following report (two year old report). Reports 22:26:17, Fri Sep 28, 2007 en:user:Swikfan <-> java-samples.com (15.18%/5.4%/0.8% - Monitored link www.java-samples.com/showtutorial.php?tutorialid=17 - rule: java-samples.com - reason: jeyasoft solutions) - en:Spring_Axis_Struts_and_Hibernate - diff - COIBot UserReport - en:Special:Contributions/Swikfan.

Now that the domain is no longer owned by jeyasoft solutions, please consider whitelising our domain. Thanks. Tuck.lee (talk) 07:15, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I have deleted the report. The 'hit' COIBot found was a mistaken one anyway, and indeed, there is no need to keep it. I hope this solves the problem. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:27, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Whitelisting java-samples.com

Recently we have purchased the domain java-samples.com. While searching wikipedia for this domain, I found the site is listed under the following report (two year old report).

Reports 22:26:17, Fri Sep 28, 2007 en:user:Swikfan <-> java-samples.com (15.18%/5.4%/0.8% - Monitored link www.java-samples.com/showtutorial.php?tutorialid=17 - rule: java-samples.com - reason: jeyasoft solutions) - en:Spring_Axis_Struts_and_Hibernate - diff - COIBot UserReport - en:Special:Contributions/Swikfan.

Now that the domain is no longer owned by jeyasoft solutions, please consider whitelising our domain.

Thanks. Tuck.lee (talk) 07:12, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

See thread above. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:49, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

RSC podcasts

huh? SpinningSpark 18:18, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Nothing much to huh, fails WP:EL. I'll elaborate. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Removing Article Hijack is helpful, vandalism is not

Hey, please let's talk, discuss & reach consensus on the EPro article. Clearly was single user hijacked and did need fixing. Have worked very hard to cut out the crap that was added AND to restore the important reference material that was cut out.

PLEASE, let's *TALK*, DISCUSS, and then take a consensus action TOGETHER. The article has been around a LONG TIME, has had A *LOT* OF EDITOR DISCUSSION, REVIEW and consensus based input over several years.YSWT (talk) 23:00, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

just edited in...

saw your request for formal open new section.

had just edited in 'Removing Article Hijack is helpful, vandalism is not.'

hope that's cool with you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by YSWT (talk • contribs) 23:10, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I have reverted, as I explained on the talkpage, the linking and the pricing information, and the tone of the text is totally inappropriate. Please read WP:SPAM, WP:EL, WP:NOT, WP:MOS, need I go on? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:25, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

The Fly Magazine

Hi Dirk,

JJ & Chris here, representing The Fly magazine.

Referencing this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Suspected_Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_Theflymagazine

User:87.194.72.93 is Chris' home IP address, and any usernames with the variation Niall Doherty belong to our editor. However, the rest we are fairly sure do not have anything to do with us. It is probable that people are linking to our reviews, as we are a reputable magazine in the UK, in fact, we have the highest distribution of all the monthly and weekly music titles in Great Britain & Ireland http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=44141

We have posted links to our reviews in the past, but we will refrain from doing so in future. Many of the links posted were regarding new and upcoming releases, which we get access to before they enter the public domain. For instance, we recently posted a link to a track-by-track preview of the new Julian Casablancas album, which was intended as a helpful and relevant addition to the Wikipedia entry.

We admit liability for posting links in the past ourselves, but we do not feel that we should be penalised for the actions of other - non-Fly related - people.

Please drop us an email

Best,

JJ & Chris

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.105.0.183 (talk) 16:27, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

It looks really strange to me that there are so many editors who only add these links, all in the same way. And then there are hardly any other, established, editors who add the link. I will consider asking for some more info. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:48, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Ecco Pro forums

I think it would be reasonable to provide one link to each of the two forums. What do you think about replacing the first sentence under Ecco Pro#Ongoing EccoPro community support with this:

Ecco Pro support is available at two user forums.<ref>[http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ecco_pro/ New Ecco Pro user forum] and [http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/eccopro/ Original Ecco Pro user forum]</ref>

The links are a bit dubious but is there much harm in providing one link because they are (I think) the only existing outlets for the product? Johnuniq (talk) 08:54, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

They would be the 'official' link for the product (at least close to it) in this case .. a good case can be made to put it in the external links section, and I would not object that. It was more that it is certainly not a reference, nor is language like 'for more information see the new Ecco Pro user forum'. But that said, I looked at one of the forums, and to say that they provide actually information ... it's not a lot.

I see you started to clean, looks good! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:16, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Don't know either of you, and you could be astrophysicists. For my own POV without intent as any personal comment about you, you are "idiots" who are destroying the wikipedia and in the end will be the end of the wiki. Instead of constructively adding to the article you simply look for something to do, like busy bees. But since you don't know *anything* about the articles' subject you have no idea what information is relevant or not. So you make 100% subject 'feels good' decisions, based on your own, ignorant feelings. And on the subject of the article you are simply ignorant. Not meant in any derogatory way. So, you feel free to delete researched and *referenced* material, such as the historic pricing. You feel free to delete most of the references in the article, am not sure on your logic for that, but am sure you have some. The website of the attorney who once worked on ecco isn't a reference that he became an attorney, it is 'pimping' to use you're own language. And so.. as you and others just like you do your 'work' the level of articles falls. Those who spent time doing actual research and writing see their work vandalized-- and that is *exactly* what you are doing, vandalizing other's work. And that, I think... is the death of the wiki. A source of knowledge open to contribution at first attacks those with knowledge. Then those without knowledge want to feel that they have something to contribute and so chip away at the work crafted. YSWT (talk) 17:33, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Again, that is not a suitable reference. But I don't think that we will ever agree on that, so maybe we should agree to disagree. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:34, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Starting to realize communicating with you is a waste of time, but will try one last time. Why did you retag EccoPro as a The notability of this article's subject is in question. If notability cannot be established, it may be listed for deletion or removed. ? If just another one of your 'inadvertent' slips which degrade the article, please fix. If intentional on your part please explain yourself.YSWT (talk) 01:37, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

And you think that communicating with me could be a waste of time? I have pointed you to reliable sources, which are hardly used in the article. The ones which do meet that guideline hardly tell anything about the subject. And I did already explain, as did others. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:25, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

New museums/archivists initiative

Were you aware of User:Witty lama/Sandbox? I just linked to your very useful User:Beetstra/Archivists, and any comments you have would be welcome. The page is likely to move into mainspace shortly. Johnbod (talk) 03:08, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I am. I will have a look, and see what I can do. I think I choose more a hardline stand: be very careful when you are an archivist' and avoid the impropriety. Witty lama's version was different when I read it last time. Thanks for the note, though! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:27, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Dirk, I was just stopping by to make sure you saw the note on the talk page of your essay. I'm with you on the hardline stance, however this change to the COI guidelines allowing the "[Adding of] pointers to primary sources in archives, special collections or libraries in the Research resources section of an article. Also, adding External links to digitized or digital primary sources or finding aids" seems to have changed since I last encountered a problem with an archivist (or, more likely, an intern)--it's actually been quite a while. I think my biggest gripes are that there was that note in the librarians list basically encouraging the spamming of Wikipedia with no mention of actually working with the community, and the fact that the archivists/librarians/interns did not seem to be bothered about becoming a part of the Wikipedia community (and their subsequent outrage at "us" for enforcing the guidelines/policies). I've only glanced at Witty lama's work, but it does seem to fill the need of a friendly place to point link-happy folks, and it explains how "they" is "you too" and I believe it encourages folks to do more than add links. At least I hope it does, I'm still not down with accounts whose only purpose is to add links. Johnbod if you're still watching feel free to quote me on the new essay's talk page. Katr67 (talk) 04:43, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

P.S. I suppose you already knew your name was dropped here? Good job! Katr67 (talk) 04:58, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Wow, I did not know that sentence. I strongly oppose its inclusion, that should NOT be there. It might be that we can include something else there, but we will see. I am on the talkpage, pushing a hardline. I want that sentence to be removed.

Re. P.S., yes, it is in my 'pride' box on my userpage. Thanks anyway! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:05, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

"aboutmyarea"

re: What you were looking for;

Here's the removal and log deletion back in may. I agree with its addition and keeping it blocked.--Hu12 (talk) 07:32, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Per Majorly? Since when is that a reason to remove sites that get heavily spammed by many, many socks over a long, long period of time ... --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:19, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Theres got to be a better way to track d-listed sites. Simply removing the entry and log only looses the evidence and rationael. The only viable way potentialy is to leave sites blacklisted and simply require whitelist request. Would allow for easier tracking through the use of seths spamlists tool, and none of the logs or past abuse evidence would be lost... --Hu12 (talk) 19:09, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

One should simply log the removal, not remove the log of the addition. Like the system on meta. But certainly links should not be removed per some off-wiki communication. I have contacted Prodego already, after I finished my sock-puppet listing I will consider to contact Majorly as well. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:15, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Justify your censorship

How do you justify your censorship of discussion, let alone facts, on pages related to parapsychology, or psi research? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.19.4.148 (talk) 11:09, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

How do you justify your block evasion? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:12, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Re:External Links

They are links to another wiki, which has better information on the subject. How is that bad? Ajraddatz (talk | contribs) 20:05, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, upon checking your policy I find that you permit these kind of links. Why not actually look at them, before warning. Ajraddatz (talk | contribs) 20:08, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Nah, if you read carefully, then linking to other wikis is not permitted, but discouraged. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:15, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

By the way, your sig is broken, your contibs link does not work. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:16, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh, whoops, thanks. I am from Wikia, BTW, and not just a random spambot :) Ajraddatz (talk | contribs) 20:19, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I also should point you to the conflict of interest guideline. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:19, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Might I then ask why there are links to fansites and other sources of potentially unreliable information? Ajraddatz (talk | contribs) 20:22, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I have Beetstra's talk page on my watchlist, and just wanted to add my comments to this. The link being added fails WP:ELNO #11 and #12. The Wiki being linked contains only 921 article pages and only 22 active users. Wikipedia is not the place to advertise to try directing more traffic to grow wikis. As to other links, the fact that other links exist is as issue with other links also needing to be reviewed an possibly removed - not a sign that additional links should be added. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:25, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I am not saying that it should be added, I will respect your policies. I am simply curious why there are other links to "fansites and other sources of potentially unreliable information". Ajraddatz (talk | contribs) 20:27, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

WP:WAX --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:43, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

LOL, you have a good point. Also, would you mind me removing the links to fansites? External links to the official website should be OK. Since there is a policy in effect against it, I will not add external links to other wikis, and wouldn't have if I knew about the policy before hand. Ajraddatz (talk | contribs) 03:33, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Re: External links (October 2009)

Thanks for pointing out the guidelines. I had an oversight that user profiles (originating from mailing lists and forums) were included on the links to avoid. I'm just acting in good faith when I added those links because I'm aware that the links have no SEO-benefit but I thought i'm doing the person of interest a service by linking their own content stream related to their contributions to the open-source community. Acjacinto (talk) 20:18, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Wait, I almost missed this one. It is not about benefit only, it is about building an encyclopedia. I am afraid that your links fail our external links guideline, and I suggest that you try to discuss before adding more (either on talkpages of pages where you think the link is of interest, though you might get more response when you find a suitable WikiProject). I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:44, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Your warning

--Matheisf (talk) 20:11, 31 October 2009 (UTC)I have not ever posted spam on Wikipedia. The label of spammer is completely unwarranted. Every link I inserted is directly related to the topic and adds educational material. You are obviously joining in with my new found opponents, without basis and without merit, and participating in what amounts to a lynching.

I can defend and substantiate each and every single link.

The supposition of any fairness, and proper intellectual discourse has rapidly faded here. Reading your threat, without any notion of how and why you take this position of authority, without having ever spoken two words with me, not having even heard my side, makes me seriously doubt your objectivity and neutrality.

FM

Your links fail our external links guideline, and your actions trigger the spam radar. Please read our policies and guidelines which are cited to you. Start with 'What wikipedia is not', and work your way though the external links guideline and the spam guideline. We are trying to write an encyclopedia here. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:40, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Japanhero

Xrfjgted (talk · contribs), plenty more URLs to block.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 06:25, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Sigh, I'll collect the links and see if there are more. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:48, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

http://arthurzbygniew.blogspot.com/

[7]

This is about my blog and this report: [8]

My blog is a VERY SERIOUS PRESS REVIEW in english, french and italian, sometimes even dutch (like here: [9]). Some big belgium socialist party fish are very annoyed by this report: [10]. This is why they try to blacklist me. If they had not taken part to the murder of the waloon socialist leader André Cools it would not be a problem. That is their problem, my blog is not.

Please remove me from the spam list. Take care and thank you.

Arthur Zbygniew —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.195.204.137 (talk) 15:26, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

You are not blacklisted, so I don't know that you are talking about. However, being serious or not, the blogspot fails our policies and guidelines, and hence should not be linked or used as a reference. Please review those policies and guidelines, and your intentions. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:18, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

The aforementioned report ([11]) is not available elswhere on the net, so how can it break your guidelines? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.195.204.137 (talk) 19:37, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Discuss on the talkpage, find (established) editors who concur that this is indeed a link that should be there, and that there is enough cause to break the policies and guidelines. If it is up to me, it fails WP:EL, WP:RS, WP:COI, WP:NOT#SOAPBOX, and probably more, so it should not be included. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:45, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

The source mentionned is Père Ubu, the belgian equivalent of the french Canard Enchainé. Its is a satirical weekly, its archives were not available on the net till a couple of years ago after publication of this article, otherwise I would have linked to them. Furthermore Père Ubu has not been taken to court by José Happart because of this thereby reinforcing its credibility and the seriouness of its accusations. It makes Belgium or more precisely Wallonia look like a banana republic, a vision shared by some "connaisseurs". The rampant corruption is worse than Italy's. The murder of André Cools and the subsequent investigations epitomized this regrettable situation. A.Z.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.195.146.149 (talk) 19:55, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Sure, but that still does not make it a reliable source, it simply fails the guideline for that, and we are still not a soapbox. It is not encyclopeadic, you're looking for news servers, not Wikipedia. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:00, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

This matter should be debated by french speaking people preferably Belgians to judge about the reliability of the sources. The French know that "Le Canard Enchainé" is one of the most reliable source of the french press and Père Ubu is its belgian equivalent. The daily belgian french speaking press is way behind it in terms of reliability. If you cannot quote Père Ubu, apart from Trends Tendances there is probably no belgian french speaking newspaper that can be quoted according to your guidelines. A.Z. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.195.24.78 (talk) 20:56, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

WP:RS/N is down the hall, second door on the left. Good luck! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:06, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Regarding UnBlockBot (IRC)

Is it possible you could amend UnBlockBot to where it can catch an administrative backlog at Category:Requests for unblock? At present it doesn't catch any unblock requests past the first seven. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Stop... at a WHAMMY!!)} 04:41, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Only 7? It should not care about the number of unblock requests there are.

OK, I had a look. Not really thoughtful of me. The api returns only 10 members, of which the first three are three subcategories (which the bot ignores). Never thought to increase the number of members there. It now will report up to 497 unblock requests. Sorry that I deprived you all from the work!  ;-) --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:52, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

No worries, and thank you very much! -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Stop... at a WHAMMY!!)} 08:38, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Aber Garth Celyn

Annwyl Beetstra

In line with what I believe to be Wikipedia policy, and having read your notes, I cannot see why you have removed the website link www.garthcelyn.com that I have included on several pages totally related to the web sites content. Several pages on the website include the material.

What do you think that I am doing wrong? Hwyl fawr,

Bryn

BrynLlywelyn —Preceding unsigned comment added by BrynLlywelyn (talk • contribs) 23:08, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi Bryn. When I follow the link, I do get to the mainpage, which is (was) linked from many, many pages. However, there is not a direct link between the two. The direct link is a bit deeper buried on the pages.

For example, your last edit here adds the link in the external links section. The page talks of Joan, Lady of Wales, but when I follow the link, I do not get to a page which talks about Joan. I have then to find how this link is related. It would be better to use this link, where there is actual information on Joan.

On a page like Snowdonia I am almost completely lost. The page does not tell about Snowdonia, it tells about something that happened in that area.

I have therefore removed all the links, as all of them need to be researched better. I will consider to update the last one that you now added, as that at least comes close, that specific page on the domain does tell more about Joan.

I hope this explains. Regards, --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 23:15, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Mazharuddin.com

Hi beetstra, Any reason to remove my link from this wiki.I am referring to the link http://www.mazharuddin.com/Animals/Nehru-Zoological-Park-1/9145485_ms2Wv. I hope it is relevant to this page. Thanks Mazhar—Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.248.161.59 (talk • contribs)

Yes, it fails the external links guideline, and we are writing an encyclopedia here, not a linkfarm. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:29, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

CheMoBot feature request

Hi Beetstra, just a quick feature request for CheMoBot, I stumbled across an edit where your bot edited a vandalised page, the vandalism had consisted of the {{Chembox}} template header being removed from the page before the bot arrived and edited, it duly made its edit correctly but because of the earlier vandalism, the chembox still didn't render correctly [12] and I was wondering whether you could do anything to have the bot detect missing bits of the chembox template and fix as it goes ? Kind regards 92.8.235.175 (talk) 17:15, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, repair is going to be difficult. The parsing is already a difficult part, constructing or reconstructing a box is going to be even more difficult (as the ChemBox is not exactly the most easy one with all the sub-templates). What might work is 'detection of data in the wrong place', I'll see if that would be feasible. Thanks for the request and thoughts! Kind regards, --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:01, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

E1 Entertainment

Hi there, Just wondering where you found the information on E1 Entertainment? I've been updating the site corporate information on Wikipedia and it keeps being changed back to what it is currently. The information included is not wrong, Koch Entertainment is now E1 Entertainment but it's comprimised of many others subsidiaries as well. It wasn't founded by Koch either, headquarters are in Toronto, etc. I know this because I work for E1. I've been trying to write a more encyclopedic entry but it keeps being fully erased. If you could let me know where this information came from it would be much appreciated.

Thank you Meghan Westelmajer —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mwestelmajer (talk • contribs) 18:05, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Spam, spam, green eggs and IP spam

I doubt those are proxies--they both resolve to major ISPs here. Verizon and Road Runner, respectively. I find it highly unlikely either of them would let proxies or open relays run on their networks for long. Blueboy96 21:39, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Curious, how can they use two IPs on two ISP's for so long? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:41, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

They may be different ISPs, but they're both in the same city--Tampa. Which means either it's the same person using two different computers or two close friends in the area. At any rate, between our blocks, they won't be spamming anything for awhile. Blueboy96 14:40, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

If there are no other IPs they can lay there hands on. In any case, they first have to create new blogspots .. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:56, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Accordion

You beat me to it. :) After getting back from teaching I was planning to cull the links, but I'm pleased to see it was all taken care of so neatly. Thanks - hopefully we can avoid that starting up again. - Bilby (talk) 07:58, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I caught a 'spammer' ('site promoter?', what would be a proper term) this morning. WP:SPAMHOLE in full effect, I think. Thanks for keeping an eye. Regards, --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:45, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Google Logo link remove

Dear Beetstra, I'm writing you about the modification you have made in google logo wiki page. You are perfectly right when you say Wikipedia is not a link farm, but I think doodlewatch.com is strictly related with google logo page. I see in your talk page you remove a link if there is a similar link for a long time in the same page and I understand why you have removed doodlewatch.com. You leaved perfnova and logo-google.com, but their updates are not regular as doodlewatch.com. As you can see perfnova has the last update on the 10th october and logo-google.com at 15th october. Doodlewatch.com has a real-time update all over the world. Now I know you can't see and analyze all the link you find all over the wiki pages, but I think is more interesting a constantly updated web site instead an old one. What do you think about this?

Thank you very much for your time.

94.94.66.227 (talk) 11:40, 4 November 2009 (UTC)Leonardo Burchi

You mean the link that you, and some other IPs were spamming? Just in case, it fails our external links guideline, and the way it was linked on other articles is inappropriate. I would suggest you start discussing and find consensus to add that before performing more additions. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:39, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Probably you're right about the other article in Wikipedia, it could be intended as spam and I'm sorry for this. I will open a discussion before edit an article. But in the case of google logo article, why do you think doodlewatch.com don't deserves a mention as perfnova or logo-google?

Thank you again!

--94.94.66.227 (talk) 14:25, 4 November 2009 (UTC)Leonardo Burchi

'Deserve a mention', the question is, do the links pass the external links guideline, and does it not become a linkfarm or directory. What do each of the links add what others don't? Also typical something that can be discussed on the talkpage. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:28, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

From creator of the article "LMP (project management method)"

Hi, dear Beetstra. Recently you've deleted the article above-mentioned, that's why I'd like to ask some questions , so far as I'm early beginner in terms of Wikipedia. The first question is - it turned out that I had record about the article deletion neither on "my contributions" page, nor your page of deleted articles. Could you define how I can find it? The thing is that it was deleted with no notification on our page.

I studied thoroughly the article G11 - and what I described in the articlу represents factic information about the product and do not contain advertising and promotional information. This article describes the method used in project management and adopted in many companies working in that field.

Could I count on your help relying on this arguments to rewrite the article? And what should I pay attention for if doesn't correspond Wikipedia policies? Thanks,

DmitryGaliullin (talk) 16:44, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I will put it in your userspace. The article was originally tagged by another editor, and reading it, it did look advertising to me (as is the other one). Regarding 'represents fact[ual] information', that needs to be referenced to independent, reliable sources (i.e. not to sites which are in any way affiliated with the company!). The article will be in User:DmitryGaliullin/LMP (project management method). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:22, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your support and kind advices we are really in need of. I'll try my best to conform it to the general guidelines and rewrite it. Respectfully,

DmitryGaliullin (talk) 12:17, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Verse.fr

--Toule9 (talk) 18:43, 4 November 2009 (UTC)Dear Beetstra, The people at verse.fr don't understand why you are removing its links from Wikipedia. verse.fr is not spam: almost everyone involved in it has a Ph.D. in literature, and the team has already spent more than a thousand hours creating a non-profit online scholarly anthology of English, French and Latin verse. No poet can insert her or his own verse: every poet listed or quoted is a recognized, established poet. Copyright is respected (which is why there are few direct quotations of twentieth-century poets). verse.fr does not even have links to other sites.

We hope that you will take a moment to look at the site (www.verse.fr); surely you will agree that it makes useful contributions to Wikipedia entries on certain poets (we do not establish Wikipedia links when the poet's work is already well represented by other links).

Best wishes,

Toule9

You have about 6 hits per day, and you are adding it everywhere. The link fails the external links guideline. Moreover, you have a conflict of interest. I suggest you consider adding content, in stead of only adding links. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:20, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Singular or plural ?

Dear Beetstra,

since you are a contributor the article Intelligent cities, i would like to ask you this question personally.

Isn't the singular a standard in Wikipedia ?

I mean, of course: shouldn't the article be named Intelligent city, instead of Intelligent cities ?

All the best,
--Hgfernan (talk) 21:03, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

P.S.: i'm translating the article to the Portuguese Wikipedia.

I think it has been moved now to Intelligent city. I think that WP:NAME can tell you more about this. Hope this helps, happy editing. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:52, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

hdcubes/tesseracts

I do not understand why my link edits of Nov. 3/09 were deleted. Many of these links were originally posted years ago. Now Geocities is closed and I had to move my site to http://www.magic-squares.net.

The Geocities site originated in May of 1998, and over the years has grown to a very popular description of over 125 pages on the whole subject of magic hypercubes. The 125+ pages are actually distributed in 3 different locations, but are connected by the button bar on the top of all main pages. Therefore, some of the links I post go to http://members.shaw.ca/hdhcubes/ or http://members.shaw.ca/tesseracts/ for relavency.

--Harvey Heinz (talk) 19:05, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, the personal site on geocities was already not a suitable external link, and this neither. Popularity is not the question, utility may be. We are writing an encyclopedia here, not a linkfarm. I'd also like you to review our conflict of interest guideline. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:20, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I like to think that I and the *many* other editors who are complaining of Beetstra's deletions are writing an encyclopedia here. Beetstra seems also to repeatedly 'warn' others of some misconduct or other when they complain about his uninformed deletions. YSWT (talk) 21:16, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

YSWT, please don't suggest that I do not look at what is linked, etc. And please don't suggest that I don't know WP:EL. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:12, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

This is a 'straw man' argument. Neither of these things is 'suggested' above. What is suggested is that you seem to repeatedly 'warn' others of some misconduct. What is also suggested is that you make substantive deletions in articles you are 100% ignorant about. This seems to be a huge annoyance for those with knowledge of the subject and thus knowledge of what is relevant or not. You may feel you can remove article content as 'irrelevant' even if you are ignorant of the subject of the article, but I and many other editors are trying to explain that, no... being an expert on wikipedia technicals is not a substitute for being an expert (or even have a good understanding) of the subject of an article you are editing. Except, if non-obvious, for spam -- such as the link to a pay per view website offing for sale warez software, no knowledge of the article is necessary. (But again, you initially removed such a link but then assisted in removing the legitimate reference or official site links and leaving in its place the spam link). You also seem to confuse COI with expertise on the subject, as if in your view, ignorants (on the subject) should edit articles for wikipedia and those who are experts should restrain themselves interfering by adding the information and reference links they understand are appropriate for the subject. YSWT (talk) 18:58, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

An annoyance, YSWT. What annoys me is the first sentence here. Of course people complain, and of course I make mistakes. But I do know what WP:RS, WP:EL, WP:NOT (and the other policies and guidelines) say, and where linking is inappropriate. And when you look at my discussions about WP:COI, you also know how I see that. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:07, 13 November 2009 (UTC)