This is an archive of past discussions about User:Beetstra. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Hi! Concerning this edit by you and WP:EL. I believe that the official YouTube channel and the link to the official blog are happen to be "official sites unavailable in English" and they do "contain visual aids". =) The blog is by their management, not by fans. Please, don't remove them. =) By the way, this and this are obviously fakes and they are repeatedly added to ºC-ute and Airi Suzuki (you may be able to help). And I guess you were right about the link to the iTunes store. Moscowconnection (talk) 01:22, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the message. But we are not a linkfarm, Moscowconnection. We are not linking somewhere because it is official and maintained by the person. One official link is more than enough in most cases, and if they are official, they are generally quite prominently linked from the official homepage already, and hence superfluous to Wikipedia. These are things you need to keep into consideration as well, and which make YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, etc. often not needed. I'll have a look. I hope this explains. --Dirk BeetstraTC06:59, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
In this particular case, they aren't linked: Links page. Try and find it. I found ºC-ute's blog, actually! There are small banners at the buttom, it's 3rd from the top, 5th from the left. No YouTube channel. And even if it appeared somewhere, noone would even find the Links page cause the whole site is in Japanese. You are probably against promotion on Wikipedia but you understand that it's maintained by fans and our purpose is to make it cute and pleasant to browse through, with all information easily accessible. And the rules don't explicitly prohibit adding several official links. Moscowconnection (talk) 08:18, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
That they are official does still not mean that we have to link to all of it (we are not a linkfarm to find everything about the subject). But then it comes down to common sense. Note, we generally link to an official site, only because it is the official site - many official sites would fail the very core of WP:EL - they do not add anything significant to a page here, everything said there is already on the page here, sometimes we even have more on Wikipedia than on the official site! I think it comes down to common sense - the YouTube seems an addition over the official one, the others I would leave (they are linked from the official site and/or from the YouTube). Seems like the best solution. --Dirk BeetstraTC10:17, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
You are right about the YouTube, the others are there indeed. Now the question comes: if the official homepage does not list the YouTube, then a) how important do you think that the YouTube is to the band, and b) is it really the official YouTube channel. However, I could agree that that may be an addition. The others there are linked, indeed, or anyway inappropriate. Maybe a discussion on the talkpage of C-ute?
No, it's just that they may have made banners long ago. They (their producer) might have actually moved their attention to YouTube and the blog. So there's no need for discussion. I actually think they have all links on the YouTube account now. Moscowconnection (talk) 09:52, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
And! They link the Facebook page there, on YouTube. It doesn't have much, I didn't think it could be official. :( And I've removed the links a couple of times already. :( Moscowconnection (talk) 09:52, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
It's not like they have the main official page specifically designed to be a starting point. It's just for issuing official statements. The whole project seems to be mostly managed by one person, Tsunku, so even his twitter is an official source. Moscowconnection (talk) 09:52, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
Yes, if the abuse is too much, and XLinkBot can't keep up with it, then blacklisting may be an option. You may need some evidence of people reverting XLinkBot, and use by multiple people for these links (unfortunately, COIBot is useless on these type of links, it can't spew out reports for youtube.com or facebook.com - way too many records, and it would not be clear then either from those reports). --Dirk BeetstraTC08:35, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
In the end, one of the two Facebook pages I mentioned seems to be official, the other doesn't. Sorry for bothering you. As I said, it's not like there is one official page, I don't get it. Nobody will ever find anything if you remove the links. And the Hello! Project web site is the worst cause as I said it mostly just publishes official statements and it has the list of their releases. Moscowconnection (talk) 10:59, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
Hi Michelle. Thanks for the question. I removed an image, as it is non-free, and it does not have a rationale for its use on Susana Gonzalez ("All non-free files used on this page must have a valid and specific rationale for use on this page", see WP:NFCC#10c). That means, that on the image description page, you need to state that it is used on Susana Gonzalez, and state why you think that the use there is 'fair-use'. If the image description is clearly stating that, you can re-insert the image.
Small note, are you sure that it is fair-use - it is about a DVD of the subject, please do check all the other points of WP:NFCC as well - its use may be ornamental, in which case it can noy be used on Susana Gonzalez, with or without rationale. I hope this explains. --Dirk BeetstraTC11:27, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
File:Pasión DVD.jpg This is a picture (I don't know can I put it even here on the talk page?). Susana is in the middle. I want use this image to illustrate an article about her, because she is one of famous Mexican actresses. See also this - Pina Pellicer, where a image from the movie is used to ilustrate the article. If you know what to do next, just tell me. :)--Mychele (talk) 17:22, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
When image is free and is from Wikimedia, can be used everywhere?
When the image is free, you can use it everywhere on Wikipedia.
What you have to do, is to write a rationale on the image description page (click here -> File:Pasión DVD.jpg, on that page that then opens you have to write a rationale) stating on which page you want to display it (best is to link to the exact article), and why it is necessary. Then you can use it on that page. If you want to use it on more than one page, you have to do that for every page you want to display it on (if it is displayed on three pages, you need three separate rationales). I hope this helps. --Dirk BeetstraTC06:57, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
Note that what the Foundation requires, per its resolution, is that a rationale for using an NFC image must *exist*, not that it must be *written down*. The latter is an implementation measure adopted by en-wiki. This was clarified in an August 2007 message by Kat Walsh [1] that I linked in the recent Delta/Nightscream discussion at WP:AN3; but it seems from a recent edit at WP:AN/I [2] that you might not have seen this, so I thought I'd just flag it again, in the interests of ongoing historical accuracy. Jheald (talk) 16:35, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
The wording of the Resolution is indeed semi-vague, it can be read in different ways. It notes 'must be identified in a machine-readable format' - which suggests that it is written down, though that may not be the rationale, but that it is non-free material, 'Media used under EDPs are subject to deletion if they lack an applicable rationale.' - which suggests indeed that if there is no rationale, then they should be deleted (but does that rationale need to be written down) .. does the resolution ask for the rationale to be written down or not .. difficult to say.
However, my take on it - if there is not a rationale written down, then a rationale may not exist. The only way of knowing for sure that there is a rationale is if that rationale is presented there - do note, that in a fair number of cases, there is no valid rationale for the use of the non-free material.
With respect to this edit, did you look at the image description page before removing it? The image clearly had a FUR for the article although the FUR was pointing to the disambiguation page rather than the article. I would have thought it would have been easier and much less disruptive (given the actions of DASHbot once the image was orphaned) to have corrected the FUR rather than remove the image. Have now updated the FUR and restored the image. Dpmuk (talk) 08:52, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the remark. Yes, some are blatantly clear, though others are not. I am sorry, am I supposed to see from the poster, that it is the 2010 poster, or the 1984 poster?
Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia. We always appreciate when users add images to discussion pages. However, it appears that one or more of the images you have recently added to a discussion may fail our non-free image policy. Most often, this involves editors adding non-free material to a non-mainspace page. Please note that we take very seriously our criteria on non-free image additions outside of the main article namespace, and users who repeatedly misuse non-free images may be blocked from editing. If Since you will dispute this application of policy, please accuse User:Δ of WP:ABF, violating WP:3RR, disliking images, and having a general distaste for marsupials. Please ensure your accusation of him is posted at one or more drama boards (the wider the net, the better), couched in a personal insult against him, and do not notify him of the discussion so the discussion can gain consensus against him. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:26, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, just had to rib you for this edit where you added non-free content to a discussion while suggesting you had a solution to some of our NFCC problems ;) --Hammersoft (talk) 16:26, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
It is good that IRC is not displaying the images .. maybe I should have to bot add a colon before 'File', just to make sure I don't make this mistake again ..
Two points: First, I never stated or implied anything to the effect of "it must be correct because I don't see, nor understand, what is wrong." While my initial revert was based on the conclusion that the rationale was correct (and that perhaps Delta made an error), in subsequent discussions I flat-out asked him what was wrong with it, which I pointed out in that discussion on his talk page ad nauseum, which has nothing to do with, nor bears any resemblance to the distortion of my position quoted above, and underscores the inanity of the remark "I do hope that on next occasions where you run into a removal by ∆, that you then think 'Oh, maybe there is something wrong, let me see if I can repair it', or ask Delta if he can help". If you can't distinguish between my actual words and behavior and these alternate universe descriptions of them, much less see that I plainly did what you imply I didn't, then, then please do not participate in discussions with me.
Second, in answer to your statement "let me bring this again to your attention, example: diff by you or diff by you. Your edit summary here is way less informative than ∆, how is the editor who added that supposed to know what unsourced here means - you do not link specifically to that." First of all, the links I provided to the WP:V and WP:NOR most certainly do explain what sourcing is, in a quite straightforward manner that does not involve figuring out which among a labyrinthine set of criteria, so your statement that I "did not link specifically to it is false.
As to your accusation that I do not "discuss" the matter with the editors who add unsourced material, well, golly gee whiz, Dirk, did you look through the more detailed, explanatory messages that I leave on the talk pages of the editors who add the unsourced material (most of which are anonymous IP editors who may be one-off editors not likely to return to source the material), which I do daily
(y'know, like here, here, here or here)?
Did you notice that most of those messages include line "If you have any other questions about editing, or need help regarding the site's policies, just let me know by leaving a message for me in a new section at the bottom of my talk page."?, with a link to that talk page to make it easier for them?
Did you look to see that when a discussion arises, I most certainly do engage them in conversation in which I try to explain to them, in a polite and friendly manner, all about sourcing and source reliability (y'know, like here), even when they are less than friendly themselves, like here or here? Delta displays nothing of this openness or helpfulness, preferring to stonewall when legitimate attempts are made to ask him questions.
So if you wanted to make an analogy between my communications with others and those of Delta's (or for that matter, demonstrate that you know how to do a bit of research), then you failed quite spectacularly. Nightscream (talk) 16:32, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
Nightscream, with all respect and calmness. No, you did not say that, indeed. But a) there was something wrong, it was minor, it was not obvious, but there was something wrong. It was not obvious to you. But if an established editor says there is something wrong, I don't go revert them twice, three times. I leave there edit, assuming they are right and there is something wrong, and try to figure out via discussion. Re-re-re-reverting is not the way forward. And just to be clear, there is NEVER a reason to issue any form of personal attacks, however weakly worded - but your very opening post on Delta's usertalk already is an angry one. And people keep accusing Delta that 'it is obvious how it is broken', but still, many editors revert with 'I don't understand what is broken here' .. Now, that is a massive double standard.
And regarding that, people are only complaining if they do not get a very clear answer from Delta .. but have you seen e.g. the current thread User_talk:Δ#Crying_Time - a friendly question, a perfect answer. Or User_talk:Δ#Embedded_.28album.29_image for that matter - again a friendly question, a friendly answer. And now, your opening sentence "Is there some particular reason you cannot simply clarify what the problem is with a given image"/"If this is wrong on my part, why not respond to explain why?" - no, you just revert, and don't ask, while you clearly don't understand what was the problem. So don't get there, Nightscream, that is not behaviour that I expect of you. And certainly not the personal attacks that follow.
Yes, I know, you communicate with editors what is wrong as well, but your first revert on those cases was way less informative than Delta's. WP:V and WP:NOR clearly show what sourcing is, similarly, Wikipedia:Non-free use rationale guideline clearly shows what the problem is, and Delta adds 'All non-free files used on this page must have a valid and specific rationale for use on this page' - yet more explanation. Sure, both are just edit summaries, it would be better with a talk page message upon removal - but both cases (your reverts of WP:V/WP:NOR and the removals of Delta have as common problem: who added the material - if that is clear it is easy to explain the editor, but that is not the case - and that is exactly the reason that those two diffs of you don't have a further explanation or edit to user talkpages. Not your unwillingness to explain in more detail to IP editors. But as I show with the two threads on Delta's talkpage, also Delta is willing to explain.
So yes, Nightscream, I did my research. I do also see all the cases where Delta's removals are met with a nice and friendly 'oops, I will fix it', 'Could you please explain why you say that there no rationale, I do see a rationale on the image description', etc. etc. I show you diffs of you where you do not explain in full, as those are also the diffs that you say of Delta that he does not explain in full. But all the threads in which Delta does not explain, are either threads which are started off with hostility. A bit of civility, respect and calm questions go a long way, Nightscream. --Dirk BeetstraTC07:32, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
Regarding image on FC Seoul page
Hi~ honestly. I can't understand what you mean totly. So you mean that only one page can use non-free file? Please remove that file on Anyang LG Cheetahs.
FC Seoul page is a superordinate concept to a Anyang LG Cheetahs page.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Footwiks (talk • contribs)
No, I mean that you have to add a second rationale to the image description page for the other page where it is displayed. In principle you can copy the rationale that is there, paste it a second time on the same page, and then adapt both the name of the page in the new rationale (so it points to the correct page), and the reason why it should be displayed on the second one. In the end, it needs a rationale for every display of the image (and that can be one rationale if it is displayed on one page, or even a hundred separate rationales if it is displayed on 100 independent pages). I hope this explains. --Dirk BeetstraTC11:20, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
Regarding image on FC Seoul page
My English is poor. So I can't accept your direction. I hope that you do it instead of me. Thank you.— Preceding unsigned comment added by footwiks (talk • contribs)
Hi. I would appreciate if you would please check out the Lisinopril history. This article contains a live example of a transcluded drugbox template. I realize that currently there is no consensus to use transcluded tempates, but I wanted to keep this one intact as a live example of how the transclusion would work. I tried shutting down the edit priviliges for the article by adding the {{nobots}} template to the article, but that did not seem to work. Your thoughts? Boghog (talk) 20:03, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
OK, now I understand. Both the parent article and special purpose template were included in the index. So I went ahead and removed the parent article from the index in this edit. Thanks for the information. Boghog (talk) 20:33, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
No, not yet. Still heavy under development. If you're on IRC, it is in #NFCCCompliance, I'll be there during the day as well. I'll consider publishing the code at some point. Thanks! --Dirk BeetstraTC19:36, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
I'm mostly looking for the "fair use image used without applicable FUR" identification logic. I'm hanging around in that channel now. John Vandenberg(chat)23:21, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
Eh .. I am not sure if the word 'applicable' is correct here. The scripts are not detecting whether a rationale could possibly be created. But I am on my way to the channel. --Dirk BeetstraTC07:03, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
Homatropine/Methylhomatropine
This entry has previously mixed and merged two completely different medications, Homatropine, an analog of Atropine and Methylhomatropine, the corresponding quaternary ammonium ion/salt. The latter one does not cross the blood/brain barrier, acts only peripherally and has different indications, compare to Scopolamine vs. Butylscopolamine (Buscopan), that is the same constellation. I have separated this into two entries, could you please take a look, that the chemboxes/drugboxes are now ok, I am not sure if my copy paste edit got everything right. Also a new picture is needed for Homatropine. See discussions there.
70.137.149.219 (talk) 07:06, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
There is a bug that happened in the update, it reverted the uii of homatropine to homatropine methylbromide, which is the wrong drug, and which was previously in this entry. can you take a look? I think it has to be reverted, the bot seems to insist it is the old chemical namely methylhomatropine, the quaternary compound.
70.137.136.46 (talk) 10:25, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
Bummer!. There is a bug in the bot update, it got it wrong again and reverted to the methylhomatropine. The manual value was correct.
70.137.136.46 (talk) 10:44, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
Sigh .. I see. I am trying again - this was deeper, problem with the original source of the UNII's .. pff. I'll keep an eye! Thanks again! --Dirk BeetstraTC10:57, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
No. The box has first 2 images 'normal' (image 1 and 2), then 2 rows of 2 side-by-side (L1/R1 and L2/R2), then again 2 'normal' (3 and 4) and then again 2 rows of 2 side-by-side (L3/R3 and L4/R4) .. I thought always that you could make all combinations that would normally be used then. I think here they want to fill L1/R1 and L2/R2, and then Image3 .. that should give the right combination. I hope this explains. --Dirk BeetstraTC07:33, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
But isn't that what they have done? The chembox currently uses L1/R1, L2/R2, and Image3 but it displays in the order L1/R1, Image3, L2/R2. (Sorry to butt in on this conversation...) ChemNerd (talk) 11:29, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
Forgot to answer this point. I was mistaken about the chembox. I have adapted the code, so that this can be displayed as wanted. --Dirk BeetstraTC14:24, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
If you know how to solve it, do it by yourself. Why you just speak in a commanding tone?
I don't understand your action.— Preceding unsigned comment added by footwiks (talk • contribs)
No, I don't know how to solve it. I don't know the rationale of using it, I only know how to technically write the rationale in this case. You want to include the image, it is up to you to write the rationale. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:03, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
re:non-free media in userspace
Thanks for that -I was kind of hoping noone would notice for a few hours :P The article will be going live within the hour Brian | (Talk)10:59, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
Hello, Beetstra. Please check your email; you've got mail! It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
Thank you for the information. I'll keep an eye. Note, the block is also discussed off-wiki on the unblock mailinglist (though the discussion is silent for some time already). --Dirk BeetstraTC19:33, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
He has indicated to me by e-mail that he would like to make an unblock request under the conditions I've offered. Unless there's anything from the mailinglist discussion you think I should know, I'll probably remove the talkpage restriction in the next 24 hours. -- Lear'sFool03:49, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
I have allowed talkpage access again for the user. I do note, that I found this necessary since I found (at the time of block) that there are over the last two months at least two cases of non-free image misuse while the editor was very active in that field. The continuous questions of others on my talkpage regarding the indef block made me dig deeper, and this issue with non-free image misuse and running into Delta is older than this (several cases). I stand by the point, that the editor by now should know better and try to follow NFC, and I hope that that message will get through. There is no excuse for further misuse of non-free material, nor to continuously personally attack editors. --Dirk BeetstraTC07:15, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
re:non-free media overuse
Then surely that article itself shouldn't exist? That one image I left on there was a logo. If you think it doesn't identify the organisation, then the entire page should probably just be merged with ITV1. Digifiend (talk) 11:57, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
No. There may be images which can be used, it may even be that it is one of the images that is there, but the one you chose is certainly not the one to 'identify' Night Network - there surely must be a logo that everyone would recognise as the logo, I hope that it is not the 'back soon' image, because if that would be the case, then most people would watch thát screen, and not any programs. --Dirk BeetstraTC11:59, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
Instruction creep occurs when Wikipedia guideline or policy pages contain statements that expound upon unimportant details and minutiae, often in ways that exaggerate the situation or severely limit options and thus don't reflect true community consensus. To avoid errors and maximize usefulness, policies and guidelines should be as brief and simple as reasonably possible.
There are two major causes of instruction creep:
Editors sometimes produce too much instruction and thus over-complicate the page. Lengthy and complex advice pages are ignored as being too long to read.
Editors don't believe that nobody reads the directions. They believe that putting advice into a guideline or policy results in most of the English Wikipedia's thousands of active editors following the directions. In reality, Wikipedia has more than 50 full policies and more than 500 guidelines, and hardly anybody reads all of them.
So, you don't have to read all of them, but when you are repeatedly pointed to one or two, I do suggest that you read those. The external links you add fail WP:EL and WP:NOT. --Dirk BeetstraTC13:02, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
Well, "All non-free files used on this page must have a valid and specific rationale for use on this page"/"one or more files removed due to missing rationale" - do I have to write it out differently? There were non-free files used on the page which did not have a valid and specific rationale for the use on the page. Both you and I, obviously, did not spot the mistake, but clearly there was not a rationale for the page where it was displayed on. I see you repaired it by now. Thanks. --Dirk BeetstraTC14:53, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
If you're unable to 'spot the mistake' as you say, why are you removing the images? And further, why not just fix it yourself? Radiopathy•talk•14:58, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
Radiopathy, was there anywhere on the image description page mentioned that the image was deemed fair-use on Twist and Shout (EP)? There was a fair-use rationale for Twist and Shout, but that is a different article. So, is there a valid and specific rationale for the use on this page? No, there is not. So there was a mistake, that was clear. What the mistake was, whether it was broken, or plainly missing, I did not know. I just saw that the rationale was not there.
No, that does not make it unquestionable. It is unquestionably replaceable - there is an alternative, it is not even 'an alternative can maybe be made'. --Dirk BeetstraTC15:40, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
Very strange. You know, Dirk? You are a very calm person. Though you play tug-of-war instead of sticking to policies. I don't know which of them is the most powerful in you. Yet these cannot explain the events that have recently transpired. There is something very important about you that I do not know. A decisive factor... Somethings that makes disagreeing you labeled as "bad" not for a reason other than merely not agreeing with you. What is it? Fleet Command (talk) 08:26, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
.. I was not calm somewhere? Play tug-of-war instead of sticking to policies? Nah, not so sure about that. And no, you can disagree with me, no problem there, but do that through discussion, not through edit warring. --Dirk BeetstraTC16:59, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
As you removed a revision of the page for "trolling." I think that you have personally attacked a user just now by calling them a troll! I don't think that I deserve a warning and I think that you do because you have warned another person for doing nothing when you are actually in violation of the rules yourself. PuffinLet's talk!16:00, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps if you examined the amount of corruption that has taken place, it is not fair that I have been warned for no reason. I have a long list of reasons why this warning template should be removed because first of all, it was given in error, by you and then you ignore be because you do not want to talk to me for some unknown reason. I don't think that it's fair because you personally attacked another user yourself and no one warned you. Examine some pages, you will see real personal attacks. I have examined that page in great detail and I have gathered that the words I used were not attacks, it was constructive criticism towards the users contributions. If you could reply, it would be nice because ignoring is also not nice. PuffinLet's talk!16:04, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
You can also look up my talk page. I have been called a liar, I have been called a variety of other names too. These users didn't receive a warning for their "personal attacks." Why have I been treated differently. I feel that I have unfairly been singled out for no apparent reason and I would like an explanation instead of silence please. PuffinLet's talk!16:21, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
Puffin, there is never a need to say something negative about a user, even if it is true. You may be right, but there is no need to return it. If you think that someone is rude to you (or to someone else) - tell them what you found rude, give them a warning, but do not return a personal attack. --Dirk BeetstraTC16:57, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
"WikiProject Report" would like to focus on WikiProject Spam for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Other editors will also have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 19:28, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
Hi Beetstra. After further clarifying the useage of File:ktvo cbs.png in its summary I have reverted your edit that removed it from the Wiki KTVO-DT2. I didn't quite understand your original "beef" with it to begin with, seeing as its useage was virtually the same as dozens of other tv and radio station logos on Wikipedia. But whatever. If you still have a problem with the rationale maybe we should take this up with an admin or something. Its my feeling that if the KTVO-DT2 logo isn't permissible then there are a huge number of other logos that will need to be removed ASAP as well. Sector001 (talk) 21:36, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Sector001, I don't know why you think that the use is not permissible? Where did I say that? What I said was, that there is no fair-use rationale on the file description page for the files that I have removed, and until you updated the file description page, there was no fair-use rationale written down for KTVO-DT2, only for KTVO.
I know, there are many station logos which are problematic in their fair-use rationales. I am going through all files, and for sure I will run into more problematic cases. Note that I am already very liberal, I am repairing rationales where I can (even though I am at no obligation to do so), but if I am unsure whether things are correct, and the rationale is not there, I will simply remove the image from display and wait for someone to repair it.
I thank you for starting this discussion, but I do note, that your post is unnecessarily hostile, and I would suggest that you do assume good faith and not go into future actions. Thank you. --Dirk BeetstraTC06:56, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Well I'm not sure why you're taking the tone of my original note as "hostile". My intent was far from it. I just simply wanted to know why KTVO-DT2 was seemingly singled out for removal. If we ever have further communication I'll try to remember to couch it with butterflies, rainbows, and other such frivolity. lol. Maybe its just a cultural difference thing. Have a WONDERFUL day filled with all things sweetness and light.Sector001 (talk) 18:17, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Well, I don't see why we two would not be able to work it out together, without taking "this up with an admin or something". --Dirk BeetstraTC20:10, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Homatropine/Methylhomatropine wrong redirect
Can you please take a look at "Homatropine methylbromide", I have edited this redirect to correctly point to "Methylhomatropine". Before this was wrong.
But it still resolves to "Homatropine", so this redirect does not work!
Besides, the "Homatropine methylbromide" drug bank entry resolves also to "Homatropine", they mix it up with "Homatropine methylbromide". This is damned dangerous, they cite the wrong info from Wiki and resolve to the wrong drug and copied the wrong info! (Actually the Homatropine and the Methylhomatropine info mixed, like in the old wiki entry. The wiki.nl in dutch does the same. There is a danger that the two drugs may get mixed up in a pharmacy with this misinformation, and they have a deliriant patient then. Can you take a look? I am unable to debug that, maybe some hidden redirection. Can you help debug that?
I wrote the drugbank people a notice, but no answer.
70.137.141.127 (talk) 23:49, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Besides, the drug bank entry is a complete failure, listing Homatropine methylbromide as "Humulon lead salt", which seems to be an intermediate in the purification of "Hops acid". It also list "methylbromide" as a synonym.
I will likely better not see a doctor, who uses this as a reference.
The Mortician will be a safer pair of hands.
I think the Wiki project is dead. Wiki is an insidious mixture of fact, misconceptions, propaganda and plain idiocy. All too often it seems to be written by either 6-year olds with a corresponding level of reading understanding, or by automated extraction of literature with an AI processor, with the typical lapses of AI.
70.137.141.127 (talk) 06:00, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for bringing this here (though, this should actually go to the talkpage). I am sorry, I can't do anything about the drugbank issue (for Wikipedia, if there is a serious mistake there, I would just not link to it ..). For the Wiki part, do I understand you correctly, that Methylhomatropine, Homatropine methylbromide and Homatropine are actually three different things, but that on Wikipedia the first two redirect to the latter? If that is really wrong, I would suggest that you assist in writing the three different articles (I am not a specialist, but the Wikipedia:WikiProject Pharmacology-people might be able to help more efficiently here; but you can also do it yourself!).
I should note, that Wikipedia is not finished, should not be used for medical advice by itself (it may still be a good point to start off finding relevant literature, but don't base your judgement on it), and that it is notoriously inaccurate in many cases. We do our best to have the correct identifiers for the chemical compounds at least, and I do think that there we are over 99% correct (for the ones that CheMoBot is checking, at least), but still there are mistakes, and upgrades necessary.
Dirk, Homatropine is the tertiary base. It has central action. Homatropine methylbromide and Methylhomatropine are synonymous. They are a quaternary ammonium base, have no central action and have different indications from Homatropine. So they are a different drug from "Homatropine". The problem is, that "Homatropine methylbromide" is a redirect to "Methylhomatropine" look at the entry. But this redirect does not work, but it resolves to "Homatropine" erronously instead. Read above again. Help me debug please. Kind regards.
70.137.141.127 (talk) 07:25, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
To make it more clear, the articles "Homatropine" and "Methylhomatropine" I have already done and they are ok. Look at history. However the redirect from "Homatropine methylbromide" to "Methylhomatropine" does not work, instead erroneously redirects to "Homatropine".
70.137.141.127 (talk) 07:29, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
Homatropine should be stripped down until it is solely about the tertiary base, and identifiers and properties should be for this compound.
either Homatropine methylbromide or Methylhomatropine should be converted from a redirect to an article about the quaternary ammonium base, and the remaining redirect should be pointed to the correct article. Again, identifiers and properties should be for this compound.
As I said, I am not a specialist in drugs, I don't know what to really write in the articles, or what should be in which article. You can simply choose one of the two and start an article from scratch, and repair the remaining redirect. Or you can ask the WikiProject or others who are regulars on the article (I am only interested in the identifiers for most drugs, and having them correct - I understand they are wrong here, but if someone would put the correct ones and alerts me, I will go through the rest). I hope this explains. --Dirk BeetstraTC07:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
Strange, on my computer it still redirects to "Homatropine", do they have a server hierarchy, where it takes some time to trickle down through the caching hierarchy? So you are positive on your computer it resolves correctly?
I am in the US/California.
Have you tried out(!) entering "Homatropine methylbromide" in the search bar?
This is what does not work. The redirect does look ok, it says "Redirect Methylhomatropine" but it does not resolve correctly, that is the bug. Please enter it in the search bar and see what happens!
70.137.141.127 (talk) 07:42, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
ok. I deleted my browser cache (FF. 5) and now it works. Seems as if Wiki does not notify correctly that cached page went stale after edits. Can you convey that to the software guys? Its a bug.
70.137.141.127 (talk) 08:48, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
So the bug is: If you edit and change a redirect, it does not cause the redirect to go stale. The computer does not get notified, that the previous association given by the redirect is not valid any more. So the computer displays the page, which was given previously by the redirect, and "thinks" it is still valid. Imo. real edits to a text page mark the page as "changed" and cause a reload. Edits to a redirect do not do this and this is a bug.
70.137.141.127 (talk) 08:57, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
Not completely .. IIRC every edit causes it to be reparsed, but it does get put into a queue. It may be that the queue at the moment is a bit long (there was a page somewhere that shows how the queues are), and then it takes some time. Especially templates have that problem, a template edit causes that all pages that transclude it need to be reparsed, and that sometimes takes hours to take effect. On the other hand .. redirects are so small, maybe they should simply be reparsed on edit every the time, and not be put into a queue .. I'll have a look at bugzilla. --Dirk BeetstraTC09:27, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
In this case took two days and did not resolve w.o. deleting browser cache. So my take is it does not mark the redirect page as changed, so the browser doesn't get notified. Has to be analyzed by replicating. IMO 2+ days can't well be queue delay.
70.137.141.127 (talk) 09:58, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
70.137.141.127 (talk) 10:01, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
The problem in the Homatropine example seems to be, after Ichange the redirect of "homatropine methylbromide" from "homatropine" to "methylhomatropine" there is no notification that the cached "homatropine" page became invalid, so in the browser the "homatropine methylbromide" web address still stays associated with the old "homatropine" cache entry, it does not get marked invalid and the browser does not load the new content, which would be the "methylhomatropine" page.
This only happens after I manually delete the browser cache and start from scratch.
This is for an IP edit and IP viewer.
70.137.141.127 (talk) 10:37, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
Parking ticketers are roundly despised too. That's a very apt analogy Δ. People park their NFCC images all over the place without doing the required work to properly add it, but it's the people who enforce the policies that are routinely insulted. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:50, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Exactly what I said in the Motion. And now Δ is out of the picture on NFCC .. guess where it will go now.
Based on how roundly castigated I was at the recent WT:NFC discussion, I suspect I'm one of the prime targets. Also, since I'm not an administrator I think that ups the possibility that I'll be the next target over you. They can complain all they want. I find it sickeningly ironic that they complained about Δ not discussing things and forcing images off that were not in compliance, then when I discuss things they complain too. There's no option they will not complain about except vacating #10c whether by the actual steps of removing it from policy or by forcing anyone who even thinks of enforcing it to stop. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:58, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
"They just want to some make money off innocent people and <bleepbleep> don't give a <bleep>". (I.e., you're making a WP:POINT violation, you're being WP:DISRUPTIVE)
(in response to being told he's only doing his job, i.e. enforcing policy) "You're an <bleep>". (people on Wikipedia can insult the enforcers all they want).
"I don't give a rat's ass" (I.e., I don't care about the #10c policy).
"I can talk all I <bleep> want" (I.e., I'll complain to WT:NFC, WP:3RR, WP:AN/I and any other place I can dream of)
"You don't understand anything" (I.e., your interpretation of policy is completely wrong)
"The city's in deep<bleep> money wise and they're gonna make money off of <bleep> like this" (I.e., we're losing editors, it's a WP:BITE violation)
(in response to 'your car was parked illegally') "You and me were talking man to man...I got the authority" (I.e., you should have discussed the removal first, you need to see consensus first).
"You know I'm right" (doesn't need wikitranslation)
You have just removed a WikiCommons file from this page claiming it is non-free use without proper rationale. Surely you should have checked your facts first? Mzilikazi1939 (talk) 12:57, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Ehm .. the file is local, and non-free, and does not have a rationale. Please see the message on your talkpage. Surely you should have checked your facts first as well. Thanks. --Dirk BeetstraTC12:59, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
I don't understand the structure of rosocyanine. What I get on paper from the reaction of two curcumins with one boric acid is a covalently bonded structure C42H57BO10 with a single negative charge (formally on the boron), three water molecules, and an H+. Under different conditions it could be a cation other than H+, but I always get a single negative charge on the rosocyanine structure, not a single positive charge on it (with a negative counterion, on this page arbitrarily a chloride). I don't have much online access to the chemical literature; when I get to a technical library I'll look it up, but until then, maybe someone could clarify this for me.HowardJWilk (talk) 21:12, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
Update: I checked the structure in reference G. P. Spicer and J. D. H. Strickland: Compounds of curcumin and boric acid. Part I. The structure of rosocyanine. In: Journal of the Chemical Society (London), p. 4644-4650 (1952). ISSN: 0368-1769, CODEN: JCSOA9. The structure is like the bottom one shown, but there is a negative charge on boron. The counterion is an H+ on one of the quinone oxygens. In addition, there is an H+ on the other quinone oxygen, with a Cl- counterion. So of the various ways to accurately depict the structure, the easiest way is to start with the bottom structure now there, label the B with a negative sign, put an H on each of the quinone oxygens (=OH), label those oxygens with a positive sign, and take away the brackets and the circle-positive sign, now that the positive charges are localized. The chloride could stay where it is, since it's near one of the quinone oxygens which now get a positive sign, or it could be moved closer to that positive sign.
As an alternative, the brackets, circle-positive, and chloride could stay where they are, but the H's have to be added, which is where the positive charge comes from (2H+ and B-, net positive 1 charge).HowardJWilk (talk) 19:41, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Hi! Thanks for the comments and things. I think this is something for the picture drawers to make the image more clear. The image is likely hosted on commons, they have a template {{disputed chem|reason}} which you can put on the image description page. I would in that link to the ref you gave here, and it will likely be fixed soon. As it is now, it indeed seems confusing. --Dirk BeetstraTC21:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Not sure I did this right. Didn't fix drawing but commented on it on article talk page, not on image talk page, as per stop-sign-hand instructions when I was about to do the latter. Note G. S. Spicer, not G. P.; paper I looked at had it spelled rosocyanin (no e).HowardJWilk (talk) 02:30, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
Small change to drugbox requested
Hi. I was wondering if you would do me a small favor. I wanted to make a minor change in the {{drugbox}} template (see requested change). I am about ready to do some bot test edits to populate newly created fields (see bot request). Before I can start the test, the change in the template needs to be implemented. Thanks. Boghog (talk) 21:20, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
I was to fast there, sorry. Linking to it like you did is not the way. If the image is free of copyright, then you could consider to upload it, and use it in that way. Otherwise you can not use the image. I hope this explains. --Dirk BeetstraTC18:07, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
Left a welcome at the user talkpage. I think you do quite well, it is always pleasing to see that a user starts off early with discussing with an editor. I may respond a bit more tomorrow - it's bedtime, sorry ;-). --Dirk BeetstraTC21:09, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
Hmm .. looks like an 'edit conflict', I've seen it a couple of times before. CheMoBot loads a page, parses and updates the box, and saves it again, maybe in that couple of seconds you saved the page. I thought I protected the bot against this, I'll have a second look (though I don't know if I can completely prevent this from happening - there will always be time between the two moments). If you see this happening, just revert the bot (it should return 10 minutes later). Thanks for notifying me this is still a problem. --Dirk BeetstraTC05:36, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
No, we don't. Δ has a script which can remove media, but even that is not fail-save. There are so many ways of displaying non-free media on a page ([[image:something.jpg]], {{template | parameter1 = something | parameter2 = something.jpg}} (where only parameter2 needs to be blanked), {{othertemplate | parameter1 = something | parameter2 = something.jpg}} (where if parameter2 would be blanked the whole template breaks, so it is better to remove the whole template) to give some examples, but there are more). I did see that there is a dashbot active which removes images outside of mainspace, maybe that is worth a try.
The person with the most experience in this is Δ, and he is by far the best person to do this work (regarding the technical aspects of it) ... but well .. I guess you know that I don't think that the solution that ArbCom chose for this is optimal.
Thanks. The urgency would be hard to guess. Type something here if you want to know and I'll drop an email - petty issue, nothing Arbcom-like. Materialscientist (talk) 07:25, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
Well, I for one do think that the whole problem has a certain 'urgency' and 'importance', but that is another matter. You can mail me here, I'd like to hear.
Regarding Δ's tools, you can add "importScript("User:Δ/NFCC.js");" to you Common.js. It gives you some links in a drop-down menu (where you also have delete, move, protect), clicking the 'NFCC ##' will give you a possibility to manually review the edit where it removes the images which it detects to be wrong (which you need to do, there are sometimes things that break, it does remove those which it can't detect but which are correct, the script only suggests a new version, but it is not, and never will be, perfect). The other link gives you a review of the images, and check-buttons where you can select which ones you would like to remove (which then gives you the same possibility to review before you save). It maybe the fastest way of cleaning up some mess. I hope this helps. --Dirk BeetstraTC07:45, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
mediawiki whitelist, money week
Can I use that link yet? If not, how long will it take. I only need that specific link to that article, it's important to the wiki article, which just became a good article. I don't see why that site is blacklisted in the first place. Daniel Christensen (talk) 19:19, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
I just added/fixed the tracking for the domain. Let me have a look. Likely it was spammed somewhere in the past, but that does not mean that it can not be whitelisted. --Dirk BeetstraTC19:36, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
Wow, that is long ago .. I deleted it then because it was written in a way too promotional way (it was actually tagged for being too promotional a number of times, and subsequent deleted). It has since been protected against re-creation.
I would suggest that you first read the username policy, and the conflict of interest policy, then create a username which is not violating the first of these policies, and then create a draft in the userspace of your new account (if your new username is 'newusername', then the page would be User:newusername/Netwrix. I am sorry, your current username is likely to be blocked from editing, as it is not allowed. I hope this explains (will be back after the weekend, maybe I will expand on this). --Dirk BeetstraTC15:37, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
Expert got on Blacklist by mistake
Hi Dirk,
I am not sure whether this is the most appropriate way to get in contact with you. The company I work for is Netzsch Gerätebau in Germany. We are specialized in material characterization and work in this area since 50 years. We are one of a few companies with in-depth knowledge about Thermal Analysis Methods. From time to time we add content to Wikipedia to enrich the existing pages with basic information as well as with scientific level of information. Today I experienced that a link to our website www.netzsch-thermal-analysis.com/... was blocked (... you are on blacklist ...). I was really surprised as we are never intend to misuse Wikipedia. It took me a while and then I understood why links to the webpages of Netzsch are blocked: Another company (www.thermal-analysis.com) was added by you to the blacklist (together with several other domains of this company).
I am sure that it was not your intention to block our website www.netzsch-thermal-analysis.com.
What is necessary to get us back on Wikipedia as a contributor?
Thank you for the question. This looks indeed like collateral damage. You can ask for whitelisting (see the discussion page for the whitelist). However, sites are generally only whitelisted if they are of a general use for Wikipedia, and are seldomly granted when requested by someone related to the site.
May I ask you to make a request on the whitelist (that is WT:SWL). You can point in the request here to my talkpage. I would suggest that your site gets whitelisted then (or I will do that when I see the request). I do point you to our conflict of interest guideline, and the spam guideline, both of which contains more information regarding editing with relation to the organisation you belong to, and I do ask you to be careful to add links to your own site. I hope this helps. --Dirk BeetstraTC15:44, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
Hi Valfontis. I saw yesterday already that they were directed in the direction of WP:GLAM. I think that is the best. Is the editor interacting now, and are the additions everywhere useful on the pages where they are added? --Dirk BeetstraTC09:14, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
(well, I did, but did not run into this problem before). I added a s/\+/%2B/sig; befor the edit is performed, that should solve it, I hope. --Dirk BeetstraTC07:42, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
Bot was reported as malfunctioning to AIV. Not sure what's going on but preventive maintenance seemed in order so I blocked it. -- Alexf(talk)00:55, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
Aargh. WHY. It does that every once in a so many thousands of edits. As if it misreads a setting in some way. As far as I can see, the only reason to do this would be when it fails to read its on-wiki settings. I'll write a 'if-I-can't-read-the-settings-I-don't-do-anything'-patch .. Thanks for reporting. Mind to unblock the bot? --Dirk BeetstraTC06:57, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
Cheers! I hope I really solved it now (the only reason I could think why this happens is that the bot does not properly read the on-wiki settings, built in a check now so that the bot actually knows it read the local settings). --Dirk BeetstraTC10:29, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
CheMoBot/BogBot interaction
I have been running some trial runs of BogBot to add parameters to the {{drugbox}} template. In order to reduce the number of follow-on edits by CheMoBot after a BogBot edit, a suggestion was made that BogBot also add ChemSpiderID_Ref, etc. parameters (see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/BogBot_2). I am adding KEGG_Drug_ID, ChemSpider_ID, and PubChem_Compound_ID if these fields are not currently populated in a template. My source of data is the DrugBank database. I believe this data is correct, but I have not independently verified the data. I would really prefer that CheMoBot do this since I am not at all familiar with how you are verifying the data nor maintaining the repository of verified values. However since the issue was brought up by Headbomb, I thought I should ask you for your opinion. It would be helpful if you express your preference here. Thanks. Boghog (talk) 11:40, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your detailed reply. It saved me from having to do unnecessary work and in addition I now have a much better idea what CheMoBot is doing. CheMoBot is an ambitious and impressive undertaking bringing much needed quality control to chemical info boxes. My hats off to you! Cheers. Boghog (talk) 18:32, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
please help!
dirk, we chatted briefly yesterday about a page i'm putting up named zeina awad. you offered help should i need it, and, well, here i am. :) i'm having problems with another page, sebastian walker. if you would take a look and view the history, i'd really appreciate it. i haven't done anything different with seb's page, yet content is being deleted (because was considered spam and irrelevant) and the page is in jeopardy of being deleted altogether--for lack of citations. the reference link isn't working properly and i'm not sure what to do about it. if you put http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-12-13/turmoil-haiti/transcript into your browser, the link is fine. the wiki code doesn't work properly. any thoughts?
overall, i love wikipedia and i felt proud to contribute--even tho my contribution was small. i feel that everything i type is scrutinized--and mostly deleted--and i couldn't disagree more with the grounds. i don't even know if its worth my time. discouraged.
I do already note, that this reference helps, but I am not sure if it makes the person 'notable' (in Wikipedia terms, see WP:N) enough (based on this reference alone). But I will have a further look. --Dirk BeetstraTC07:19, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
At User:Hammersoft/tick_file#Overuse I've been keeping a loose track of the overuse of non-free images on articles situation, based on this report[side note]. A lot of good work had happened to make a pretty good dent in that situation from November of last year to June of this year. Now, there's been a serious reversal. Instead of a decrease, there's now a 16% increase over November, 2010.
Much of this can be tracked to currency articles being flooded with non-free images. 16 of the top 25 overusing articles are currency articles, accounting for 70% of the actual uses in the top 25 articles. There's been heavy debate about the coin issue, but no consensus has been created for inclusion. I took a look at the #1 hitter on that report, Euro gold and silver commemorative coins (France): 2007, with 118 images. A sample check revealed that all of the images have a purpose of use of "Currency picture". It's as if currency pictures are a special exclusion to our NFCC policy, and can be used anywhere so long as we state that the purpose of use is "Currency picture".
There was this recent RFC, but it was flawed from the outset. The creator of the RfC did not approach the issue from a neutral stance, and the first two options were heavily biased against removal. Even so, the inclusion proposal (#2) and the exclusion proposal (#3) achieved effectively the same level of support. I.e., no consensus.
I'm proceeding ahead with removals. I started today, removing 118 images from above noted worst offender. We'll see how it goes. If there's mass opposition, I think it's time we write something up for inclusion into WP:NFC that permits a special exclusion to overuse issues for currency lists. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:30, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
Side note: The first entry in that report is a misnomer; the files are actually free license, they just haven't been retagged yet. I disregarded this entry in my summary
I am afraid that this will never stop. Once the non-free material is uploaded, they are used as free game. Now there are many non-free images where I am not too worried about (the currency, the logos), but there are others where I do. But still, it should not happen, also not with logos and currency. I don't know, Hammersoft. I am afraid that this needs a firm word of the Foundation (which obviously will never happen), or a case where things go massively wrong (which may result in a total deletion of all free content). Maybe the only way is to wait for it, this will go wrong at some point. --Dirk BeetstraTC09:08, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
CheMoBot follow-up edits
I have a question about some CheMoBot follow-up edits after BogBot reformatted a drugbox template. In particular, the following edits would seem to be unnecessary:
Ehm, yes, this should not happen. It just adds a space which is totally superfluous. I will have a look if I can find where that space is coming from. Never noticed that the bot is putting a space before a '|'. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:57, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
The user has posted a notice that they will stop with adding external links. Please TfD the templates. I'll have a look whether there is more to remove. --Dirk BeetstraTC07:15, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
Your statements on the special page
Hello. Just in case you don't see it any time soon, because I'm sure you're busy. This is what I wrote back to you, to your remarks to me on the report page. Even if I was not perfect, are you gonna say that what Cush did was "civil" and with "appropriate language". And that he did not edit war at all? By going right to the "bright line", and after I said "take it to talk" he instead simply reverts me again, without going to talk at all. And also accusing me of "vandalism"? That was "appropriate". Even if I was not totally perfect in this, I was not the one who reverted good faith and accurate edits simply because of "I don't like", nor did I accuse anyone of "vandalism". I mean, really, was that "civil" or "appropriate" for him to say? Also, I was not reverted over and over again, except by Cush. The other editor the other day let the situation go, after my edit comment. Again, Cush went to the line, and arguably was edit-warring, I told him to take it to talk, he ignored that, but reverted me again. I brought stuff to talk, and I simply utilized the mechanism that Wikipedia provides to resolve disputes and problems. I first went to "incidents". I was told to come here instead. Again, Cush used words like "weirdest transliteration" and "stop vandalizing". That was "civil" and "appropriate language"? You have singled me out here on this why? Cush was anything but civil, cool, or appropriate in language or otherwise. Yet I get this harsh lecture from you, "warning" me, for simply trying to voice my concerns and issues that page, and he gets zero warning. It doesn't seem fair. For his inappropriate unwarranted and POV remarks, and constant revertings in a 24 hour period. I'm wondering why that is. But it would be nice if you could answer those questions. About those specific things he said and did, and how was that totally "civil" on Cush's part. Those were not just rhetorical questions. And I really try hard not to edit war or violate clear WP policy and standards, but I'm always learning. Thank you. Hashem sfarim (talk) 00:53, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
Just as a general note, please stay calm, even when you are right and get repeatedly reverted by someone. Don't escalate things, but discuss. Even if that means that the page is 'wrong' while discussing. --Dirk BeetstraTC07:34, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
Well, yes, the first revert by the other editor days ago was a wholesale revert of even the other stuff I put in that had nothing to do with the Name issue. The "Israelites trapped at the beach" points. Which were ok, and then I referenced. But Cush, I happen to know and see, is biased (wrongly) against the form "Jehovah". "One of the weirdest possible transliterations" is NOT a Wikipedia policy reason, and is POV. And is just a opinion held by some "scholars", while other notable and established scholars hold the opposite view. It's an established rendering, and in a number of major Bible translations (NOT just the "KJV" either). And is in at least some WP articles. Sure "Yahweh" (because of pervading group bias and group think, arguably) is used a lot more in WP articles, true. But even so, it's not like "Jehovah" is some flash-in-the-pan out-of-left-field rendering, with no basis, like Cush was seeming to (wrongly) imply. I favor the form "Jehovah" NOT because I'm a KJV Onlyist, because I'm not, but simply as I stated on the special page, if we're talking about "consistency" we pronounce the "J" in English, like "Jacob, Jeremiah, Judah, Joel, et al". But for some oddball and annoying reason, when it comes to the Biblical GOD'S Name, many people, not all, are NOT all that consistent, and feel the need to do this "Y" "Yahweh" thing. Also, too, it's been argued by some scholars that the original form, being four consonants, would have had three syllables. And have said that modern forms should also have three syllables. "Yahweh" does not have that, but "Jehovah" does. "Jehovah" is simply the Anglicized rendering of the Tetragram, that preserves "JHVH" accurately, with "J" rightly in English. "Yahweh" sounds too much like a "tribal god" to many people also. Anyway, the point too is that putting "Jehovah" was accurate, good faith...and NOT "vandalism". It was simply wrong for Cush to call that "vandalism". Hence one of the reasons I went to the special page, because I saw that Cush was not to be reasoned with, and also I thought 3 reverts in 24 hours was a violation. Now I remember that it's 4 reverts in 24 hours that is actually the violation. But even so, I feel he edit-warred regardless, with his uncivil words, bias, and attitude, and also when I said "bring it to talk" but he simply reverted me again. I'm obviously at this point letting this go, but I feel this was unfair and unnecessary, and arguably in a sense POV-pushing and in a way "I don't like it", because he kinda made it clear that he "does not like" the rendering "Jehovah" for POV and opinion reasons, NOT real WP or valid reasons. I can produce scholars (reputable ones) who favor "Jehovah" too. It's a wash, then in that sense. The article "Jehovah" on Wikipedia, by the way, is very good. Anyway, thanks for responding and explaining things. I hope you understand better where I was coming from, myself. Thanks. Hashem sfarim (talk) 17:34, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
Designer drug spam
Hi Dirk, you may remember a while ago that a designer drug site was being spammed without links and you therefore added an edit filter to stop it. For some reason it doesn't seem to be working anymore though - Verified72 (talk·contribs) spammed a load of them this morning across many articles. Could you take a look? Thanks SmartSE (talk) 12:22, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
This should be in mediation. There are multiple references placed and removed by an anonymous user continually. I am making sure i have identified and signature.--GramereC 16:25, 25 August 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by GramereC (talk • contribs)
No, go to the talkpage. I've blocked you both for 31 hours to think it over, and to read through our policies and guidelines. The article is now protected for 1 month. I don't care who is right here or what, the talkpage is where you have to be. I'll be watching. --Dirk BeetstraTC19:51, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I can see that you are not content with the changes I have made as regards to the use of ROCKWOOL. Rockwool is a trademark registered world wide.
Thus, it shall only be used to identify products marketed by the Rockwool Group and not used to describe insulation materials or any other products.
Use of ROCKWOOL to describe insulation material seriously damages our ROCKWOOL trademark, and therefore we kindly ask you only to use ROCKWOOL in the future when referring to products marketed by the Rockwool Group.
I therefore kindly ask you to replace the term ROCKWOOL with the term Stone wool. Also I can see that you have name the picture files e.g. "Rockwool pipe covering wh fire test.jpg". Please change this filename and see to that rockwool gets replaced with the term "stone wool" instead.
Please see to that the changes will be executed within three days.
Sorry for disturbing, it appears that this user User:Malingsia has used a name that have a meaning of attacking Malaysia. Some Indonesians always call Malaysia with a nickname of 'Malingsia' because they said that Malaysia likes to copied Indonesian's cultures. 'Maling' means 'thief' in Indonesian. Perhaps, this user is Indonesian. Could you help me to block him ?
I'm sorry, but I'm kinda confused for the report guidelines. I am new to wikipedia, so I have no idea where can I report the user. Would you mind if you help me to report this user User:Malingsia ? DeshintaChandra (talk) 16:14, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
The Thomas Milton Tinney, Sr. page had added links
according to Wikipedia policy and is no longer to
be classified as an orphan. I have read all of
the instructions and feel there is no relative
problems. The Internet is changing and an
alphabetical listing satisfies requirements
to list references whose content may be
placed in a different format on a daily basis.
The topic meets the notability requirements, as
so defined, and you have constantly deleted
references and have personally degraded my
site intentionally. The article has been
cleaned up and meets Wikipedia's standards.
If you see something for structural improvement,
then make the minor corrections. Else, you
are on a personal vendetta and are acting as
a censoring individual.
Thomas Milton Tinney, Sr.108.85.168.205 (talk) 13:31, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
No:
There are still very few articles linking to it
Citation style does not show unambiguously what is referenced, so it is very difficult to check
It is still questionable against the standards of notability.
And anyway, you, as being the person writing about, have a conflict of interest, and hence, you should not be the editor deciding that. Let an uninvolved editor decide whether the tags can be removed. Note, that they have been inserted by several editors independently.
'you have constantly deleted references and have personally degraded my site intentionally'. Note, "By clicking the "Save Page" button, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL." - you do not own the content of that page, it is not your page. And no censoring has been applied, no content was deleted, only links which do not comply with Wikipedia standards. Please reconsider your edits. --Dirk BeetstraTC13:36, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
spreading knowledge
hi, i hope you can help
can you tell me what p-TSA is, it is mentioned in Physostigmine
Please can you tell me what's wrong with the three external links I added, which you undid?
The Top of the Pops Records page has had an external link for ages, and the webiste it links to has moved - so I changed the destination of the link, that's all. Is there a problem with this?
And the other two I added to specific record pages because there was a lack of external links, and they went directly to pages with more info. Again - what is the problem?
Thank you for your question. XLinkBot reverted you earlier already, and pointed you to the external links guideline, and that is also where I point you. These are links to fanpages. That they were there for a long time is not a guarantee, fanpages are discouraged, and I do believe that they here do not belong on the page, per said guideline. I hope this explains. --Dirk BeetstraTC10:30, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
I am not sure what a fanpage is! The main site link is not a fanzine - it is a comprehensive, factual documentation of the series. Take a look at it - it's easily the most factual and comprehensive resource on the subject. If there is something specific in the external links guidelines which is being violated then that's different, but I am not aware of any violation. It's just comprehensive information on the subject - entirely appropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MegdalePlace (talk • contribs) 10:46, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
You added "Top of the Pops fan site *Top of the Pops Volume 20", which includes the words 'fan site' .. and sites on weebly.com are not very often 'the official site of the subject'. Fan sites are discouraged by WP:EL, and are generally an exception when they are included. Maybe it is a case to discuss on the talkpage of the respective pages? --Dirk BeetstraTC10:49, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
OK - I think the words "fan site" are just a descriptor added at some point to explain what the link is. They don't reflect the actual content of the site. Perhaps they should just be left off volumes 18 and 20 - I was trying to add something external becuase they have been threatened with deletion for not having sources etc. (I need to learn how to put citations in line).
Do you agree the site is OK to link from the main Top of the Pops page? I will start a discussion on it, but I would be surprised if anyone objected. It's a very authoritative resource. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MegdalePlace (talk • contribs) 10:55, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
I'd suggest to wait until it is running properly. TOTP does not have an official site (e.g. on a site of a broadcaster?), that would be better.
Just adding external links generally do not help to keep a page from deletion, it is better to find something that is also a WP:RS, or to add proper sources. --Dirk BeetstraTC10:59, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
You will see it's a mine of information. These records have nothing to do with the TV show by the way. They were issued by a label which is defunct, so no official site - this is the closest there is. They are notable for many reasons including two number 1s on the official British charts, and recordings by Elton John, Tina Charles and other well-known musicians and singers. They are a part of British musical history - nothing to do with broadcasting.
I will try and add in some references on the individual album pages, but for the subject as a whole, this is the only reliable resource, and it's extremely comprehensive.
I have viewed it myself just now. I also went on a different pc and viewed it there. I also emailed a friend who viewed it from Ireland, so it isn't dead. I can see it right now. It must be something to do with your PC settings, or maybe if you copied the address to your address bar there was a mistake.
The site in question does not violate any wiki policy. It isn't selling anything, isn't a subscription site, isn't obscene, etc. It does give lots more factual information about the subject. I am therefore struggling to see any possible objection to it.
I don't want an edit war, and am trying to be reasonable, but if you can't cite a policy which is being violated, there's no reason to delete it, but if you are in doubt, we could discuss a case for deletion.— Preceding unsigned comment added by MegdalePlace (talk • contribs)
Well, I still can't see it .. curious.
Violate is too strong a word, hardly any external link really violate, mostly are discouraged (read also the intro of WP:EL and WP:ELNO; fanpages are mentioned there) .. I still suggest that independent review on the talkpage is warranted (also since I can't really review the content). --Dirk BeetstraTC13:21, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
It's not a fan page! It's a massive database with discography etc, which to my knowledge is unavailable elsewhere and not suitable for Wiki itself.
I do understand that "fan pages" are discouraged, but where we are dealing with a defunct record label with no website, we have to rely on 3rd party sources, and of course they need to be evaluated for reliability, style, relevance etc.
Out of interest I have checked a similar page - the one for Embassy Records - and it has exactly the same sort of external links, which look like a catalogue made by a collector. It's not been objected to, and is clearly informative.
By way of compromise, what I will do is link from the Wiki page to the discography page of the TOTP site - it's a straight listing of all the LPs in the series so far as I can tell - this will at least give some additional resource for readers. External discographies are generally acceptable where they go beyond the scope of Wiki discographies.
And I'll start a discussion on it, but I really do think this is going to be a non-issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MegdalePlace (talk • contribs) 13:51, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
I agree that I am just going by the original tag, and the tag you gave it ('fan page'), but I do ask one question: who is maintaining the weebly.com website? --Dirk BeetstraTC13:56, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
It is a classic fan site, regardless of what the user claims.
Welcome ...to this website, a completely unofficial, on-line catalogue paying tribute to Hallmark's TOP OF THE POPS albums.ref
Don't blame the bot, check the operator first :-D [8]. I've tried to fix it here. Some lines got duplicated, "1/S" was spurious in the InChi, and "| KEGG}}" apparently crippled the box. Cheers. Materialscientist (talk) 23:29, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
It was me .. mea culpa. Stupid script error, avoidable, so I will prevent it from happening again. Thanks for keeping an eye on my work! --Dirk BeetstraTC07:18, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for helping me better understand how to educate the public on Wikipedia about new products. It was never my intentions to "Self Promote" MinoxiBoost. It will very soon be available all over the world and I was just letting the public be more knowledgeable about it. I notice there and many products and companies on Wikipedia and they all seem to offer their company info and share their products... Just like Rogaine and Propicia on many other hair loss info on your site. Scirillo7 (talk) 10:05, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
Thank you!
I should however tell you 'I notice there and many products and companies on Wikipedia and they all seem to offer their company info and share their products' - not many are written by the owners, and also for others may be - if they are too promotional they may have to go as well. Wikipedia is foremost an encyclopedia, not a place to sell or promote products. I hope this explains. --Dirk BeetstraTC10:26, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
A suggestion for COIBot
Hi. As you know, removing a link spam from dozens of articles can be a tedious task, especially if the edit is not on top. That's why, I use AWB to remove such links. Could you tweak the bot so it provides an automatic regex syntax for each link report, that can be used in AWB's "find a and replace" function, similar to the log entry of the spam blacklist, the bot currently provides. Thank you. Sole Soul (talk) 11:08, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
How would you want the regex to look. Technically the domain as such already works as a regex (though the . should be a \. .. it may make some mistakes without that), you could just built that into a regex: http:\/\/.*?<domain>.*?[\]\s] (though it must be made a bit better (my linkwatchers use (?:https?|ftp|irc|gopher|telnet|nntp|worldwind):\/\/[^\s\]\[\{\}\\\|^'<>]+ to catch urls. Not completely failsave, but most errors that I notice come not from the imperfect regex, but from editors making mistakes). I hope this helps. --Dirk BeetstraTC11:17, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
I would use something like \n^.*example\.com.*\n? , because the text that should be removed is not only the url, rather, it is also the text before it and after it on the smae line. For example: * [http://www.example.com This is a great site!]. The regex is prone to false positives, so every edit should be checked before saving.
A toolserver script is a great idea, if it is not only find the link but also provides a diff with the spam removed that can be saved by the user. Sole Soul (talk) 11:02, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
Maybe it is also an idea to use the data provided in the templates on the linkreports to construct an 'undo' link? That would already help. Regarding the regex, \n^.*example\.com.*\n? and \n^.*example.com.*\n? would approximately do the same, so you could add \n^.* before, and .*\n? after it and you're ready. --Dirk BeetstraTC11:07, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
I've noticed that many of your logged updates to these indexes seem to be listed as being scripted. Is there anyway that I can use the same mechanism? Or do you have any tips to speed up this validation process?
Yes, I have a script, which loads the boxes, adapts them, and is able to save them (based on the same mechanism as behind CheMoBot). It uses huge off-wiki lists of data, some of which I 'privately' got from the database-keepers (ChEBI and ChEMBL, e.g.), some of which are accessible from the web (queries into the original databases, CSID for example) or which are freely downloadable (drugbank, e.g.). In a way, what I am working toward is having the StdInChI verified (which I do by assuming that if I have the CSID for the same compound, that ChemSpider is then providing me with the correct StdInChI). On all of the databases I assume that the external database is correct (i.e., if the external database says that their identifier links to a certain StdInChI, then I assume that is the correct identifier, same if the external database says that their identifier links to a certain Wikipedia page (which drugbank has, e.g.)).
In the end, the work is slow, the only luck I have is that there are huge lists which help me find the correct ones, but those are practically over. I now am mostly down to filling up new identifiers where they are missing (which is an almost automated task - e.g. the ChEMBL/ChEBI lists are pretty 'new', whereas CSID is ~90% ready, so it is a matter of adding them accordingly), and doing the rest of the pages which are not ready yet (which is a manual task, as I do need to check all of them by eye, similar to what you are doing). Only advantage is that I then can do the others automated at the same time.
In a way I am best helped with editors verifying CSID's for the ones that are missing. If pages are verified with CSID's and all others still blank, my script will fill in the rest. Soon after these runs are ready, and I am happy with having 'all' CSID's verified (there are still drugboxes/chemboxes out there for which there is no CSID, I encounter 'compounds' which I can not find on ChemSpider, but I aim for 'full' coverage; we're almost at 90% now) I will start weeding out the (many) conflicts (cases where I find one value for an identifier, but where Wikipedia has another one filled in ..). --Dirk BeetstraTC07:39, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
Dirk, If you are having issues with structures that you can't find (or don't exist) in ChemSpider. This is something that I would be able to sort out for you if you can provide me with a list of articles. --The chemistds (talk) 20:39, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Hmm, the easiest would be to work from a list of articles which do not have a CSID mentioned at all. The ones which do not have CSID at the moment (those which can not be found on ChemSpider) should be in that list. If you add them to those articles, I will pass by and fill in the rest. --Dirk BeetstraTC11:53, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks Dirk, that will give me something to do when I'm bored. :-) I have two possible suggestions for refinements (the first I suspect is possible, the second perhaps not)
. Could you add a rule to prevent the listing of Users Sandboxes?
. Some of the records will never have CSIDs (Absorbable gelatin sponge, Anthrax vaccines, Alglucosidase alfa, Alglucerase) Is there an approach that we could take to removing these from the listing? Perhaps adding N/A next to the CSID entry in the Chem/Drugbox? This would seem to be desirable as it tells a reader that the data is not in the box because it's "Not Applicable/Not Available" rather than just missing because it's not been added yet. --The chemistds (talk) 09:27, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
. I could make it so that it only lists those which are in mainspace, or in the template space (some drugboxes are now there).
. I could program it so that 'N/A' or 'NA' will not display and also not categorise (not show it on display, would be against MOS, and would also result in silly lists when all identifiers would list as 'NA'. There is a similar thing with some drugboxes showing '?' here and there.
Thanks. There's no rush as far as I'm concerned. Only question is: Should I hold off putting NA into the CSID field until you've had chance to make your suggested mods? --The chemistds (talk) 11:21, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I would do that. Maybe you could make me a list of those where NA should be put, I could easily take that over and let my script then do that work. --Dirk BeetstraTC12:17, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
I've added a list of names of articles that will not have corresponding ChemSpider records to the Talk page for the list that you created. --The chemistds (talk) 11:04, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
You are now viewed as disappointing by the editors of Wikipedia for deciding to take a holiday. Wikipedia is an addiction that must be served on a daily basis. Please read the following carefully:
Why can't I take a holiday?
Rehab is for quitters.
Your adoring fan base will miss you, causing widespread panic and demoralization.
You have 9.0 centijimbos, making any ability to go on holiday moot.
What can I do now?
Your only choice is to sacrifice your holiday, and return to active editing on Wikipedia immediately. After you return to active editing, please take a moment to convince us that you understand the reasons behind why you can't take a holiday. Subsequently, post a promise to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard that you will forevermore forsake taking a holiday.
What if I take a holiday anyway?
The community will lose faith in your decision making ability, and you will be subjected to a wholly unnecessary flogging reconfirmation at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship.
WHAT? Wikipedia is still here? I thought everything would get to a grinding halt when I would go on holiday. I am very disappointed in my fellow editors, not to speak of the administrative corps. What is to become of this universe. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:01, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
The main problem I was addressing at Template:Chembox verification is the situation was when the infobox has a combination of verified and changed values. That means there are both ticks and crosses, but the logic in the footer only gives the cross, so there is a tick with no explanation in the footer what it means. See for example the current revision of alanine. I couldn't figure out how to get the footer to display specifically and only "whichever symbol(s) are used", so my way at least we get the both when there are a mix. It's probably (my WP:OR) more likely that many articles have mixes and need both symbols rather than having all data with crosses, so this hacked solution probably does the right thing often. DMacks (talk) 12:52, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
The tick and crosses are meant to show whether all data is correct or not, not what the ticks and crosses higher up mean. Maybe that is the misconception? --Dirk BeetstraTC12:55, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Try aporphine. Clicking on "Cas nr" links to cas "common chemicals" db, which does not contain this item. Should instead link to db, which contains the entry for this item.
I have found the same problem with many substances, try forskolin.
It seems to be that most, except the really common, substances have the problem of linking to the incomplete database of "common" chemicals.
70.137.157.184 (talk) 09:57, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Try contacting CAS - CAS is issuing the CAS-number, so in my opinion, the only appropriate place to link the CAS-number to is the CAS-site, which is commonchemistry. I hope this explains. --Dirk BeetstraTC06:56, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
I think the CAS full search requires subsciption, for money. Thats the problem.
We have to link to something else. I believe this politics of CAS is controversial in the chemical community.
70.137.157.176 (talk) 08:58, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
This is a canadian gov site that allows CAS search.
I am fully aware of the situation behind the CAS, but still, we link pubchem to pubchem, chemspiderID to chemspider, so therefore, CASNo should link to CAS. I know that it does not (always) provide all information needed (well, actually it does not provide anything ..), but it is up to CAS to solve that (IMHO, they should notice that they get many incoming links from Wikipedia to non-existing pages on their server, I think they should consider to do something about that). Until then, use the other identifiers, they lead to much more information. --Dirk BeetstraTC09:45, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
I have recently consolidated my four web sites, and redirected their pages to the new one, wisdomsupreme.com. Accordingly, I edited the existing links to their pages from wikipedia - since they will soon be offline.
I believe you interpreted my doing so as changing the links from somebody else's web site to mine. This is not the case. In fact, there are already redirect scripts from the old sites to the new. Check, for example, Reference #5 here, and you will see what I mean: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_status#References
In sum, my recent changes would keep wikipedia from having scores of dead links in a near future. This is a positive move, and please do not punish me for it.
Maybe the old link did not deserve to be there either, we are not a linkfarm. Also, do consider the fact that you have a conflict of interest. I suggest you for now choose the way of discussing, if the links are indeed deemed relevant independent users can insert them again. I hope this explains. --Dirk BeetstraTC06:59, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
I am not sure of there really is a conflict of interest. Because, it was not me who inserted these links in wikipedia in the first place. In my stats, I noticed the redirected links incoming from wikipedia, and decided to update them - which I believe is a contribution especially given that the links would be dead soon. In other words, it was independent users who inserted them to wikipedia in the first place. You are being unfair. Wireintheblood (talk) 05:03, 21 October 2011 (UTC)Wireintheblood
Well, you are involved in the site, so it is better for you to discuss before re-inserting something that was removed (I'm not saying it for the first insertion). Your reasoning that the link was there, and that it therefore is good is not always true. Links may not have been noticed when they were added (and still be superfluous), or due to the evolution of a page, external links may become superfluous.
I did go through the links, and saw that most were in external links sections. There was only one which was used as a reference. When clicking on the updated link, it did not lead me anywhere useful, let alone something that proofs the statement (what is there to prove anyway there ..) - only a search page.
I think the way forward is still discussing, e.g. on talkpages of pages where you think it is of interest, with interested users, or with e.g. a WikiProject (see Wikipedia:Wikiproject), and assess where the links are still of interest. Thanks! --Dirk BeetstraTC07:49, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
CheMoBot
CheMoBot is making edits to Template:Drugbox/doc that it probably shouldn't be making. I tried adding {{bots|deny=CheMoBot}} to the page, but that didn't help. Can you please have a look? Thanks. -- Ed (Edgar181) 13:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Sigh, my script is adding it to the index, and when it is in the index, the bot updates. I removed it from the index, and undid the bot edit. I'll try and keep it out of the index. --Dirk BeetstraTC13:55, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Basically, CheMoBot does not touch any pages which are not in the index .. if it touches a page which it should not touch, just remove it from the index. I'll consider nobots, but in a way it is superfluous. --Dirk BeetstraTC14:07, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Please, next time warn early on, even when you think it is futile. Many admins will not be familiar with the MO, and may choose not to block due to the lack of warnings. I hope this explains. --Dirk BeetstraTC15:34, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
I reblocked this IP (before seeing this discussion). I have come across this editor before, having blocked multiple IPs he has used. This is a long-term problem, but I don't know if it has been detailed anywhere like Wikipedia:Long-term abuse. -- Ed (Edgar181) 15:36, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
No prob, not much damage after I unblocked again. If there would have been a vand4im on the talkpage, I would not have hesitated. May have a look later to see the MO a bit. Thanks! --Dirk BeetstraTC15:58, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
You can also check on contributions on my list of the addresses he ever used since July 2009 (the guy was actually active since late 2007) to help you on what kind of pages he vandalizes. They're kept in my third sandbox, BTW. - 上村七美 (Nanami-chan) | talkback | contribs16:25, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
xairforces.net accidentally added to the blacklist
Hi Dirk,
We are www.xairforces.net web site editors. We are think that an error about xairforces.net and xairforces.com
Why have already added our site from the blacklist. xairforces.net is military aviation Information on your web site. xairforces is supported by many people. We don't now about this spam. We would like our web site's removal of land from the list. What should we do.
You can help us in this web site: www.xairforces.net Other e-mail address is info@xairforces.net.
I am NORTHFORTMYERS. I wrote and article and made a link to a video shot by an indepentdant company that may be in violation. But the entry 'world's largest trailer park' is still true, I am one of the many Pastors of the many churches there. Can you remove the link if it does offend aqnd lock the page from editing but by me? It is a poor and destitute area and has many detractors, like Compton, or Harlem. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NorthFortMyers (talk • contribs) 17:31, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
I see you removed the zero emissions platform link I added to the site. I feel this is a very important website for those looking for information on the projects undergone in the EU by the EU.
Can you explain why you removed this link? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gefd100 (talk • contribs) 07:48, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
WP:NOT#LINKFARM - we are writing an encyclopedia here. Please discuss your link additions first on talkpages of the pages where you want to add the link, or actually help us in expanding this encyclopedia. Thanks. --Dirk BeetstraTC07:51, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
I understand we are creating an encyclopedia here. I would like to add the following link to this page:
Carbon Capture
I feel that this is of benefit to readers as there is a general attitude that CCS is not supported by the EU.
It outlines the developments of CCS in each country around the world in the past 6 months and also the EU funding and directives for CCS in Europe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gefd100 (talk • contribs) 08:01, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
Yes, and why can that not be worded in the (or another) article? The external link does not help with showing that in an encyclopedic way. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:05, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
Just as an aside, and not meant to hijack this particular thread, but I saw the thread title and thought "That's perfect! That's what everyone is expecting Δ to be!". Sorry :) --Hammersoft (talk) 13:54, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
The discussion at Meta seems to have been archived. Is there any chance of getting the 69 other domains and additional URL patterns added to the global blacklist? Anomie⚔18:56, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Hmmm. I know that that happens. Maybe the templates should be simplified in some way. Don't know if I have another solution handy at the moment. I'll try and think about it. For viewing, edit the section and preview - or even break it up in sub-sections and preview the subsections. COIBot will just overwrite the whole section when regenerating, so not a big issue if the report is 'broken'. --Dirk BeetstraTC09:26, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks (though some of these still seem like they could be done by a script .. I mean, people will have to believe you that you did not do whitespace removal scriptwise in [9] ...). --Dirk BeetstraTC09:02, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
Based on your feedback, I put up a proposal to archive every two weeks (if we run the test for longer than a month) or one week (if we run the test for only a month). Please comment if you're okay with that. :) Steven Walling (WMF) • talk21:23, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Hey Beetstra, I talked to Versageek about XLinkBot, and he suggested that we chat with you about it. We've got a taskforce up at WP:UWTEST. The general idea is doing randomized tests of different talk page templates to try and get a better response out of people being warned (I can go into more detail about that if you like). We've been running tests with Huggle, and just started a test with SDPatrolBot. To cut to the chase: XLinkBot is really important in terms of the amount of talk page messages it leaves – my understanding is that it's only behind ClueBot. If you'd be open to letting us test, let me know and we can talk about it. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk23:57, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
This is a nice plan. Thanks for involving XLinkBot and me in this.
The talkpage messages are fully on-wiki configurable via User:COIBot/Settings. It is a bit tricky with the newlines, so it needs a bit of tweaking - but I would agree that this is always worth a try. It is all fine with me if editors (well, admins) update the settings so the interaction is better or messages display better. Feel free to tweak them, you can always quickly revert to, say, the current version of the settings. Please do watchlist and check user talk:XLinkBot when you tweak the settings, there may be more remarks coming there regarding the reverts.
A bit about the bot - the settings are read before every single revert it performs, so changes in the settings are directly effective. Also note that the bot has, as opposed to the normal warning system, a 'level 0' message - as there are many links which are not by definition spam, it leaves at a first revert to an editor that good-faith message (firstrevertremark in the settings), which does not mention the word spam. The second time the bot arrives at a page it will, at the least, start off with a 'level 1' warning, set by firstwarning (followed by secondwarning, thirdwarning, etc.). After Forget it restarts at iprestartlevel for IPs and userrestartlevel for logged in users.
Awesome, thanks for your interest. We'll prep any templates, there will be documentation here, and we'll drop you a note about when/what precisely we'd like to test beforehand. Have a good weekend, Steven Walling (WMF) • talk00:08, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks! Really, feel free to do the tests when you want, but indeed, as one of the operators, do notify me and probably also Versageek when you do so. You don't have to wait for my answer, I may not answer quickly. But when you do, please do watchlist User talk:XLinkBot and watch for a couple of edits what happens on the user talkpages. See you around! --Dirk BeetstraTC09:08, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
BeO
You seem to be a chemistry expert sorry I dont know how to use wikipedia well, but I do not think BeO is in a triplet state maybe the page should change? -"big_scary_shark" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Big scary shark (talk • contribs) 23:03, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Hi! Don't worry about not knowing too much about editing Wikipedia. That will come in time. Just edit, and others will come and help further.
I don't know much about Be .. why do you think it is not in a triplet state?
Please look up this page. The references in this page are not in the correct format. Please verify the authenticity of the source and cite the references in correct format. Thank you. Netha Hussain (talk) 18:35, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
A month ago I poked COIbot to generate a report on cdbaby.com. I'm in the granted usergroup (sysop), but nothing happened. Is the bot down? ~Amatulić (talk) 19:06, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
I think I recall you were on vacation a month ago when I first added the request. Perhaps you had the bot shut down then? ~Amatulić (talk) 20:43, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
No, the bot is up for 73 days, 11 hours, 2 minutes and 21 seconds already. Problem is sometimes that COIBot gets accidentally disconnected from irc.wikimedia.org.
I may sound like a Luddite, but honestly, I've never used IRC in my life. Never felt the need. I wouldn't even know how to start; probably I'd need to install an IRC client or something.
I don't even use automated tools here either. I think my edit count statistics shows maybe 3 edits using Twinkle or something similar before I went back to the personal touch of manual operations. I think I'm one of the few admins who grew a high edit count organically. ~Amatulić (talk) 21:40, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
Followup: Well, the report was generated, but it's rather content-free, complaining that there are too many links to cdbaby.com, and showing no users who have added them. I was hoping to see that information in case a pattern emerged (like a few users responsible for the bulk of the links). Can COIbot do a partial analysis of a random sampling of links? Or maybe just list the top 5 editors and the number of links they added? ~Amatulić (talk) 21:21, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Oh, oops. Yes, should be limited otherwise it is too much work. I have a top 10 for you (but that may include regulars!!):
3237 records; Top 10 editors who have added cdbaby.com: ClueBot (64), EarwigBot II (52), CorenSearchBot (28), 67.185.10.93 (28), Kasaalan (28), Everstar (23), 81.65.196.240 (18), His warrior (17), EarwigBot (17), Benson Verazzano (16).
Can you please take a look at cefditoren and see if the identifiers look correct/consistent to you now? I made a few changes, but there still some data that needs to be updated though. Thanks, Ed. -- Ed (Edgar181) 20:10, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
I did have a revelation in our conversation on the arbcom page yesterday, but now I don't see any purpose in extending that thread. The difference in perspective seems to be this: you explained that you look at Δ's edits and attribute them to mistakes. But I cannot do that because, personally, as I find it much more offensive to suggest he is incompetent than to suggest that he is intentionally performing the edits. So I look at the edits with the initial assumption that everything he does is completely intentional, unless he says otherwise. I make the same assumption about every editor, and I would feel patronizing and insulting if I assumed otherwise. This seems to be a significant difference in our perspectives; maybe this note will help you understand my position. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:16, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
Why do you go immediately from 'making mistakes' to 'being incompetent'? I hope you don't think I am incompetent if I, or one of my bots, make a mistake? I would find thát highly offensive. --Dirk BeetstraTC13:36, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
I am not trying to start an argument, I just wanted to say I think I understand better where you're coming from. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:43, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, maybe I was a bit too aggressive in this post. Still I think that this is at the core of the problem. There is a group of editors who, in avoidance of thinking of something as mistakes because they conceive that as a sign of incompetence think that Δ is deliberately violating his edit restrictions, whereas others see things as honest mistakes of an editor who, genuinly, tries to help Wikipedia. --Dirk BeetstraTC13:56, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
Maybe that is also the other part of our differences. I find the posts 'Here you break the edit restriction, if you break this edit restriction again, I will block you' rather aggressive - I would choose 'Δ, you may not have noticed, but here you break the edit restriction. Please take care.' - as the first offense is already blockable, I would not be offended when you would then block on the second occasion, even though you did not warn him that you would do that. As an example, if I warn with a -4im (no previous warnings to the editor), then I let the editor make one more edit (then I know for sure the editor has seen the orange banner, before that I am not sure), and expect the editor to stop, if that editor makes then a second edit, I block. I see your approach more like that you warn with a -4im, and as soon as that editor has the guts to save, you block. Maybe I am stretching WP:AGF too much? --Dirk BeetstraTC14:06, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
Unfortunately there is a culture at ANI that if the blocking admin didn't explicitly say "I will block you next time" other people complain that the blocked editor was not warned. For example, there are those who argue that Tritesse did not adequately warn Δ. So there is no safe approach. In general I agree your approach is better, but Δ is an exceptional case.
With Δ I was not in a hurry to block, in fact I declined to block on several occasions when I clearly could have, and I explicitly told him so. My goal at the end of 2010 and the first part of 2011 was simply to encourage him to get his editing back into agreement with the restrictions. The community has been waiting for years while he has refused (or, if you prefer, accidentally failed) to do that, which makes me think now that we need to move to a stronger set of sanctions. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:21, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
It is still in the tone of it all, Carl. Say that Δ genuinely was a bit careless and passed the speed limit. He may not have noticed himself .. and then you get an 'if you, ever, do that again, I will bite your head off'-message, then that message is perceived as harassment, it upsets the receiver, the only thing it does is keep putting fuel on a fire. On the other hand, if he was trying, sneakily, to edit too fast, and he would have gotten an 'Δ, [here] you make 43 edits in 10 minutes. It may have escaped you, but that is above the speed limit of 40 edits in 10 minutes. I urge you to stay under the speed limit, as you know that your head might be bitten off when it happens again', then that message will probably give a 'hmm, they are still watching me, I'd better be more careful and not do it again'.
I am afraid that Δ perceived some/most of the warnings to him in that way - they were factually correct, they were meant to be friendly, giving yet another chance, given in good faith, but perceived as harassing, assuming bad faith, offensive, sometimes as a personal attack (and that is what Δ has said before, and I think that Hammersoft and I also alluded to that). The evidence you presented regarding that mentions diffs which were meant as good faith, but not perceived as good faith, quite the opposite.
Our uw-<whatever>1-level warning messages are friendly, we all agree that it is difficult to write them more friendly and personal than they are - still there are good faith new editors out there that are genuinely bitten by it, even worse, there are new editors out there that are genuinely bitten by a personally written, non-templated, welcome-message. I see the whole range coming by on User talk:XLinkBot - those that say 'Oh, I did not know, I read it, and you are right, I understand, thanks!', and the 'go away, of course my favourite band needs links to all 5 fanclubs and all possible twitters, facebooks, myspaces and similar!' ..
I think that it is not the intention that counts here, it is the perception that counts. And in all the past years, Δ is trying, but as soon as the tiniest little thing happens - it is made clear to Δ in not-to-be-misunderstood terms. And sometimes (like in the pattern story), the whole history is highly confusing - Δ edits, someone thinks it is a pattern, it gets to AN/I, AN/I does not get to a conclusion, no proof that there is a pattern is presented - Δ edits on - WHAM! Blocked for patterned edits (yes, you are all right, there are patterns - but first it is fine, and then not, why was it first not a pattern, and later it was! The way Δ is treated is utterly inconsistent). That is then combined with, in some cases, excessive incivility towards Δ by other editors who do not agree with Δ (for which it seems that it is simply ignored by many - as if incivility against Δ is all fine).
It does not make for an excuse - but I do hope that this clarifies a bit how I view the situation. Maybe a good personal talk with Δ would be enlightening, Carl. --Dirk BeetstraTC20:41, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
I would have to second what Beetstra is saying. Im always available on IRC to chat with, and when Im around I have an IRC bot that I use for monitoring discussions and issues. Your approach has been borderline harassment/insulting which is why I have attempted on many occasions to tell you to bug off/that you are not welcome around me due to your manner. ΔT The only constant22:19, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
@Dirk Beetstra: This conversation cannot continue with Δ as a party. If you are interested, we can continue it by email. If not, we can leave it here. Thanks again, because I do feel like I made progress in understanding some things. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:11, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Feel free to continue this discussion here, this will be my last post to this thread. I just wanted to express agreement with what Beetstra has said, as a lot of that has come with discussions between the two of us on IRC over a period of time. </exit thread> ΔT The only constant00:18, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Carl, I would like to continue the discussion, and somehow I think it is better that this is on-wiki so maybe we can get somewhere and others can also think about this. I must say, my personal situation is going to change drastically in the near future (keep an eye on my userpage) - I may not be all too responsive in the near future, and maybe for a long time. Fort his weekend it will be for sure not too much, I am going on a short trip. --Dirk BeetstraTC06:41, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Cheers! We'll discuss next week (I hope). By the way, if you feel the need to email, that is fine as well, guess we should find an optimum in the mix. --Dirk BeetstraTC13:38, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Still, Carl, I don't feel that you have responded to any of the questions that I have asked here. Especially the point where you suggests that admitting that someone accidentally violates an edit restriction is a sign of incompetence, and hence considering that that is what happened is an assumption of bad faith. --Dirk BeetstraTC12:51, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
I do think it is a bad-faith assumption to claim that, despite trying their hardest, someone would simply be unable to follow their editing restrictions, over the course of years, despite numerous warnings. I feel we have to begin with the assumption that each editor is responsible for their own actions. So, to assume good faith, I assume Δ is in control of his edits. I see that as the only assumption under which it makes sense to allow Δ or any other editor to participate in Wikipedia.
Take a moment to look at it the other way: temporarily assume that Δ does have the ability to follow the rules, but has simply refused to do so despite so many warnings. Under that assumption, what remedies would you propose at the arbitration case? — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:11, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
No, it is not .. lets look at the speed restriction. Δ does thousands and thousands of edits, and sometimes overshoots. No constantly, not thát often, but a couple of times. Your only explanation is 'he is doing it on purpose, because otherwise you have to assume that he is doing it by accident, and hence is incompetent to follow the restriction.
Oh, I made that assumption, Carl. I do see both sides. That is just exactly what I try to make you do. To me, there are two options:
Δ is enthousiastic, and in good faith overshoots sometimes the speed limit.
Δ is intentionally overshooting the speed limit. Thát is disregard, and a ban is appropriate.
I am not assuming anything, both options are valid. You here have now said, and it is blatantly clear from how you respond towards Δ, that you automatically assume the second option as the only valid one, you fail to consider any other possibility, as considering that would be assuming bad faith in your opinion.
Do note, that this case is significantly different than that of someone who deliberately puts misinformation on Wikipedia. You can, by diffs, show that that person is intentionally posting misinformation. Here you have no proof that Δ is intentionally violating restrictions (other than, that in your view that is the only explanation because otherwise you would, in your view, assume bad faith). This is like 'someone is found dead with a kitchen knife in their chest. Blood spatters all around the kitchen. Someone is found outside, covered in blood, screaming "he is dead, he is dead". There are finger prints of the person outside on the knife' - Conclusion 'the person covered in blood is the murderer', because any other option would consider that the person outside is incompetent. --Dirk BeetstraTC13:27, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
The interesting difference in our viewpoints is that it's the first case (which you describe as "enthusiasm") where I would say a ban is unquestionably needed, while in the second case (intentional disregard) I think we can find a set of edit restrictions to keep Δ from causing too much disruption, if we want to allow him to continue to edit. So it isn't that I fail to consider the first case, it's just that in the first case it seems to me there's no option other than a ban, while the second case has more room for redemption. That's one reason why I see the second case as an assumption of good faith but not the first. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:38, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
You are considering to ban someone who is enthusiastically editing Wikipedia? Someone who does not push a point, someone who does not break Wikipedia massively, someone who is not here on a mission? But someone who is here improving Wikipedia? I am sorry, but this needs more explanation from your side - you seem here to suggest to put the death sentence on the person who is walking around the kitchen with a knife, not taking good care where it was pointing, not on the one who is disliking his housemate, grabbing a knife from the drawer and driving it into the chest of said housemate. --Dirk BeetstraTC13:49, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
For analogy, assume I am running a press brake at a factory. Down the line, they start to notice some parts I made aren't bent to the right angle. The foreman tells me to be more careful, but I keep making mistakes. The foreman suggests I just work some other piece of equipment, but I don't want to. Eventually they tell me I have to double-check the angle of every piece I bend to ensure it's right, even though other workers don't have to do this. There are plenty of other people who can run the brake, so they tell me not to do more than a few pieces at a time. But I still send down pieces bent to the wrong angle. Eventually the foreman is going to tell me it doesn't matter whether I'm just not competent enough to run the machine, or I'm just too enthusiastic to run it correctly. Either I'm either going to get moved somewhere else in the factory, or (more likely) I will be fired. If I tell the foreman that the reason I didn't succeed is that I just didn't pay attention to what I was doing, despite all their attempts to help me improve, is that going to convince them to keep me on? — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:10, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Nope, that analogy does not completely hold - 'parts not bent to the right angle' would be the same as 'pages broken'. Your analogy would be, that you produce them at the right angle, but sometimes too fast, or you do not follow the norms for producing them (but rather your own protocol). Sure, sometimes one is of the wrong angle, but you do not make more mistakes than anyone else who is operating the same machine. Your foreman may complain - since if you are producing them too fast, the box at the end of the line overfills (which is annoying), and your foreman may complain because you did not follow the norms (and that is what norms are about). Sure, you should ask for the production norms to be adapted (since it works perfectly as you do it), or the box to be bigger .. but ..
Still, you are good at your work, and it happens again. Will your foreman fire you because you work too fast and make the correct angles using the wrong norms .. ?? --Dirk BeetstraTC14:18, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
The reason for the speed restriction is entirely because of errors. For example, just to repeat errors I have brought up elsewhere today: mass-tagging free images for deletion in 2008; mass-tagging sourced articles as outsourced in 2010; making those interwiki edits yesterday that he then had to go back and undo. The full list of such errors would be very long, and Δ does make more of them than both the average editor, because he uses tools to let him make them faster than an average editor. Moreover, for example, the edits yesterday would not have happened if Δ had been following his restriction not to run automated programs to make edits.
I think that this discussion has run its course. The point is not for you to convince me or for me to convince you. The point was just to explore the different ways in which we assume good faith, and how those different assumptions of good faith affect the way in which we interpret Δ's edits. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:37, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
That is including double jeopardy into a chicken and egg reasoning. I do not believe that over the last months Δ made significantly more errors than other editors. Sure, in 2008 that situation was different, the situation in 2010 was different, but now I do not see that anymore - at least, I do not see massive recent proof.
And that edit of yesterday was also not about that - that is again jumping to a conclusion (you still say that he was running an automated script - because you do not want to assume any other option). Did you actually ask why Δ made that edit?
When XLinkBot finds a non-existing userpage (both for IPs and users) it will start with a level-0 + welcomemessage. Otherwise it will restart at a higher level (depending how long an editor has been away ('forget'-time), old warnings XLinkBot or others have given, and/or whether it is an IP or logged-in user, and whether there are level-4im warnings). You can reasonably quickly where XLinkBot leaves level-1 warnings, in the Special:Contributions/XLinkBot you see '- #/#/# -' - first one is the warninglevel given, second the 'previous level' within the 'forget'-time, and the third the highest warning found on the talkpage. Note there, that '0' is 'never warned', '1' is a level-0 warning, and 5 is a 'level-4im'-warning. --Dirk BeetstraTC09:35, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Problems in your script?
It looks a bot bizarre to see you editing a number of articles twice in a row to get no change in the end. [10][11][12]. I would understand it if you only noticed the problem after a few edits, and then had to revert them all, but you reverted some, then edited some more, then reverted some more... Fram (talk) 15:31, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
(ec)Care to enlighten me? There is no difference between the articles before you start editing them, and after you finish editing them. You edit, then self-revert, edit, then self-revert, and so on. Apparently you do this to get a diff id for a Wikiproject page. This doesn't seem to be the best possible use of mainspace editing. I don't see how IAR applies here. Fram (talk) 15:38, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Would getting a version with verified values be an improvement over a version where there are values incorrectly marked as verified be an improvement? I would think so. --Dirk BeetstraTC15:41, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Andyour script needs to make two edits to the articles to verify this? It can't just verify that the current version is correct, and give that diff to the project? That seems very impractical. Fram (talk) 15:46, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
And for all the pages edited, there are values which are not verified, otherwise no edit would be necessary. I can easily tell you which pages contain unverified values, I do not need a script for that. --Dirk BeetstraTC15:50, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Does the bot require that the verified revision id actually belongs to the target article? If not, you could copy the article (with whatever changes are needed to make it "verified") to a sandbox page and point the bot to the revision in the sandbox page.
I know that MediaWiki doesn't require the two revisions in a diff to belong to the same article, although you have to use &diff={{REVISIONID}} or a link to Special:ComparePages instead of &diff=cur if you want a diff link against the current version. Anomie⚔16:48, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Does it/you have to save the article to verify it? Otherwise, can't you just edit-preview (or otherwise verify the existing page), and not save it? Then you can use the diff of the current version as the last verified edit, without needing to make one or two saved edits. Fram (talk) 08:58, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
@Anomie: I know that as well, the point is, that a verified revid needs to exist. However, your comment might give me an alternative - the sandbox. I however don't know how confusing it will be for readers, when they want to see the effect of the verification and they get the comparison between some obscure revid of 'Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/Chembox validation/Verified' and the current revid of 'Benzene'. I have to have a look how the different processes handle the situation. (Note, this trick would make my work easier, I would need to make less edits to mainspace, and no double edits to create a verified page - it would even speed up my work quite drastically).
@Fram: Yes, the point is that I need a revid where all values are verified. The problem is that Wikipedia often has more data (and which is probably correct) than what has been verified already. However, at the moment there are many pages where there is a mixture of verified data and unverified data, and the existing revids (both current or older) have problems, which results in mis-tagging of the data. In fact, at the moment we do not have a real clue which data needs to be re-checked (except for the pages that I now already did). The point is in a way not that I need to verify all the values, the point is that CheMoBot needs a revid where it knows that I verified the values (I have been presented that data already by the script, and have done just that). --Dirk BeetstraTC10:31, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
I suppose you could reduce the potential for confusion by inserting a hidden comment or a simple {{ambox}} at the top of the sandbox revision; this comment would then show up at the top of the diff, unless someone stupidly copied it into the article. I expect the bot would ignore that, as its userpage says it only pays attention to the infoboxes. Anomie⚔11:49, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
I am even considering of only saving the infobox (with some comment before it). Testing this idea as we speak (with saving by the script turned off at the moment) - it needs some .. special thoughts left and right. --Dirk BeetstraTC11:53, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
I've seen it. I'd like see some further independent input on it, it is a bit quiet on the discussion. I think it is getting better, but the first reference seems to be of an analysis which seems to be done on request from the website, which makes it a bit less independent, I am afraid. --Dirk BeetstraTC15:31, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
XLinkBot settings
Hey Beetstra, hope you're doing well. Just a heads up that we started a test with XLinkBot. The 1-4 levels will randomly assign either the default or the new one we wrote, and we tinkered with the level 0 text too in order to match our writing style for the next levels. If anything seems weird, broken, or what have you, feel free to revert me and drop me a talk page note. Thanks again for participating in these experiments. I watchlisted the XLinkBot talk page too. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk05:22, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Wow! I'm proud to be a part of this. Did you also notify Versageek - it is still their bot. I'll keep an eye on what is happening. Does the output look fine? --Dirk BeetstraTC09:00, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
I saw you reverted yourself - I have re-reverted and adapted it further. There may be some need to further tweaking, I am now afraid that some of the specific rules are a bit too harsh, or not harsh enough (some things are a plain no-no, no exceptions). --Dirk BeetstraTC09:13, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Hey, I made the changes per your suggestion, though it did not work to wrap $link in the brackets when there were multiple links in the variable. Also, I implemented a randomized test of the welcome templates, since I notice that they may be large enough to push the warning out of immediate view (without scrolling). A page with the new anon welcome and changes to the level zero can be seen here. All the best, Steven Walling (WMF) • talk01:23, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Ah .. of course the bracketting does not work, my mistake. Would need to adapt the code for that - I may do something about it.
By the way, I just noticed an edit by an IP who added a YouTube movie ... which was a copyvio. Maybe the warnings are now a bit too soft - people may not always get the point for which reasons a link gets reverted (spam, copyvio, etc. etc.) as they do not get pointed to the right place to read more about it. --Dirk BeetstraTC09:03, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Hmm. Isn't that a difficult case, since most YouTube vids are added in good faith even if they're unencyclopedic? The bot has no way of distinguishing the quality/type of a YouTube video added or if it's copyvio, and it seems to be in the spirit of AGF to not assume the worst. Ultimately, I know they might make you feel queasy right now because they're softer than what we usually use on the project, but the data from the test will tell us with unarguable clarity whether there was net positive or negative change for the encyclopedia. Do you want to pick a hard stop date? Now that we've quit tweaking the content, just a couple weeks of data should work and we can revert back to the originals while we analyze it. And if stuff noticeably starts to go haywire with increased spam, please feel free to revert back at any time. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk21:55, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't necessarily think that telling about what common problems there are with a link is necessarily a bad faith assumption. You may now get a lot of questions of 'why did you revert that YouTube link', and a lot of cases where editors will blindly with a thought of 'yeah, you don't like YouTube, but I think it helps' - and on a quick spot-check that I did a couple of months ago, I found that 2 out of 10 YouTube reverts by XLinkBot were of copyvio links (and I reverted one a couple of days ago as well, and I am not exactly keeping an eye on ). We surely should not say 'you are adding a copyvio link', but we surely can say 'please take care with YouTube, since still a lot of the links are not suitable, and some are copyvio. Please check'. IMHO, that does not assume that the editor is in bad faith adding a bad link, but it does inform the editor of the why of the revert. That is also why I do think that the bot should leave a link to the external links guideline (though people do not follow links to policies/guidelines and try to understand anyway, they simply revert if they don't understand).
I would suggest that in the analysis, we also do take a significant sample of edits where editors revert the bot (comparing both new and old situation), and see if people are reverting the bot more and not start a discussion or leave the bot a remark. --Dirk BeetstraTC12:20, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
I agree measuring reversions of the bot is a very good idea. Calculating reverts programmatically takes a bit of work, but since we'd be limiting into the sample diffs it should be fairly easy. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk11:21, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Hi Beetstra,
Really love what you've set up, the tables are very helpful!
I happened to find this publication where they list pharmacokinetic properties on
670 drugs.
http://dmd.aspetjournals.org/content/36/7/1385.full.pdf+html
Would there be a way to insert all of them automatically?
A further development would be if you somehow could have a reference for the values
which are listed. Maybe PubmedID or something Could that be an idea?
Hmm .. that there is such a publication does not mean that they all need to be on every chemical mentioned. It may be worth considering on some (where the reference adds something to the page where the info is not mentioned yet in the page). I don't think it is a task to add them all everywhere.
All the identifiers are primary sources by themselves. In a way, if they are correct on the page, following the link does reference the number themselves. And the only number that I got from pubchem is the pubchem .. all the others are really from the issuer of the number.
As I imagine you have a file or DB with the ChemBox data, then it should be possible to
enrich it with this dataset. Regarding adding the references, then I'd be willing to
volunteer to insert the PubMedID in the excel file in question and forwarding it to
you if this will be added (somehow?) to the PK data.
Regarding how to add the bibliographic references to PK data, then it might be too
crowded to add it in the ChemBox, but make it visible when you click on the value or ...
Maybe the simplest way to do this would be to make the data listing used by ChemBox
available and include it as a column there?
Ai .. CAS-numbers, not the most straightforward of identifiers. I work with separate files and databases from internet, in principle basing my data on the Std. InChI.
The excel sheet is indeed a good starting point, I could very quickly read that with my script, and save the data. I'll keep it in consideration and do this when I have time (unless others beat me to it).
Hi Dirk, this is Derek (Dtate888). A little over a month ago, I posted a blacklist proposal to remove Unicoi.com. Do you have some advice as to how I should proceed from here? I know that you had at one time recommended gathering input from other users about the article, but I'm not sure how to best go about that. Not to mention I imagine you could (if you are willing) give me good advice since you are an admin and an avid user. Dtate888 (talk) 18:54, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
I did a quick cleanup, and added a tag at the top. I think it looks pretty good, but maybe another editor with more knowledge in the subject could have a look at it and do the move to mainspace. I would suggest that you follow the instructions given via the link in that tag (the link 'Wikipedia:So you made a userspace draft'), and move on from there. Cheers! --Dirk BeetstraTC09:15, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
alright cool, thanks for the speedy reply. I made a Help Desk request (see here) since the "Request for Feedback" system is apparently no longer operative. If it is decided that the page is worthwhile, I presume you will then un-blacklist Unicoi.com? Anyway, I saw that you work at TU/e. It's a small world b/c one of my friends just got back from being an exchange student there. He was doing an Industrial Design program over there. Anyway God bless you and thanks for the help. I guess the ball is rolling now, so hopefully i won't have to bug you anymore! Wikipedia is an interesting entity. Dtate888 (talk) 16:48, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
Hi Beetstra, I am User:Q2stirofechoes. Am newbie to editing and noticed that the Wiki page "Methamphetamine" contains an outdated photo of the prescription medication, 10mg desoxyn (Abbot labs?)
The most recent info I have is that the prescription med is only available as a 5mg tablet (Ovation Pharmeceuticals purchased the rights from Abbot?)
Also that a generic form of the med is once again available.
Updating the article is beyond my editing skills at the moment, although I hope to learn how to research what is needed for article revisions.
This is my first time posting so I am not even sure I am in the correct place (at least I have learned what a tilde is lol) Q2stirofechoes (talk) 08:13, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
ChEMBL Multiple IDs
Hi Dirk, could you please program the DrugBox to accept 2 ChEMBL IDs so that I can add parents and salts? The ChemBox works like this already and it's excellent. Thanks in advance, Louisa Louisajb (talk) 11:57, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
I am sorry, I really do not have time at the moment. Would you mind posting on Template talk:Drugbox, maybe one of the other regulars of the drugbox is willing to help. Have a good time, and I expect that it will be next year before we see again (I am really busy). Thanks! --Dirk BeetstraTC11:52, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
I see this has been solved. All those templates are for some reason miscategorised (and I must confess, I have no clue if and how many people use this template ..). Thanks! --Dirk BeetstraTC11:53, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
We're currently busy designing some new tests, and we need your feedback/input!
ImageTaggingBot - a bot that warns users who upload images but don't provide adequate source or license information (drafts here)
CorenSearchBot - a bot that warns users who copy-paste text from external websites or other Wikipedia articles (drafts here)
We also have a proposal to test new "accepted," "declined," and "on-hold" templates at Articles for Creation (drafts here). The discussion isn't closed yet, so please weigh in if you're interested.
Sorry, I have no time, though I would like to interact about this. I hope I have more time again next year. Thanks for the notice, see you around! --Dirk BeetstraTC11:54, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
Ending XLinkBot test
Hey Beetstra, just a heads up that Maryana and I planned on ending the XLinkBot template test in a day or two, since it was started on the 17th of last month. I just wanted to double check: is this a revision you wanted to keep regardless of the template contents? Hope you're well, Steven Walling (WMF) • talk19:55, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
Yep, that needs to stay (or re-added, which is maybe easier) - those parameters tell m:User:LiWa3 and User:XLinkBot where the revertlists are, the bots accept multiple, and some trusted non-admin users (those who hence do not have access to the main list), and whom I trust enough to use the bots have access to private lists via these settings.
I am away for a lot of time, and may not have time to go onto Wikipedia until somewhere in the beginning of next year (and even then). I will have to leave bot-operation to Versageek (who has access to all my bots), maybe further questions can be redirected to Versageek (but please keep me posted here, as I'd like to know)? Thanks! --Dirk BeetstraTC11:58, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
Okay, rollback of the setting (plus your recent edit to the revertlist) is Done. We'll keep you and Versageek updated on analysis work, since we're starting a pretty intensive round of it. Thanks for everything Beetstra, and happy holidays. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk18:42, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
ChemBox data enrichment
Hi again Beetstra,
I posted previously about a 670 drug database with human PK data.
Probably I inserted it wrong, sorry about that.
Where you replied that it was a problem to read in the CAS identifiers,
since you use InChi. I managed to convert the list to InChi.
I can forward it to you... BUT how?
Wouldnt wanna litter your talk page.
I may not have access to do this work again until somewhere in the beginning of next year. I will try to remember and have a look then. Thanks! --Dirk BeetstraTC11:59, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
I did not take it over yet, and CheMoBot does not read that list. All what CheMoBot does goes through the index (Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/Index/Wikipedia:WikiProject Pharmacology/Index). I'd suggest that all the relevant identifiers are properly checked, and that a revid of the page where all those are either correct or blank (blank for those for which do not exist or which are not verifiable to one correct value) is added to the correct index. I hope this explans. --Dirk BeetstraTC17:35, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Hi there
We we blacklisted. We try to add an external link to A History of Surfing in Piha www.pihasurfschool.com/about-piha.html to wiki page about Piha. We live in Piha and we are surfers. Can you please allow our link? It not a commercial page.
Regards, Phil. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.236.243.225 (talk) 10:06, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Beetstra is on a wikibreak so I will provide some suggestions.
This relates to Piha. Please review WP:EL and consider whether the external link you propose would actually assist readers of the article. If you have good reasons for why the link would be helpful, please post a request at WT:WHITELIST.
As far as I can tell, the link has not (yet) been blacklisted. I suggest you discuss placing the link before adding it to any article on any language. I think this link does not comply with the guidelines for external links and should not be in wikipedia. EdBever (talk) 19:31, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Publications Office of the European Union / Publications Office pages
Dear Mr Beestra,
I am the social media editor for the Publications Office. We understand that Facebook has generated pages from Wikipedia called 'Publications Office of the European Union' and 'Publications Office'.
Our first concern is that we have created a page on Facebook 'EU Law and Publications'in which we feed our latest news. But we think that people are being confused with the automatically generated pages. I would therefore like to redirect people to our bona fide Facebook page. This is why I have tried to change the pages.
Thank you for your question. That facebook page fails our inclusion standards, and that is why I have removed them all (and also XLinkBot is trying to tell you that). We do not have to include all official pages or everything that is related to the subject. Please read the external links guideline and 'What Wikipedia is not'. Thank you. --Dirk BeetstraTC14:45, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Itub. Good to see that the number of parameters is quickly increasing. I also see many 'broken' parameters. I'll try to work on that one of these days. --Dirk BeetstraTC04:06, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
The Technical Barnstar
You did the migration of COIBot, and as you must be beer free, please have this very expensive award and the beer will have to be taken on notice. — billinghurstsDrewth03:40, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Thanks! I'll wait for better beer times in stead of having one of the alcohol free beers they sell here in the malls. I don't want to share the faith of the Buckler drinkers in the Netherlands. --Dirk BeetstraTC04:05, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Oh, that for sure, billinghurst. But the main beer I saw here in the supermarkets (only visited one huge one so far) is, low and behold, alcohol free Budweiser (imagine being in dry country, and seeing from the other side of the shop a stand with bottles of which you can only make up the word 'Budweiser' from that distance). They do have a couple of other brands of beer (many are of the fruity type, like the Belgian Kriek), but it is quite minimal (and of course all is alcohol free). I never tried James Squire, I am looking forward to it! --Dirk BeetstraTC07:23, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
CoiBot question
Hi Dirk. I've left a comment at Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/Local/apps.gov.bc.ca. I was asked to look into it by new user User:Msruzicka, who was concerned that he was in trouble. I had actually told him to add BCGNIS info to some of his many BC geo stubs to flesh them out, some I'm partially responsible. I haven't worked with one of these reports before, so maybe my comment is improperly placed. If you have time, maybe you could give it a look. Thanks, The Interior(Talk)06:00, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
All is sweet. It is monitoring the link, not reporting it as spam. The text in the lead box is relevant to set the scene, and that the relevant site is not entered in any of the Links list is the relevant concern. As it has been reviewed (by me), I have closed it as such. If another batch of links are added, then it will probably open again, and in which case we can close it again. No issue, it is just doing its job of monitoring. — billinghurstsDrewth06:26, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
(ec) Thanks, The Interior and billinghurst. I will expand a bit on this.
Indeed, the bot is doing its job monitoring. The location of these reports is with the WikiProject Spam, as they are the main ones monitoring these reports. The name of the project (and the WikiMedia feature 'MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist') is a bit misleading. Quite a bit of the material handled by the project and quite a number of the entries on that list are not 'spam' even under a wide definition of that term.
We run a number of programs which monitor all link-additions by all editors to Wikipedia (actually, 772 wikimedia projects), with as a main goal to catch spam or other inappropriate stuff. All those link additions are stored in a big database. Now, real spam (on Wikipedia widely defined as 'links added for promotion', which includes what the general public thinks of as spam, like porn, viagra etc., but it actually also includes regular companies optimizing their search results (Search Engine Optimization, SEO), public organisations who want to make their (generally good) cause known to the public to raise more money and politicians wanting to increase people finding their pages so they would gain more votes) generally has as a common feature that they are 'new links added by a new user' (those links are never used before, so they do not appear in the database, and those editors often did not edit before). So if we find a new user focusing on one link then that is reason for concern. The bot notifies the Wikipedia editors by automatically creating a linkreport. (the catching system is stronger than that, but I will of course not disclose all the exact features per WP:BEANS)
A good percentage of those links are added in good faith (although that does not make it right all the time) and can be ignored (or in some cases, just reverted and then ignored), the rest is real spam and further action can be taken then. As billinghurst already noticed, these links are good, and in a way, we just ignore the link additions. I reporting persists, I would suggest to whitelist it hard (which needs to be done off wiki) or at least set the status of the report to 'ignore'. Note that the reports are not indexed by search engines (that follow that directive, the major ones do), they can not be found on internet, you have to specifically go to Wikipedia to find them.
It certainly does, appreciate it Dirk. As the majority of appropriate pages have the link already, it probably won't come up again. Now that I've read the primer for fighting spam, let me know if you guys need help with any backlogs, etc. Best, The Interior(Talk)00:38, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
Update: new user warning test results available
Hi WP:UWTEST member, we wanted to share a quick update on the status of the project. Here's the skinny:
We're happy to say we have a new round of testing results available! Since there are tests on several Wikipedias, we're collecting all results at the project page on Meta. We've also now got some help from Wikimedia Foundation data analyst Ryan Faulkner, and should have more test results in the coming weeks.
Last but not least, check out the four tests currently running at the documentation page.
Thanks, that is interesting. I'll have a look. In case I forget, one thing I was pondering the last couple of weeks sometimes about this test (not sure how to put this into words): I had the feeling that the reasoning for complaining to XLinkBot or reverting was different during the test - the type of complaints felt different. I know that the current warnings are long, but I have the feeling that the complainers show more understanding now than during the test (you have to separate the complaints about the mode of operation of the bot from the complaints about the links itself). Note that there are (outside of the testing) editors who come to XLinkBot with 'I've read WP:EL, and I think you are right, the link was not suitable, I have adapted the edit'. I don't know if there is enough data recorded to really get hard data about that. It may be reflected in the number of re-additions after the bot removes - I am afraid that the test-templates did not let the editors understand why the link was removed, and that they therefore blindly revert the bot (and if they complain, they give me the other feeling about the complaints, showing that they did not understand why they were reverted by the bot in the first place). --Dirk BeetstraTC19:56, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
I think your experience with that is correct. This is likely a case of language that works really well with one kind of new editor (such as test edits, like adding [[File:Example.jpg]]) does not work well with a different kind of editor. It sounds entirely reasonable to me that people adding really wrong external links need more education.
I do want to say though, that in combing through the test data and in my personal editing, I sometimes see someone who made other valuable text additions get reverted because one part of their edit was to add an inappropriate link. Those editors are usually confused and think it means all their contributions were bad, not just the link. Perhaps one way forward is to keep the current non-test versions of the templates, but make XLinkBot much more cautious about reverting someone who added several bytes of text along with a bad link -- maybe it could just log those edits and warn the editor? Steven Walling (WMF) • talk21:13, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't think that would be desirable. Wikipedia is a sitting duck for external link promotions (covered by XLinkBot) and vandalism (covered by ClueBot), and IMHO the most important remedy is speed of response. People adding external links count any exposure as a win—if an external link is visible for a few hours before a human removes it, the person promoting the external link will often think their time was well spent and they got a good result. What discourages external link spammers and vandals is when a bot reverts their edits within minutes. Of course the situation is not clear, and XLinkBot reverts good-faith (although possibly naive) editors as well as others of less good faith. There is no good solution, and the current system may discourage a small number of editors who start by adding several external links. However, many people whose primary aim is to add external links and who manage to maintain their links for an extended time, then develop a sense of entitlement and require extensive volunteer effort when experienced editors try to remove external links per WP:EL. There would need to be evidence of a real problem (the loss of potentially good editors) to warrant changing the behavior of the bot, and one important issue is that someone who cannot read and understand a reasonable message is not showing promise. Johnuniq (talk) 23:19, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
Johnuniq: I should say that I did a quick bit of qualitative coding on the users who were warned (you can see it for yourself in the XLinkBot data spreadsheet here), and the majority (79 out of 100) were not spammers – they were simply linking to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or Wordpress. I'd be happy to do some more coding on this sample, and you're welcome to, as well (just ask and I'll give you editing privileges), but I'm guessing that it's pretty representative of who XLinkBot is hitting. So while serial spammers who crave exposure do exist, they're actually pretty rare. Maryana (WMF) (talk) 00:07, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
I took the first 12 cases that were not shown as "spam" from the above mentioned spreadsheet, and checked the edits, with these results:
S76fitz (talk·contribs) total of 8 edits, each to add a link to "to my photo @ fLiCKr.com"
Ravulio (talk·contribs) several edits to add a link promoting a non-notable blog; indef blocked
Ramser17 (talk·contribs) unhelpful edits to promote a blog, including adding as first link in lead
There is nothing in the above results to suggest that changing XLinkBot would be helpful. It is good that the WMF wants to encourage editing, but there appears to be a belief that the community has an inexhaustible supply of good editors who are available and willing to dedicate an hour to explaining the purpose of Wikipedia to new arrivals. Judging from the above, the bot has saved a great deal of time and trouble. If there is a problem, one approach may be to encourage a group of editors to follow the bot's work, and to revert the bot (and remove its warnings) where appropriate, and to manually engage with the new editor. Johnuniq (talk) 03:19, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
I see you make the crude separation between youtube/facebook/myspace/twitter etc. and 'spam'. There are a couple of major concerns there which one needs to take into account.
A part of youtube/facebook/myspace/twitter etc. are spam nonetheless. They are added for a promotional target. Above, those who create/change articles to bio's of musicians with facebook links are not naively adding facebook links, quite some of them are here to promote.
Youtube.com - I did a quick scan of 10 reverts a couple of months ago. Two of those (20%!) were links to video clips of songs of artists which were still within copyright, and not obviously uploaded by the owner of those rights - in other words, very likely they were copyright violations. See the blackout of a couple of days ago, I think they are an even bigger concern than the spam part. Do note that YouTube is not the only site that hosts copyvios, that is also true for blogspot e.g. (a long time ago I had an admin complaining to me that I reverted a blogspot reference, he did not see anything wrong with it - it was however a straight copy of a newspaper article where the article was behind a (albeit free) login, the article belongs to the newspaper, the blogspot was a copyvio of it).
Also note that wordpress/blogspot and other blog-like sites are also often added promotional by the writer of the piece. It may sometimes be helpful, nonetheless it qualifies to something close to spam.
I think that the bot explains now properly that if the edit contained more than only an offending link, that the editor should undo with the consideration to remove the external link before saving the page again. Also that was something that was not said in the test-warnings, and editors may therefore have been more inclined to revert the whole edit without consideration ...
Following the conversation a little from the outside, and more focusing comment from the external view of xwiki abuse rather than internal abuse, and not had the time to do any analysis on the data or the heuristics of Xlinkbot; though I will qualify that statement with I have done a lot of cleanup work recently in m:Category:Open Local reports for en.wikipedia.org. Help:Citing sources pretty clearly considers blogs and many of the mentioned as less authority as references. So that gives scope to the sort of message that we can deliver, reverted or warned. There is the issue of external links, versus <ref> links, and the placement of the link. To my anecdotal feedback, the higher it is placed in an existing list, the more problematic. Similarly, I see numbers of issues where people add the section External links and add a link, or the only pre-existing link is a template and the following link is promotional. Clearly the less text and more link that is added is an indicator of an issue, similarly lack of addition of refs, though both can also reflect newbieness and nervousness/tentativeness in an edit. It is the balance between adding quality references, and exceptional external links to build a quality encyclopaedia, and finding the the nice way to do it when it needs to be done in circumstances of good faith. — billinghurstsDrewth05:33, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Addendum. From the results available it is not evident to me that I can easily see where the focus is on the message provided or the type of reverted edit. Plus from the xwiki work, I am less likely to be be seeing xlinkbot in action, but more what it didn't catch, which may skew things in a positive or a negative direction. — billinghurstsDrewth05:39, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Just to expand on the point by Johnuniq regarding separating 'spam' from 'youtube/blogs/etc', and in reply to Maryana (WMF):
Do take care. You say 'the majority (79 out of 100) were not spammers – they were simply linking to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or Wordpress' .. two of these sites here now were clearly spammed (both reported by XLinkBot to be blocked for spamming, both blocked as a result of that). --Dirk BeetstraTC19:22, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Johnuniq's original point, if I understand it correctly, was that people who insert inappropriate external links into articles are mostly doing so to gain revenue from directing clicks and eyeballs to their own sites. My response was that YouTube, Flickr, and Facebook/Twitter linkers, who make up a significant chunk of people warned by XLinkBot, are qualitatively different from spammers who insert links to obscure commercial or promotional websites. They're not linking to copyvio videos or fan pages because they want ad revenue – they're linking to them because they don't understand the rules of Wikipedia and think their contribution is acceptable. If they don't get the message after repeated warnings and blocks, it's not because they're hopelessly stupid; it's because we're not doing a good enough job of explaining the rules to them in a clear, non-hostile way. I understand that it gets frustrating having to explain the same thing to people day in and day out, but you have to remember that what feels so strikingly obvious to you, an experienced Wikipedian, is still incredibly strange and incomprehensible to new users.
As for blogs, for every case of self-promotion, there are cases like this, where someone tries in good faith to add a reference he thinks is appropriate, and the only help or feedback he receives comes in the form of a template warning from a bot. That's why I'm saying we should pay more attention to these messages, and why we should continue to tweak them until they're at least as helpful as a human mentor. I do understand that Wikipedia doesn't have an army of people to patiently guide newbies through stuff like this. That's exactly why I think it's so important to get template messages right. But it's a chicken-and-egg dilemma. Part of the reason we don't have that army is that our editing numbers are dwindling by the day, and part of the reason for that is that we don't do enough to help and guide new users. Maryana (WMF) (talk) 19:04, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree, Maryana, Wikipedia there has a problem, retaining editors, gaining new editors. Notifying people appropriately and properly is there necessary. That does not necessarily lie in a short message without flooding them with policies and guidelines, it lies in bringing a nice and friendly message notifying the people appropriately of the point you want to get through. A too short a message, however friendly, does not get the message through, and people will react more with 'go away bot, I think my link is good', they revert, and don't get to know why some parts are a problem.
I understand that you meant, but the qualification that editors who add twitters, youtubes and the like are mainly doing that not for gaining revenue but because of ignorance of the rules is too short. The obscure website owners are indeed the ones who do it for revenue (not necessarily obscure websites, we've had large organisations of continental or global importance spamming Wikipedia for revenue), but a significant part of the twitters, youtubes and myspaces are not added because of ignorance, they are added solely for promotion.
And that is where we hit the problem, I think. Many people regard spam as a form of vandalism, the editor adding the inappropriate links for any form of promotional effort is just an editor who is ignorant of Wikipedia's rules. Sure, some of the editors who add a large number of inappropriate links do it with the idea that they think they are helping Wikipedia, but the true spammers are not here for that reason. And that separates spammers from the good faith editor who is ignorant of our rules. Most of the editors out of the second group only find one, very maybe two, warnings by XLinkBot. That initial message there is aimed at being friendly, and gaining understanding. Only very rarely I encounter good faith editors who get to a {{uw-spam4}} (I recall out of the last year two cases, one genuine editor whose editing was a bit clumsy and who managed to get to WP:AIV (I think they first tried facebook, that was rejected, so they left out facebook and tried myspace .. was rejected as well, then moving on for some edits and adding the facebook again .. rejected), the other editor ran into a block for WP:POINT-violations (user logged out to show that IP editors can do good stuff, got blocked after XLinkBot reported them to AIV, unblocked, and then investigated resulting in a block for intentional disruption of the system).
The small group of good faith editors who add a large number of links with which they think they improve Wikipedia generally get the message after being talked to. Those links in the beginning do not end up on XLinkBot, but such editors are being talked to by regulars first. Most of them understand, only every now and then someone panics and needs more significant pushes in the right direction (sometimes they do end up on XLinkBot, especially if they have a wider range of IPS, or if they, in their panic, start socking - it makes clean up and tracking easier, and quick remarks may at a certain point result in them getting the point that we are trying to communicate with them).
But that first group, the true spammers, are, as I said, not here to improve Wikipedia. They are here to improve their own financial situation, or that of a cause they represent, or the financial situation of a company they represent (and there are even 'far fetched' scenarios which nonetheless are happening as well - webmasters who add links to Wikipedia to get more incoming customers to show the resulting web-traffic to their supervisors so they can have a raise, or have better web servers). Do not mistake them for misled regular editors - they are here to make money, they are here to use the free webspace of Wikipedia to improve their situation. They will not stop unless hard forced methods are placed (that starts with XLinkBot, which a lot of spammers simply disregard, but it does have an effect, some do go into discussion and/or stop). The majority of real spammers do everything to stay under the radar. They create numerous socks, they use redirect sites. The only way to stop these are the hard measures of the Spam blacklists and blocking editors. They do not care about your friendly messages (only a strong warning that their site(s) may end up blacklisted may make them consider to back off), they will not be converted. When they can, physically, not spam Wikipedia anymore because their links are blacklisted, the only edits they may do is complain, or try to circumvent the blacklisting. They will not turn into valuable editors - most will simply disappear (but they keep an eye on it .. I have seen cases where spammers got their links blacklisted, and months, years later the links get de-blacklisted and the spammer returns very soon after, it pays to have your links here - the same as schoolkid-vandalism, you see vandalism restart hours or days after the block expires).
Now, the point is going to be, that we need to keep the valuable editors, be friendly enough to them to keep them, and to educate them why certain links are a problem. I strongly believe that XLinkBot has there a task in educating them what may be the problem and asking them to take care next time. Just saying 'I reverted your link, bye' is not enough, there education is a necessity, and also telling them what they can do next. That message may be long (risking tl;dr), but not trying to make them understand the rules is certainly less effective. If they revert the bot not knowing what the problem is, they may (and probably will) be re-reverted by a human editor who will, at the least, ask them why they did not consider the first message, the answer may be 'the first message did not tell me what I did wrong'. It is like a traffic cop who sees a first time offender driving 120 where 80 is allowed, stopping the driver and saying 'I warn you, bye', getting back on his motor bike and driving on, leaving the driver to think 'what did I do wrong' ... In stead, most traffic cops will get off from their motor bike, not even intending to write a fine but with the intention of giving a strong warning, immediately pointing the driver to what they did wrong, and explaining the consequences if it happens again. And I think only very few drivers will get out, throw the keys into the grass and walk home, never to drive again (and they even don't do that when that cop is in a bad mood and does write the fine on the first time).
Currently, our message is aimed at being friendly and giving education, but also at being firm. It is very difficult to guess how many editors walk away after the first remark, but I think that shifting the message (any message) is just going to shift the group. If you give a full explanation, editors will leave because they get reverted and don't want to read it all, if you give a very short message editors will leave because they get reverted and don't get told why. In the end, it is the same percentage that walks away.
Maybe we should have a look at the genuine logged-in new editors, see how many keep editing (IP editors may return as another IP, so it is difficult to get a proper number out of that). Of the editors that are still active (also those behind static IPs), you could ask how they perceived the message that the bot left them - whether they understood it, how they found the tone, etc. etc.
Thank you for your thoughtful response, Dirk :) I just want to make it clear that when Steven and I approached you (or any other bot op) for a template test, it's not because we thought your templates were bad or wrong. We know you didn't just slap something together in two seconds – you actually put a lot of time and thought into making the message appropriate and helpful (I know this because I had to spend a whole day teasing out all the different parameters and regexes from the config page!). But as you say, it's an incredibly complicated situation: how do you encourage the good editors without overwhelming them with rules and policy, while simultaneously keeping spam out of the encyclopedia? That's just not a problem any one of us could possibly figure out through educated guessing or anecdotal evidence. A/B testing different messages might sound really crude, but over a long enough timeline and with a large enough sample, we actually can say, with statistical confidence and significance, that one template did better than another at retaining users (or getting them to talk to other editors, or getting them to use the help desk...). We have a team of PhD students (User:EpochFail and User:Staeiou) and a data analyst (who helped us raise 20 million dollars for the fundraiser, all through A/B testing!) who can run all the fancy regressions and Chi-squared tests you see in peer-reviewed journals. You can certainly doubt our ability to discern the secret motives that lie deep within the hearts of editors, but I should hope you don't have the same doubts about science and statistics :)
I guess what I'm saying is, we don't have to rely on educated guessing anymore – we have the resources and the staff (thanks in large part to the aforementioned fundraiser, heh) to get scientific evidence about template effectiveness. If the templates Steven and I wrote totally bombed, then it'll be clear that you were on the right track with more explicit explanations for reverts, and we should try retaining that element and testing other variables. Because the other component to all this is that Wikipedia, along with the rest of the Internet, is constantly evolving. What worked six years ago to draw in new people doesn't work now, so the newbies of today and tomorrow will need very different kinds of help and guiding going forward.
Anyway, that's my A/B testing manifesto, hope you enjoyed it :D And thanks again for letting us test with your bot and giving us some meaty food for thought to chew on. We may disagree on a few minor points, but obviously we agree on the basic principles of getting more good editors involved in the project and making Wikipedia even better, and that's all I really care about in the end! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 19:17, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
Oh, I believe the statistics and the result. The problem is, that I see also the other side of the medal. I do think that our goal should not be only to retain more editors, or only to win more new souls. Sure, every gained editor is one, but that not at the cost of things at the other side. Spammers ánd inappropriate link additions are a real frustration to many, and I'm not sure that we should be happy with retaining one or even 10 editors more, where then more long-term editors start to burn out because of all the work. And that is something that your A/B testing does not measure here. I see the collegue spam-fighters around me, and some take extensive wikibreaks after a fight with the community, or with individuals. And manpower is already thin in this field. The current situation is not good, but changing something here because the statistics say it is an improvement here .. may result in chaos somewhere else. I am very aware of the limits of statistics, it is just what you measure. And if we have a 5% increase in retained editors ánd a 10% increase in re-inserted inappropriate external links, and more downtime of editors cleaning them up because of more work, frustration and burn-outs, and more editors not staying because of all the spam and other rubbish everywhere .. that is not worth it.
I am also not saying that the current message is optimal. I do realize it is long, and people don't read long messages. I would be all for shortening it, or doing something else smart to it. Putting the long message there results in people not reading it (e.g 'I removed the information you added in your edit to the page 'blahdiblah' because in your edit you included an url which points to a document on an site outside of en.wikipedia.org. The movie you are pointing to is an illegal copy of a video clip of the artist blahdiblah, and linking to material which is in violation of the copyright of the original creator of the work is a criminal offense in many countries. Moreover, the url to the movie is inappropriate because you are adding it to page 'blahdiblah', while the videoclip is actually of the clip 'halbidhalb', a performance of 'blahdiblah'. It does not lie in Wikipedia's goal to link to all the videoclips that 'blahdiblah' have produced ...' - tl;dr, after 'I removed the information you added' you stop reading and you re-add the link), putting a short message ('reverted addition of inappropriate external link to copyvio') means that people may not understand why ('reverted', what do you mean? 'inappropriate', who are you to say that? what is an 'external link'? what do you mean with 'copyvio'? - and asking is even more effort than reading a long message, and you have to wait for an answer, so just revert, I mean, copyvio, so what!), and a short message with a link to the full story ('reverted addition of inappropriate external link to copyvio') .. well, editors simply don't follow the link and hence still don't understand, because WP:EL and WP:COPYVIO are too long and it is too difficult to find what part we now actually mean.
Two points of the three are measurable through the A/B test results you have - percentage of retained editors ánd percentage of re-added external links (and you could also measure how many are actually inappropriate external links that are re-added). The third one will be a collateral effect of the latter of the two measured values (with a negligibly small compensation effect of the former) and not measurable through these statistics, but if the percentage of re-added external links is significant, that will also be significant. And over all Wikis (of which en.wikipedia is by far the biggest) we are operating under an addition speed of 1 external link every second - sure, a lot of those are good, but a lot of that still needs to be checked.
Take care measuring retained editors. My experience is that spammers tend to be 'retained editors' until they either get blocked (upon which many sock so they are still a retained editor), or their links get blacklisted. --Dirk BeetstraTC20:06, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
About editor retention, see the diffs in time for the page m:User:COIBot/case/case7 .. some editors you don't want to stay. --05:51, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Linkfarm query re Panthera Hybrids
Hi there, I added a link on the Panthera Hybrids Wikipedia page to an article on the blog of a leading expert on the subject of unusual cat forms after realising from reading this article that the term 'dogla' was being used incorrectly on the Panthera Hybrids Wikipedia page. But you have now removed the link because you say that I had created a Linkfarm. Having read the definition of this, I don't understand why you have done this as his article and blog do not seem to be a Linkfarm. Could you explain your decision so as I can better understand? Thanks very much. 92.13.21.31 (talk) 04:02, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Again, thank you for the question. The page you were working on is on Panthera hybrids. A bit of an overview page with a number of pages linked for the specific hybrids. All in all a lot of information. On this page, there are two links with more info, both seem to be authorative sites already. You were now adding a blogspot, and you may very well be right that that contains a lot of information, but I am not convinced at all that the blogspot adds anything substantial that is not already covered by the page, by the other Wikipedia pages already linked on that Wikipedia page, and the two external links. Editors who are reading the Wikipedia page, get already a lot of info, they may have visited a couple of the linked Wikipedia pages on the Wikipedia page, and now may want more info. Then they have to go through 3 external links trying to find info that is not already covered. I would myself first go for the other two sites (and not for the blogspot). In other words, if a link is not adding substantial what is already covered in the Wikipedia, and the other external links, then the link should not be added. Of course, discussion on the talkpage where a careful examination about which site adds more, and which are superfluous would be a good plan. I hope this explains. --Dirk BeetstraTC17:19, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for your answer, and I certainly take your point about not wanting too many links on the page entry (though it does say at the top of that page that citations are required for it). However, the two links already present are both to the same, fairly old site that perpetuates the misleading definition of the term dogla, whereas the link to the much more recent blog article (written by a recognised, published authority on the subject of unusual cats) that I added specifically exposes this error of definition and explains why it is an error and misleading. That's why I added the link, and why I feel it should stay, otherwise wikipedia readers of the Panthera hybrids page entry will have no idea of the source for this explanation of the correct definition of dogla and also leoger. I shan't try to re-add the link, and in any case i'm new to adding things to wikipedia anyway, but I respectfully suggest that the link should be re-added, for the reasons given here. Thanks.92.13.21.31 (talk) 19:39, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
You're welcome. First, external links are not the same as references, though they may be suitable to become references later. And for the rest, it is along the lines what I am suggesting: a discussion on the talkpage to see whether the links need updating. Thanks! --Dirk BeetstraTC20:05, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
PDB info in Chembox?
Hi Beetstra,
The Chembox info is excellent, could PDB info be added to it? ie a link to macromolecular structures which contain a particular molecule. Just a link to the Compound browser would be needed, Choline or biotin to be continuously up to date with the PDB archive.
I have a mapping between Inchi and the PDB three letter ligand code which would aid doing it automatically.
Would you mind requesting that on the talkpage of the template. I may come to it in the near future, but it may go faster if someone else could do it.
I may however be interested in the file with the links between InChI (StdInChI?) and PDB three letter ligand code (though I can't promise that I have time to use it), could you send me an email via Special:EmailUser/Beetstra? Thanks!! --Dirk BeetstraTC17:22, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Not sure what happened there, my script must have received broken information from the server it is pulling the data out off. I have retrieved another SMILES code, cleaned up the rest. Thanks for catching this! Happy checking! --Dirk BeetstraTC14:57, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Should CommissionBreakthrough spam be reported?
I manually added an item to WP:WikiProject Spam/CommissionBreakthrough Spam (diff). Do you want people doing that? (If not, please revert.) There's so much of this junk and your system seems to be coping very well, so I'm not sure if new instances should be reported somewhere. In the case that I added, the user does not yet know how to add an external link, so the spam link appears to have never been successfully added. Johnuniq (talk) 06:43, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
There are some which escape the system, I would say that where you notice that it stays and that XLinkBot does not revert it, please do revert it.
Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:ClickBankSummary is another check, if it is not there (giving COIBot the time to save the report), then it apparently did not get detected. If unsure, just add it I would say. It is really difficult to get a full record of all of this rubbish, people will come back, and people will stay for a long, long time I am afraid. Also, if confident enough with the revertlists, please do add it to the revertlist, the overridelist and the leveloverrule list. Either try to find the unique features, or otherwise just add the domain to all three of them (if you can find the server IP, please add it to the log behind the rule, so I can see that it is there, and that it may need investigation).
You can also add detail to the talk page of revertlist and we will get to it. We are needing to watch for zny crosswiki activity so all notes on the talk page are really helpful. — billinghurstsDrewth09:00, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
In your notes for blocking this IP/user, you noted the website rankmaniac-2012.caltech.edu. I'm not particularly fond of people abusing Caltech's network; was that the direct site they were spamming, or were they spamming some other site related to the "competition?" If the former, a simple traceroute gives me the owner of the site, and I'm inclined to complain to Dr. Wierman, who is teaching CS 144, which rankmaniac is a part of (sadly, that took far more searching than it should have, and that link is probably one of the only legitimate links using that term anywhere...).--Constantine (talk) 01:52, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
Hi, thanks for that. The situation is more complex than that. I have blacklisted a number of sites on meta:
And that shows a big part of the problem. Websites are easy to get, if that was different, this would have solved it, but it is a matter of either being creative (you can see already three blogspots ..), or finding one of the thousands of free webhosts out there. They did not abuse the caltech.edu site itself (that came out of a websearch for the class, I thought it was the official competition site), probably that is not the site they should promote (but obviously they would abuse the CalTech network, but that was their assignment). Their SEO does their job then, a lot of illegitimate use of the term.
As you saw, I blocked two accounts indef, and 4 CalTech IPs for a month. The IP blocks may upset other editors, but generally IPs in educational institutions are static, it is likely that if they used a private computer for the spamming I actually hit the right editors there, or otherwise I hit a number of computers used in the class.
Others have salted the page on Wikipedia, which I think is a good plan as well to keep the spamming away.
I'll not explain my reasoning further (per WP:BEANS), but I do think (and I have been working for years fighting spam on Wikipedia), that they all did fail their class massively - they got their work blacklisted. If you have further questions, don't hesitate to ask. --Dirk BeetstraTC04:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
Ah, I see you are using the CalTech network as well. It is good to see that now we know that one of the logged in users used that IP that I block directly. Do you still have problems with the autoblock, it seems you changed IP.
Hi. When you recently edited Get Rich Click, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page The View (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.
FYI - I just cleaned up the article on Thomas Milton Tinney, Sr. per the tags you previously added. (See also [15].) I'd appreciate it if you'd have a look. After deleting all the cruft, it appears to me that this fellow is downright unnotable, despite the fact that he's listed in several Who's Whos (perhaps they were the pay-to-play variety), so I added a BLP deletion tag. I'd appreciate it if you'd follow the article as I don't edit here very often. Thanks! 75.6.11.19 (talk) 16:07, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. I am not a specialist in the article, I think someone more knowledgeable should look at it. I think that some of the problems are still there, so the tags should probably still stay. Thanks! --Dirk BeetstraTC16:10, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
I can tell you for a fact that Tinney is non-notable in his field (genealogy), but of course, that's just original research. A Google search produces absolutely nothing written about him, just promotional material and message board posts. But I don't think his biography is particularly "specialist" material. It was written in a pretty quirky way, which made it hard to discern exactly what was meant, so I may have thrown some of the baby out with the bathwater. So I'd be happy if anyone other than Tinney had a look at it. If no one does, then I guess he's non-notable. 75.6.11.19 (talk) 16:38, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
MSU Interview
Dear Beetstra,
My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Wikipedia administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the community HERE, were it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.
So a few things about the interviews:
Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.
Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your name HERE instead.
If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.
Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you.
Reverting Edit Versions on article "St. Peter's College, Colombo 04"
Dear Mr.Dirk Beetstra,
I am a web team member of St. Peter's college, Colombo 04. As per orders from the administration, i have been requested to continuously update this article from this year onwards.
Being a Web Team member, it is my duty to update information on various clubs and societies, and also all the activities carried out by those respective bodies. Since there have been many changes in their organizational structures and since some clubs have combined together, i have had to edit the article respectively.
Please be kind enough to allow my editing as it is being done with due permission.
You may reach me at <redacted, email removed>— Preceding unsigned comment added by teen95 (talk • contribs)
Thank you for the remark. Unfortunately, that does not mean that you should not follow our policies and guidelines, and actually, you should be editing more careful than a regular editor, because you have a conflict of interest. --Dirk BeetstraTC05:00, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
UTRS Account Request
I confirm that I have requested an account on the UTRS tool. Dirk BeetstraTC
Hi Beetstra, thank you for your interest in the tool. I've approved your account, please feel free to login and test the system.
As part of this beta test, we'd like everyone to test every aspect of the tool. This includes acting as blocked users - we'd like each of you to file at least two appeals and respond to them as though you are blocked. Please try to act like a blocked user new to Wikipedia, unfamiliar with common terms and probably a bit frustrated at the situation.
When reviewing appeals, please act as though you are reviewing real blocks. You should be able to comment on any appeal, regardless of who has reserved it; reservations only ensure that reviewers don't send conflicting emails.
If you encounter any bugs (things not appearing to work right, and especially error messages), please file a bug report on JIRA. You will need to register an account there. New features can be suggested there as well, but please add the "after-beta" label to these so we can easily prioritize between bugs that must be fixed and features that can be added later.
Could you please not post telephone numbers, and inappropriate external links. We are not a linkfarm or the yellow pages. In that case I do not need to clean up the article after you. Thanks. --Dirk BeetstraTC11:27, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
Am currently aiming at extending the Latvian (mainly nature) articles in French wiki, just started on Parc national de la Gauga in French wiki. Found a beautiful 360° panorama of it in Gauja National Park en.Wiki.org ( titled 'Tourist trail in Gauja National Park' in section 'External links'). Can't put the 360cities link here, it's blocked). Looks like the block was addes by COIBot, yr bb. Had a quick check on the net, don't see any major pbms wth that site. I opened it a few days ago, have had no infection, spam nor any such thing despite my computer using only basic protections. That site looks safe enough to me. Why is it blocked in frnch, what's wrong with that site, & how to unblock it if poss ?
Regarding the first, I see it is blacklisted on several wikis, it, es and zh wikipedia, and it is listed on meta. That generally suggests that it has been abused by editors (spammed) - especially since it was first tried to be stopped on three individual wikis before global blacklisting was implemented. Note that that does not mean that the site itself is containing anything bad. COIBot only reports it, it are human editors who check whether things should be blacklisted. I guess you would have to ask on meta (see Defer to Global blacklist - I don't think it stands much of a chance), or ask whitelisting for the specific link on the wiki where you want to use it (here on en: Defer to Whitelist, but you'd have to be on the fr wiki).
The wiki you are referring to does not seem to be a mediawiki wiki (it reads '7val.com' in the url). I think that I would not get to see if you leave me a message there. The site is strange, it has a strange display.
I believe that 7val is a self-appointed mirror of Wikimedia and a bit more, how much more, is unknown. Look at en.wikipedia.7val.com, en.wikisource.7val.com and others. Not sure why we would host links to it of our own data. — billinghurstsDrewth13:06, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
Twitter references and ITV
The problem is not that the information is not there - the problem is you don't understand the information that is provided. Glos in an abbreviation for Gloucestershire and that is known throughout the UK, so why would someone write Gloucestershire when they are limited on how many characters they can type?
ITV regional reporters give their Twitter IDs every time they appear on TV and ITV use the Twitter feeds as a cheap way of providing updates due to regular technical problems with their regional websites. It is easy to identify the official feeds with reliable information this way. The only alternative to Twitter for sourcing such information is LinkedIn.
Yes, I see the whole feed, and you say that one person is pregnant. I did not see that post. First, it is a primary source, if and only if that is really the official twitter, which I will assume, secondly, it is simply not a reliable source. Please read the guidelines. --Dirk BeetstraTC13:09, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
No - one person is not pregnant, the person has recently given birth and is on maternity leave to be able to spend time with their new born. That's exactly what I mean about you not seeming to understand what's been written.
Wikipedia guidelines state the following:
Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the requirement in the case of self-published sources that they be published experts in the field, so long as:
1. the material is not unduly self-serving;
2. it does not involve claims about third parties;
3. it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source;
4. there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity;
5. the article is not based primarily on such sources.
This policy also applies to pages on social networking sites such as Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook.
Therefore, I don't see why Twitter references can't be used in such circumstances. I suggest you familiarise yourself with Wikipedia guidelines before you starting removing information, saying it doesn't comply.
The writer of that twitter feed (and I'll assume it is the person who you are talking about in the Wikipedia text), does not say anything about being on being on maternity leave .. the closest it gets is that she twitters that she misses the company she works for .. --Dirk BeetstraTC14:18, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
The fact that she's on maternity leave was already on the Granada Reports page before I edited it and wasn't referenced - you will see this if you look at the edit history. Her return date wasn't mentioned on the page - I added this and referenced her Twitter page as the source FOR THE RETURN DATE - NOT FOR THE CLAIM OF HER BEING ON MATERNITY LEAVE.
The Twitter feed says "@lucymitv @GranadaReports miss you too! Should be back in April!" in response to Lucy Meacock's tweet of "@KeriEldridge great to hear from you. When are u back on our screens? @GranadaReports missing you!" - Granada Reports being the name of the program the article is about!
If you go to the Granada Reports Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/granadareports and look at all the posts for the past 10 months you'll see there was one from Keri Eldridge after she did her last breakfast bulletin before going on maternity leave. Of course, if people like you didn't remove references to social networking sites the two references together would be together and provide a reference for both her being on maternity leave and her expected return date.
Quite frankly you've been quite pedantic and it seems you've just tried to waste my time to be awkward and get attention. As I've already told you THERE IS NO INDEPENDENT SOURCE AVAILABLE. I think you should avoid editing pages related to ITV regional news programmes, you are only going to annoy the people who work hard to ensure correct information is available from very limited resources with your approach and that will only result in the content available on Wikipedia being less useful. 89.248.29.41 (talk) 16:28, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
'Should' .. wow, that is making it really reliable. And are you sure that is the return date for her maternity leave? The post does not say it.
On that basis 99% of the content of the 'Granada Reports' article needs to be removed immediately because only place most of the content can be verified is via a link updated by ITV or a journalist employed by ITV. I trust you will be doing that immediately, since you care so much about the issue. Why can't you follow Wikipedia guidelines and add [citation needed] tags where something needs a better reference? 89.248.29.41 (talk) 17:30, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
I am following our policies - this info is not notable, it should have been removed altogether. That other stuff is there is not a reason to keep this or add more, see WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. Thanks for notifying me though that you brought the issue to AN/I. --Dirk BeetstraTC17:37, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Cryptic?
Not sure what you meant by the "Wow, that is quite cryptic again" jab on ANI, but if I am not being clear, please let me know. Don't give snarky comments, let me know what I am not being clear about. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 18:49, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Oh, Neutralhomer, it was not about you. I see now that my post is misformatted. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I was talking about the post on Twitter, which was mentioning 'glos' for 'Gloucestershire'. No, you were very clear, I just did not understand that I missed that the twitter link did mention Gloucestershire, since I did search/check for it. --Dirk BeetstraTC19:03, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Far-left politics
Hello Beetstra,
I have seen that you have reverted on the article Far-left politics without giving an explanation in the edit summary or participating in the discussion on the talk page. I am sure that you understand that this topic is quite touchy and I want to inform you that there has an edit war been going on. I don't think that reverting without contributing to the discussion is the right thing in this situation. It could fuel the edit war and does absolutely not lead to a solution of the disagreement. --RJFF (talk) 19:33, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I saw the edit war, and I blocked the editor edit warring. I am intentionally NOT participating in the discussion, I do however see that editors are reverting over and over - if I see further removals without that the talkpage discussion has come to a conclusion, I will take more drastic steps. Thanks. --Dirk BeetstraTC20:18, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Another one: [16]. I don't think you should take InChIs from PubChem without reviewing, especially for polymers, as PubChem frequently lists the polymer's components instead of the whole thing. See the structure drawing in [17]. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 09:59, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Regarding the first one, that must have gotten IDs from somewhere, while it absolutely should not get a CSID and other IDs. Those fields should be blank. If the fields are there, I extrapolate the rest of the data from there.
The second one is a valid one, there is nothing wrong with those InChI's.
The third one is a bug in the page, which propagates.
No, please, go on, I'm happy someone is reviewing my edits, but do realise that sometimes there are already errors in the pages, which simply propagate. --Dirk BeetstraTC10:07, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
I have updated the first one, also off-wiki for my scripts, it should now update to a CSID = NA - this compound should just not display a CSID.
Hmm, ChemSpider for Colestipol really seems about that compound, and gives those InChI's. I think that InChI sees polymers as some form of 'mixture' of monomers? I'll add Colestipol to an ignore list. We can always verify that one manually.
Oops, the CAS is an oversight, indeed, that one can be correct, they do mixtures in a better way.
Re: InChI's and polymers - It is not possible to generate an InChI for a polymer (at this time). Some databases contain InChIs for the monomers of the polymer (or other similar fragments) - I'm not certain of the reasons for this - It could be an intentional approach to try and capture some structural information - in the absence of a polymer InChI, or a case that the database uses name-to-structure algorithms across their data to generate structures (and afterwards InChIs) and that the name has given rise to these molecular fragments. --The chemistds (talk) 22:15, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
ChemSpider (and PubChem) also give the SMILES, the chemical formula, the structure, and the molecular mass for the monomers. It's definitely incorrect that colestipol has a mass of 281. I fear that ChemSpider and PubChem simply don't handle polymers correctly. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 11:00, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Strangely, most polymers do not have a record on chemspider (polyethylene, polypropylene, etc.). I am actually surprised to see this one, maybe it is a rare exception. I see as an only solution to do those manually, if my script is doing its job correctly, it should be ignored now. Otherwise I will bash it in place. --Dirk BeetstraTC11:02, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
ChemSpider is a database of small molecules - currently the database does not support storing polymers or other extended materials. The database is generated by aggregating data from over 400 datasources. All data is imported based on structures and then any associated data (which may include names). Therefore, it is possible for a datasource to supply a structure with an incorrectly associated name. Looking at the records that have been highlighted - I would summise that that the data probably came from PubChem originally. --The chemistds (talk) 19:56, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Other examples are colestilan which resolves to "2-(Chloromethyl)oxirane - 2-methyl-1H-imidazole (1:1)" and colesevelam which resolves to "6-(allylamino)hexyl-trimethyl-ammonium; N-allyldecan-1-amine; 2-(chloromethyl)oxirane; prop-2-en-1-amine; chloride; hydrochloride"; possibly they only list polymers that are drugs. I've just removed SMILES, InChIs and formula from colesevelam. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 11:17, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Hmm .. this is annoying, and I am really sorry for causing this trouble. I encountered a good handful of cases which simply do not have a proper InChI etc., like the polyolefins etc., but which were nicely out of ChemSpider and hence did not make problems. Now we have suddenly a group where ChemSpider is problematic. I did consider that we might have an odd case where we do have typos in the system and hence get a mistake, but this is heavily thwarting our work. I have stopped working with the script for now - either we need to figure out an easy workaround, or we for now we have to accept a bit of 'errors', and we solve those as we go by. But first, can you think of polymers that should be excluded here, is it easy to make a cross-section of drugs with 'polymer', so we can just make the script ignore these?? --Dirk BeetstraTC11:29, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
As both a member of staff working on ChemSpider - and someone curates in their free time I can say that ChemSpider (and I) take data quality very seriously. Part of the way that we do this is by employing data validation processes. One key aspect is getting users to approve names that they know are correctly associated with a structure, if a name is highlighted in bold face it has been verified and should be correct, if a name is only formatted in normal face it may be correct but there is a possibility that it has been associated incorrectly. In the cases that are identified above the names were included in the record but were not verified.
With regards to resolving the issues with external data - in the case of ChemSpider I would encourage you to feedback when you discover data that you believe is incorrect. This is central to the ethos of ChemSpider - we know that there can be issues with the data but think that users don't have to just accept it - you can make a difference and get the issues fixed. This can be a simple as using the Leave Feedback button on the ChemSpider record - Or if you create an account, you can add data or mark it for deletion (giving you the ability to interact with the record much like Wikipedia enables you to do). If you wish to know more please get in touch with me or the rest of the team and we'll be happy to discuss this further. --The chemistds (talk) 21:46, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
As long as they do not have a CSID, it is fine (we can always set it to 'NA' to 'block' it). I may start running it normally again tomorrow. I have a long list, may try to do an hour or two of CSID-validation this evening. Thanks for the reports and the help! --Dirk BeetstraTC14:26, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Wrong input for the script, most of the identifiers that were there were totally wrong. I have removed all of them, will also go through my input files to see if I have it in there somewhere. Thanks for catching this one. --Dirk BeetstraTC16:31, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
I can't see any point where the name Triptorelin has ever been associated with 1,4-piperazine - so I think this might be data from some other source. --The chemistds (talk) 13:27, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
I don't know where this list is coming from, but it has the following:
13835351Toluene_diisocyanate
13835401Diethylenetriamine
13835459Triptorelin
13835550Ethylenediamine
13835557Pyrogallol
(>5700 records in total). Either I made a mistake, or I got this list with an error. Does not matter, it needs to be resolved, I have removed the record, and double-checked whether it is nowhere in my lists. I hope it is resolved now. --Dirk BeetstraTC13:52, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm not certain at this time (CSID 17290424 is a strong candidate for the correct record)- I need to find some reliable sources that depict the structure fully - or alternatively construct the peptide myself from the appropriate amino acids. I hope to get the chance to do this in the next day or so. The big issue is ensuring that not only is the general structure correct but that all stereocentres are the correct configuration. I'd not the that current wikipedia image contains one undefined stereocentre - which I'm fairly certain is incorrect. You also need to bear in mind that Triptorelin seems to be interchangeably referred to as Decapeptyl and Gonapeptyl which are brand names that I believe relate to formulations containing specific salts (see the talk page for Triptorelin. --The chemistds (talk) 14:16, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
For me the giveaway was the first stereocenter mentioned in the name, Wikipedia seems to have a D-enantiomer, ChemSpider talks of L- (5-oxo-D-prolyl-L-histidyl-Ltryptophyl-L-seryl-Ltyrosyl-3-(1H-indol-2-yl)-L-alanylleucyl-L-arginyl-L-prolylglycinamide vs. 5-Oxo-L-prolyl-L-histidyl-L-tryptophyl-L-seryl-L-tyrosyl-D-tryptophyl-L-leucyl-L-arginyl-L-prolylglycinamide) .. --Dirk BeetstraTC14:19, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
Possibly, but names are only as good as the person (or software) that generated them - (and the source that they used for the structure). I'd also ideally like to see some primary literature to confirm the structure. I'd note that the Merck Index 14th Ed does not indicate that the (oxo-)Proline is the D enantiomer - by convention this would imply that it is the L-enantiomer. --The chemistds (talk) 14:35, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
We're for sure not at 100% overlap yet. Maybe this is a missing record, maybe there is something wrong on either end. I do pick out sometimes cases where there are real mismatches, even while maybe the link is correct. I find sometimes records where some things don't match up, but where I don't know where. I just tend to blank the CSID on-wiki, we'll get to it later.
Bit of a side, do you by any chance have access from ChemSpider side to a list of ChemSpiderIDs with confirmed Wikipedia pagenames, or could you generate that. I once got one such list, but I guess both of us have significantly progressed.
Our coverage of (hopefully correct) CSID's is at the moment at 4627 out of 5122 pages with a drugbox (90.33%) and 7116 out of 7780 pages with a chembox (91.46%), so that is 11743 out of 12902 pages - about 1200 missing links. Here is a long, long list of almost 1000 pages with their current CSID, but for which I have no clue whether they are correct - they need to be checked by eye. I hope I will have some time to go through it, and make a new list 'CSID=Pagename' (which I can then feed into my script). The remaining 300 probably currently do not have a CSID at all (or are cases where there is no match, perhaps). --Dirk BeetstraTC16:26, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
I am going to restart the script again, please do poke me when there are articles mishandled, whether it is from wrong input from the page (wrong identifiers already there), whether it is from wrong data externally (the external database says that compound a has identifier 1, but that is wrong), massive blunders from my side (I do make them), improper data externally (like the InChI's for the polymers), or a combination of some or all of these. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:01, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Hi Dirk, Following up on the discussion above. We should be able to supply an updated list of ChemSpider records with Wikipedia links. I think that it would be useful if you can supply a list of Chembox/drugboxes that have a CSID, InChI or SMILES - it would help us to identify where we are not currently providing links in to Wikipedia.
Looking at the list in your sandbox - I'd point out that there is a block of ~30 entries that are actually User pages.
With respect to the figures that you give for the number of drug/chem boxes that are missing links ~1200 - It would be nice if this is the case, but I'm not sure how to rationalise this with the number of pages that are missing a CSID - currently listed as ~3700. Some of this may be due to the listing of User pages on the Category:Chemical_pages_needing_a_ChemSpiderID, another part of the disparity may be that some ChemBoxes have several CSIDs - for different enantiomers, my guess is that there are still somewhere between 2500 and 3000 Chem/drugboxes that are missing a link to ChemSpider - but I'll be happy to be proved wrong. --The chemistds (talk) 21:33, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
No, I'm wrong, I should go to be earlier. I forgot that when a chembox/drugbox is void of certain data it is also 'verified' - if a page has a correct KEGG and the rest of the identifiers blank and recording that revid will result in CheMoBot only tagging the KEGG. The other fields are wrong, but since they are empty, CheMoBot will not tag them (or the tag will be invisible). When someone adds a, say, ChemSpiderID to it, the CSID may be correct, but since it is not verified to be correct, CheMoBot will tag it with a N until someone verifies if that is the correct ChemSpiderID.
Regarding the userpages, we can just ignore them, update them, or index them, whatever - of course taking into account what a the 'owner' wants with it.
Thank you for your question. I'll try and explain. First of all, we are writing an encyclopedia here, not a linkfarm or an internet directory. Pages should be as much as possible self-contained. However, Wikipedia can not incorporate all information. Therefore, we can incorporate external links. However, it lies not in Wikipedia's goal, to link to every resource about a subject. If I see the page you were linking to, I do not see a lot of information that is not already in the Wikipedia page, moreover, most of it could be incorporated easily. Then, you use as a description of the link "Represented for speaking engagements by Leigh Bureau" - that looks certainly promotional. Were you linking to the site to give more information about the subject (which I don't think the site has), or were you linking to promote (I do not regarding the latter, that you first change an existing link, then change the text, and then move the link higher up so it looks more prominent. I would really suggest that you heed the warning that Dmacks left you. --Dirk BeetstraTC18:31, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
Official Facebook, Twitter, etc.
What an incredible amount of information on my page! Much appreciated. Thank you for not only reading my whole post, but responding, in kind, with much detail. I didn't "go after" this intending a challenging tone; I sincerely wanted to know Wiki policies. Everything you wrote makes sense. In particular, thanks for the whitelisting; I would have had no idea about that. Kasamoto (talk) 19:50, 21 February 2012 (UTC)Kasamoto
You're very welcome. As I say in the post, XLinkBot is there to notify those who don't know about the policies about such things. After you take such a time to try and understand all that, further reverts would be totally useless, I expect that you make a good choice regarding which link(s) you want to include. I hope you enjoy staying here, happy editing! --Dirk BeetstraTC04:03, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for your agressive removal of video links
Your agressive removal of video links has made me realize how silly I have been. Over 80,000 people looked at the Wikipedia article about The Civil Wars band on one day, Feb. 12/2012 when they won two Grammy Awards. I was one of them. Until recently I looked at Wikipedia as a place to find ALL the information I need quickly, including links to videos. But now that you and your bots are deleting all the video links, I see how foolish I have been. In the past I would go to Google, type in "The Civil Wars", or whatever band, and click on the Wikipedia article. I would read a little, then click on a video link to see and hear what the band sounded like. How silly of me. If I want to hear or see a band, why use Google to go to a middle man? (Wikipedia) Just go directly to Youtube and use their search to find The Civil Wars. What was I thinking before? Next you might delete all references to newspaper websites. Then no one will leave the Wikipedia site to go there either. I think you're onto something here Dirk. Keep those readers on Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.30.94.19 (talk) 08:42, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
Have you actually considered what we are doing here, my dear IP, I am writing an encyclopedia, not an internet directory, not a linkfarm, not the yellow pages. And as a note, the references to newspapers are not there to read the newspaper article. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:47, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
No, I do not insist on using the Wikipedia page of The Civil Wars. I may never go there again. Also, as a favor to you Dirk, I'll leave this note at the bottom, where you put it. That way, none of the higher ups at Wikipedia will see it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.30.94.19 (talk) 09:17, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
WP:TOPPOST: "Start new topics at the bottom of the page: If you put a post at the top of the page, it is confusing and can easily be overlooked. The latest topic should be the one at the bottom of the page. Then the next post will go underneath yours and so on. This makes it easy to see the chronological order of posts. A quick way to do this is to use the "new section" tab next to the edit button on the talk page you are on.
Dirk, I apologize. I was in error. I inferred (incorrectly) that you were trying to hide my comments by placing them at the bottom.
Perhaps this will be my last attempt to make my point. You, and others at Wikipedia are clearly experts at Wikipedia and computers. However, you do not seem to be experts at marketing. Rather than try to back up my statement with words, I will refer you to two graphs.
The first is found at the Wikipedia page for The Civil Wars band. I arrived at the page view statistics link through the View history tab. The second is at YouTube. In YouTube, do a search for - The Civil Wars official Poison and Wine. Below the video you will see a big number. As of a few minutes ago, the number was 3,489,204. Directly to the right of this number is a tiny graph. Click it to get the video statistics. I think a comparison of the two graphs will help make my point. We average Joe/Josephine users would really like to keep video links in Wikipedia. Deleting them doesn't seem to help Wikipedia or hurt YouTube.
Last, congratulations on your job at KAUST. It seems like an amazing university. I had no idea they were so advanced. By the way, I found out more about them at the Wikipedia KAUST page. I clicked on the official YouTube video link in the External Links section.
Adios — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.30.94.19 (talk) 16:55, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
(talk page stalker)By policy, wikipedia's mission is not to advertise/promote a subject or give substantial weight to a person or group's own statements or publications about itself. That would violate our neutrality in appearance, if also not in fact. We're not a place to learn everything about everything, or even everything about the topics we do have as articles--that's a rolse for web-wide search engines and other groups' own websites. DMacks (talk) 17:23, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, apology accepted.
I'm not so sure - maybe I am more specialised in trying to avoid that people use Wikipedia for marketing, that is true.
Those statistics are interesting. What do they say: Are more people interested in the video's then in the information of the band? Are more people using Google to go to the YouTube channel than Wikipedia? So, no, the statistics there don't make the point. It's fine that you want to keep them, go change the policies and guidelines that affect that part of our mission (see below). 'Deleting them doesn't seem to help Wikipedia - That depends on the point of view. Wikipedia is not aiming to get more hits on that page, Wikipedia is aiming to be an encyclopedia. Hurting YouTube? That is the last thing we want to do - and I don't think that it hurts YouTube that Wikipedia is the second result when looking for YouTube (just after the official site itself; see http://www.google.com/search?q=youtube), what is funny is that Wikipedia is the second result in searching for http://www.google.com/search?q=%22The+Civil+Wars%22 .
If you want to change policy, you'd have to be at the policy pages. WP:EL is the guideline, WT:EL is the talkpage for discussion to change the guideline. Similarly, WP:NOT for the guideline, WT:NOT for the discussion.
I'm not sure what you want to say with 'I clicked on the official YouTube video link in the External Links section.' - do you mean that because other pages don't follow our policies and guidelines, The Civil Wars does not have to do it either. Do you mean that while the KAUST official site does not prominently link to YouTube that maybe editors have decided that that is a good additional link there (unlike facebook, twitter, flickr and vimeo, which are linked from the kaust official site and not mentioned on the Wikipedia page) - compare that to The Civil Wars official website, which does prominently link to YouTube, MySpace, Twitter, Facebook and last.fm, something that then does not need to be reproduced on Wiki.
Not sure what you mean with 'I had no idea they were so advanced.'
Now, we seem to be focussing on The Civil Wars - where I have to give it to you, a link to the official channel of the band is at least a link about the band, but here you (re-)add a link to the video of one of the songs of the band to the page one of the singers of the band. That is not a direct link, the link would be direct on the page of the song, but not here (not that it would be a proper link on one of the singers of the band, nor on the page of the band).
By the way, I do enjoy the music.
I hope this explains, and I hope to see you around on the talkpages of the policies and guidelines, or maybe elsewhere helping us building this encyclopedia. Thanks! --Dirk BeetstraTC17:49, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
Filter 455
I turned it off because it was getting a lot of false positives after your last change - I think it was getting all edits to one's own user page. You might want to revisit that last one. Thanks, NawlinWiki (talk) 05:22, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Ewww. Missing brackets. My apologies. Turned it back on, adapted it, and will monitor it for an hour or two. Vandal is likely to wake up soon, so I'd better be aware.
As a side-question, if you save your filter, you go back to the list. It says on top 'You have successfully saved your changes to filter 455.' .. I presume that is set somewhere in the MediaWiki namespace - can we change that to 'You have successfully saved your changes to filter 455' (You have successfully saved your changes to [[Special:AbuseFilter/455|filter 455]])? You know where it is set? Now it is a drag getting back to your filter. --Dirk BeetstraTC05:39, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Hi (hope all is good with you) there is an issue with the linking of pages on LinkReports. If you look at this one the link to the Commons user doesn't take you to a user page. I think I had the same issue the other day on Wikibooks if I recall correctly. Thanks & best --Herbytalk thyme08:25, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
Hi! Yes, all is fine. How are you?
I'm not sure what is the problem, the links I see do lead to pages .. where exactly do you see a link that is not leading to a page? --Dirk BeetstraTC08:28, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
No - it was the user - pattern account spammer who I blocked this am. However if the bot thinks it was a page not a user page it would explain why I'm not getting to it! --Herbytalk thyme11:22, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
Still the same issue with some wikis - looking at this one the edit on Species is actually on the user page not on the page the bot points to for the edit. I think I had the same issue on an en wq page in the past couple of days but didn't have the time to follow it up. Thanks & regards --Herbytalk thyme08:54, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Hi. When you recently edited Formula editor, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Aurora (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.
My name is Jonathan Walby user:walbyjon and I am with Dr. Obar's class at Michigan State University. You have previously stated that you would be willing to answer a few questions for our research project. If you are still willing to participate, please let me know. You may contact me at walbyjon@msu.edu. Please let me know when you have time to answer the questions and I will email you the list of questions. If you have any questions please feel free to let me know. Thank you for your involvement and help with this project.— Preceding unsigned comment added by walbyjon (talk • contribs)
I'll drop you an email. Not promising anything whether I will find enough time to answer all the questions, but I will do my best. --Dirk BeetstraTC10:44, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
Collapsing chembox sections
It would be nice to have an option to collapse some chembox sections, in some exceptional cases. For example, in hydrogen chloride, chembos jams the text because of images to the left, and I thought collapsing the "identifiers" might help that (most of them are of low importance for HCl anyway). Any idea? Materialscientist (talk) 06:20, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
I've tried a bit somewhere - I guess we need to try it in a sandbox to do it. It was not utterly beautiful (bit thicker borders could not be avoided) but it can be done. I have no objection to implement the possibility (e.g. with parameters 'collapsible=yes' and 'collapsed=yes' in the sub-box. Not sure what happens with collapses inside collapses, though (we have InChI's inside the Identifiers module). Where did I write that idea earlier? --Dirk BeetstraTC07:51, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
Hey Dirk
Wanted to write about the bot you created COlBot.
I was trying to add links to some articles (Mainly Farsi or if relevant in English)to my website called resource.ir . One of the main features it has is that it lists a pretty comprehensive repertoire of Iranian Consumer products, and detailed information about the product itself, such as information regarding the company, the size and features of the product, and also sister products of that same industry. Hence for example on the page "Mineral Water" in farsi, which is "آب معدنی", I listed a link to the search results for that. The results consists of many common and uncommon products of that industry, i.e. mineral water, and also the link directly in understanding the features of the product and the manufacturer. Similarly for example, another article "Zam Zam Cola", I added the Product Passport of one of its products, http://resource.ir/fa-IR/Product/Details/655399d176ae488d971aee042b0fc9a1?dataLang=_FA (Thats the link for the Farsi Wiki Page of "Zam Zam Cola").
However, your bot saw it as promotional and irrelevant to the page. In essence it is not a promotion of the website per se, but rather as a further extension of the wiki page to learn more about the product, which was not described in the page itself. For example, the directory of products that exists, and also the information regarding the Product Owner itself.
Could you help me out on figuring out the policy of this bot, and seeing whether I am doing something wrong here, or if there is another process where your bot could not misinterpret the intentions of the links?
Thank you for the remark. No, COIBot does not see something as irrelevant or promotional. The bot either sees that someone with high probability of a conflict of interest is using the link (and reports it so a human editor can either ignore it as a false positive, or investigate it further if it is used promotional or is irrelevant), or it sees that some editor has a focus for a link (which also does not need to be a bad thing, but such a focus is regularly a cause of concern in terms of spamming).
It here seems to be a case of the latter - the bot noticed that a small range of IPs are using the link (the 5 IPs fit into a range of /23 if I see it correctly). That often is a concern because spammers often operate from one IP, or a small range of IPs, and therefore the link got flagged. It does however not mean that that is true.
Here you however do confess that you do have a conflict of interest, you are related to the link ("... to my website called resource.ir") - so the guess of the bot that there was something that needed to be looked at was correct. That guideline does not forbid you to edit articles you have a relation with, or to add information you have a relation with, but it does ask you to take care that the information you add is neutral, and follows all possible policies and guidelines.
Now, I have as a problem, that I seem not to be able to use the link, so I can not investigate the contents, but to me it sounds like you have information there on the site which is suitable for inclusion. We do not link to a site just because it exists and has information, our linking guideline Wikipedia:External links tells you more about that (see also 'What Wikipedia is not'. I hope this explains. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:05, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
External information that is non-authoritative, unsourced, and is simply a link in "External links", it does nothing to improve the article. If there is relevant information missing in the article, then add it to the article with a reference to the correct source. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a listing guide. — billinghurstsDrewth08:59, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm not 100% sure what you mean by "What is done is done", since the case still needs to be reviewed, corrected and/or set aside (and my block log fixed).
While best read rendered and not as bare wiki-markup, I think this link from the short list on my talk page probably sums up some of this stuff pretty well. More specifically, in that section I also wrote: "In the past ArbCom has shown a willingness to go back and review and correct stuff such as they did with the Matthew Hoffman case (Shoemaker's Holiday), and the statement ArbCom made can be found here. [...]" While that case was of course a little different from my case, there are also some parallels. The case that led to the COI RFC was itself a large mess that ArbCom worked hard to correct, which I was really glad to see them do. --Tothwolf (talk) 10:47, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
You mean that the case you are referring to is still open? But what I more meant is that I am afraid that there will not be much to change in this RfC regarding cases or the way ArbCom handles stuff (the RfC mainly focusses on COI - not on the operation of ArbCom). You may be interested in another RfC, though: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee 3. --Dirk BeetstraTC12:23, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
I'll get to this next week. Please, there is nothing to worry about here - most of these are likely cases where there is something else going on - and it has nothing to do with your edits. I'll whitelist you. --Dirk BeetstraTC12:20, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure why the bot picked these up (maybe there was something on the page that triggered the bot, or there has been, in the past, a user who was having a perceived conflict of interest with the link). I think you were there 'just another user' (which helps us in accessing that the link is used in a good way). I have whitelisted you. --Dirk BeetstraTC11:06, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
I noticed my username appeared on several Wikiproject-SPAM lists created by COIBot. In all cases, I had copied existing Wikipedia articles into my sandbox. I have already asked an admin to delete these pages, and they may be gone by now.
These four links happened because I had created a copy of Pakistan Navy in my sandbox:
I'll get to this next week. Please, there is nothing to worry about here - most of these are likely cases where there is something else going on - and it has nothing to do with your edits. I'll whitelist you. --Dirk BeetstraTC12:20, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
I had a look. Most of these links are picked up because of having a Google AdSense ID. Those IDs are something we look for - if a site with a known AdSense ID (for example when a site with said adsense was spammed) is added, it is likely spam as well, and likely by the same 'user'. However, many regular sites also contain Google AdSenses, many innocent.
I had saving of 'pages with a Google AdSense' enabled for some times (in fact, it is still bugging me massively), but it overloads the bot - and most of it is not spam. My mistake. I have disabled that option.
Therefore, as I promised, I whitelisted you, when these reports get re-saved, you should be whitelisted. I hope this helps. --Dirk BeetstraTC11:11, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
I appreciate it very much. I'm a coder, so I understand the difficulties of with fuzzy categories. Conflict of interest is a challenging but worthy endeavor. Good luck. Blevintron (talk) 22:15, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
Dispute resolution survey
Dispute Resolution – Survey Invite
Hello Beetstra. I am currently conducting a study on the dispute resolution processes on the English Wikipedia, in the hope that the results will help improve these processes in the future. Whether you have used dispute resolution a little or a lot, now we need to know about your experience. The survey takes around five minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist in analyzing the results of the survey. No personally identifiable information will be released.
Please click HERE to participate.
Many thanks in advance for your comments and thoughts.
Hi. When you recently edited Arcavias, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Demo (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.
Hey there :). You're being contacted because you're an edit filter manager, At the moment, we're developing Version 5 of the Article Feedback Tool, which you may or may not have heard about. If you haven't; for the first time, this will involve a free-text box where readers can submit comments :). Obviously, there's going to be junk, and we want to minimise that junk. To do so, we're working the Abuse Filter into the tool.
For this to work, we need people to write and maintain filters. I'd be very grateful if you could take a look at the discussion here and the attached docs, and comment and contribute! Thanks :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:09, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
I've possibly asked you this before. Yesterday I checked CasNo and ChEMBL in Polyestradiol phosphate, found them to be correct, and changed the cascite and ebicite templates to "correct", which obviously was a bad idea because CheMoBot reverted me. What should I have done to change the little red crosses to check marks? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 13:45, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for asking. CheMoBot is relying on the revid of the page in which all the parameters are found to be correct. That revid is recorded in the index. If the top version of Polyestradiol phosphate has all the identifiers correct, then you take the revid, add it to the index, and CheMoBot will set the cascite and ebicite templates for you. I hope this explains. --Dirk BeetstraTC14:26, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. I changed the revid for polyestradiol phosphate after updating/adding the ids in the article yesterday, but the bot hasn't done anything to the article yet. Given that it usually reacts 10–11 min after an edit to an article, did I do something wrong?
No, it only reacts to a change to the mainspace page, not to a change in the index. It does go through all other pages as well .. slowly, at random and when it does not have other pages to parse. I have now forced the bot to update the pages, should be 10-15 minutes from now. The other way would be to do a null-edit to the pages you want to see updated, but I'd call that type of 'cosmetic' edits quite unwanted.
Thanks, the bot has done its edit now. I think I'm beginning to get the hang of this. Pretty good given that I've been editing pharmacology articles for nearly four years :-) --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 09:41, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Well, that is already longer than CheMoBot is doing it .. :-) .. General trick that I apply: Edit the page to get all identifiers correct, and record within 10 minutes the verified revid. When the 10 minutes are over, CheMoBot will 'handle' the page, and take the last revid out of the index to see what to do. Or get access to IRC - where you can just ask the bot to have a look at it. --Dirk BeetstraTC10:03, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Just as a note, it is for me VERY important to have the ChemSpiderID correct. From that I can automatically source the StdInChI, and from there many other identifiers come along automatically. Although we have a good coverage, there still are several thousands of pages for which I .. do not know whether the mentioned CSID is correct (they need to be checked manually), or which simply do not have a CSID mentioned on Wiki. If the CSID is deemed 'verified' in the index, then I source from that further. It would be a great help if you could help in verifying those which do not have a verified CSID. --Dirk BeetstraTC10:09, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Okay, I'll have an eye on CSIDs. By the way, be careful with polymers. They have wrong (monomeric) structures in PubChem, and ChemSpider has often copied them. I think I've encountered CSIDs that were marked as correct but pointed to pages about monomers. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 13:39, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Yep, I know. ChemSpider seems to have a lot of wrong polymers on them. If there is really no ChemSpider available (or all of them are wrong), you can set the parameter to 'NA' (that works at least for the chembox) - I regard a CSID of 'NA' as 'correct' (until something better comes up, but at least we know that it has been checked and not found, and it does not keep us busy finding it while others already did not find it). --Dirk BeetstraTC13:45, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Spylab
Please, pay attention to this user changes of the Neo Nazism article. Someone fixed the text he meaninglessly altered, which he reverted without justifying it. I do not like entering edit warring here.--216.168.239.87 (talk) 01:44, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
You only reverted the editor once, so neither of you are anywhere close to edit warring on this subject. If you are afraid of edit warring, make sure that you engage in discussion upon revert (either the on the talkpage of the user you reverted, or on the talkpage of the page that you reverted. If re-reverts are occurring, consider to warn the editor when they get close to 3 reverts on a day, and maybe then call for an independent overview of what is going on (even if that means that it is not 'your version' that is currently the top one. You can generally find help from WikiProject members with an interest in the subjects, and you can generally find those easy by looking at banners on the talkpage of the page you are 'warring' on. I hope this explains. --Dirk BeetstraTC05:18, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
Wow, CheMoBot is identifying a parameter of an URL as a parameter of the box, and handles accordingly. Interesting 'bug'. I'll have a look to fix it. Thanks! --Dirk BeetstraTC05:07, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
COIBot Inquiry
Hello, Dirk. While updating internal Wiki page links after moving a Wiki article today, I became aware of the following two pages: Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/Local/mmarising.com and Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/mmarising.com. I am sorry for not contacting you about this earlier, but I just noticed the pages now. I completely understand why COIBot flagged me earlier this year because I have indeed added many reference links from the site in question. However, I assure you that I do not have any relationship with the site (other than reading it frequently) and I try to accompany all links with written information within the Wiki articles themselves (so Wiki users aren't being "led away" from Wiki via reference links), including in creating entire detailed articles from scratch.
I have added the many links from this one site - and also others - because it typically has the most detailed information possible and therefore makes for the most valuable reference points for Wiki articles that I have edited. In other cases, particularly for events taking place in Europe or Asia, it is the ONLY reference site available for facts and information listed on Wiki pages here. I believe in adding links only to the most relevant external pages available and I try to choose whichever external link is the best and most appropriate. Many of the links that I have added have been on Wiki pages that otherwise had very few reference points (and had notices requesting that more citations be added). Some had no references at all.
I hope to continue to contribute to Wikipedia for a long time, but I want to make sure that I do not get into any trouble for making edits that are truly legitimate. I was wondering if it would be possible to be whitelisted so as to avoid any further reports from COIBot. I will also do my best to try to use sources from additional sites whenever possible. I have had less free time this year, so I have been mostly using two or three sites for reference links, and so I understand why COIBot raised a flag. It is a very intelligent bot. Thank you very much for your time and I am sorry again for not inquiring about this matter earlier this year when it was first flagged. FemaleMMAFan (talk) 10:15, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
I don't think that there is a lot to worry about, FemaleMMAFan, the situation generally is evaluated as you describe it for your case. I will however soon (when I have everything back up running normally) whitelist you completely, so (if regeneration of the report reoccurs) your name will be stricken in the reports. I may even whitelist the whole site. Thanks for reporting, happy editing! --Dirk BeetstraTC10:18, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
That they are on other company pages does not mean that they are supposed to be there. No, they are not necessarily spam, but they do fail, generally, our external links guideline, per WP:OFFICIAL, and parts of our policy WP:NOT. And I think I have been pointing you there often enough, did I not? --Dirk BeetstraTC12:01, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
Someone at the Teahouse is asking about Methane Hydrates in reference to energy. Given your background I thought you might have some knowledge in this area and might be willing to help point the user in the right direction. I was going to drop your name but thought I should just tell you about the discussion and let you comment if you had the time. Kumioko (talk) 02:51, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, forgot about this - got caught up in other matters (well, you're there as well). Not really my area of expertise, but I'll have a look. Where is it exactly? --Dirk BeetstraTC06:36, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Drugbox validation, next try
Following your suggestion, I tried editing Nisoxetine and then updating the revid, but nothing happened. I didn't change any of the watched fields because they were all correct, so maybe that's why? The article is up for DYK so I'd like to see only green check marks :-) Help would be appreciated. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 08:17, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Hi Dirk. I have a quick question about Common Chemistry. (If I recall you were involved in discussions with CAS about this.) Is there a list anywhere of which chemicals are included in the Common Chemistry database? My understanding is that it includes the 1000 (or something) chemicals that appear most often in Chemical Abstracts. The thought occurred to me that it might be nice to know how many of those chemicals do not have articles at Wikipedia, especially if there are any missing Wikipedia articles for particularly "high ranking" common chemicals. -- Ed (Edgar181) 18:33, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
The problem is is that those lists are not public (I have one because of our deliberations about verifying chemicals on Wikipedia). CAS disallows making repositories of CAS numbers of more than so many thousand, automatic querying of their databases, etc. etc. I do think that your presumption is right, the chemicals on commonchemistry.org are the chemicals that they found most important.
Another part of the problem is, is that we do not have a one-on-one link between that list and Wikipedia. Wikipedia politics would not allow one to mass update such parameters unless one would manually check every single one of them. We have now a set of pages with a CAS, some of which wrong (typo mistakes, interpretation mistakes, etc.). I could overwrite all pages in less than a week (I have the capability to do so) with a CAS that .. according to my lists is correct, and indeed have many, many more correct CAS numbers on Wikipedia - but I would, because I did not visually check every single one of them, incorporate many which are wrong (and the CAS-number is one of the worst parameters in this case - the different ways of drawing a sugar molecule have sometimes different CAS-numbers, I would likely here and there use the wrong CAS number, or there are more than one correct CAS number for one specific molecule, one of which I have, with which I would overwrite another, possibly correct, one). What we are stuck with is broken, what we would get is still broken (much improved, but broken in a different way), I would repair many pages, but would make mistakes in some pages which are now correct, and would create some mistakes which now would not have a CAS (and hence are not really wrong nor correct). --Dirk BeetstraTC04:18, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Your edit to "Request to amend Rich Farmbrough"
I have removed your edit from the aforementioned request for amendment as not being particularly germane to what was being requested. I want to explicitly emphasise that this does not mean that you cannot disagree with the ArbCom decision itself or make your point of view known on-wiki, but jamming it into the formal amendment process is not the best place to do it. I would suggest that Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard or WP:AN might be a better venue if you want to discuss this. On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Lankiveil(speak to me)06:53, 27 May 2012 (UTC).
I hope that you understand that it was a response to Jclemens in the same thread. Maybe also that should be refactored - it is ALSO not .. particularly germane to what was being requested - maybe that should be relocated to .. User talk:Rich Farmbrough? --Dirk BeetstraTC06:55, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
You are free of course to request of Jclemens on his talk page or at another venue that he refactor his comment, if you think it necessary. However, amendments are not discussion "threads", and are not intended to be a place to argue about the case. Lankiveil(speak to me)10:29, 27 May 2012 (UTC).
Well, as I said (and clearly indicated), I think I was responding to the comment by Jclemens (though I can see how one could interpret it differently. For the rest, well, it is just typical, and will go on the record. --Dirk BeetstraTC10:49, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
Whitelisting Seazoria for creation of new Wiki pages.
Hello Dirk, Jen here, I spoke to you last month about delisting Seazoria from the blacklist and whitelisting them for new page creations. You informed me then that the owner/author (Mike Hallett)would need to submit them. As Mike Hallett is my partner and is here with me now we would like to get the Seazoria name delisted from the blacklist and relisted on the white.. Your help in this process would be deeply appreciated.. Can you please provide some direct as to where to start first.. As always your time in this matter is appreciated.. Thank You
log # 486565734
JenEda (talk) 23:43, 29 May 2012 (UTC)JenEda
Dear JenEda. I guess you would want to go to the whitelist page and ask for the appropriate links to be whitelisted. I don't directly recall the previous discussion, could you please point me to that discussion? Thanks. --Dirk BeetstraTC03:41, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
I am undoing your edits to the spam blacklist - it is totally misformed and missing the point - could you read the text at the top of the page, go to the correct section to ask for removal, and format that correctly (though I think you should go to the whitelist and ask there). Thanks. --Dirk BeetstraTC05:04, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
Hello Dirk, The previous conversation is located at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist&oldid=486577655 I have since re-listed it on the Whitelist as suggested however it still comes up with a decline to the seazoria/hubpages.com. something about it showing on the /Common requests lists. These articles are reliable and we are not connected with the site owner of hubpages in any way shape or form. We are happy to proceed. I did not notice Scribd.com listed on the /Common requests. and unsure as to how to proceed and use them in our page creations for the Hallettestoneion Seazoria Dragons page. Thank You In Advance.
JenEda (talk) 02:24, 31 May 2012 (UTC)JenEda
I think you have to discuss it there - and as a hint: it is not that you are related to hubpages, it is that you are related to the website that is hosted on hubpages. --Dirk BeetstraTC10:22, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
Request at the Removal blacklist
hi,Dirk Beetstra this is whole Entertainment site related bollywood movies reviews, rating and celeb gossips. I just a added link in wikipedia pages our related a bollywood movies and news. all references links are relevancy article source. (Just2like (talk) 06:47, 30 May 2012 (UTC))
Dirk Beetstra, if you want to make comments about Belgium, try to get your facts straight. "Antwerp is currently the Belgian province surrounding Brussels" is clearly incorrect. As for the rest: feel free to start an RfC (or CfD) to remove the thousands of "historically incorrect" country-year categories if you feel so inclined. It's more useful than injecting that opinion into multiple discussions when the current situation so blatantly differs from your position. If these thousands of old cats are accepted, then there is a clear de facto consensus that these are acceptable and no further discussion prior to other creations is needed in that regard. It is up to you to show a consensus against them, not the other way around. Fram (talk) 07:51, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Oi, I need to refactor the remark regarding Antwerp, my mistake.
And regarding the rest - seen that there are many of the discussions which end as 'no consensus' regarding this, and that there are discussions coming from different corners regarding it .. maybe they do not have the consensus that you think the have in favour of them. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:07, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Try to get Category:14th century in Germany or Category:14th century in India or Category:6th-century English people or anything similar deleted through CfD. What do you think the reaction would be? "You're right, these countries didn't exist then, let's divide this into some obscure old kingdoms or upmerge them to a category without the location added" (perhaps "Europe" or "Asia" would be acceptable?)? I have no opinion on the Belgian inventions cat, since other issues play there as well, but the general "don't use countries before they officially existed" approach doesn't seem to have much consensus, no. Fram (talk) 10:21, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Maybe it is time that that category scheme gets thought through. Until now I have seen only one editor from the history wikiproject comment about it .. I don't think that that editor agreed with these categorisation schemes. And if no-one is questioning the consensus, and others are told that they better keep quiet because consensus is against them, then for sure you have the consensus you want. I am hence not sure what you are trying to achieve here. --Dirk BeetstraTC10:40, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
I'll ignore your historical inaccuracies (but perhaps you can indicate where you have found evidence for the existence of e.g. England in the 6th century), but let me state clearly that I have not said or suggested that you should keep quiet: I said "feel free to start an RfC (or CfD) to[...]", but indicated that I don't believe you'll find the consensus there that you believe exists. No idea by the way why you produced these redlinks, the absence of some cats doesn't really indicate any truth or consensus about later, existing ones. Fram (talk) 12:08, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
I already edited that, England was indeed established in the 10th century. Having earlier categories existing also does not mean that there is consensus that they exist, nor do I say that there is no consensus against either. The running RfC will give some clue to that. --Dirk BeetstraTC12:18, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Just out of curiosity, are you aware of any discussions where this 'something by year by country'-categorisation is discussed and where it was deemed a good way forward, or is it something that is born out of WP:BOLD editing (which does not have to mean that it is bad either)? I'd like to see such discussions. --Dirk BeetstraTC12:24, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't think that any large categorization scheme that has been around for years has been really discussed beforehand (apart from the stub system probably). It's a wiki for a reason. Fram (talk) 15:06, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Apologies, I read it as (and replied to it as if it was) criticism (rhetorical question) instead of a genuine question. No, I am not aware of such discussions, which doesn't necessarily mean that they didn't happen though. Fram (talk) 13:18, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
Apologies accepted. I was just wondering - it may be impossible to find them if they exist (except if s.o. knows that they exist). But however - problem with large systems being applied without discussion is that sometimes they may run into their boundaries of logic, at which time they may need a discussion (things may be a very good plan when they start, until some 'extreme' cases come to light which may make the whole plan faulty - note: I use the word 'may' here). I had a bit of a look around, and I could not find similar schemes on other wikis (did not look very hard, though), and the only remark from a historian in the RfC seemed to suggest that that historian did not really ... agree with the scheme. This could be that this is one of these cases, and that this maybe needs a wider discussion. Lets see what the first RfC brings in terms of that. --Dirk BeetstraTC13:28, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
Fresh meat added for XLinkBot
Hi Dirk, just FYI because I do not know how often you get over there to notice new proposed entries on the XLinkBot's Talk page, but I just added 5 new links I think should be appropriate for it. Thanks... Zad6817:51, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
I'll try to add them soon - not sure if I have time to go through them tomorrow, but Friday or Saturday for sure. Please poke me again if I missed it (I really would like to have a 'mark as unread' button on Wikipedia, or a 'flag for follow up' ..). Thanks! --Dirk BeetstraTC17:53, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks back to you... I'll give you a week, and if you don't do it by then, I'll *gulp* ask you nicely again!... and we all know we don't want that to happen now, do we ??? :) Zad6818:16, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
I have taken care of the backlog of the revertlist, and also whitelisted the link you requested. Further details (which mainly amounts to ' Added') on the revertlist talkpage. Happy anti-spamming (you interested in working out at WT:WPSPAM and the blacklist - they need more volunteers there (even for recommendations and such, and XLinkBot is accessible to trusted users anyway). Anyways, happy editing! --Dirk BeetstraTC10:42, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
Hi, rather than adding lots of #if statements to infoboxes, it would be better to use a #switch statement and actually even better to consolidate it all into a sinlge template. I've created {{Hide if placeholder image}} and have updated Infobox person to use it as an example. -- WOSlinker (talk) 12:52, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
Maybe .. but the systems are different throughout. Some need only 1 or 2 if statements, others indeed a whole set. I tried to keep it minimal, so it would not become massive on some of them. Would the switch statement be fast enough to handle 40-50 possibilities? If so, then we could go really fast with some. I'll give it a try! --Dirk BeetstraTC12:59, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
I hope I have most, but it is a mess in some infoboxes. I will have a look at the other ones as well. Thanks, this is indeed an even better solution!! --Dirk BeetstraTC13:17, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for your hints, Dirk. I now do understand that these tags stay until someone independently removes them. Thanks for clarification!
(btw, how does it usually work with those talk pages, do you remove the content on your userpage after some time?) — Preceding unsigned comment added by NicoSchottelius (talk • contribs) 17:28, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
You're welcome. Regarding threads on talkpages, you can archive them after some time (if you have a busy talkpage, 1 week, otherwise 1 month is normal). You just cut and paste the whole thread into another page, in your case e.g. User talk:NicoSchottelius/Archive 1 (and you link to those archives somewhere at the top of User talk:NicoSchottelius to make sure that people can easily find them to see whether something was discussed with you, otherwise threads may re-appear). In principle, you are also allowed to just delete them, then they will still be available in the past revisions of your talkpage, but not 'live'. I hope this explains. --Dirk BeetstraTC05:09, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Level one user warnings
Hello. I frequently utilize the resources available at the Humboldt County Schools website, a bonafide major school district on the North Coast of California, for my editing of the following articles:
Freshwater Elementary School District, Eureka High School (California), and previously Freshwater Elementary School, which was deleted after pertinent information was placed into the District article (first one listed here) after consensus was achieved that it was not notable. I suppose you have reasons to track access to any aspect of the Humboldt County Schools, which, I guess is how your bot assigned a spam report to me and reported me here Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/internet.humboldt.k12.ca.us AND here Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/Local/internet.humboldt.k12.ca.us (there are two distinct reports). I can say that it was a bit of shock to me to see this when I looked at "what links here" in relation to my own editor name (Norcalal) and saw this report. You suggest in your talk page that I could move this along faster if I want to make the case in spam reports, but that feels odd to me and I take issue with having to "make my case" where an errant bot is tracking me for obtaining information in the maintenance of articles related to schools/school districts. I hope you understand that my goal here is that you will remedy the issue and remove the report. There must be a way for your bot to do its job and not issue a spam report on an editor who visits a major school district website or utilizes a major school district website for a reference or citation. Thank you. Please let me know of your findings. Regards, Norcalal (talk) 08:27, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
I will solve this ASAP. Please don't think ill of this, the bot is not singling things out, and it is not judging in any way, solely looking at patterns - as the LinkReport says "Your appearance there does not mean you or one of the other accounts named here have a conflict of interest with adding the link, or that you or one of the other accounts named here were spamming the link: it may very well be accidental overlap, or a good link that was picked up by the bot accidentily" - this clearly is one of those accidental pick-ups. I'll whitelist the links and you as soon as I can. Thanks for your understanding. --Dirk BeetstraTC09:40, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for your prompt response here. The only reason I can think of why this came on the radar of your BOT may be due to the frequency of vandalism students have performed on Wikipedia articles while using Humboldt County Schools computers. It seems I read something about that some place when I was looking for information on one of the schools I was researching in the District. So your over zealous BOT may be on to something, its just that I am not the "IT" that it is looking for :-). Norcalal (talk) 10:16, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
Hi Norcalal. I have applied the various whitelistings, and deleted the reports. So that should be fine now.
No, it is not that it is looking at the Humboldt County Schools computers, it is purely looking at patterns in link-additions. In, I guess, over 90% of the cases, patterns like 'links only added by IPs', 'new links added only by a 'new' user', etc. are cases where the editor has a some 'special' interest in the link (it are the patterns that are used by spammers). A small percentage of it, however, are plain coincidental - Some user starts, who has an interest in 'Subject X', and most sources for 'Subject X' come from 'site Y' - and that site Y is not used (significantly) by anyone else elsewhere on Wikipedia. This is one of those coincidental cases, and you are certainly not an 'IT' that it is looking for. I hope this explains. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:45, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
ANI on Alan Liefting
A bit late (and pointless) to insert this into the ongoing ANI discussion, but you stated there "I have yet to see an explanation why colon-isation or commenting out is a better method than outright removal." You may not be convinced by the explanations, but they were given a long time ago, at the start of the discussion (e.g. "Actually, you do waste it. Perhaps not yours, but the wikitime of other people. Reactivating categories is much easier and faster than having to go through the history to find a version pre your edits and get the cats from there. Fram (talk) 08:18, 29 June 2012 (UTC)" and "AfC pages are supposed to have the categories indicated [...] — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:57, 29 June 2012 (UTC)" and "This makes it much easier for the people creating articles in userspace to move the pages to the mainspace and to check that the categories they want to use actually exist, while still having the wanted benefit of removing non-mainspace pages from mainspace categories. Fram (talk) 07:31, 29 June 2012 (UTC)") Fram (talk) 07:18, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
And it makes them ugly - The edit is clearly indicated, it is a matter of undo and voila, the categories are back. HotCat does a good job as well. It does not make any difference - I am sorry, you still did not convince me. And that for 12 pages for which 30% (overall) does not get into mainspace anyway, so at best 4 of these would need to have the categories back. --Dirk BeetstraTC05:36, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Adding to it, some were in userspace, not in AfC space, and some were failed AfC's anyway. This is just like the case of the sock categories - you make a lot of noise about it, and half of it goes already away by properly looking at it and tagging them properly, another set is just minor as well (the user is tagged on their userpage or, even worse, usertalkpage, so they are well aware that they are suspected or known sockpuppets; or they are aware even of SPI's on them), another set would just find SPI's anyway, so there is nothing extra if you find the categories as well, and then still, most of those editors will never look for it. And the same is where you command Alan to stop doing something that has already been done for 80%, but because you don't like the way it is done, you command him to stop (the request that you want a better edit summary is reasonable, but it is utterly unreasonable that you request him to stop when he has a good, but not optimal edit summary) - moreover, that results in the second thread about Alan on AN/I where it is blatantly clear that the edits should be done - and have been done for over 80% before. And so was this. I am sorry, Fram, but your actions have resulted in a handful of editors walking aweay (if even temporarily), and other being put aside by ArbCom. And these three examples here just show what futility you have been using against it. You have in all three cases a point, but your reaction to it is .. way over the top. --Dirk BeetstraTC05:50, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Oh, and in case you are thinking to respond - please explain why if you are asked to stop editing (the categorisations) because some editors do not agree with the categorisation scheme, that you can continue (and are still continuing to do that), even though you can not show any other form of consensus for the scheme than 'common practice' (and actually, an RfC is partially condemning what is being done), or why AGK, the arbitrator who protected 7,500 templates at speeds over 100 edits per minute, when he is asked to stop, that he can just continue (note that consensus and policy were against the actions performed by AGK). But when you ask Alan to stop, he has to stop (even if it influences until then only 4-5 pages) - and he needs to show consensus. Yes, because it is you, Fram. And that is what is happening here on Wikipedia - and that is why many long-established, 100k+ editors are walking away or refusing to improve Wikipedia, where those editors don't even wait for you, they just put away their bots and don't operate them anymore. --Dirk BeetstraTC06:14, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
I'll not respond to all of your long text here, but you have repeated the same canard over and over again (not surprisingly, sadly). The block was not for making those 12 edits, the block was for his claim that he would continue with these edits no matter how many people asked him to change his approach. It was preventative, not a punishment for those 12 edits. And I clearly wasn't the only oneasking him to take a different approach, the vast majority of people asked the same.
As for my edits: a complaint has been brought to ANI, and thrown out of the window. I have, as you well know, severely changed my approach and limited the scope of my cat edits: no coherent or neutral reasons to stop my current activities have been given. That you (and Hammersoft) try to turn this into a personal vendetta is your problem, not mine. Note that the CfD's you started for some of these categorizations were also rejected (see 5 CfDs in Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 June 10). Fram (talk) 06:57, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Well, not exactly - he was asked to stop, without giving him sufficient reason why (in fact, that was the first question). And that is where the problem starts .. why is he asked to stop in the first place if he can not be given proper reason why to stop. What happened before, the previous thread, is even worse. You demand that he stops only because you don't find his edit summary informative enough - while you have been informed of the cause, you were aware of the consensus in favour, and other editors who did not understand the edit summary could have asked as well. You hence solely ask him to stop because of an edit summary which in your opinion is not informative enough. And that has as an effect that a second editor finds it necessary to threaten a block on AN/I - 'because he did not communicate'. And that is, of course, now going on. You still have not convinced me (nor Alan) that the outright removal is wrong, hence Alan is in the good faith assumption that he is improving Wikipedia, and when he says that he will continue to improve Wikipedia, he got blocked, and will get blocked again .. the whole effect is that what you were doing, and I know, you are certainly not the only one, is hunting away well established editors, and other editors plainly refuse to improve Wikipedia, because those editors who do that want others to conform to what they want (and what they want is not backed up by policy or guideline, not even by established consensus at all). What is happening, is not improving Wikipedia (while what is being complained about is certainly not making Wikipedia worse, and in some cases it made Wikipedia better), and I think that thát is something that needs to change. So no, Fram, it is not a personal vendetta - you may have seen that I also mentioned AGK. And if that scheme is under discussion, and there is opposition, then all of it should be stopped and a proper discussion on how it should be done should be finished first. You don't continue because you think that you are now doing work which is out of the scope of concern (what we now call Croatia is something different than what it was in 1925). --Dirk BeetstraTC07:15, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
If you are referring to the same discussion I am thinking off, you probably need to reread it. He was not asked to stop, he was asked a polite question with a suggestion of what could be a better approach and why: [21]. This was then supported by the vast majority of people. You, as an experienced editor, should know that "he wasn't convinced that he was wrong" is not sufficient; we work by consensus, even if we disagree with it. He did the same with his removal of images from relevant categories, so it's not as if this is an isolated incident.
By the way, what we know call the US is something completely different from the 1776 US, but they are all in the same categories. Do you suggest to chnage this as well? Good luck with that... Fram (talk) 07:50, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
It is, it is the start of the whole thing. We work by consensus, Fram, show me the consensus for AGK protecting 7500 pages, or you creating those categories .. oh wait, it is just current practice there, even if there is some opposition (a handful of people for the categorisation, and a whole policy and discussions for the protections ..).
.. hmm .. extrapolation. Because it works on US, it hence also works for Croatia and the Vatican, and because it is good on the US it must be good on Croatia and the Vatican. Wikipedia Ad Absurdum. Yes, maybe that scheme is wrong all over, and needs a good rethink and rebuilt. --Dirk BeetstraTC07:55, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
The only people currently opposing the categorisation I am still doing, are people who seem to criticize everything I do and defend everybody who I have a conversation with, with little attention to what is really happening. When you are taking positions in a debate solely (or even primarily) based on who is on the other side, then it is time to seriously rethink your position and approach, and take a step back.
As for the Croatia vs. US thing, it doesn't make any sense wasting my time discussing this with you if that is the way you want to play it. Your argument was "what we now call Croatia is something different than what it was in 1925". Pointing out that this is true for most countries (I used the US, I could have taken the Netherlands just as easily) is somehow "extrapolation" and absurd, even though in the same breath you include Vatican as well. Yeah, what's true for the Vatican is true for Croatia as well. If you are that desperate to find arguments for your position, it is time to shut up Beetstra. And if you are that frustrated that your CfD for the Vatican was closed as keep, then take it to DRV. At the moment, the consensus on these is clearly not on your side, despite your protests. Fram (talk) 08:35, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
(ec)Alan's edits, by all means, could be construed as improving Wikipedia (it is all but true that those pages do not belong in the categories, and they should be removed from it, there may be a dispute on the method, but it is improving Wikipedia that the categories are removed). Alan then gets told to stop - but indicates that he is improving Wikipedia and has all intentions do continue to do so. Thát was the reason for the block .. he was intending to continue to improve Wikipedia. And when he reiterates that incentive, his AWB rights get removed. And that results in him taking a wikibreak (at best). And that is what you started over three edits .. that is, over 2 rejected AfC's and a user sandbox containing something that is not even close to a suitable mainspace page - all abandonded by the creators by months (some creators may have been there again under an IP). And just before that, a couple of days earlier, maybe a week, you demanded Alan to stop something that had full consensus, what was done for ages (over 80% done), and what was clearly improving Wikipedia (the consensus was quite clearly that the images did not make Wikipedia professional). So there you have it. Two times you ask Alan to stop improving Wikipedia. And now Alan is on Wikibreak because of those situations. And that is what I think what is going on - this happens by many editors to many editors who are improving Wikipedia, but are asked to stop over what are futilities, it results in well established editors going on wikibreaks (so they do not improve Wikipedia for some time), on retirement (so they stop improving Wikipedia, or at best, if they return at some time, they do not improve Wikipedia for some time), or refuse to do improving mainspace edits at all (and hence, bye bye improvement, again in the best case for some time). I know Fram, it is not only you, but you are certainly one of those editors who have as an effect on editors that Wikipedia does not get improved by others, there are several others who do the same, and ArbCom is a great tool in it, and that is why I think that it is broken. All in all, that effect is very damaging to Wikipedia. --Dirk BeetstraTC07:55, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
No, doing something that improves A by making B worse is not "improving Wikipedia", it's improving one bit of Wikipedia and not caring about the rest. But I note that apparently politely suggesting an editor that there may be a better approach to what he is doing is now already sufficient to get your stamp of disapproval. You are extrelmely entrenched at the moment, you seem to be very frustrated by a number of issues that didn't go the way you would have liked them to go, and despite your claims above, it is clear that part of this is getting personal for you and is being projected on me, no matter what I do. Has it occurred to you that the nearly-blind support you and Hammersoft (and to a lesser extent some others) are giving to a number of people, trying to ignore the mistakes they made and focusing instead on the messengers, may have in the end done more harm than good for their and your cause? I think I'm done here...Fram (talk) 08:35, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Of course, no-one should be on the defensive side of people - they should all stop their work and do how it how others want it. I am done here as well, Fram. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:47, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Actually, the removal of the placeholder images did not make Wikipedia worse, neither did the edit summary - still you asked Alan to stop over it - and the three category removals also did not make Wikipedia worse. Now we are done. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:52, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
WP:UP#SUB
I saw that you undid my edit. Please don't. WP:UserPages (specifically WP:UP#SUB and WP:UPYES) don't allow for a userpage to be redirected into main space.
UP#Sub states:
User page
Your user page has a name like this: User:Example. (This link is to yours.) Its normal use is to give basic information if you wish, about yourself or your Wikimedia-related activities. You don't have to say anything about yourself. If you prefer to put nothing here then you can redirect it to your user talk page for the convenience of other editors.
Nothing in this allows for a redirect anywhere else.
Further UPYES states:
Details about yourself should not normally go in the main encyclopedia namespace (reserved for encyclopedia articles only), and encyclopedia articles should never link to any userspace pages.
Linking User:ThomasMoore1852 to Thomas Moore is in direct opposition to this policy.
I realize the first reason I gave is really subjective and could be dismissed as "only my interpretation" . However,I'm not the only one that's removed that redirect. I won't go so far as saying it's consensus, I would say thus far, Yourself and Pennyup are the two that favor it Toddst1. AuburnPilot (both admins) and myself are saying this cannot be done.
Your user page has a name like this: User:Example. (This link is to yours.) Its normal use is to give basic information if you wish, about yourself or your Wikimedia-related activities. You don't have to say anything about yourself. If you prefer to put nothing here then you can redirect it to your user talk page for the convenience of other editors.
That does not say that a redirect to mainspace is not allowed
Details about yourself should not normally go in the main encyclopedia namespace (reserved for encyclopedia articles only), and encyclopedia articles should never link to any userspace pages.
That does not say anything about links from userspace.
I saw your note to me about removing the blocking of Medicina Mexico. We have been in contact with a steward and an administrator. They are allowing me to write a new article.
That is fine, but that is not a reason to vandalise that section. Leave the section as is (you can discuss at the bottom, but not remove the information that is there) and I have now blacklisted those domains. Further removal will result in blocks, as it is obvious that your goal is to have the links on Wikipedia. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:21, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Our customer has put me in charge of this wikipedia article, I am the only one from this point on from Medicina Mexico that will make changes. There will be no links, spam or whatever. I am in the process of adding a new article as I am writing it. Please do not blacklist Medicina Mexico or our other customers Latin America Better Business Bureau and World wide pharmacy Association. I am waiting for permission to write articles from the others that meet with wikipedia. I expect that I will also be in charge of those since these people only speak Spanish.
Thank you
Samuel
Samuelmeza (talk) 08:29, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
"Our customer has put me in charge of this wikipedia article" - that is not how Wikipedia articles get written, please observe our policies and guidelines. --Dirk BeetstraTC09:41, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Chemboxes
I learned long ago to avoid editing near User:Plasmic Physics. This editor has maintained a strong interest in Chemboxes and his actions are essentially useless or disruptive. The Chem-admins avoid this issue (most controversial issues, it seems), but you have been effective in the past. Could you please monitor the situation and offer some guidance to those of us that would like to edit in that space? Starting with User talk:Plasmic Physics? An open discussion at ChemicalsTalk would be a good start. For example, do you think that it is necessary to require citations for each name and synonym as in ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid? --Smokefoot (talk) 13:00, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) I don't think it is necessary or even helpful to require citations for each name and synonym as in ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid. I think the {{citation needed}} template should only be used in the chembox when an editor believes data to be questionable for some reason. Asking for a citation for a synonym such as "edetic acid" which gets >100,000 Google hits is the result of a lack of common sense. -- Ed (Edgar181) 12:54, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
another (talk page stalker) There's any number of fact tags in chem/drugboxes now, mostly unsourceable as PubChem isn't accepted as a source by said editor. (I got reverted when I tried this.) I agree that the situation is unsatisfactory, but I don't know how to solve this. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 17:15, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Pff .. not that again. I will see if I have some wikitact left (I am running really low on it ...). The discussion is coming originally from the PINs (which are still not really adopted), which can technically only be sourced to IUPAC - but constitute original research in a way. Then for other names, there are cases where there is contention about it (what is the 'real' name, what are (IUPAC) accepted synonyms). Plasmic Physics was told to source those, and is extrapolating that to everything now. Naming of compounds is an issue, not so much for pentane and THF, but you have to look at the obscure cases, and then you see that there are problems there, which then, technically, also make even very accepted names a problem.
I do not regard PubChem, commonchemistry, ChEMBL, ChemSpider, &c. &c. a suitable source for anything else than for their own identifier. For names of compounds, if they are 'public domain' like (if textbooks e.g. use the name, it does not need a source, only some obscure synonyms then may need it), the rest gets into problems. I think that brand-names should be primary sourced to the brand, street-names need a real source. Compounds which are primarily known by a non-systematic name should either be primary sourced (Viagra - given brand name, so primary source of the company), or have a section explaining their name (which is also true for viagra, but if we have a section/sentence explaining why maleic acid is called maleic acid, it needs a reference, and the name in the box is then by definition sourced).
Well please gain some energy because the other editors at Wikipedia are intimidated by the amount of effort (the chem administrators are, as usual, missing in action chasing trivia). This editor has been relentless and has a leaden touch. We have been dealing with this problem editor for many years. Perhaps just a stop notice would be helpful.--Smokefoot (talk) 13:53, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
I can only endorse the barnstar below :-) After reading WT:WikiProject Chemicals#What is going on in the chemboxes?, however, I still don't know what to do with tagged IUPAC names (see eg. Theanine). I have to agree that PubChem etc. are not reliable. Articles in medical journal generally do not bother with chemical nomenclature, and however obvious such names seem they are not widely used when trivial/nonproprietary names or abbreviations are available. So what possibilities are left to fill in / source IUPAC names that aren't OR? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 08:39, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
This made me think of the Italian codice fiscale. Give me the birth place, date and full name (IIRC, that is enough) of an Italian person, and I calculate you the codice fiscale. OK, they need to get validated, but the principle is the same, certain identifying information about things can be calculated from properties (for chemicals also the InChI, SMILES?), and they are not officially validated. Interesting problem. --Dirk BeetstraTC12:01, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
I see that your bot currently is adding InChIs from Chemspider to the chemboxes. I have been checking a few of the name/InChI relationships (I work on name to structure software) and encountered a few cases where the InChI and indeed the Chemspider reference does not match the page's structure (name and image). In the cases I've identified so far the PubChem reference has had the correct InChI. It occurs to me that an automated way of flagging up such potentially suspect references would be to look for conflicts between the InChI of the referenced PubChem record and Chemspider record. Have you considered such a check in CheMoBot? --Dan2097 (talk) 22:47, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
Dan2097 do you have examples of the cases where names and ChemSpider IDs or InChIs do not match? As these may need to be cleaned up/checked on the ChemSpider side too. --The chemistds (talk) 00:17, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
For as far as I am concerned, I am checking the structure on the Wikipedia page with the structure on chemspider. Those two should match, and thén I am taking the InChI from ChemSpider. If there are InChIs which are incorrect with the current structure, then the most likely reason is that the structure is not the same as the one on ChemSpider, or that we have not checked the structures with each other yet. A third explanation may be that there are some mistakes in ChemSpider (which is after all also a manually curated database), in which case that should be taken up with ChemSpider (The chemistds already volunteered to check that side as well). Could you provide some examples, I'd like to see where this is 'broken'. I hope this explains. --Dirk BeetstraTC03:54, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Dan2097, I've checked out the four you edited yesterday. For 3-Methylglutaconyl-CoA, you could find a record in ChemSpider with the same structure but I think that there are a number of issues to consider - but that might be somewhat off topic for this thread - happy to discuss in another thread. --The chemistds (talk) 22:16, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
One of the reasons I didn't edit that one was that I wasn't quite sure which ChemSpider id to link it to. I'd like to link it to id 1110 but that one lacks defined stereochemistry on the sugar (the PubChem structure also has undefined stereochemistry). As you say I guess this is deviating from the point.--Dan2097 (talk) 22:50, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
I think the main problem is with the 'what is the correct CSID for the chemical page on Wikipedia'. Sometimes there are multiple choices (find a correct one and use that one), sometimes there is not a correct CSID (but there should one - generally I leave those empty - which is then verifiable correct in terms of the verification process), sometimes there is not a correct CSID (and there never will be one - Chembox understands 'NA' as a value, which is then also set to being the verified one). I do run into cases where the image on Wikipedia is not the correct image, whereas the page is correct and the identifiers are correct - I tend to remove the image from such cases. A bigger problem are the cases where there are multiple depictions possible (like for sugars: closed, open, etc.), I tend to choose there the CSID of the 'main image' (giving the others as alternatives). In some cases, discussion on the Chemicals WikiProject would be an idea to find out the best practice for similar cases (I think we did that for some of these).
It would be great if you could update the indexes accordingly, in that case others know that it has been checked and corrected. Thanks for the hard work! --Dirk BeetstraTC04:11, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
Can you please help with writing the reactions for synthesis of Alcian blue stain? I have put the relevant reference on the talk page. Also if possible help me with the DYKs and reference reformatting. Thanks. --Dr.saptarshi (talk) 17:37, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
Also please help me assess the scoring (starter vs C vs ?) for this fairly freshly writen article (I am yet to fill up the biologic staining part as that is where there is too much easily available material.. but I have painfully compiled the rest of the information some of which were quite challenging to collect given my scarce resources. I am also not a chemistry person. So some of the chemistry parts may need verification by a chemist. Can you please check if I wrote this interpretation correct (based on the images eg where are the X groups bonded here: http://stainsfile.info/StainsFile/dyes/74240.htm )
"sometimes a cartoon representation uses the methylene bridge criss crossing across the bond between these two positions to indicate that it could bind either of these two positions."
I myself dont like the statement as it is to verbose. moreover I am not confident about its acuracy. If this statement is wrong please delete it. Most of the other statements I wrote are pretty much from concrete references but this was one of the only few exceptions where I hazarded a guess (I know it is not a good thing to do. That is why I am writing to a chemist like you for help. Thanks --Dr.saptarshi (talk) 17:56, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
If you need help with the drawings, I suggest that you ask those editors that are specialised in doing so - see Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry/Image Request, or poke a drawing editor listed on the project mainpage (or at WP:CHEMS).
Regarding the scoring, just leave it empty if you're not sure (otherwise, start is probably a good start), and someone will come at some point to score it and/or update it.
There is a note that you left that many "regulars" use links to this site. That's because they have an archive of old computer magazine abstracts that make good reference material for the 1990s, an otherwise underreported decade.
cbronline, where these are hosted, was blocked, and according to the discussion, apparently through guilt-by-association, but I can't really tell from a short post.
It's been active for a long time since your reply in April. I wonder if you approve my request, now that outrate.net is no longer active. --George Ho (talk) 16:00, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
I am at the moment the wrong guy to ask - web archive is blocked where I live :-(. Maybe worth poking, pff, we really need more people working there. --Dirk BeetstraTC12:36, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
NFPA templates
Hi Beetstra. A group of NFPA templates, which you created in 2007, but which are now unused since being substed into {{NFPA-chembox}} in June 2007, have been nominated for deletion. You are welcome to participate in the deletion discussion. Note that {{NFPA-chembox}} and {{NFPA 704}}, which are used have not been nominated for deletion. DH85868993 (talk) 00:01, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
Please check my comment at ANI, The block was not appropriate because it was the sock of User:Nangparbat who uses multiple IPs to cause disruption. Admins Elockid and Elen of the roads had been playing whack a mole with his socks since long. At least discuss this with an admin who is aware about Nangparbat. regards.--DBigXray13:30, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
I have unblocked DS. Whilst he can be disruptive (and probably needs a topic ban or similar), I don't think we can support a block for reverting edits of a banned editor. Black Kite (talk) 13:48, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
Hi, you're a genious, the page was indeed supposed to be in User: namespace, but I didn't translate it from Serbian by accident. Thanks! --Дарко Максимовић (talk) 12:26, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Hmm .. <shy look>I thought it was Croatian</shy look> (at least, that was what Chrome suggested it was). Anyways, the title looked strange, so this was my best guess. You're welcome! --Dirk BeetstraTC12:47, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
User:COIBot/LinkReports/heraldryonthe.net
Hello there
a number of my external links were removed even though they are closely/intimately related to the subject in hand.
User:COIBot/LinkReports/heraldryonthe.net
For example in the Article "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Hohenberg" I have included a link to a short film showing the common ancestry of ALL members of the House of Hohenberg. This was "A short film showing the common ancestry of all the descendants of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie Duchess of Hohenberg".
Given your statement on the previous page why delete that and not "Artstetten Castle"?
I have re-removed your additions, please discuss your link additions. Please read the external links guideline and 'What wikipedia is not'. We are not a linkfarm or an internet directory, we are an encyclopedia. Comparing your links with others is also not the way forward, maybe those other links should not be included either, or have been discussed and should be included - yours were not discussed. --Dirk BeetstraTC09:57, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Given that you probably have not looked at the links before deleting them: can you please state under what specific reasons my links were blocked? I have looked at your suggestions and could not find adequate explanations. Given your Wikipedia-seniority it would be courteous to point to specific rule-breaking to "Wikipedians" with less experience in these matters than you. Kind Regards Alexanderhalka
Alexanderhalka (talk) 13:29, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
"it is not Wikipedia's purpose to include a lengthy or comprehensive list of external links related to each topic. No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justifiable according to this guideline and common sense. The burden of providing this justification is on the person who wants to include an external link." .. The links were first removed by someone else, now I removed them. That makes at least 2 people who were not convinced of the justification. For sure, it are not links of such utmost importance that they should be linked at the top of the list. The burden is on you, and I suggest that you justify it on the talkpage, and achieve consensus there, before the links get re-inserted. --Dirk BeetstraTC15:38, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
cat census
I put catsbe.com link to the cat page, as I saw tere where others. I remember wikipedia rules, as I was a regular user in Italy years ago, so I rarely put on wikipedia voices or urls from which the global community can't take any benefts. This is the reason I'd like to discuss with you the last link - catsbe.com, as the first attempt to build a worldwide cat census. Don't you think it could have a valor for people interested in cats who open wikipedia cat page to find infos about this animal?
To avoid any further misunderstand, yes, I'm also the owner of catsbe.com and yes I'm launching it, but through paid channels. But the reason I build this site should be obvious by its name: create a cat census as there's nothing like that existing in the world, right now. So, I still ask you, wouldn't this info an encyclopedian valor? Any answer will be very much appreciated :)
Such a link does not belong on Cat, it belongs on Cat census. Such links are not directly connected to the subject, they are indirectly connected to the subject - compare a link to the website of the Audi A4 on the wikipedia page Audi - that link would not be direct. A link to the website of the Audi A4 belongs on the Audi A4 page, a link to the Audi website on the Audi page.
The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Chemicals for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 05:46, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
I just got a talk page message from an editor who was listed on Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports by your bot. This appears to be a mistake, and neither she nor I, to be honest, can figure out what the correct procedure is for removing her username from this list.
So, that's my first question. But my broader question is, is it really necessary to produce these kinds of reports, listing the usernames of people who may have been tangentially involved in some kind of spamming incident? The (very tl;dr) template on top of the report states: "Your appearance there does not mean you or one of the other accounts named here have a conflict of interest with adding the link, or that you or one of the other accounts named here were spamming the link: it may very well be accidental overlap, or a good link that was picked up by the bot accidentily, or a good link which is nonetheless under investigation of the WikiProject's Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard or Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam."
So... then what's the point of adding usernames at all? This seems like a great way to unnecessarily shame and stress out good contributors, and frankly it makes me very grumpy. If this piece of bureaucracy is not your doing, please let me know who I should be grumpy at. Thanks, Maryana (WMF) (talk) 20:58, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
It is very useful for tracking and identifying if a given link is spam or a false positive. If a lot of long term reputable users are adding it, that is one thing. If a lot of new accounts/IPs are adding it, it is often a key sign of a spamming. gathering all of that information on one page makes it far easier for analysis than having to check each diff/addition. False positives happen, it is not a big deal. If upon further investigation a site is legitimate and just caught by accident then the report is often deleted. In this case several IPs where adding this link to the external links section of pages, which was questionable (they where warned for spamming accordingly). 66.213.14.115 (talk) 22:06, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
'Name and shame', Maryana? It is a real editor who may be naming and shaming, not the bot report. I don't know why people think that if they are named somewhere that that is then 'by definition' something bad. If I say that User:John Doe added a sentence "Jimbo Wales is the founder of Wikipedia" to the article about Jimbo Wales, am I then naming-and-shaming the editor? And why is it then a bad thing when I say that User:John Doe was adding the link 'wikimedia.org' to the same article? And in case you forgot, spamming is a real issue, Wikipedia has to be armed against it, yes, there may be a false positive in some cases, but then it should be our task to explain that to an editor why we do need to be vigilant - not to shoot the messenger. See the many posts on my talkpage in my archives regarding false positives and how they can, and IMHO should, be handled. These reports are invaluable in finding and evaluating the behaviour of spammers (something for which the mediawiki software should have built-in capabilities, but those are not the things that are getting any priority, there is a bug request for a rewrite of the spam-blacklist open for years ..), and even the false positives there are of massive value (as they tell us the boundaries of what we can do to resolve a problem. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:43, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Note, if that link would have been added to the English Wikipedia on the same subject, I would have removed it per WP:EL/WP:NOT (but I understand that the rules on ru.wikipedia may be different ..). --Dirk BeetstraTC08:49, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Oh, it gets even worse. This link was blatantly spammed to en.wikipedia using at least 2 IPs. This starts to look like cross-wiki spam to me. WP:BOOMERANG may apply. I'll have a look at this when I have time. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:51, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Right, but this still has nothing to do with User:JeanneMish, who didn't add that link and has nothing to do with spamming of any kind...
Yes, false positives happen, and I'm glad it's being discussed how to handle it. I'm sorry to single you out, but this isn't some sort of unstoppable juggernaut we're talking about here; it's a process that's created and run by a handful of experienced editors, including yourself – Wikipedians who would be absolutely livid if their usernames showed up on a pseudo-scientifically created onwiki list of "suspected spammers". Imho, the response is pretty simple: remove the person's name from the list, apologize profusely, and provide readable instructions in the report header template for clearing one's name. Anything short of that is blatant WP:BITE. Maryana (WMF) (talk) 18:23, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Actually, she did add that link, as evidenced by the link on the bot page: [22]. She wasn't the initial linker though, that happened on the English Wikipedia, she only added it to the Russian version while translating the page, so she may not have intended any spamming with it. But it isn't correct to claim that she had nothing to do with it and that she didn't add that link. As for being livid: I wouldn't really be upset if such a thing happened to me, I would look into what happened, and either see what happened like in this case, learn a little, and move on, or I would feel that it was incorrect, contact the bot operator (not a WMF employee/contact), and try to get clarification. Wrt WP:BITE, I don't think that really applies to editors with over 2500 edits and nearly two years experience. Fram (talk) 07:54, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Just to add, my name is on several of the LinkReports as a user who added the link. Do you understand what that tells me? a) there is NO reason to remove the person from that list, b) I don't see any reason to apologize profusely (I think that is a massive assumption of bad faith on my address), and this is Wikipedia, you can help in upgrading the readability - but we are NOT removing one's name, except if one can show that one did not add the link that was mentioned. Your remarks are highly inappropriate, Maryana. --Dirk BeetstraTC16:37, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Problem I don't know how to restart a recently archived discussion. They have again added similar unsourced content in article body etc. The site they are adding is a religious organisation! I am unsure if it is WP:RS.
I've semied the article for 3 months. Not sure how to fully solve this one now, but this should stop it. If they return after 3 months, back to AN/I (and please leave me a note then). If there are more articles that they persist on, we might want to consider to semi those as well, or maybe consider an edit filter for the task. --Dirk BeetstraTC03:53, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Is there a reason why new entries like visa information for Myanmar are deleted as well? It is not there previously and we added them and hope it helps.
To add, we have written visa guide based on nationalities and many of them are translating in their home languages. We wish you can reconsider and revert back some of those useful link which can benefit readers.
Should you not to, would you mind if we can send you some links to our articles for you preview before adding them to the page?
The aim of Wikipedia is to give information, not to link to it. Your site (see also [[WP:COI|our conflict of interest guideline) is not an authority on this information, it is, for Wikipedia, not a reliable source. Not on pages where there are already links, nor on pages where there are no links.
I am not going to decide for you whether or not links can be added, I'll leave that to the interested editors on the pages, and they can use the talkpages for that discussion. However, since you seem to be a specialist, I'd suggest that you add information, and refrain from canvassing your links. Thanks. --Dirk BeetstraTC14:25, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Unblock request
First, thank you Elen for first commenting on AN/I before mentioning it to me.
This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who accepted the request.
First, I have whitelisted you on the bots. If the report would be regenerated, that would be reflected there. I'll strike you out manually in a minute, if you encounter other files, you can strike yourself out on those as well.
Secondly, I can't remove you from the files, as that would break the statistics. In extreme cases, when you would be an editor using a link in a good way, but someone else would spam it, removing you from that statistics might give us the impression that there is no good use of the link, and that a solution may be to blacklist it. Your presence in the files shows us that besides 'abuse' a link is used in a good and proper way, and that we have to take care with the solutions we chose. Note that even if you would be listed as the sole user of a link, we would not designate you as a spammer, the link is just reported, and the files are very likely to be ignored. The bot uses complex algorithms to flag additions which are 'suspect' (based on link and user statistics - e.g. if one user is adding one domain 50 times, then we certainly should have a look what is going on, if one user is adding 50 different domains, the bot will not even notice). Whitelisted users and whitelisted links will never trigger the statistics (but they are still part of it). Note that also I am on several of these reports as well.
Question: Is this in itself a good site (http://archives.chennaionline.com), or even the main domain (http://chennaionline.com)? Maybe it is an idea to whitelist the whole domain and forget about it. It seems to be used by a large variety of editors (and I actually don't know why it got picked up, but it may be the result of something that happened on one of the other ~780 wikis).
I made a request to have an article from The Metal Observer whitelisted a while back, and you are the only editor who has responded. Do you have the authority and inclination to approve this request? If you have any further questions regarding the requested use of this article, I will be happy to answer those at WT:WHITELIST. Thanks! Wilhelm Meis(☎ Diskuss | ✍ Beiträge)08:10, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
Authority with the whitelist, I don't know. Inclination in principle yes. Possibility for sure. As I am very actively blacklisting stuff, I try to leave the whitelisting to others (involved and such, fresh pair of eyes, second opinion etc.), though I do occasionally whitelist. I reckon that when I grant a whitelisting while I also blacklisted the site it is for the betterment of Wikipedia, I'd refrain earlier when denying whitelisting. Anyway, I did the whitelisting. See you around. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:20, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
I will have a look when I encounter the request there. 'Unfortunately', Wikipedia is done all by volunteers (and the work on the spam-front is done by just a very few of them, Deletion requests seem to be more fun to handle than this work ..), which may mean that it takes time before someone gets to it (and as you may notice above, I am generally quite inactive on this Wiki ..). --Beetstra (public) (Dirk BeetstraTC on public computers) 10:53, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Oh, alright, guess I will just have to wait and watch. Thanks a lot for your reply!
Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding a content dispute in which you may have been involved. Content disputes can hold up article development, therefore we are requesting your participation to help find a resolution. The thread is "MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist".
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If you wish to open a DR/N filing, click the "Request dispute resolution" button below this guide or go to Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard/request for an easy to follow, step by step request form.
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It is not a place to deal with the behavior of other editors. We deal with disputes about article content, not disputes about user conduct.
It is not a substitute for the talk pages: the dispute must have been discussed extensively on a talk page (not just through edit summaries) before resorting to DRN.
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Thanks! And I wish you a wonderful 2013, Versageek.
Yes, that one is still there. I'll have a look at it somewhere soonish. Perl and utf-8 are not always perfectly compatible, and passing on utf-8 sometimes results in loss of encoding. Difficult to remedy thing, you have to wait until the bot makes the mistake again before you know whether or not it is solved (I think I did previous attempts which, obviously, failed). Thanks! --Beetstra (public) (Dirk BeetstraTC on public computers) 05:36, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
I took care of it. Don't worry - basically, it is just a report of link-use. I've whitelisted you, next time the bot updates/creates a page where you added a link, the item will be stricken automatically. Thanks for reporting this. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk BeetstraTC on public computers) 11:00, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
I was quite angry because you guys blocked my legitimate article on Grand Prince Jinan. After all, this is quite personal because he is my (figuratively speaking) grandfather and Sejong the great is our ancestor’s baby brother. So, I was angry cause you were challenging me.
My article is posted and legitimately posted. My other agents are stop working for your sake. Unblock my website. It is pretty legitimate website that you shouldn’t tinker with, or you can come to South Korea to deal with me.
Lee, Jyong Chul.
Founder and CEO
The Korean Monarchy and the Korean Royal Armed Forces Korea Reunification Party
(22nd in line House of Grand Prince Royal Jinan) — Preceding unsigned comment added by SpotDays (talk • contribs)
I see we finally have your attention, and that you finally found the talkpages for discussion.
Good, so you are the owner of that website, and you are pushing it without discussing - it has its place very well on the spam blacklist.
My advice: go back to your main account, login on that one, ask for an unblock, and start discussing the merits of the site, we are not going to unblacklist it after a request of yet another sockpuppet, or without proper discussion. I also suggest you withdraw your threats. Thanks. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk BeetstraTC on public computers) 11:45, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
Comment: Wikipedia admin response looks appropriate. I would recommend to the contributor to quietly read and reflect upon the links on their welcome page, especially to Wikipedia:Citing sources. We respect your topic knowledge and do not dispute the notability of the people, however, your site does not seem to be an authoritative website for citing sources. We do not dispute the information that is there, however, we wish to maintain the authority of sourcing. I believe that you have been directed to one of your accounts as the place to have a conversation and to request an unblock. That sounds like a brilliant idea. — billinghurstsDrewth08:06, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Not unwilling, but I do think that someone who has not been active in previous discussions/disputes would be more suitable (I am certainly not neutral, nor uninvolved anymore). Moreover, my activity to Wikipedia is not necessarily at its maximum due to personal circumstances - I might not be able to respond timely in the near future.
Well, you certainly are less biased than most others. The problem is that everytime I mention the 'c-word' overthere, it instantly turns into a mud slinging contest. Plasmic Physics (talk) 01:26, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
I do note, that there is possible meaningful progress - there are things that you can do - without getting into disputes. I do, however, see in your contributions a lot of work in your userspace regarding categorisation of compounds, where you work (or suggest?) on the whole categorisation / naming that brought you into the disputes in the first place, and which I do not see gaining at any time any support - "Cycloalkenediones, dioxocycloalkenecarbonitrile, dioxocycloalkenecarboxylic acids, (dioxocycloalkenyl)alkanoic acids, (dioxocycloalkenyl)alkyl alkanoates, and naphthalenediones" - that is all WAY too specialised and defies the function of categorisation (people are never going to look for "dioxocycloalkenecarboxylic acids" or "dibromoalkanols" - and it begs for the question what you would do with compounds who would have both functionalities ...) If you are going to discuss that on-wiki (something that you technically IMHO could do to see if that work, if implemented, would go somewhere) before considering it would be way more constructive than to set it up by yourself - I can not fathom what would happen on-wiki if it would have been implemented. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk BeetstraTC on public computers) 11:27, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
The categorisation in my userspace is just for my own heuristic purposes; I have no intention of pushing the concept for consideration or application in wikipedia. That categorisation scheme is not complete in any case, it is the third or fourth draft. Each draft is created from the old one. So it contains many duplicates and mistakes. Plasmic Physics (talk) 01:26, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
It is a reliable primary source of information pertaining to elections in Michigan. It is where the MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF STATE posts ballot listings and official results. Since the MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF STATE certifies the ballots and results, it is the most reliable source available on these election related facts.--Libertyguy (talk) 21:47, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
It is probably an accidental triggering of the monitoring AI, it saw several anons and new users mass inserting a link that otherwise really hasnt been linked to on wikipedia before. That behavior is typical of spammers, however there are occasional incidental overlaps with good faith users. However it is very difficult for an AI to make such a call, so it just logs it and lets humans review the case. Werieth (talk) 23:31, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
It is indeed as Werieth says, and as is mentioned in the templated remark on top of the page: a case of a previously unused link added by an account who has not added too much of links which triggered the bot to report it. Although regularly mistaken, it is very, very typical behaviour observed by spammers (and less for 'good' links - such links tend to be added by multiple, generally more established editors). Although here certainly not the case, good reliable sources from respectable organisations can still be 'spammed' (i.e. added for the sole purpose of search engine optimisation).
I'll clear this one in the bots - this type of posts to me is what makes the bots spend more time on the stuff that might be spam, and ignore the links that .. can be ignored. Thanks! --Dirk BeetstraTC08:06, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
Hello, thanks for your reply! It seems that the talk/editing command didn't show up on the last couple of visits, but that seems to have resolved itself. Nvm :) -WA — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikiaccount2311 (talk • contribs) 13:25, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
I've all the time thought that I heared quacking .. but I never could catch them editing close enough together (but then, I had no idea that there were SO many socks ...). I hope this settles it finally, there was a lot of bad editing going on over there. --Dirk BeetstraTC13:31, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
I just stumbled across this bot and had a thought. I wonder if it could be enhanced to cover other types of obviously COI edits, like large deletions in controversy sections or new users adding blatantly promotional language. For example, I do a lot of cleanups by searching for articles that mention "industry-leading" or "turnkey." It might be worth flagging new users using language like this. Just figured I'd share the thought that came to mind. CorporateM (Talk) 02:14, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the suggestions.
There are some filters in place which do similar things - see for example Special:AbuseFilter/354, Special:AbuseFilter/172 (both originally mine). It would be quite doable to write one that detects what you suggest.
COIBot does not really monitor content, it just tracks whether there is overlap between username and pagename (and a bit more advanced things like that). Doing what you suggest may be a bit heavy on the servers (though it would be a matter of adapting one of my other bots for that ..). Still I think that an abuse-filter is more suited for that.
Awww - you know I think I brought this idea up elsewhere and they mentioned the issue with an edit-filter potentially being too heavy on the servers.
While we're chatting, one of my little projects is: Template:COI_editnotice. Because I often contribute to Wikipedia in a PR role, I'm a little less bold than usual, but I think it's ready for a test run. I wonder if you had any guidance on how to put the template to a vote for a test-run and request a bot, etc. CorporateM (Talk) 15:32, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
That is indeed an issue with such an editfilter .. it would require a complex regex, and that would be heavy on the server.
I don't know if your bot can do this or not, but here's the problem. Template:CongLinks, used in External links, has a washpo parameter, for Washington Post. The broken links are all alphabetic (plus underlines and possibly commas) but the working ones are a mix of alpha and numbers in two versions. Blanche Lincoln is broken, Dick Durbin works, and anything that looks like f9d0a3fa-4bbc-11e2-8758-b64a2997a921 works. Can your bot go through and blank out only the broken (old) instances? 184.78.81.245 (talk) 16:51, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't have a bot for that (though I could write something for it, if needed). I would suggest however to go to the Bot-task-requests (probably linked from Wikipedia:Bots), there is a bot there that does this type of tasks, and that bot-owner can probably pick that up quite fast. --Dirk BeetstraTC06:09, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
Can you please explain this? [23] Probably it was my mistake, as I am not expert of wikipedia policies (I hope this is the right way of contacting you...), but the discussion in the bottom only contains a "archived report. Please do not modify it. Subsequent reports should be made in a new section", which is what I did. AnnSec (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:00, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Good morning. Thank you for your question. On normal talkpages, discussions go at the bottom, and that is why I am moving this discussion to the bottom and answer here. For the Spam-blacklist and similar pages (which have multiple discussion sections), the discussion goes in the appropriate discussion section, and there at the bottom (as is also explained there in the instructions). That is what I did there. For this page, I had to look what happened, I did not expect the 'new' discussion to be at the top. Almost everywhere (unless there are specific instructions to the contrary) the new discussions go at the bottom, you can see that in the time that the initial post is posted.
For the '... archived report. Please do not modify it' - I think you are referring to the other discussions, some of which are closed (they are in a box with a different colour background). You were completely correct in starting a new section for your request.
One thing, could you please sign your posts? You can do that by typing 4 tildes in a row, the Wikipedia-software is automatically converting that to your name (plus a link to your userpage) and a timestamp.
Hi Beetstra. I was hoping you might be able to help me with a bot item. There is strong consensus here to apply Template:COI editnotice to Category:Companies based in Idaho. It's a Talk template that provides advice to PRs that represent the organization. Companies in Idaho is a test sample before applying to all Orgs.
How do I get a BOT to apply the template to the category? I submitted a request at bot requests, but it just got ignored and archived. CorporateM (Talk) 19:14, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
This user is appealing their indef block, and I have placed the request on hold for further discussion. Since it appears you tried to talk some sense into them before any comments you may have now would be welcome. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:59, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Oops. Forgot to answer, have been away for some time. I see he is unblocked - I am fine with that, it has been some time. I hope he knows that repeats of the previous abuse will get him blocked without question. --Dirk BeetstraTC16:12, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
International Water Association
How do we add the IWA's Water Wiki to the IWA entry, since the IWA have managed to get their Wiki black-listed?
I assume they were black listed because someone over-enthusiastically added links to their material; but their Wiki does contain useful information for people interested in water & sewage treatment.
When I first tried to add the link I got a message saying it was blacklisted and to put in a request to the blacklisting part of Wikipedia. When I did that I had a reply saying just put it in, removing the http:// part of the address. So I did.
You then deleted the reference. So, again, how do we add a reference to a useful Water-based wiki that is sponsored by the IWA to the IWA entry?
I think you understood wrong, the reply was to tell us which link in that discussion on the blacklist page, not use that as a way of circumventing the blacklist on the page where you wanted the link.
What I recall of it, was that it was abused, and that got it blacklisted. If you want it added, open a discussion on a relevant place (the talkpage of the page you want to add it to, an appropriate wikiproject, or directly at the whitelist request for the specific link), and convince others. That is what should be done, and what other did not, and that resulted in blacklisting. Do remember, it is a wiki, which are discouraged pages to link to. --Dirk BeetstraTC16:16, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
SO, I've put it on the talk page.
The Water Wiki is (i) sponsored by the IA and (ii) contains useful information in water & wastewater treatment. Its inclusion as a link provides access to another set of wiki information for people interested in water/wastewater treatment. Why is it so wrong to have it as a link on the IWA page? Perhaps you can reply on the IWA page; it looks as if no-one reads it, unless I try and a link! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bendel boy (talk • contribs) 21:31, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
I saw your comment when it was added to the block list, and had a question. In it you say that .onion links are regularly abused, but did not give any source to it. I have been observing Tor (anonymity network) (no abuse this year), .onion (also no abuse for 2013), The Hidden Wiki (two ip one time edits, and one good faith edit by User:Dionyziz), and Silk Road which is currently under RFC to decide how to deal with its official link. I was thus wondering if I just have been missing the regularly abuses, or if this is the scope of the abuse cases regarding .onion links. Belorn (talk) 08:27, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
Both on the hidden wiki page, as on the silkroad page, there is no question that there was abuse in the past (not sure how long ago). At least for silkroad, that involved false, phishing links. That type of abuse is for me already close to enough to say that we just blacklist the domain, allowing only specifically checked links, i.e., whitelist those which are correct. I do agree that I did not look into all of the latest (I see that there are a lot of additions in the db), nonetheless, that it comes up again in a blacklist request, quite fast after the previous consideration to blacklist the whole domain did not really help. Moreover, there were (though it changes) strong voices to not even link to the official silkroad link (which I even objected against, I do think that the official link belongs on the page).
I know that you are a user who would like to see it off the blacklist, but remember that attempts to insert phishing links, or attempts at inserting malware links does damage readers, and we should protect users against that. I really believe that whitelisting only the good stuff here is a good thing. --Dirk BeetstraTC16:11, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for replying. At the moment, I am trying to first collect all the facts before deciding if I should propose a removal. After posting my initial question, I realized that I am actually a bit surprised that the abuses on hidden wiki and silk road could happen at all. There was supposed to exist a blacklist on the hidden wiki from last discussion, and I know there exist a soft blacklisting on \*.onion through XLinkBot. So for now, Im trying to figure out why those two didn't work in preventing both the phishing links on silk road and the two IP edits on hidden wiki. Belorn (talk) 08:12, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
I think that asking for de-listing is going to be futile, the abuse with phishing links is simply bad enough. You assume that spammers, those that add external links for their own benefit, will just stop at 'oh, I can't link this, lets go home and cry for a while' .. it is how they make money, those who add that type of links do it to make a profit, a living, and they, generally, persist. And Wikipedia is designed to have a workable workaround: whitelisting of the correct links. There is very, very limited use of .onion links throughout Wikipedia, there are just 4 or 5 .onion sites which are notable enough, and the number of references or other external links hosted on .onion are also going to be very limited (the odd reference, OK, but as an additional external link .. it simply fails, and where a coherent argument can be made, there is then also for those whitelisting possible). And if XLinkBot can't stop the abuse, then it shows that the 'abuser' has high interest in pushing his link, and hence more need to blacklist their links.
Just as a comparison: redirect services are blacklisted on first abuse. There is simply no reason to keep them. So while the actual abuse is very small and contained, and could possibly be stopped in other ways, the type of abuse is of approximately the highest level, and there are practically always workarounds (link to the expanded link, or where there is specific need, whitelisting). I view phishing or malware attempts at the same level: the abuse may have been quite minimal, and there is a bit of use for such links, the level of disruption, and possible damage to our reader, is very high.
Also take into account the alternatives: either you keep hunting and blocking editors (IPs are cheap, and blocking IPs can result in the collateral damage that other users of the same IP can't edit either ..), or protecting the page (which also disrupts editing, and may need to be upped to full protection, making editing of the page impossible - just last week I saw a case of sockpuppets, who did 10-15 edits just changing random numbers on pages, and then, when being autoconfirmed, pushing their intended edits - it is easy to disrupt a lot for your cause). Enabling only the correct link, through whitelisting, may be a better solution. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:10, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
OneMadScientist - Says - Thanks For The Welcome
I dont know if this is the best/correct palce to respond to your kind welcome but,
Thanks, I appericate it VERY MUCH!.
Best Regards from OneMadScientist--OneMadScientist (talk) 13:38, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Hi, I just needed to say to someone who should understand this issue and understand what I was saying. I am being labeled as some sort of rude stupid idiot buy people who disagree with me but it seams lack even the ability and basic understanding to put forward a coherent statment in there own defense and others agree with them because?? I am a barbarian?.
you can see I going a bit nuts here.
Anyhow BestRegards--OneMadScientist (talk) 19:12, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Hey, OneMadScientist. Don't have a lot of time now, will try to answer in full later (maybe tomorrow). Do remember, we are all volunteers here, and there is, unfortunately, a pretty sharp learning curve here on Wiki. You will run into people with a different viewpoint in chemistry (one of the situations I ran into 6-7 years ago was at distillation. I was looking at it from a synthetic chemistry viewpoint, where another editor was looking at it from an industrial viewpoint - although the basics are the same, and we follow the same principles, it did take us a lot of time to get onto the same page - the page on distillation in the end got really much better from it). Also, sometimes it is better, when you are not, for whatever reason, 'capable' to solve the problem, just to make a note and move on (someone, someday, will come to solve it). There is a lot 'wrong' on this Wiki and actually everything needs improvement.
Relax, move on. Improve what you can improve, you may get reverted sometimes (that also happens to me - if so, post on the talk, hope for a positive discussion). Repair what you really can repair yourself, things that you think are wrong but don't really know, go to the talkpage (or for really bad errors, one of the Wikiprojects for a faster response) - you'll see, we're all here to help each other. Hope you're here to stay, happy editing!! --Dirk BeetstraTC08:31, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Hi! I'll have a look. One thing, be careful with how you bot-maintain drugboxes .. keeping track of data is fine (that's what CheMoBot does/did), filling boxes with data is also fine, but overwriting data with other data, even if you know that 'your' data is correct will probably be frowned upon. My bot would, with a bit of re-programming, technically be capable of really keeping certain values in a certain way (that would just be a minor re-programming), but I am afraid that that would regularly run into problems with editors who have another not-incorrect version of certain data (there is not thát much that is really immutable, there are different flavours of names, different flavours of how to report a melting point (which in itself is already 'depending' on the way of measuring, boiling points are worse as they depend on pressure enough to vary between Australia and Saudi Arabia), etc.).
I'll have a look one of these days, the bot went offline (me changing jobs, me being fed up with how bot-operators on en.wikipedia are treated, and me having to port my bots to another box with different configuration (with the unannounced changes in the underlying MediaWiki software adding to it, which is a pain considering how the data is parsed), other issues with 'verified' data, etc.) and I did not bother to re-start that bot at that time). I'll have a look to see if I can run it 'off-wiki' first for some time again. --Dirk BeetstraTC05:42, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Greetings and... slash-and-burn
Greetings Beetstra. I see that you're more or less following the latest movements over at Slash-and-burn and I don't want to interfere with anything that you're sorting out there. However, I really think that those editions should be reverted, a) 'cos they're basically just a copy-and-paste of an article at Wikisource which is, b) in itself a pretty deficient translation, c) much of the newly added content seems to me to be pretty irrelevant to the actual article, and d) the style in which it is written (copy-pasted) is that of an interesting general cultural work on "Finnforest culture", but not really that of an authoritative encyclopaedia article. AGF prevents me from adding further comments to the list, and as I know nothing whatsoever about the subject in question, I'll leave it up to your better judgement to go from here. Regards, --Technopat (talk) 12:11, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
I am the same there, not a specialist in the subject. But the WikiSource is not a source, that would be the original information. Maybe the rest also needs to be cut, but that I don't know. --Dirk BeetstraTC12:17, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
It's an utter waste of time. These categories are rubbish, they don't make sense at all. Even someone from a history project found them historically incorrect. But it is a scheme that is applied throughout, and those who apply it will defend it as 'good'. These things should be ungrouped to Category:1905 establishments (which is correct) and Category:Establishments in Israel (they are now establishments that are now in Israel ..). It gets even sillier when you have establishments which have been disestablished since, and both of those dates are before the area/country exist, still they are categorised as establishments in the country now. And then we are told not to be too rigid when we consider that.
I think I was the second to nominate a handful of these utterly silly ones, and all the editors who apply this scheme jumped on it to oppose deletion/renaming. You're now likely the third (maybe there were more inbetween). To me, it signifies there is something fundamentally wrong there. Maybe an RfC is needed to get a broader input on this topic. --Dirk BeetstraTC07:43, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
I remarked on quite a number of them. Additional concern, as soon as you go a bit back into areas of the world where hardly anyone lives or where civilization did not really start constructing durable establishments, year categories fall away, don't exist. There is somewhere a 2-centuries-before-Christ category for something that contains 1 establishment. Question 1: how precise are the years/decades, question 2: was it a country anyway at that time, and what sense does it make to make a year (or decade, if it is that precisely known) if the 50 surrounding decades do not contain anything. For many countries there is just 1 single establishment in that area built somewhere before Christ, but if we know it was in 357 before Christ, it will be split up to the lowest level possible because of the rigidity of the system. [[:Category:Establishments in <country> established BC]] would be enough, as it is containing at max 10. IF, and only if, it really goes over the 200-limit (of the normal view) it makes sense to split it up. Have you seen how far you now have to browse down from the top establishment container? 5 levels to find 1 article? --Dirk BeetstraTC08:16, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
Note that of the 0s BC only 1 and 4 exist, if you go to Category:2nd-millennium BC establishments you see that only 5 of the century categories at the moment exist, the 17th century one in there is I think only there to hold 1 page. Sure, more may come, but I insist that it is unlikely to fill year categories in such categories with more than 5 in the very, very end of the category scheme. Is that really needing such an elaborate scheme - yeah, because that is how the scheme is designed</rant>. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:23, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
Börringe Priory - did not exist anymore at the last country name change
Guan (state) - established and disestablished, obviously in Guan .. it would have been located in current day China
Bođani monastery - possibly the only subject established in 1478 in Serbia, supported by a significant category tree.
Category:1st millennium in <country> - for the first article, 11 categories, for the second, depending on the decade/century - 4, 7 or 10 added categories. Likely needs about 200.000 subjects to have an average of one per category for the whole tree.
Borsa Italiana - the Italy it is categorised in is not the Italy that exists now (it was actually the Kingdom of Italy).
How accurate are dates of establishment when something happened 2000 years ago (calendars have been sometimes redefined since then)?
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Could you look in on the strange edits by Plasmic again? No rush, nothing in particular but everything is tainted with nutiness. Really disappointing.--Smokefoot (talk) 13:36, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
Hey Smokefoot, was just reading about ..challenges..! How's things?
... damaging for the project and damaging for readers... The threat to Wikipedia is not overt vandalism but persistent mediocracy. We'd need a full time lawyer to deal with this cancer. --Smokefoot (talk) 01:12, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
@Smokefoot - that is why I think we should abolish the ArbCom, damaging for the project and damaging for the readers, persistent mediocracy and no lawyers resulting in poorly crafted results and resulting cancers. PP is under a restriction at the moment .. and has been commenting in such a way about it that it is clear they does not understand the why of that. Likely this ends in another restriction at some point, until he gets banned from Chemistry related subjects.
I think though it is pretty clear that Category:1986 establishments in India is a workable category. I am thinking though we need to come to a decision to not implement the categories to the extreme. My current thought is A-we should have no pre-1800 establishments by country categories. B-between 1800 and 1900 we should divide by continent, and only divide further when there is justification to do so. I am not sure that there is any workable place to make that proposal though. If you want to pursue this, I would suggest you start by proposing say the 8 categories in Category:Establishments in France by year that are from before 1000. They all only have one article. You want to do it with categories that do not have any definition problems, although arguably that far back what is France might be in dispute. For what it is worth, 1858 is currently the earliest French category with as many as 10 articles. However, my experience is that almost all these categories are much smaller than even our current articles would if fully categorized make them.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:48, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
I made some of these arguments at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 January 6 where I tried to convince people to entirely scrap any by year categorization for 973 and 993. I still think it is pointless over-categorization that Category:993 establishments has only one entry anywhere, and yet that was put in a sub-category. Still no one listened to me, so nothing was done. I do not think anyone responded to my points at all, they were just ignored, which is quite frustrating.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:55, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
I question that already, it is a cross-section of Category:1986 establishments and Category:Establishments in India. These categories combine 3 properties, of which 2 are dependent on each other (name of country is often dependent on time). But I can see some value in the scheme, for sure.
Next problem is, that some establishments are established in other country-names than where they are now, and for some, they have been establishments while that place was in 3, 4, 5, .. different countries, resulting in that it needs to be categorised in all those, leading to an enormous number of categories, and some are useless - Russia had a lot of 'countries' under them for a long time, same goes for German occupation during the short time of the second world war. For sure before 1900 things become problematic, but there have also been a lot of changes up till the end of the second world war, and a second set when the USSR broke up. The Americas have been much more stable, but Africa also had those times (and there there are areas where things are still slowly moving).
Then the problem of size. Because of the scheme, it is split ad infinitum from the beginning, resulting in a 1040 BC establishments in China category (forgot the exact year). This should, strictly, be approached by a 'breaking up large categories' scheme. 'BC establishements in China' -> more than 200 (or 100, whatever, but a fixed, established limit) articles -> split up by millenium. One of the millenia fills up to more than <limit>, then split up by century .. one of the centuries fills up to more than <limit>, then split up by decade. But that is not done. The first article in the millenium tree gets a whole set of 11 categories to accomodate it, immediately without consideration how many there will come. The second article, unlikely in the same century, needs another 7. 18 categories to accomodate 2 articles (if it is in another millenium, it is 21 categories). And then trees like for the Vatican, or Monaco or other tiny mini-states that are around .. they get a tree while in the whole 3-4 millennia that area of the Vatican was occupied by humans I doubt there are more than a 500-750 notable subjects established - there is just not enough space for it. 4000 years, how many categories are possible there, how many do we really have to create, and how many will have more than 1-2 articles in them. But it is the grand scheme .. Probably the argument on the other side is, that 'a reader may be interested in what happened in specifically 1040 BC in China'... but serving the reader must have a limit somewhere, the same reader may also have an interest what happened in Beijing in 1040 BC, and we do not have a category that goes down to city level, so Wikipedia can not be used to find that ...
This scheme is problematic and should have a good second thought . The problem is indeed where. There was that RfC last year, but that did not get any real discussion going. Maybe a better RfC on the WikiProject Categories, or a combined WikiProject Categories/WikiProject History-RfC (which is what I have been asking for). --Dirk BeetstraTC07:59, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Regarding the Category:1986 establishments and Category:Establishments in India - those will be enormous for sure, but then advertise clearly how to use CatScan on those to cross-sect them with the right information. Or find a better course-grain for it - Establishments have a 'type'. The fine-grained-ness of the categories now actually makes it impossible to use Cat-Scan for those who do want other cross-sections (I think that the cross-section of Category:1986 establishments and Category:Radio stations would need 4 levels of scanning (maybe even 5) to be sure to get through to the lowest occupied levels of the tree that is under it (1986 establishments - 1986 establishments by country - 1986 establishments in the United States - 1986 establishments in Delaware). And if you want the '1986 establishments in India' you don't want to ask the reader to use CatScan to cross-sect '1986 establishments' and 'establishments in India', you want to provide the service to them by giving them the right category, but if the reader wants 'radio stations established in 1986 in India' you need it CatScan, because we are not going to fine-grain to that level (are we?). --Dirk BeetstraTC08:22, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
By nature, if you want to actually have all 1986 establishments in the United States, you'd need a tool to take all the articles out of the 50 sub-categories. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:22, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Question about LinkWatcher
Does LinkWatcher report all links in notices to the wikipedia-en-spam channel, so does it exclude whitelisted users and/or links? The reason I ask is because I use the channel as input for User:WebCiteBOT. Of course the links we most want to archive are the ones most likely to be useful long term, which is kind of the opposite purpose as the IRC channel.
The top link is for Jerry Axson who is a notable figure born in Orangeburg, SC who now maintains a Facebook page for all musicians and bands ever coming from Orangeburg, SC. The site he maintains is the only site of its kind for the City of Orangeburg therefore he brings value to the City by representing historical facts on and about the artistic culture of the City.
The second link is for the actual Facebook page he maintains for the musicians and bands coming from Orangeburg, SC
If you have any questions please contact me back and I would appreciate any help you can give me concerning adding this line to the Orangeburg, SC wikipedia page.
Sincerely - Jerry Axson
Shymbeebymbee (talk) 14:10, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Notable from the standpoint of Wikipedia? is that your frame of reference for your question? If it's a problem simply forget about the "Jerry Axson" external link but I do request retaining the link to "Local Music Scene Orangeburg". Thanks. Shymbeebymbee (talk) 13:58, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, notable from the standpoint of Wikipedia. And that also goes for the 'Local Music Scene [of] Orangeburg'. Why would we need to mention these subjects? --Dirk BeetstraTC14:06, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
Local Music Scene is a chronicled history of the past 40 years of local artists, musicians, and bands that have came out of Orangeburg and played in and around Orangeburg. These are generations of individuals who were born in Orangeburg, went to school in Orangeburg, have grown up and worked in Orangeburg. These same people contribute daily to the economy and social structure that is the City of Orangeburg, SC. If you go to the page you will see this history being represented in the postings I am compiling of these people, the biographies of the individuals and the bands they participated in, the pictures I am organizing and posting of each represented individual and band, the videos I am posting of captured live performances that took place in and around the city of Orangeburg, and the sound samples I am posting representing a portion of these artists body of work which does add to the cultural signifigance of Orangeburg, SC in that some of these original songs were written about Orangeburg or have reference to growing up in Orangeburg and being a part of the culture of Orangeburg. I hope this helps you to understand the artistic and cultural importance of the page I'm wanting to link and if you visit the page please notice the notes and messages left by Orangeburg natives commenting on events that have directly affected their lives growing up in Orangeburg, SC. tHANKS Shymbeebymbee (talk) 15:18, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
So. That still does not make it notable, nor should it be linked from the text, nor should it be linked from the external links. --Dirk BeetstraTC16:37, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Dirk for your help in this matter but I feel we've reached an impass and I'm just not getting any really clear explaination from you on why this does not qualify and I would like to note at this point that Steve Adkins is listed and linked here and he is a retired local musician so forgive me but I'm having difficulty weighing the qualifications you mandate for what is and what is not listed on the page. Could you please direct me to someone above you that I might speak with concerning this? Thanks and have a good day Shymbeebymbee (talk) 18:05, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
There is no 'someone above', please have a good look at the policies and guidelines quoted here, on your talkpage (WP:5P is a good start as well), or raise it at one of the noticeboards (WP:ELN may be one). That it is somewhere else might mean that that has to go as well, depending on the situation (Steve Adkins seems to pass our notability threshold .. which I explained earlier). --Dirk BeetstraTC07:43, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
Hi TCO. I've added it, referring to the archived discussion. It is a general problem on the white/blacklist .. so much to do, no-one there (and the once that are there get sometimes verbally abused by editors/spammers, so that is not helpful either). Hope this helps! --Dirk BeetstraTC05:53, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Still not working. Try linking any of the articles from here (www.examiner.com/topic/gymnastics) and it does not work. Tested several times. 16:08, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
You wont get such a broad whitelisting. examiner.com/gymnastics-in-national/blythe-lawrence was what was whitelisted. Werieth (talk) 16:11, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Exactly, TCO. Only the specific link was whitelisted. Whitelisting by topic is not going to happen (yet), as many documents on Examiner.com are written for personal gain, there will be also some in a certain topic, like gymnastics. Some documents there may be of utmost importance and not replaceable, but most within a topic will be. And believe me, for what I have seen on the whitelist request page, most of the material on Examiner.com is replaceable. There are, way, better sources out there. That they have improved their reviewing process does not mean that it suddenly becomes an irreplaceable source, and fact remains, that people write for Examiner.com because they make money with it, making your own analysis of other sources and publishing it there makes the information there correct, and it will pass their local reviews, however, we would still prefer to use sources that are not written for that incentive (and are possibly WP:OR ..). --Dirk BeetstraTC05:57, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
My name is Tatiana. I make a contribution to the free encyclopedia Wikipedia since 2008 with good intentions and I never had remarks.
I would like to ask you : Why your Bot COIBot characterized links as "the conflict of interests"? It is a error. No conflict of interests. It not spam.
I would like to explain to you. I noticed that links which were put by me earlier, became dead (the empty page) and I replaced them with live links, having carried out a lot of work. I care only of the facts, which have the right to be present at the free encyclopedia Wikipedia.
For example: Stamp of Monaco - "Effigy in profile of H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco".
Now you see a difference? This same image of the Stamp of Monaco, only the page exchanged.
Or still example: I replaced the image of the Stamp of Monaco "Block of H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco' marriage to Miss Charlene Wittstock" on the same image Stamp of Monaco of the best quality.
Hi Tatiana! Thank you for the explanation. Don't worry, your English is quite good (and I am not native either ..).
The bots only flag and report because they sees actions which are often a sign of spamming, but there are false positives. Although I have my concerns here (using documentation on a free webhost as a replacement reference for the original source, it may be better to find an archive of the original, also, if the original was used as a reference to write the information, then that is still the reference, even if the online information is not there anymore (thát does not invalidate the reference ..), adding another would then be a better practice), this is indeed not spamming. Don't worry about the report, it is not a proof of spam, it is a mere report of actions, and it is likely to be ignored. I hope this explains. --Dirk BeetstraTC07:26, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your attention. Unfortunately, I didn't find an archive of the original.
Hello, would you please check out the article on Asafoetida as some info was reverted with the reason "text and sources do not match" also some citation needed tags were removed and other things were changed to the articles detriment. If the reverting "editor" actually checked these sources (references) they do actually back up the info added. I think this reversion action was totally unwarranted, unconstructive and thus I can only assume was performed out of dislike for the editor that made the changes. Not a constructive "encyclopedia building" move IMO.
Thank you and best regards. --122.111.242.62 (talk) 05:27, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
I see that the editor who did that revert is already on it, it is probably best you talk with them. I am not familiar with this specific subject. Will try to have a look next week. I however don't think that reverting such edits is the way to go, it is better to properly discuss it on the talkpage first. --Dirk BeetstraTC06:49, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
Hey, that is a long time ago that the bot had that glitch, thought I resolved it though. I have speedy-moved it to the right position, removed the 'issues' and speedy, and merged in the previous reports (I think that is the best solution). Thanks for the heads-up, will have a look if COIBot is telling me why it did this (I actually though it could not do that .. not reading settings should mean that it does not know that it is allowed to edit .. will double check). --Dirk BeetstraTC07:42, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
Histogram Adjustments in MATLAB (link removed)
Hello,
Why did you remove the link: http://imageprocessingblog.com/histogram-adjustments-in-matlab-part-i/ ?
didn't you find it relevant to the topic?
the link is to a three parts guide to histogram adjustments in MATLAB, and I find it very useful and relevant.
Please consider to undo your editing please, checkout the guide, I think you will find it is comprehensive and well written and with excellent examples. (BTW: I'm not the author)
Thanks and all the best,
MaxPlank111 — Preceding unsigned comment added by MaxPlank111 (talk • contribs) 09:56, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
MaxPlank111, thank you for your question. It may be useful, but we are not writing a linkfarm. We do not just link to material about a subject, we write about a subject. Moreover, I do really not believe that that link is so important that it needs to be on top of that list, and I also believe that there are way more links out there that may be of interest (but still, that is not our goal). Please have a look at our external links guideline and 'What Wikipedia is not'. Thanks. --Dirk BeetstraTC10:00, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
Image Histogram link that you remover
Hello Dirk,
Why did you remove the link I added?
I find it very relevant and useful.
It is a three parts posts on Histogram Adjustments in MATLAB, very well written and with nice examples.
Please reconsider your removal.
Thank
--MaxPlank111 (talk) 10:21, 14 July 2013 (UTC)MaxPlank111
I just answered in the post above this (now combined sections). Sorry, those links simply fail our inclusion standards, blogs are generally discouraged, and we are not a linkfarm. --Dirk BeetstraTC10:23, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
Could you put this article on your Watch list and help revert the COI editor's edit-warring until he gets blocked or whatever the admins decide to do with him? He's been reported (by another editor) for 3RR but no action there yet. If so, thanks. Softlavender (talk) 08:12, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
User:JLUKACS1 is COI editing his own non-notable article again John D. Lukacs, and is massively edit-warring despite repeated warnings. Not only that, he has created another promotional article, about his own book, Escape from Davao. Please help. Can you put these two articles on your Watch list and also help revert/warn/report/etc. the user? Thanks. Softlavender (talk) 22:42, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
User:Softlavender is engaging in massive edit-warring on her own initiative. This user seems to be displaying a strange, irrational obsession with me and my activity on Wikipedia that is bordering on harassment. I have provided my own warning to the user in regards to their inappropriate behavior. There is no law prohibiting me from accurately editing my own Wikipedia entry. I am not engaging in any promotional activities, nor I have submitted any inappropriate or unsuitable materials. I respectfully request a review of the material that I have submitted and that this user be blocked from editing the article John D. Lukacs and Escape From Davao in the future. Thank you for your time and assistance. JLUKACS1 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:47, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
JLUKACS1 .. because of your conflict of interest, especially you should not be edit warring on the subject, and especially not after you have been blocked for that edit warring. Pleases stop. Because of your conflict of interest, you should, strictly, go to the talkpage and discuss, not revert, not claim ownership. --Dirk BeetstraTC06:29, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
Request to take part in a survey
Hi there. I would very much appreciate it if you could spend ~2 minutes and take a short survey - a project trying to understand why the most active Wikipedia contributors (such as yourself) may reduce their activity, or retire. I sent you an email with details, if you did not get it please send me a wikiemail, so that I can send you an email with the survey questions. I would very much appreciate your cooperation, as you are among the most active Wikipedia editors who show a pattern of reduced activity, and thus your response would be extremely valuable. Thanks! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here12:44, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
Hello, Beetstra. Please check your email; you've got mail! It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
Spam whitelist request
Greetings!
It's good to see you back around at the Spam whitelist page. I appreciate your time and hope you will have a look at the request I made there over a month ago, which still has not gotten any response at all. It looks like only two volunteers have been doing most of the work there in the past month or so, and they may be a tad overworked. Please let me know if I can be of any assistance. Wilhelm Meis(☎ Diskuss | ✍ Beiträge)03:10, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
Cyberbot II
I owe you an apology. I was in error. I was running an outdated version of the blacklist engine that generates the regexes to scan. It was brought to my attention on my talk.—cyberpowerChatOnline02:07, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
getting all external links in "real-time"
Hi,
I'm Vinay Goel, data engineer at the Internet Archive. We're starting to work on a web archiving project where we crawl external links from Wikipedia articles at the time they're made (so near real time).
Looking at the Recent Changes feed, it looks like I'd need to parse the 'diff' page to find any new links, or in the case of 'new' pages, parse the new page to find all external links. I was referred to you by legoktm (from #mediawiki freenode IRC). legoktm mentioned that you maintain a spam watching bot that extracts out new outgoing links from pages on an ongoing basis and it'd be great to piggyback of the list you generate.
Hi! Thanks for the interest. The bot outputs to IRC, and does that in real time (and you are free to source that output), however, it is filtering out 'good stuff' so we do not get an overflow. And I presume that actually you would be more interested in the good stuff.
I am actually filtering not the diffs, but I am pulling the parsed versions of the current and previous edit, and compare those. That gives a more complete list of added links.
May I know why you are interested in that in real time? You plan to archive all outside info that is linked from Wikipedia .. that would make it a spam incentive to have your links here so you would pick them up? --Dirk BeetstraTC04:23, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
Strange. You are the Vinay Goel who has worked for the Internet Archive since '06, but you post the same question to two users (diff), which is inconsiderate and don't login. And yet you are posting from IA's (big) IP space (208.70.24/21) and Comcast's Bay Area IP space. Can you please create an account and use it?
Have you looked at the history of the many other efforts to crawl external links from Wikipedia articles and web archive them? You really should. I can provide pointers if you like; ask here or on my talk page. I agree with Beetstra; it would be more valuable if IA crawled, preferring older external links in Wikipedia that haven't been archived, rather than brand new ones that may well not merit archival at all. I hope you return and rejoin the discussion, 208.70.31.249 (talk·contribs). --Elvey (talk) 00:37, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
I restored the content to the status it had for years
I have removed the two additional links and restored the status to that which existed before this whole kerfuffle.
Please revert your last revert.
Please make any further comments in the section on article talk.
The text is perfectly fine, there is no need for the links to the videos. That it was there for years is not a reason to consider that it should be there. --Dirk BeetstraTC04:19, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
Please participate in the discussion on the article talk page. I have started a section. You can make your point there. I know you are into spamlists and admin stuff and revert rules. But I am actually citing policy in saying to participate in the discussion on talk. You are actually being a revert warrior if you don't participate and if you use warnings and final reversion to "win".71.127.131.41 (talk) 04:23, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
I suspect you did the revert without actually watching the two videos (want to bet a beer on it). In other words, you made an editorial decision without really looking at the content and thinking about impact on the reader. Actually watch the videos rather than having this suspicion of spam or an anti-EL in general attitude. And ELs are warned against, but NOT forbidden always. and this is a time when they are used for reader benefit.
And sure the text is fine...I wrote it. I know what I'm doing...
For not paste extra links to wikipedia. I want to know when i will allowed to paste links in Wikipedia.
Now i not paste links again and again. Sir please help to know when this warning is dismiss.
The reference you were giving is not a suitable reference, and certainly not for that place of link. In short, that link simply does not belong on Wikipedia, it fails all relevant policies and guidelines (not a reliable source, not a suitable external link, and the policies and guidelines linked therefrom). Maybe you can expand the articles you have been adding links to. --Dirk BeetstraTC10:55, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
Note, the warning is with respect to this specific blogspot, although the rules are the same for other sites, it would depend on the other links you might want to add whether they are allowed. --Dirk BeetstraTC10:57, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
Hi Beeststra!
Thanks for help
Now, if i paste the link of blogspot again in other article, the blog get blacklisted by Wikipedia or from Search Engine. Help me to get rid out from these problems.
stalker Sachinjangra0, links to the blog on Wikipedia are simply not a good idea. You've been told that and have been continuing to add it. As a result the blog has been blacklisted, and still you continue. I suggest you drop trying to get the blog linked on Wikipedia, and start working constructively - on things that are in no way related to the blog. No is no. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 20:18, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
Sachinjangra, the link is not blacklisted, but removed by a bot. And we will now monitor further additions. I suggest you stop adding the link, and start reading this site's policies and guidelines (they are linked from your talkpage and in other discussions you participated in). We're not here to facilitate links to your blog, it does not meet this site's policies and guidelines. --Dirk BeetstraTC04:48, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
I think it is a fine idea, though whitelisting would really be better for those links. In some cases the links get lost, while they are appropriate (edit conflicts after a vandal edit, e.g.). When they are lost, they can not be re-added.
One point though - I think that the template should suggest whitelisting the offending links. People are now arriving at the blacklist for de-listing, and are often send through to the whitelist, as the base domain was plainly spammed, but some individual links may have been appropriate. I'll have a look at the latter. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:12, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
Please can you disable this bot pending consensus on how it should operate? At the moment it is spamming its way round Wikipedia at a rate that is unacceptable.--♦IanMacM♦(talk to me)06:57, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
There is no consensus for this bot at the moment. It is spamming pages with tags that other editors do not want at a rate that is impossible to deal with. Please block it. There is a thread at ANI about this.--♦IanMacM♦(talk to me)07:10, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
The bot is not malfunctioning (moreover, it is running more than one task), so there is no reason to block it. Let the AN/I thread run its course, and there has been ample time to discuss this task. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:59, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
It is now disabled. This type of mass bot tagging is a form of spam in itself, because regular editors cannot keep up with it. It is also unnecessary to yell "help! blacklisted link!" at the top of every page it finds, when the talk page would be the best place to do it.--♦IanMacM♦(talk to me)09:12, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
It is yet another maintenance tag .. do you also say this of other bots who add maintenance tags? Editors obviously also cannot keep up with that. However, having links on a page that are blocked by a blacklist can give considerable problems with the edit experience of novice editors, more than that a page is an orphan or is not having any wikilinks .. and having those tags that are making people consider to do something about that problem on the talkpage will have the same effect as the other maintenance tags when they would be on the talkpage - they would also be summarily ignored.... --Dirk BeetstraTC09:19, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
It depends, because links are blacklisted for a range of reasons. as Fram pointed out here, blacklisted links are not always a matter of urgency. I can't see much wrong with the link removed here, and a bot process does not review the decisions manually. This is why it should not edit pages directly, as it will make mistakes and get into edit wars.--♦IanMacM♦(talk to me)09:29, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
I do disagree somewhat, I think having blacklisted links on a page is a bit more of an urgency than not having incoming links, or not having wikilinks (though indeed less urgent than a page that is violating copyrights, indeed). Nonetheless, no-one is really making a big case out of having those tags (some people remove it). I agree it should not edit war over it though.
Problem with tags is that people generally remove tags, without solving the problem. That has been a general problem overall, even without considering what the problem is. I recently had to go to the whitelist, add a link, revert a page to a non-vandalised version with the blacklisted link in it, remove the whitelist rule and ask in a proper way for whitelisting as I was not familiar with it. If a bot would have tagged the article, someone else would have asked for the whitelisting before, and I would not have had that problem, I would maybe even already have whitelisted it then.
Hi Beetstra, I sent you an email a while back about a book chapter on Wikipedia chemical data - would you like to contribute? I'm particularly interested in you writing a section on Chemboxes in general and CheMoBot in particular. I didn't hear anything back, so I'm not certain if I have your current email address. The deadline is coming soon, but please reply here if you would like to contribute. I thought it would look good on your CV! Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 13:18, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
It has been interesting reading your posts at Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard. At Uncyclopedia, we have the same problem of anonymous users posting "relevant" YouTube videos in articles. You ask why, and my answer is that it is done so that users who are unable to contribute (in our case, to write original comedy) can become "contributors." Spike-from-NH (talk) 21:47, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
Heh, funny that people think like that. Well, it makes real spammers also contributors, doesn't it? Itis even what they sometimes claim .. And in fact they are not really wrong. --Dirk BeetstraTC04:16, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
Site [1] has been blacklisted. I don't understand why. I would like to add it in EXTERNAL LINK on pages about Ocean and Planisphere. This site contains neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues. How to remove it of the black list ? Thank you for your answer
I guess you'd have to ask for removal at the talkpages of the list where it is listed. However, what you indicate is not the sole consideration of why a link 'should' be there, nor (and I presume that was the reason why it was blacklisted) a reason to spam it to every page where it is 'reasonable' - you could also consider whitelisting specific links for specific pages on the wikis where it may be of interest. You do seem to have a conflict of interest here as well, which makes me think that others should maybe do the consideration of adding this link. --Dirk BeetstraTC09:06, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
A rougue bot (User:COIBot) seems to have made this in the article space
Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not meet basic Wikipedia criteria may be deleted at any time.
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, you can place a request here. Oddbodz (talk) 21:38, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
I've commented - still, the remarks there do not disagree with my "we do not block because we don't like links, or because they are unusable or because they are unreliable sources." - no-ip.info was not blacklisted for any of those reasons - whether it should be whitelisted is another matter. For whitelisting a whole site, I would indeed suggest a broader discussion, and proper research that it is not replaceable. --Dirk BeetstraTC10:49, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Wikitech tool labs and perl libraries
Hi. I have noticed that you have added some perl libraries to the tool labs and I was therefore hoping that you might be able to provide me with some pointers. I am trying to install diberri's template filler on tool labs (under the citation-template-filling project) but I am having some problems accessing a cgi perl script that requires a local perl library that I have installed. The script runs fine from the command line when logged into the server, but when I try to run the cgi script using an external web browser, I get an internal error. This is problem is clearly a perl library access problem since test cgi perl scripts run fine until I try to do anything with the library. Do you have any suggestions? Alternatively do you know of someone else I could contact to solve this problem? Cheers. Boghog (talk) 17:04, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
I had a similar problem, the locally installed libraries don't work. They have to be installed globally by one of the system operators - I filed a bugzilla bug for it (still have to follow up on that one). --Dirk BeetstraTC13:32, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your feedback. It appears that we may have had different problems. I finally got the template filler to work with locally installed libraries (link is here). The key to getting the template filler to work was to add the following line to the cgi script:
useCGI::Carp'fatalsToBrowser';
Adding this single line gave some very useful feedback that indicated despite using cpanm for the installs, there were a still a few unfulfilled dependencies. After installing these missing modules, the script finally worked. Boghog (talk) 13:53, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi Beetstra,
I came across a new page by Katineee (talk·contribs), Marine Silk Road. I saw that you had warned them against spamming back in June. If this is the related edit, it seems they may be at it again. At least, the new page includes an external link to 'thesilkroadchina.com'. 220ofBorg05:25, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
And thesilkroadchina.com seems to be some sort of tour site - a sales site. 14:40, 8 November 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dougweller (talk • contribs)
Thanks, Dougweller. I had suspicions, but I didn't think someone would write a whole page just to spam one link. I was right, they plagiarised a whole page to produce a ' coat rack' to spam one link! Is that about right?
They also altered my comment to Beetstra, though I have reverted and warned Katineee. Not here to improve WP, methinks. :-\ 220ofBorg23:55, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
data re paid advocacy?
Hi, as you know, there are conversations going on about paid advocacy. Some people say "we have to act this is a huge problem throughout Wikipedia!" and others say "this is SO not a big deal." We all suffer from a lack of data. So I am come here asking: do you keep any kind of data from COIbot that could help the community have a grounded-in-reality discussion about the extent of paid advocacy and COI editing? It would be really great to be able to say something like: X% of edits to Wikipedia are tendentious; Y% of those are from paid advocates" or the like. That would be the super-juicy data bringing together COI and content policies. I initially posted this to STiki and they kindly directed me here. In addition, it would be great to know of anything else that would help cast light on the discussion. Thank you!Jytdog (talk) 16:19, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I know, it is the old discussion. Paid editing takes many forms, true SEO, people who edit while they get paid, people who edit while getting paid by the organisation that they edit the pages of, people who do not get paid but edit pages that may impact their future, people who edit because being known on the web would improve their personal pay (rather than directly have an impact on the company they work for).
I however do not have hard numbers - they are around, people who edit purely to get better from it. My take a bit is:
people who get paid to edit Wikipedia - as long as they do follow our 5P, I have no problem with that
people who get paid to edit Wikipedia - if they 'spam', fail parts of our 5P (which generally means that their edits plainly fail core guidelines), they should be stopped, blocked, banned
It is however a grey area .. people who get paid by a company are generally specialists in the subject, and they should be editing, but they should be editing according to our policies and guidelines, and being a bit more careful.
The problem is similar as what happens with the specialists that come in from libraries, musea, external databases, etc. etc. Generally, they are not-for-profit organisations, and their info is very welcome. However, when they start spamming their external links to items in their online collection they are going a step too far sometimes (an example that I once saw was a general local museum starting to add links to their items throughout - one of the links being a quilt made by someone local, and that link being added to Quilt ..).
For me, the focus should be on 'does an editor follow our policies and guidelines', if not, they should be 'put in line', if they do, it is not an issue. Problem with 'paid editors' (in all their forms), is that they tend to stray into the grey areas of guidelines (they have unique material on subject A which makes a good addition to our page on subject A, but also some material on subject B, which is nothing special and does not add to all the material we have, but still they feel the need to add that as well ...). I do therefore think that paid editing is an issue, and that those paid editors should be made aware of our policies and guidelines and that they should be very carefully adhere to them, and when unsure go to talkpages, or be in contact with WikiProjects or other 'independent' editors on the subject in stead of editing the article themselves.
We have paid editors with a vested interest in the subject, and I have been working together with them for a long time in chemistry - it really is a matter of making sure that they know the boundaries. It really works great with them, and most of them I have just, early on, notified of the existence of WP:COI. --Dirk BeetstraTC06:01, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for answering, and with your additional thoughts too! Such a bummer that there is not data on the extent of the problem. I hear you that paid editors are valuable. Do you think paid advocacy can be banned and that we can separate it reasonably well from paid editing? Jytdog (talk) 12:16, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
You're welcome. No. They can not be separated, they often operate in the grey area between and SEO is a job - you sometimes don't know that a paid advocate (an SEO) is an SEO - on the other hand, you have people inappropriately putting their links everywhere out of pure ignorance of our policies and guidelines, looking like they are spamming hard, while they actually do it in good faith, they think that the links they add are fine (sometimes it is someone who runs into a website somewhere on the www, finds it informative and spams it to Wikipedia inappropriately - they are not even affiliated with the site. And that is the whole problem with the statistics of it as well .. Hope this helps, I may drop by at the RfC. --Dirk BeetstraTC12:22, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Interesting, thanks. I am not clear on what you are saying. Are you saying that it is not possible to separately define "paid advocacy" and "paid editing" (which is what it would take to block one and not the other) or are you saying that some paid advocacy produces great, 5P-compliant work and we do not want to lose that by blocking such activity? (btw, by SEO I take it you mean "search engine optimizer"? Sorry for my acronymic ignorance.) Jytdog (talk) 13:05, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
It is what I mean, yes - some paid editors are producing great work, following our 5P (we work with a handful of editors in the Chemicals Wikiproject that are connected to external organisations), whereas some people blatantly promote a (great) website where they are not affiliated with, but just because they like it and think it is informative, yet others promote a cause just because they like it.
SEO is indeed "search engine optimisation", SEOs are companies that get paid by an organisation to improve the 'being known on the www' for the company. Such SEO companies sometimes come to Wikipedia and create articles for companies or spread their external links. That is a form of paid editing. Some SEOs are blatant, others are more sophisticated and are difficult to catch - there are 'SEO-manuals' out there on 'how to spam Wikipedia without being noticed' (and if you have knowledge of such documents, you realise there is another grey area in that - some editors become well established editors first, creating a lot of good content, and then slowly start to implement their job and start to create pages for companies that are not-too-notable, but since they know Wikipedia, and are trusted, their pages tend to stick. Still, their ultimate goal was to promote something on Wikipedia. --Dirk BeetstraTC13:37, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for discussing your experience. So interesting! Sorry I am still not clear, I asked you if you are saying A or B and you said yes! Maybe you meant "both"? A) was: it is not possible to separately define "paid advocacy" and "paid editing"; B) was: some paid advocacy produces great, 5P-compliant work and we do not want to lose that by blocking such activity. Are you saying A or B or both? Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 14:59, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Sorry for the confusion. What I meant there is that there is no clear difference between paid editing and paid advocacy - some 'paid editing' turns out in 'paid advocacy' in the end, some 'paid advocacy' produces good work along with hidden advocacy, some advocacy is not paid though utterly not 5P compliant, and then you have 'editing paid advocates' who work and follow 5P (edit neutral, create 'notable' material, etc. - even though they in the end do get 'benefit' out of their own material, but that can also be (and is in the cases I am thinking off) to the benefit of Wikipedia!).
Paid editors and paid advocates have to be informed, early on, that they have to follow the 5P, and more strictly than a 'normal' editor (more discussion, less bold editing, not 'I doubt that this is good, but lets be bold' but 'I doubt that this is good, discuss' - and even 'Hmm, I think this is good, but maybe this is something that others could have doubts about, so discuss'). I would even advocate that for editors from non-profit organisations who can give us material that helps Wikipedia forward, and where the organisation does not have a significant benefit from being linked from Wikipedia or being mentioned on Wikipedia - first discuss, preferably with a suitable WikiProject, make yourself known to Wikipedia, get to know how and what to contribute, what Wikipedia thinks is notable, where your expansion actually adds and where not (as I mentioned earlier, a link to the quilt in your local history museum in your 10k inhabitants town is NOT an addition to Quilt, however, the letters of the exchange that 'John WP:N. Doe' (inhabitant of said town) with the president of 'Far Far Away' that are in that same collection could very well be of interest and are likely a good source of information to expand the article we have about John do note that some not-for-profit organisations do get benefit from having their name mentioned here on Wikipedia - it does show their efficiency to funding agencies, or even the increase of incoming traffic to the webserver of the organisation could show efficiency of the IT department, saving jobs or increasing pay to the employee(s) ... suddenly that is paid advocacy as well :-) Also, if it is the public relations officer that is creating non-notable articles on Wikipedia is something different than someone working with the collection itself). (note, the quilt-case and the public relations officer cases are real cases from the past - they are difficult in deciding how to approach: you have to 'tell them off'/revert their edits/delete their articles, but still keep them as they do have good info available - and I think that is the real crux of the discussion about paid editing/advocacy). --Dirk BeetstraTC06:06, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
OK, so it sounds like you are saying A) and B), for sure. And additionally C) tendentious edits are made by both paid editors and paid advocates. Thank you for explaining more! I don't know if you are aware, or will find it important or interesting, but here is what Jimmy Wales wrote on his Talk page recently: "The board is preparing a statement. The numbers are weak for commercial editors, and the arguments they have made are not carrying the day with the community. There has been a need for refined understanding, and that refined understanding is now spread through the community quite widely. No one supports paid advocacy editing other than a tiny and noisy minority. The writing is on the wall.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:13, 16 November 2013 (UTC)" and afterwards ""Commercial editing" is a relatively new term someone introduced last week. I tend to continue to use "paid advocacy editing". This is editing of article space (proposing things or discussing with us on the talk page is not the issue) by someone who is paid to advocate for a person or organization. It does not matter if the actual edit in question is allegedly "merely factual" because doing that invites a huge and messy complicated argument about what's merely factual. If someone is paid to edit in their area of expertise (the canonical example is a university professor who is encouraged to edit by a university as a part of public service) that's not paid advocacy editing but it is paid editing of an unproblematic kind. Whether you call it "commercial editing" or "paid advocacy editing" it is relatively easy to identify and define, with relatively minor edge cases, and that's why it makes for a good line to draw for policy purposes. And to round out this quick summary: advocacy editing which is unpaid is also a problem - and some would argue it is a worse problem, but it is a different problem for which different solutions are needed.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:26, 16 November 2013 (UTC)" On the 19th, the WMF board released a statement and published a cease and desist letter sent to Wiki-PR, one of the "paid advocacy" houses, which you can see here. After which Jimmy wrote "There are a handful of noisy people who always insist that it isn't against the rules. They may be safely ignored. The only real question is how do we precisely formulate the policy that already exists. Remember the interesting and unusual way that Wikipedia's written policies are usually formed. They are a description of extant practice, rather than handed down dictats. The community without any trouble whatsoever banned Wiki-pr from editing Wikipedia without any hesitation. The philosophical dithering that goes on is generally driven by people who I'd prefer to see leave Wikipedia because they are the problem, or by people who have been drawn into thinking that this is a complex issue worthy of lots of hand-wringing. As I have said, the supporters of paid advocacy editing have already lost. They just don't realize it yet.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:06, 19 November 2013 (UTC)" As you can see, Jimmy, and apparently the WMF Board, think A) Paid advocacy and paid editing are distinguishable (except for some "relatively minor edge cases") and B) even if paid advocates make some useful contributions, it is a greater good to clarify that paid advocates cannot directly edit articles; and C) tendentious edits are a big problem, but is a separate one. Thoughts? (again, sorry if you do not find this interesting or important) Jytdog (talk) 09:20, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
I can live with the idea of totally banning paid advocacy (hey, I have blocked and de facto banned SEOs, spammers, and blacklisted their promotional material for years now) .. but I don't think that it is that easily to distinguish from paid editing per sé. Regarding a 'university professor who is encouraged to edit by a university as a part of public service', we just had a discussion regarding a university person who was blatantly promoting his stuff (socking and all) - try to figure out whether he was .. encouraged by the university or not. --Dirk BeetstraTC11:11, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
I completely hear you; I work in a university and boy are there some tendentious folks in faculty roles. Your experience is so valuable as is your description of it, which I admire for its fairness. I do hope you consider joining the discussion about COI policy, prefacing your remarks about what you have learned and how that could inform policy with what a description of your work here - I was unaware of you before and would not have understood what your remarks are based on (but my Wiki-world is pretty small). Thank you again, for all your work, too.Jytdog (talk) 11:26, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
I am generally mostly busy on the anti-spam front and in chemistry-validation (I see you are in biotechnology, not too far away from that field) - I see both sides of the coin, they are funnily opposite to it. I'll see if I can comment there, if I find enough time for that. --Dirk BeetstraTC11:36, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Yes! I want to get back to article work - have been too involved in this COI policy stuff for too long. Yes biotech is mostly where I work, especially ag. I am also interested in drugs and dietary supplements and health effects of chemicals and especially focus on health claims; our interests do overlap to the extent those articles discuss chemistry. I took a tour through phenols and polyphenols where a somewhat crazy person editor had done lots of strange things; those articles could use chemistry love for sure, if you get time.Jytdog (talk) 13:00, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Just wanted to add .. paid editing and paid advocacy are two distinctly different things, and in basis are separated - the former is fine, the latter should be banned, blocked, eliminated, as it is in complete violation of our core policies (WP:NOT, WP:NPOV etc.). However, in reality, they are very difficult to separate, and even more difficult to detect where they are operating. Is the university professor an advocate or an editor, and is the news-paper journalist an editor or an advocate, or the SEO-employee, is he an advocate or an editor? Where is the distinction between User:John Doe123456 and User:Company Employee 123456 - the latter may be a neutral editor, the former a POV-pusher. --Dirk BeetstraTC10:43, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the additional thought! Real questions, or rhetorical? I have 2 non-rhetorical questions for you! Your userpage says you work for Sabic, which has (like universities you have worked for, and like most companies, profit or nonprofit) includes a Conflict of Interst policy in its Code of Ethics. What is the purpose of Sabic's policy? How are the questions you ask above, relevant to Sabic's policy? Jytdog (talk) 13:52, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
@Jytdog: Regarding paid advocacy and their tendency to return and push on - they are unstoppable, please see User talk:MER-C#Agora (including creating articles which in itself are notable and probably stay, so they even meet their goals ..). I think it is great that Jimbo wants to ban paid advocacy, but just having a policy forbidding it, and a 'cease and desist' is by far not enough, I think there is a task for the foundation there to act when cases are brought to their attention by editors - I wonder if they would or could. --Dirk BeetstraTC07:40, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
Sure, glad you liked it. <grin> <bow> Hey, are you still on semi-wikibreak because of the unspecified ahrbcohm drahmahz? (plus where is your voting guide? but yeah WP:REQUIRED so nevermind) If you are done with your break, welcome back first of all, but also maybe remove the sign up at the top of the talkpage, I'm always hesitant to contact somebody who has a big-red-wikibreak-notice on their page. :-) Anyhoo, my next mission is to rewrite Clarke's three laws to be applicable to ArbCom. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 00:57, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
I am still on a very low activity level (you've seen XLinkBot being down for weeks ..) - and yeah, ArbCom .. they should just be abolished, the community can do all that very well by themselves, we don't need them at all (<- there is my guide). Note, ArbCom is the total opposite of Clarke's three laws, they do not protect the community, nor do they protect the individual - They are more our version of Mythbusters (Case 1: 'does it explode?', 'Yeah!', 'OK', Case 2: 'and this?', 'No :'(', ..., Case 2B: 'does it explode now?', 'yeah, now it does' .. (ad infinitum)) ... --Dirk BeetstraTC06:06, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
Merry Christmas from Cyberpower678
—cyberpowerOnlineMerry Christmas is wishing you a MerryChristmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!
Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas2}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
—cyberpowerOnlineHappy 2014 — is wishing you a Happy New Year! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!
Spread the New Year cheer by adding {{subst:New Year 1}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
Also to you, @C678:, I hope your real life will be healthy, happy and prosperous, and your edits will be saved well, and your bots will run smoothly and bugfree! --Dirk BeetstraTC04:21, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
It seems to run fine - now hope that people will actually request whitelisting (they trickle in, but I do not have the feeling anything significantly faster than before). --Dirk BeetstraTC05:10, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
I hope so. After countless hours and updates I've made to it to make it but free, and the additional redundancy check to reduce the information delay gap from 48 hours to 2 hours at most. :p Maybe we should start a new Wikiproject called "WikiProject against blacklisted links"—cyberpowerOnlineHappy 201420:06, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
BTW, I was thinking, should I have Cyberbot II generate a Database report on a page listing links affected by the blacklist, to make it easier to detect collateral damage?—cyberpowerOfflineHappy 201413:10, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
That would be great! Those active on the whitelist could occasionally go through that list as well for blatantly obvious cases (link to homepage of subject on subject page -> find the about, whitelist without procedure, it is something that LiamDavies was mentioning), and, as you say, the collateral damage ones (though sometimes they are not that obvious). --Dirk BeetstraTC13:35, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the question. Well .. You are blatantly referring to a copy of an advertising feature - not even to a peer reviewed article that has received significant coverage, using a username which strongly suggests a role account. I am sorry, I forgot to warn you of the Wikipedia policies. I am going to revert again. --Dirk BeetstraTC18:10, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Hi Dirk
Thanks for getting back to me. I am not sure how to proceed. The information I added is on new technology without using horseshoe crabs that is accepted as an alternative to the FDA. I did not put product information or company information in the description. As a reference I added my website but can easily remove that and place a referenced article as I had done in one instance.
If you could let me know what I need to remove or if you could for me I would greatly appreciate it. I am not a spammer.
I suggest that you first either create a new account that does not suggest that you are connected to a company selling a test (or have this account moved). Secondly, maybe you should read through the policies and guidelines that I linked to on your talkpage. Wikipedia is not a news-site, it is publishes about notable subjects, referenced by secondary and tertiary sources. I hope this helps. --Dirk BeetstraTC18:24, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Thanks Dirk,
I will change my user name. I will forward information directly to you first for review before I submit anything that is referenced by a 3rd party. Hope you have a Happy New Year and I apologize for wasting your time today.
I commented, but since I am not a specialist on the subject, I'd prefer other regulars on that page to have their say - I acted there as a person who challenged the addition of the third external link with 'the same content' (it may be a bit more, whatever, I'll leave that again up to others), and question the other two as well.
Hi Dirk... I notice that several posts in the ongoing alkene discussion imply that the gold book is consistent with a broad interpretation of the term, and that this arises from text outside the quoted section. I would appreciate being pointed more specifically to the relevant text, if you don't mind. Thank. EdChem (talk) 01:23, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
I am on my way, let me see how Andrewa is doing. To everyones defense, it took me until yesterday as well to realize there was something wrong - we all have been saying that the world at large is telling us that EVERY chemical compound with a carbon-carbon double bond is an alkene (per the intro of Wikipedia, per most other tertiary sources like the Encyclopedia Brittannica), and that IUPAC has a definition out there which is SO far out of line with that .. 95 year, a 1622 page document, and SO far off .. naah? --Dirk BeetstraTC04:03, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
Changed my mind a bit - I prefer to let the discussion run its course, hoping that we get some insight or possibilities of improving (with the risk of sounding belittling in the end, but I'll make Andrewa aware of that). --Dirk BeetstraTC05:18, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
I am open to learning something new, as always, and have already said that ambiguity for our readers is something we can and should address if practicable, so I am with you. I am just unclear on the comments on the IUPAC text, though I gather that will be clearer in time. I am not impressed with some of what Andrewa has said, but I agree with you that this doesn't mean there isn't something worth addressing in there. I look forward to your further comments as time permits. Thanks. EdChem (talk) 05:51, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
Re the question to Andrewa on the first sentence, would you see that Zeise's salt and other organometallic η2-olefins are excluded from the definition by "organic chemistry" at the start of the sentence? EdChem (talk) 12:25, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
'η2-olefins' <- olefin? Guess they are not excluded, also not if you read the definition you know it is included. It contains a Carbon-carbon double bond (though, one could argue about the bond-order, maybe it is a metallacyclopropane <- WHAAAAA, an alkane that is not CnH2n+2!!!!! .. call IUPAC .. :-D --Dirk BeetstraTC13:17, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
Request for the Review of Content in Spam-whitelist Page
Hello sir,
My name is Srikanth. I am Contributing to English version of Wiki for more than One and half Year. I am in a Trouble sir :( i.e., I added the Content to the Page : MediaWiki_talk:Spam-whitelist#filmgola.com.2Fmovie.2F 2 Months ago. But Sadly no User nor Admin given their Replies. So that my Humble request is :
If you have Free time, Please See that Content and Give your Reply Sir:) Actually i Requested Some Admins but no use. So i am Eagerly Waiting for your Response Sir. Thank you for Reading this Patiently :)
Hi. Thanks for the heads up. Sorry, I have declined the request, it is way too broad seen the abuse that took place recently. I would suggest that you only ask for very specific links, and only if you can demonstrate that the information is really not available anywhere else. Thanks! --Dirk BeetstraTC14:01, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
I did so. One problem - I had to recreate Phosphoric acids and phosphates since there are many pages linking to it. The page (Phosphoric acids and phosphates) needs to be orphaned (no incoming wikilinks from content namespaces) and one can then request speedy deletion (improbable redirect). I'll try to have a look over my weekend, but please help with that as well. Thanks! --Dirk BeetstraTC18:55, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
Dank je. OK, I checked "what links here" for Phosphoric acids and phosphates and when I found a real link I changed it (except for personal and Talk pages) I think that I caught them all. You understand more of the machinery here: when I recheck "what links here" for Phosphoric acids and phosphates I still get a long list but my guess is that the search tool is identifying old versions. Cheers, --Smokefoot (talk) 01:35, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
I consider that phosphoric acids and phosphates are inter-related, and the original article was written that way. Each type of phosphoric acid has a corresponding type of fully neutralized (deprotonated) phosphate. Furthermore, each type of phosphoric acid has multiple sites of acidity (protons that can dissociate), and there are multiple intermediate ions going from a fully protonated phosphoric acid to its fully neutralized specie, the phosphate. Accordingly, there are multiple Ka and pKa values for each type of phosphoric acid, and likewise multiple Kb and pKb values for each corresponding phosphate when going in the opposite direction (i.e. protonating corresponding base sites). It was a significant purpose of the article to point out the intermediate species and the interconversions. Of course, there is a separate single-compound Phosphoric acid article covering the very common mono- or orthophosphoric acid, for which a single compound Chembox is included. More or less analogously, the Phosphate article covers the mono- or orthophosphate, with little mention of polyphosphates for which there is a separate article covering the anions and esters. H Padleckas (talk) 04:03, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
I've answered there - basically I think that there should be an article describing the concept of 'polyacids', and separate articles (certainly for the phosphoric acid based ones) describing the different anions. The concept is there for many (sulfuric acid, carbonic acid, citric acid, maleic acid, malic acid), so an article on the concept is appropriate, and for some of the acids the anions are 'notable enough' to warrant all their own articles (certainly true for phosphoric and sulfuric, and probably for citric - all are 'sold' in mono-, di-, and sometimes tri-basic salts). --Dirk BeetstraTC04:25, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
I am going to undo my changes and revert everything back to what HP recommends. I hadnt thought about the situation his way. We can reconsider everything in the future. It is a huge area but it is probably a bad idea to separate the acids and their conjugate bases. Also some of the most important species, H2P2O72- are anions and acids.--Smokefoot (talk) 14:18, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
Hi Henry. I knew that indeed, we've both been around for a long time. I'll have a read at the Chemistry WikiProject about the polyacid case, but I agree - we don't have any deadlines. --Dirk BeetstraTC05:32, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
I think you are pointed to the policies and guidelines in the remarks that are at the top of the page - and I don't think I can help you with the contents. --Dirk BeetstraTC11:16, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
I am not against the change of protection level for the log - however, I think that needs discussion on the MediaWiki talkpage. Thanks for the offer! --Dirk BeetstraTC16:50, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
Ah .. now I see it. A mistake in my bot settings. this solved it (COIBot uses settings from meta, but those are overwritten for local wikis if they have it, I forgot that for this specific 'translation'). I'll check when it saves a report again.
Hmm, the old reports (some of which are stale and forgotten, but not necessarily useless) will now still point to the wrong page. Worth having a bot updating those thousands of pages (COIBot will update those which are still active and/or 'reactivate'), or let it be? --Dirk BeetstraTC08:32, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
For me, both can be deleted and salted. They are not crucial to the working. In the meantime, I'll file a request to update the pages. --Dirk BeetstraTC13:55, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
I saw this conversation - when I went to look who maintained the bot before, I saw "Status = Wikibreak / No signs yet that the Arbitration Committee is in any form willing to change for the better (as expected). Good luck further." at the top and got the impression that you must be yet another of the longstanding editors caught up in some teapot tempest, so I took an ad hoc measure. But certainly asking you to update the links is the better solution, and I should have looked more carefully. Wnt (talk) 14:09, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
hi, i spent a lot of time creating a new page which you deleted earlier today. it appears it was deleted due to Reason "G11" - however, i had not yet finished writing it and was going to add the appropriate external sources to validate the bio i had written on myself. I have sources from the WSJ and other online properties which have highlighted my work including numerous awards, however i had not gotten there yet.
I used Mary Meeker, Peter Coffee and Guy Kawasaki as guidelines on my bio as they are also in my field which is why i was surprised it got deleted so quickly.
is there anything i can do to fix/adjust the page and get it back online?
As the market has labled me a thought leader in my space (not my words) i wanted to have my bio in wikipedia.
any assistance you can provide me would be GREATLY appreciated.
Thank you, Tiffani, for your remarks. The page was overly promoting and not written in a neutral way at all, which is important for Wikipedia. Best that the articles are written by someone totally independent of the subject, and I doubt that the bios of Mary Meeker, Peter Coffee and Guy Kawasaki were written by the subjects themselves (and the article on Peter Coffee is not the best example, the other two are better).
There has been a lot of back-and-forth warring over "Uncyclopedia", with Wikipedia editors with vested interests in both the old site at Wikia.com and the newer independent site attempting to shape the Wikipedia article to suit their outlooks. On the Wikia side, this consists of User:Spike-from-NH (who is currently an administrator at that site!) and (although not recently) User:PuppyOnTheRadio. On the independent side, there are at least three, including two who are directly involved in the upkeep of the independent site, namely User:Isarra and User:Legoktm. I would like to request that you (or any suitable admin) please tell all of these knuckleheads to knock it off, in the interest of objectivity. People who have direct stakes in the successes of these sites and who are this hard-headed should not be editing the article about their sites.
Also, can someone please come to an independent, objective decision as to the inclusion of URLs in the article? The fact is, when the community started a "fork" of the site, five users stayed exclusively at the Wikia-hosted site, while the majority of the active users (including at least five administrators) either moved exclusively to the independent site, or joined the new site and continued to edit both. User:Spike-from-NH seems determined to prevent any mention of the independent site. If this is to continue, I would recommend that all references to current domains are removed from the article.
Lastly, I don't understand why the word "fork" is being used in the article; the linked definition of "fork" deals with software projects, not necessarily literary projects. "Fork", as it is used, is a euphemism coined by Wikia. Can words be defined by fiat? 2601:1:C100:306:587D:563E:BF2E:F565 (talk) 00:31, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
Now, can you provide some independent reliable sources for this? I was shocked to see that an unaccepted paper was used as a reference for this, but if there is no independent mention of this, then it is simply not notable - in that case, the page Uncyclopedia is about the original uncyclopedia, not about the 'fork' (or however you want to call it).
Also note, that the 'fork'ing was mentioned at twice until it got removed yesterday. That the forking happened was not so important (see again the sources) that it needs mention in the lede.
There aren't any independent sources to verify this information, as Uncyclopedia doesn't seem very relevant as a website anymore, outside of its user-base. Wikia has not made public the site-rankings for its individual subdomains for several years now, and the 'fork' is apparently penalized by Google for containing "duplicate content". This makes it hard to tell how relevant either site is, from a traffic standpoint. From a search-results standpoint, Google results are dominated by Uncyclopedia articles, so that's almost a wash as well. I would submit that if the 'fork' is not notable, then the Wikia site would be hard pressed to defend its own notability. How did Uncyclopedia get a Wikipedia article in the first place, anyway? 2601:1:C100:306:587D:563E:BF2E:F565 (talk) 06:24, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict)The first question is indeed what I expected - it seems not notable enough for mention on Wikipedia.
The second question is a different one. I see that there are many references (non-wiki ones!) from before 2013. Although I did not dig through those references, it seems that the subject 'Uncyclopedia' is certainly notable (at least, was notable), but the internal politics, forking and current status in itself not really. That something was notable in the past but not anymore is not a reason for removal/deletion. --Dirk BeetstraTC06:41, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
After ec: no, that is not true. A lot is from wikis, but certainly and by far not all (and if used correctly, wikis can still be good references). --Dirk BeetstraTC06:41, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
Regarding your question of notability: there is/are page(s) on both wikis describing the "fork"/"move", as well as the reasons for it, and the subsequent reaction by Wikia. Would those qualify as appropriate citations for the sections in the lede? If not, why not? 2601:1:C100:306:587D:563E:BF2E:F565 (talk) 07:08, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
They are suitable for the fact that the split happened (with care, they are a self-published-source on a wiki), but seen that the outside world, frankly, did not care the least indicates that that is about it - a short sentence telling about the split. I wonder if it is even notable enough for the lede, or just as a short one line paragraph in the history section. --Dirk BeetstraTC11:46, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
Edits
My name is David Jansen. I am member of the board of directors of the National Polish American Sports Hall of Fame. You sent me a message recently that you are removing some of my edits to individuals that we have elected to our hall of fame. Why? I thought I had the proper reference identified when posting the edits> — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jansend (talk • contribs) 16:18, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for your response. I haven't removed anything yet, though I am concerned. My main concern however is that you are connected with the material that you are linking to (which in part results in the second concern - is it of value to Wikipedia that all those pages have this mentioned at all?). That second concern however does mean that some of the material may need to be removed again. I do note that National Polish American Sports Hall of Fame itself is still a redlink, which adds to the total concern. I hope this explains a bit. --Dirk BeetstraTC16:23, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
refsups
Hi there, re this: if you had replaced the tag pairs <sup>...</sup> with <ref>...</ref> footnotes/references, your addition of the {{reflist}} template would have worked. I boldly did just that :-) - Cheers - DVdm (talk) 13:08, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, I know. I just wasn't sure if it was an editorial choice for some reason. Did not have time to look into it further, so I just reverted myself. --Dirk BeetstraTC03:31, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
Hmm .. thanks for the compliment, but I don't know too much about the subject - for as far as I see it is a piece of info that is referenced, I'd ask him to make his case on the talkpage of the Lynx page.
As you are one of the guys maintaining the whitelist, could you take a look at my request if you have a spare minute? That would be great! Cheers, theFace12:06, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
Oh... because you are living in Saudi? Right. Well, it doesn't matter, because I just looked at it again and the Terms of Service page in question actually doesn't support the statement in the article. Not anymore at least. So I removed the link. PS: I have been renamed yesterday. - Manifestation15:59, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
Yep, .. WP:ELNO#inaccessible (WP:ELNO]] #7) is suddenly much easier to evaluate (yes, a significant part of YouTube and even parts of Wikipedia are inaccessible here). Puts the remark 'but my link is informative and useful' into perspective (my answer is already 'so what? Does it ADD something that can NOT be missed and can not be included itself?'). (I know, you are talking about a reference, for which those rules do not apply in any form - though I think it is the task of a whitelisting admin to show that the claims in the request are true).
I have a request, kindly provide me the reason behind adding Mapsofworld.com to spam list. So, I can able to correct or improve my website for the same and got our website removed from wiki spam-list.
The content of the site has nothing to do with the reason it was blacklisted - it was blacklisted because it was inappropriately spammed/pushed to Wikipedia (in fact, a whole set of sites of the same owner were spammed). --Dirk BeetstraTC06:24, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
Apologies for the spamming. Could you please suggest me, how to de-list our website from the spam-list of Wikipedia. I will be thankful for the same. We are promising you for future that Wikipedia will not find any kind of spam activities from our side (Mapsofworld.com). Pramod210 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 06:22, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
Wemoni (talk·contribs), a user you blocked almost two years ago as a SOA, has requested unblock and says he'll edit productively. It's been a while and I'm willing for us to give him a break. Any thoughts from you? Daniel Case (talk) 20:09, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
Hi Daniel. Thanks for the question. I had a look around at the situation, and I think the block pretty much served the purpose (though not fully ..). I'm fine with the unblock per WP:AGF. --Dirk BeetstraTC03:36, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
Answered your question in wp:eln, and asked a question
You write "what does that have to do with tea in general"? Well, all tea (from the camellia sinensis plant) contains Teanine, which is the chemical responsible for the brain wave effect. It is probably the primary reason people drink tea, so yes, I think it is necessary for the understanding of the subject tea.
Without the video, it would be hard to legally show that picture showing the effect on brain waves. It won't be included ion wiki.
How about NutritionFacts.org at the end of the Healthy Diet article? Look at the huge Health Topics list (certainly not something that could be reproduced inside the article).32cllou (talk) 08:46, 19 February 2014 (UTC) [[25]]32cllou (talk) 10:26, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
Hi. I'm sticking this on your talk page because I'm afraid of further muddling an already muddled discussion on the noticeboard. From your latest comment there, I get the sense that you're confusing me with someone else who participated earlier in the thread. I jumped into the discussion a few days ago offering a second opinion that completely supported what you'd already said (and expanded on it a little, trying to frame it in a way that might be more understandable to the editor who wanted to include the inappropriate link). Since that time, you've accused me of making unfounded accusations, and now you're offering me advice about "getting material . . . on Wikipedia" that I've already indicated doesn't belong on Wikipedia. Please take a few minutes to review who said what in the thread, because you're preaching to the choir. Rivertorch (talk) 14:41, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
I'll have a look when I have time (which I am short of) - threading is sometimes confusing. My apologies if I misinterpreted it. --Dirk BeetstraTC06:49, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
Let's have a virtual tea (* gets up and walks to coffee room *) together and enjoy our brainwaves :-D. I'll try to find time to look at ELN as well. --Dirk BeetstraTC07:54, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
In response to an Original Research tag by David Gerard, I made a deletion that seems to support your goals for this article, and which is continuing to catch hell. You might like to visit the talk page again. Spike-from-NH (talk) 12:20, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
'my goals' - don't think I have goals for it, I only question certain material and it's notability. I will drop by again to have a look. Thanks! --Dirk BeetstraTC06:51, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
Encyclopedia Dramatica
Recently, ED switched from encyclopediadramatica.se to encyclopediadramatica.es, placing the old ".se" URL leading to the about page to nothing. It was near impossible to give a proper link, since the new .es URL is blacklisted. Why do we keep the old URL, even though it dosen't work?
First, the last time I checked, the .se did still work. And if they changed the url, then the way forward is to change the whitelist rule, since the .se is whitelisted, that should be a mere formality. --Dirk BeetstraTC05:56, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
Wikidata needs data
Hello, I thing you are the right guy I need so I contact you directly. I am looking for the Excel file containing the different databases ID (PubChem CID, CAS number,...) for the chemicals in WP:en. I am trying to get similar lists from the different WPs in order to create an unique list which will be used as raw database for an import in wikidata. The first step is to identify each item in WD about chemical and we want to use PubChem CID for that. Once we can identify each chemicals we will extract data from PubChem database and import them into WD.
So I will need the list of chemicals in WP:en with the associated Q number (wikidata identifier), CAS number, PubChem CID and the english chemical name. I have already that list list from the WP:fr and I requested the same from WP:de. Thanks for your help. Snipre (talk) 11:55, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
cbronline.com
Hi Dirk. Looks like the guys from Kable are working hard to add links to Wikipedia. I posted my report on this link. Just giving you a heads up as I posted on the middle of the page... not sure how to do those reports. Thanks! Legionarius (talk) 03:13, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
I just saw the report - it is fine. I am planning to bash that with a sledgehammer, this is plain SEO spamming, abusing Wikipedia for promotional purposes. I'll blacklist the whole set shortly to put some spanners in the system. Agora and CBROnline are two big publishing companies who are around here for a long, long time, which had their links blacklisted way back, and are still around with more of their stuff. I'll block the accounts as well. --Dirk BeetstraTC05:10, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
He Beetstra, in this edit, it looks like your entry for \bwater-technology\b.net\b is malformed (an extra \b) unless I'm missing some regex subtlety. OhNoitsJamieTalk14:52, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
Nope, it is a mistake, though the regex works (except it would also catch water-technology-net.com now). I will repair the entry. Thanks for spotting that. --Dirk BeetstraTC05:06, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
Spam-blacklist
I see you added mining-technology.com to the spam-blacklist, as part of a larger effort to remove spam. Just letting you know I have requested a removal (or modification to the blacklisted link) here. --kelapstick(bainuu) 12:45, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
Interesting problem - the owner (CBROnline) is actively spamming Wikipedia. Maybe we should bash the spammers around using XLinkBot on this then - or using an edit filter. I hate it when big companies do this. I'll have a look later, no time now. Maybe someone else beats me to it. --Dirk BeetstraTC13:24, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
There are many of articles affected by your additions to the blacklist (the bot put a note on the top of many articles). Many sites from the London-based informational research firm Kable (???-technology.com) are somehow being banned from using as citations when they are legitimate and contents are sometime difficult to find replacement sources. Kable and all of their sites are legitimate and they are reliable sources used by the respective industries. Why blocking the sites? You said the owner (which user?) is actively spamming Wikipedia. As far as I know, CBROnline and Kable are not related. In any case, even if they are related, how we can prove that that user is actually the owner of Kable (or CBROnline)? Could it be one of Kable's competitors? If someone pretend to be the "owner" of wired.com and start spamming Wikipedia, should we now put wired.com on the blacklist? I think the appropriate action is to block those questionable users, not to put the affected sites on the blacklist especially without any discussion prior to adding and also with no reason provided in the blacklist log. This could cause mayhem to all legitimate contents on many articles of Wikipedia. At least some of the articles on my watch are penalized by this. I'm sure many others are on the same boat. I don't know about the process of removal from the blacklist, but this should be done as soon as possible before editors with good intention try to find replacement citation with less reliable sources, or worst start removing some contents. Thanks. Z22 (talk) 02:50, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
I take it back on my assumption that there was no discussion before adding to the blacklist. The discussion was rolled up into the CBROnline discussion. However, everything else I said still stand. Now that I know where this was coming from, I will continue the discussion in the those adding and removing threads of MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist. You are invited to participate in the discussion of the blacklist removal requests of those ???-technology.com sites. Thanks. Z22 (talk) 03:02, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
First, Kable and CBROnline are clearly related, so that stands. Secondly, whether it is Kable/CBROnline or a competitor is not an issue for Wikipedia, we are supposed to stop the disruption to Wikipedia, not to support their businesses. I'll look further at the discussions - but the abuse of Wikipedia has to stop. --Dirk BeetstraTC07:46, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
For some it does no harm to delete or blank them - though they do not much harm being there either. This specific example is an easy choice (could safely be deleted), but it may be more difficult for others, some really good sites where nevertheless inappropriately promoted. --Dirk BeetstraTC06:29, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
An arbitration clarification request(Rich Farmbrough bot issue), either involving you, or in which you participated has been archived, because the bot request has been withdrawn.
Hi Dirk. Thanks for blacklisting cas-msds.com and cas-no.org. But as you predicted, the IP (61.171.24.98 (talk·contribs)) that tried to remove the meta report has started spamming a similar new domain, msds-cas.com. Could you please blacklist that one too? -- Ed (Edgar181) 13:02, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
Sure. I'll do that in a minute or so. I will also look a bit further into this, get the rest of the website identifiers and see if there is more. --Dirk BeetstraTC14:35, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
Acetic acid
What part of the reaction mechanism indicates that OH is the primary site of reaction? Do you understand how the reaction mechanism differs from the heuristic interpretation? Plasmic Physics (talk) 11:22, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Do you even know how thionyl chloride converts a COOH to a COCl2? The C=O plays only a minor role in that, it is actually the acidity of the OH that is doing the part of the trick. --Dirk BeetstraTC11:43, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
I know that you are not unfamiliar with the editing guidelines, so would you care to explain why you are steamrolling my edits, unwilling to discuss your difference in opinion? Plasmic Physics (talk) 11:25, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
It is all discussed on the talkpage of the chemistry wikiproject. WP:BRD says it all - you make a bold change, someone else reverts it, then it first gets discussed. Not the other way around. Moreover, it is explained in my revert why I think that cyclopentadienyl should be about the anion, not about the radical. --Dirk BeetstraTC11:41, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Despite your view, cyclopentadienyl does not automatically refer to the anion, and as stated there is already a page devoted to cyclopentadienyl complexes containing the anion. Having two articles so similar in scope, is superfluous. In any case, the anion is called cyclopentadienide, for which I have sources. Correcting mistakes, is not a bold change, which is why it was not first discussed. If any discussion had to take place, it would have to be whether or not an incorrect assumption, and/or implication was made in deciding the scope, when the article was first created. Plasmic Physics (talk) 12:57, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
No, that is not how Wikipedia works, it still shows the way you think about following IUPAC to the letter, and which strengthens my considerations that I expressed at the Chemistry WikiProject talkpage. Anyway, BRD still applies, you changed it from what was initially decided to be the topic, I reverted, we discuss. Not, you revert again and keep the version you think it should be - we come to consensus (and that still implies that you could be right, but that is not determined by reverting an explained revert of a bold change. --Dirk BeetstraTC14:01, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
(e.c.) Hi Dirk, I have mentioned PP's above post in comments at the WikiProject discussion, and didn't echo you. I figure you'll see, but just in case you don't, I'm letting you know. :) EdChem (talk) 14:03, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
serving Jerseyville are [[Ameren]] ([[natural gas]] and [[electricity]]), [Grafton Technologies]] and [[Frontier Communications]] (landline [[telephone]] service and [[Internet access|internet]]),
Thanks for drawing my attention to the issue with the external links on this page; for some reason I thought Twitter accounts were acceptable if they were the "official" account of the individual or group in question but now I can't find where I thought I read that! The query I have relates to the YouTube video; as far as I can tell this is OK, as it's not possible to include it in the article, it's licenced from the programme maker so no copyright issue and it's relevant to the subject. Can you please clarify? Many thanks! --Rachel P. (talk) 00:52, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
Hi Rachel. The only link I was actually considering was the Facebook - it seems to be the only and best 'official' site for the band. YouTube ticks quite some parts of WP:ELNO, and here I wonder whether it actually adds anything really to the page.
My biggest issue with the page is notability. The AfD that is going on (did not check the comments there) and the general subject of the page makes me think consider that the page should be deleted - notability is practically zero, and if the most official site they have is a facebook then that shows how official they consider themselves (it may change in time, but that is a WP:CRYSTAL-problem). --Dirk BeetstraTC05:09, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
Goedemorgen, Drmies. I am not suspecting anyone socking, I know that someone has been long-time block evading, Courcelles has been checking with me and agrees (though all evidence is online, they self identified). They were using the IP in the time that they got blocked, and haven't stopped using the IPs since. In the past (before the block) I found this editor logging out to make WP:POINT violations (which earned them their first SPI, and a block of the IP they used then), and that is one of the issues here still as well. They do deliver some good content, but there are problematic edits inbetween as well. I've blocked the IP again, this time for a longer time (their other IPs are blocked very long). --Dirk BeetstraTC03:43, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
Dankjewel Dirk. Hey, I had a Dutchman visit us the other day: I had forgotten how tall we were (I'm only 1.77). But in true Dutch style he brought no gifts, and I had so hoped he had a few pounds of Gouda in his bag. Ah well. Thanks again, Drmies (talk) 11:33, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
Heh, I am not that tall either (only 1.71 even). But I have friends which pass the 2-meter line. I'll have to wait until the summer until we see tall people again, it is difficult, if not impossible, to get people into KSA (family works, friends is probably totally impossible). Good thing: there is Gouda here in the local supermarket! Even products from Friese vlag .. (the ones you don't find at home like condensed milk). Some of those products are scarily expensive though. --Dirk BeetstraTC11:42, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
In re PP edit controversy
What you will see at the following link was written at the time of your long discuss with PP, but I just discovered it as not posted. Despite the elapsed time, because of the ire/stubborness on both sides, I decided to post it anyway. See my interspersed italic comments, and then the final proposal.
You are the second most important party needed to agree—mostly needed is PP of course. But if you do not, either before him, or after him, with a simple "I can agree to these things", then I think the conflict will inevitably re-emerge.
Note, in the interspersed comments at the site, after PP himself, you are the one individual that I am hardest on. This is in part because I perceive you the most knowledgable and mature, and can take direct speech, but also because while you and I appear to agree on some things—e.g., that arguing the oxygen atom to which proton is attached is "angels on the head of a pin", in light of modern research—we perhaps disagree on others. The two main points of contention, looking back, seemed to be that you kept making statements:
a) about the most important mode of reactivity of carboxylates being their acidity, and I felt these naive—because from my training and teaching, their acidity are inextricable from their carbonyl orbital influences and so from its reactivity, and indeed, that formal deprotonation can be suppressed by chosen conditions to emphasize carbonyl electrophilicity (with many modern reaction examples available to make the point, but old ones as well, e.g., pericyclic TS's in RCOX preparation, [26]); and
b) that made you seem unwilling to cede the point that both the Cp anion and cyclopentadienyl (radical) were valid topics for coverage, whether on same or separate pages.
As well, as you will see, I utterly reject a lexicographic approach to determining encyclopedic priorities, as you seemed to be arguing. Too many people know about the disgusting Santorum neologism, and that does not make it important or noteworthy, in any fundamental sense; it is simply a construct of a modern "gaming" of the commercial search tool Google. And the fact that no one has heard of Teruaki Mukaiyama (such that there is no biographical article for him at Wikipedia), or that no one understands the fundamental importance of whether theory and experiment come together in their predictions and observations over the delocaliztion of remaining electrons in the cyclopentadienyl radical (see for instance [27])—these do not matter a whit to me. People that know chemistry the most deeply, know that these are substantive subjects, and substantive subjects deserve encyclopedic coverage.
But maybe we agree on these things, and I am misunderstanding your responses to PP. In any case, in going over it all thoroughly, I propose a way forward, that I think all should be able to agree on. It is here, after the interspersed italicised comments that I (thought I) offered during the course of the discussion: [28].
Thank you for your interspersion here, I appreciate that an independent party is looking over the situation.
I however do respectfully disagree at some points, and I do indeed think that you are misunderstanding my responses to PP.
the C=O and C-OH functionalities in a COOH group are thoroughly connected, the base of the problem with that sentence is not whether the C=O is more or less reactive than the C-OH (PP's approach), the base of the problem is not the choice of example (which would be another solution, but it still does not take away issue that one then chooses which one is more reactive), the base of the problem there is that they can not be separated. That was not recognised by PP.
No, I am not unwilling to cede the point that both the Cp anion and the cyclopentadienyl (radical) are valid topics for coverage. That is pertinently untrue.
You can (utterly) reject the lexicographic approach to determining encyclopedic properties, that is fine. But that is not what I am arguing either. That is a wrong interpretation of your side. However, it is getting close to what PP was doing, using the systematic 'lexicographic' approach, directly countering Wikipedia's manual of style.
This is a little more surprising, and so I have indeed misunderstood you, and I am glad we do not have to chase ever-changing web meanings, and can, as an encyclopedia should, focus on the clear distinctions elaborated by good nomenclature—however clunky the naming might at times be, the old guard at IUPAC recognize three fundamental physical forms, CpH-derived (anion, cation, and radical), and these all should have homes. (Not because it is nomenclature, and not because it is IUPAC, but because these 3 species are physically real, have fundamentally interesting chemistries that are not completely walled off from one another, and have historical sidelights as well.) This "forest for the trees" approach (seeing the overarching concepts, key examples, etc.) seems to be something we also agree upon. Cheers to that, in particular. Le ProfLeprof 7272 (talk) 06:04, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
The course that Wikipedia is taking is not always that we use the 'correct' name, we use the name that is commonly used for things. The cyclopentadienyl anion is commonly known as the cyclopentadienyl anion, not as the 'IUPAC correct' 'cyclopentadienide'. That is the route given by WP:MOS, and by WP:CHEMMOS. We put Acetic acid at Acetic acid (the IUPAC allowed name, and the commonly used term), not at Ethanoic acid (the IUPAC systematic name, not commonly used). We do not follow the IUPAC naming suggestions (though, we should, with due care implemented, use the 'often used systematic name' - though there one runs into WP:OR problems when applying the rules of IUPAC to derive names; moreover, the IUPAC rules are often misunderstood as a discussion about alkenes has shown lately). --Dirk BeetstraTC07:52, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
I also disagree that I am the second most important party. I am not the one reporting PP, that are, generally, other members (first User:Smokefoot, later User:Dmacks, previous cases are also reported by various editors. The second most important party is the community.
Of course concur there; but you have interest, energy, and standing in this particular community, where I largely edit on its sidelines. (Though I seem to have landed in the thick of it here.) Le ProfLeprof 7272 (talk) 06:04, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
If we do not disagree on the foregoing, then we are even more on the same page than I imagined, and so there will be little or no issue to the proposal points. Critically, this still leaves the couple fashioned to try to encourage PP to not attempt further "end around" plays to avoid the will of the community (i.e., by his changing articles despite being cognizant that consensus on his opinion cannot ultimately be reached). So, please, see the page of the original proposal—is there another step to be taken, now, with PP? If not, I'll let the matter lapse. But note, the TiH2 or another such edit creates the moment for community action; I'll oppose a future ban or block for historically distant activities of PP, certainly if a more collegial step like this proposal is never taken. Cheers, your call (either personally, or to redirect to the others you mention, for I do not really know them). Le ProfLeprof 7272 (talk) 06:04, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
As I argued there, the proposal is basically following our policies and guidelines, and that is what we expect anyway from all our editors (including Plasmic Physics). --Dirk BeetstraTC07:52, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
This might not be true any longer; I believe that mentioning DMOZ by name was removed last week (or thereabouts). (not watching this page) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:23, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
Hi Beetstra. I've seen your (tireless) contributions over at MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist for some months now, and wonder if I could ask for some attention at a smashinginterviews.com page I've nominated there. Quadell was kind enough to add his vote of confidence, but with so much time time having elapsed since then, I'm wondering when the page might get the green light, or not as the case may be. Apologies if this request is somewhat presumptuous – feel free to put me in my place, if so! JG66 (talk) 17:54, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
I am trying to figure out how to find the justification for putting GCaptain.com on the blacklist. I can see from User talk:Gcaptain that there were some warnings there. I see a warning from you. I don't see any warnings however that that the site will be put on a blacklist. Nor can I find any discussion elsewhere on blacklisting the site.
If there was a discussion, can you help me find it?
It seems to me that if there was a misunderstanding over how the editor of that site should comply with our conflict of interest policies that should not bar other contributors from using articles from the site. It is a good site. The editor is a serious person. He may not rise to wikipedia level notability but other sites, like the United States Naval Institute, reprint some of his articles.
I don't recall where the blacklisting discussion was (should be somewhere in the archives), but I remember continued linkspamming dispite warnings and unresponsiveness of involved accounts (it was not only the named account, also IPs). I am afraid that individual requests have to go through the whitelisting requests (for specific, individual articles). I'll have a quick scan through the records to see if it is significantly tried to be added by editors to warrant de-listing (also depending on how long ago the situation was). --Dirk BeetstraTC05:10, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
As was said before in a revert, I strongly doubt that your site was the source of the information, and it does not strike me as a reliable source. It is a social networking site. --Dirk BeetstraTC03:13, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
I found that dead link and spent some time by rewriting the original source so Wikipedia will have less dead links. I think nothing wrong with that, or am I wrong? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MrGarkaviy (talk • contribs) 06:56, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
That was what I did. I just a little rewrited some points to make it not copy paste due to copywriting rights. But you can't find that post live anymore, I mean original and in this case you have only two options to deal with dead link: remove the reference from Wiki or rewrite, copy from original source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MrGarkaviy (talk • contribs) 07:17, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
And that is why we need that to be done by a proper archiving service that does not rewrite the source, not a random site where the maintainer changes the text to avoid copyright issues. Where did you get the original anyway? --Dirk BeetstraTC07:23, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Well, then THAT is the proper addition, there are parameters in the template for the archive. Please leave the original in case it comes back online again or so others at least know where the original was. Thanks! --Dirk BeetstraTC07:35, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Is it possible to leave the original near the working link I created? For example reference to the new link and near it link to the original source in case it comes back online again? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MrGarkaviy (talk • contribs) 07:39, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
That does not take away the concerns that you rewrote an archive version, right. I think that you should link to the archive, not to the version on your site. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:44, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Well, I still think that there is nothing wrong with fixing dead link in this way. Wikipedia is looking for the right references and many old articles have references to non existing pages. I did not change the article just found a way to show the text that potential visitors want to see --MrGarkaviy (talk) 08:52, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
They can see it at the original archive link as well (which people would have to visit anyway to see whether your edited copy is the same as the officially archived one (for the latter, one knows that it is the same as the original). --Dirk BeetstraTC08:58, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure that many people and visitors of Wikipedia know about archive tool.
What if it would be 100% version of the original article and not rewrite?--MrGarkaviy (talk) 09:07, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
The use of archiving is being discussed throughout Wikipedia, including setting up our own archiving system (which, to a certain extend, we have as WikiSource), discussions on archiving sites (like WayBack), templates are capable to use links to archives.
chemistry
Thank you, Dirk, with user pages in unbelievable languages, for demanding "change for the better", for welcoming and warning, helpful bots, categories, project tags, articles starting with a chembox, for "the positive side of fighting spam" and better chemistry among editors, - you are an awesome Wikipedian!
I need help editing my page. I don't know how to add my references or imdb listing for external links. My biography is written but I don't want it deleted and I have just as much if not more information in the category Hollywood Agents. So can you please help me? Nancy Abt as page Fancienanc Fancienanc (talk) 08:52, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
The text that you were writing now is really way, way too promotional. Please try again through Wikipedia:Articles for creation (click the "Click here to create an article now!" and let that lead you through the process (though, I would still adapt the language). References you can first add as full links at the bottom (create a section "References" for it), and similar for the external links to e.g. imdb (those go in another section: "External links"). Good luck! --Dirk BeetstraTC08:59, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
Disambiguation link notification for August 18
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The biggest problem at the moment is that there are no independent references - if they do not show up, I wonder whether Wikipedia needs an article about this subject. Thanks. --Dirk BeetstraTC03:20, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
Jami Ferrell
Dear Beestra,
I am flattered you took an interest in updating my information recently.
Considering your limited internet access time, your busy world traveling, limited time in general and your chemistry studies (reluctant though you are to get into that subject with others),
I am curious to know why you chose to use your very limited internet time to update wikipedia on an old American lawsuit that had nothing to do with you, your country, your fellow citizens,
or any land upon which you have ever stepped foot.
You have interesting timing.
Producers of an American tv show contacted me within a month of your lawsuit update.
Curious coincidence, is it not? One might almost think my Wikipedia information was being groomed for something.
That wouldn't be very ethical reporting would it?
I do hope you show more care when working with your chemicals than you do when providing information to wikipedia.
Haphazard work can sometimes blow up in your face.
I did nothing of that, I just brought the whole of the page in line with our standards (see diff) - those links that were there on that page, and on all the similar pages, were totally inappropriate, and should not be there. You can think whatever you want about my motives for removing them, but you will see that it has nothing to do with you personally (as is already witnessed from the rest of the edit performed on that page) and edits by me in the same timeframe. Please take care with your assumptions (and the rest of your editing). --Dirk BeetstraTC13:05, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
Dirk Beestra,
I have added/edited nothing on wikipedia except openly addressing you
here and writing to wikipedia for permission to use my real name.
I have no clue as to what links and pages you are referring.
I am questioning you not about removed information but rather the inaccurate information that remains.
You are listed as adding information in June of this year about a random lawsuit that occurred 3 years ago.
The executive producer of an American show, "America Greed," contacted me within one month of your
adding the information they plan to highlight on their upcoming season. I have the e-mail from Mike West to prove that.
Based upon the information you provided here about yourself- your interest and pursuits, your lack of time and your limited internet access,
none of that information provides any clues as to why you would take any interest in a random bankruptcy case occurring in America years ago.
I openly questioned your motives for the recent edit and you avoided the question.
Knowing very little about wikipedia I began researching it today so I could learn how
to correct the misinformation. If push came to shove, I have no doubt wikipedia could prove through
IP addresses that I have never made an edit or submitted material of any kind to wikipedia's published information.
I would assume through your statement, "... brought the whole of the page in line with 'our standards'..." that you are
connected with wikipedia enough to be able to verify who made the mysterious edits to which you refer.
One would hope, if you do work with wikipedia, you would show greater care validating your accusations before publishing them.
The information you and others have provided under my name is incorrect and will be updated.
The government did not indict Durham for running a ponzi scheme. The government dismissed their ponzi based civil suit around November 25, 2009.
The lawsuit was less than a quarter the amount you posted and that would have been very easy to confirm had you checked your sources.
I was not Durham's girlfriend anywhere near the time he was indicted. Durham was living in LA with model actress, Eric Taylor, years after I dated him. I have lived in Indiana since 2003. Images and articles of the pair living and socializing in Los Angeles are readily available online.
A magazine article was listed as the source for information stating I was married to Simon for 3 weeks in 2000. That article does not state the marriage duration or year. A source was quoted that had nothing to do with the claim.
Ultimately, considering what little information is provide of my life, very little care has been given to real, easily obtained facts.
You were clearly not motivated by a drive for accuracy in recently updating my information.
I was not surprised to read many edits and additions to wikipedia are hired out for personal motives.
Frankly, that would coincide well with the timing and motives of tv producers wishing to add validity to salacious claims they soon plan to release
about the life you were "editing."
Your timing was a little too close to producers interest, within one month of a 3 year old case. I am humble enough to realize my life is of very little importance to the general public.
Considering your limited time and limited internet access, shouldn't there have been more important subjects worthy of your attention and editing skills?
Hi Jami. I'm sorry to hear that there has been information on Wikipedia that you are unhappy with, particularly if it has been causing you problems. I can assure you however that Beetstra had nothing to do adding the offending material - it was added by User:Igordebraga in this edit in April. Information about living people requires reliable sources to be included and in this case I think that Igordebraga was wrong to include what they did given the low-quality of the sources and the fact that you are hardly mentioned in the sources. I have therefore removed the information and will do my best to make sure that it isn't replaced in that format again (if at all). I'm sorry again that this has caused you grief, but as a volunteer run website these things do unfortunately happen. An apology to Beetstra wouldn't go amiss. SmartSE (talk) 20:40, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
My sincerest apologies, Beetstra.
I am new to the inner workings of Wikipedia.
Going back to the page's history, on June 30th, 2014, Beetstra's name
was tied to the new input regarding the lawsuit.
If I now understand it correctly, Igorebraga added that misinformation
at an earlier date and Beetstra simply approved it on June 30th, 2014.
That being the case,
I was certainly wrong in my assumptions and again
heartily apologize to Beetstra.
A most sincere thank you is also in order to the individual(s)
that removed the questionable lawsuit information.
That was very gracious considering I erroneously attacked Beetstra.
I hesitate to bring it up as you have been more than accommodating with me
but you guys have my dating history all wrong too.
I married Sam Simon in September of 2003 and divorced in 2004. He followed Hefner/Nicholson (they were late '90s).
If, while you're in the cutting mode and know where to find me, you would want to just wipe
out my entire romantic history that would be fantastic (clearly that hasn't gone so well either). ;)
If not, no worries, I will go through the proper editing channels like the rest of the world.
Dear Jami Ferrell. What you were looking at was the last contributor to the page. That does not necessarily mean that that is the editor who added information that has added offending information, it also does not mean that that person endorses all info that is on the page. The last person may just have repaired a typo or, as what I did, remove something that was not in line with a certain policy here on the site. I, intentionally, did not concern myself with the prose on the text, I did not judge about that (I maybe should have looked at that a bit better).
I commend you for the line of action you took, talking to another editor about wrong, negative information about yourself that you felt needed to be removed. I am sorry that I did not understand what you actually meant - I should have looked further as to what you could possibly mean, and I apologize for not seeing that. We'll have a look about the other information as well. Thanks! --Dirk BeetstraTC03:31, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Dear Dirk Beetstra,
You have responded far more appropriately and considerately
than most when faced with bizarre and unfounded accusations.
Had I made more effort familiarizing myself with the situation
all confusion and my regrettable blunders could have been avoided.
Reading more carefully through your exchanges with others in the field
of chemistry, I see that I was mistaken with that assessment as well.
I found you to be quite sharp in general and capable of handling the subject
with skill and ease.
I do appreciate your patience and assistance.
Yours, with many thanks, Jami Ferrell — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:D:D300:53C:68F7:D4CF:D2DB:35E2 (talk) 14:22, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
mefk81 Userspace
Dear Dirk Beetstra,
You deleted a subpage of my usertalkspace: User:Mefk81/ResearchDescription. This was not intended as abuse, but as a Sandbox use.
We are researchers, who interact with Wikipedia Foundation. We want to transfer information that is present in "the larger" languages but missing in the "smaller" ones.
In a pilot it has turned out that a page that describes our aims and methods would be needed, when Wikipedians push back on our activity and I intended to create this page in my Sandbox. However, I did not notice that this works differently than in the German Wikipedia, which is why I failed to create the page in the Sandbox directly. I am happy to move the text to the sandbox, but I was wondering if you could make it available for me again. Best Mefk81 (talk) 12:12, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
One afterthought: If you think English Userspaces cannot be used for that I can also shift the content to the German site, but please give me back the content... ;-) Mefk81 (talk) 12:14, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
I deleted it because currently it looks like a 'personal' website (well, one for the research group). Wikipedia is not a webhost for that, pages should be relevant to improving Wikipedia, and a text like "The early version of this research will be discussed at internal seminars at Centre for European Economic Research, University of Mannheim, Collegio Carlo Alberto and Hong-Kong University of Science and Technology. The more advanced research shall be presented in a workshop that will be organized in 2015 by our institutions and in a number of international conferences." is certainly not aiming at that goal. Also, it seems more promotional for the people mentioned.
Dear Dirk, Thank you very much! I will leave it where it is for now, unless you tell me it's better to move it to the Sandbox... Mefk81 (talk) 20:04, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
blacklist
Hi Dirk. I'm wondering if this request has been overlooked. It's been there three weeks and two later requests have been addressed. Thanks for all your work there. Spicemix (talk) 12:55, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
Overlooked, no - not enough knowledgeable eyes on the pages, and when then the site needs some research to find what was going on they .. get stale. Sorry, I denied, uncomfortable with unlisting, previous requests suggest that the site owners were involved, and I found a spammy page being created somewhere last year. --Dirk BeetstraTC13:07, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
Why would you revert my putting your sloppy diffs into a more readable format? We do not want "bare links", especially on highly visible pages like AN/I. Doctalk06:46, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
And I am reverting it again, per WP:TALK, but it was a deliberate choice for me to show the bare url, especially in this discussion. Please do not alter my posts without consulting me first. Also, I am not pleased with your negative remarks "sloppy diffs" and "Time to learn the markup language" (I am here for something like 10 years, that is demeaning and insulting, if not a plain personal attack), both the change in the links and that language is totally unesseary, it does not serve any purpose. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:04, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
Leave the bare links up then. It looks sloppy as hell. Horribly, unprofessionally sloppy for an AN/I thread, really. Just to let you know. Cheers. Doctalk09:38, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
It is good then that we are writing an article there in Wikipedia space that will be read by thousands of people. I have no clue what you are making a fuss about, let alone why you need to throw insults at others (you certainly are not commenting about the content). --Dirk BeetstraTC10:40, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
There have been no insults whatsoever. Srsly? Time to learn the markup language in an edit summary is an actual insult to one of the 400 most active Wikipedians? A personal attack, even? Thicken your skin! Get over yourself! I did a long time ago. Happy trails :> Doctalk10:51, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
My skin is thick enough (the edit summary actually made me smile). I just strongly disagree with the intent. It is the friggin' dramah-board, not an article. --Dirk BeetstraTC11:36, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
Hmm .. that looks like it needs a total, complete rewrite. Tagging for tone, promotional, undue (?) for sure. Not sure if I can be of real help, though. --Dirk BeetstraTC07:58, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
It looks like it could use its own article (and not be a redirect) .. but not like this size (the number article is way bigger than the authority ..??). Also I don't like some of the headings in the text. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:06, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes there's too much undue. Thanks for showing a way. I have just cleaned up and notified on WP:INB, hopefully someone can confirm whether this article should be redirected or not. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 15:37, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
I'll try and have a look. The contents is purely bot-operated so in a way, there is not really a need for 'human readable' instructions. Thanks for alerting me! --Dirk BeetstraTC08:57, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
Disambiguation link notification for September 30
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited The Big Bub's Comedy Show, you added links pointing to the disambiguation pages John Russell and Bryan Miller. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.
Thanks, but in this case, the bot is quite similar to me: no clue where the article actually has to point to. It is informative that they are disambigs though, if there is no real target it says more about the tag I left on the page: not notable .. --Dirk BeetstraTC10:58, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
I think it is fine, I've commented in the new thread. I'm not very convinced, the Wikia document seems to be very dependent on hearsay. --Dirk BeetstraTC03:22, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
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12:34, 16 October 2014 Beetstra (talk | contribs) deleted page User:Perception System (G11: Unambiguous advertising or promotion) Please kindly guide where you found mistake on my article so that i can fix it and recreate a page which you have previously delete.... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Perception System (talk • contribs)
If you want to call it a mistake, the mistake that you made is that you are writing a completely promotional page for the company that you seem to be working for/related with. If you want to give it a try, please see Wikipedia:Articles for Creation, and create the article through that process. --Dirk BeetstraTC03:10, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
I was wondering how we can add multiple UNIIs to the chembox with parenthetical info.
For example in the glucose box we may want to add a unii for .alpha.-glucose or .beta.glucose etc and indicate this in parenthesis
There may be a way to do it in the current layout but it is not obvious to me. I notice there are sometimes multiple cas numbers and I tried something similar with UNIIs but it did not seem to work.
Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Märtini Brös may have broken the syntax by modifying 1 "[]"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.
List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:
first worked together in 1997 as part of an effort to translate the opera [[Don Giovanni]] at the [[E-Werk_(Berlin)|E-werk] into an electronic version.
Appreciate the evaluation for the Milan Zrnic page. I’m an educator in Europe and felt compelled to create a page for Zrnic when I discovered he has very little online presence. He is extremely respected in several industries and has clearly chosen to remain private with regards to online press and online documentation. This actually seems to be a trend with emerging artists. Is there a way cultural figures like him can have accessible and encyclopedic biographies without internet-specific press? I know it would help several students engage with a contemporary curriculum. In the art world, credits and affiliations are essentially citations—if only because most artists are associated with movements and styles. It is uncommon to have a newspaper article or cultural institution specifically profile an artist unless they have reached a mature stage of their career. Perhaps this is why the verbiage in my page skews promotional? I was hoping to add several artist pages like Zrnic's, but now feel discouraged with the negative feedback. Stephenphoto (talk) 21:45, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for your question. First, regarding 'with regards to online press and online documentation' and 'internet-specific press' - proper sources do not have to be online - also offline sources are fine to use - however, they have to exist, be 'accessible' (an independent person should be able to have a look and check whether the facts are correct) and establish notability in terms of Wikipedia. Regarding the "it would help several students engage with a contemporary curriculum" - I do understand that, but that is not within the scope of Wikipedia. We are not here to help artists become famous or recognised. As someone put it in the deletion discussion - it is too soon. I hope this explains. --Dirk BeetstraTC08:11, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
@Beetstra: Hardcopy evidence is abundant, but you have said the information must be immediately accessible to the average person. Not a very sound practice for Wikipedia, as publications and journals are very often localized to regions and continents of the world. As I said before, credits and affiliations hold more value in these subjects, for all artists are a part of a greater movement or style of work...and these movements are more traditionally embraced in encyclopedic form. Would it be more acceptable to attach the contemporary artists I'd like to create entries for onto existing entries for their respective movements and styles?
Unsure of "emerging" considered a red flag, or "too soon" being a valid debate. We live in a world where emerging artists, activists, and politicians are more important to contemporary curriculum than notable and established figures. I'm sure you've recognized this. Not interested in creating an online presence for contemporary artists, but interested in creating articles that will undoubtedly grow and evolve in the next year as their notability becomes more apparent to the general public. Stephenphoto (talk) 7:51, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
I did not use the word immediately, and I would not even suggest that I should be able to check them .. an independent person should be able to check them.
If there are reliable, independent sources (either online or offline) that show that the artist is notable, and that the artist 'belongs to' a certain movement, then yes. Otherwise, no, then also that does not belong on Wikipedia.
You say 'undoubtedly grow and evolve in the next year as their notability becomes more apparent to the general public' .. That is exactly why I say 'too soon' .. In a year or so, when the general public recognises the talent, thén it is the time to start the article.
Anyway, it is not me who you have to convince, it is the people who are active on the article and the deletion discussion who need to be 'convinced'. You may want to find a Wikipedia:WikiProject in your field, and contact knowledgeable editors through there, I am sure that is a Wikipedia:WikiProject Arts, but there may be even more specific ones. --Dirk BeetstraTC03:27, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
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I am checking & editing {{Chembox}} and {{Drugbox}} for parameters used twice (see CAT:DUPARG). E.g.: ChEBI. I wonder how to help the bot in this. I must assume that the bot to can mistake/mixup one two parameter+value used of the two. (For example, when the second instance is edited, the bot misses it because it sees no diff in the first param=value instance; so the _Ref note is not bot updated).
When doing those edits, must I change the setting (arguments) of the affected {{_cite|}} template? (how or what?) Anything else? -DePiep (talk) 14:29, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
The same parameter should not occur twice, and CheMoBot (which maintains the _cite-parameters) would not understand the second notice (things may get funny then). If the second one is a mistake duplicate, it should plainly be removed (you can remove the CheMoBot parameters with it, CheMoBot will replace them), or they should be in ..1, ..2 - parameters (I think we have CasNo1, CasNo2, CasNo3 etc. I'll have a look at Carbendazim and 'solve' it. --Dirk BeetstraTC03:18, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
Ah, I think I understand - Err, there should also be NO duplicate _ref-fields, as CheMoBot likely only edits the first one it encounters; the way templates read in WikiCode, and the way CheMoBot reads templates (which is a different way of parsing), it will read the last one - which may conflict and confuse things. --Dirk BeetstraTC03:27, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
OK, let me refine/recap to check. I have some ~800 articles listed to edit for the two infoboxes.
1. In general, for Wiki: A second parameter name (exact name copy) is always a mistake in wiki template parsing, because one value is not used. It does not matter which values they may have (|KEGG=C10897 ... |KEGG=<whatever_value> is an error), or in which order. (Well, there is logic in there but let's keep my thinking sane).
2. In these two boxes: When I meet such a situation I edit, in priority sequence: First: remove one blank valued one; or secondly: renumber one if available (use |CASNo2=); third: try to make its set following (|ImageNameN= follows |ImageFileN=). This usually involves my thinking judgement (e.g. which _Comment belongs to which double parameter value?).
3. If this involves an existing |\w_Ref= parameter, I delete the doubted _Ref one(s). This is to trigger the bot to restart that _Ref-checking & _Ref-setting. Important: any information is lost. For example, with some KEGG parameter double: if there is written KEGG_Ref = {{keggcite|correct|kegg}}, this |name_Ref=value will be deleted. With it, the |correct sub-value is deleted, even while it says that something was found OK by an editor. We expect the bot to start with a red marker. Question: please confirm this as OK procedure.
4. What I will not do: check the double parameter verify-status (make into green marker). Because: it's not my field of knowledge, and too much for 800+ articles.
5. My editing choices, mostly in AWB, are such that no ambiguous situation should remain. Not by duplicate parameter names (obviously), nor by mixed up _Ref statuses/values nor by mixing up parameter index numberings.
You can just remove any _Ref value (Q point 3) - if there is a verified revid for that page in the index, the bot will put it. In principle there is no reason for a human to edit that field (it may just avoid a bot-edit on the page if the user does it correctly; indeed, just rely on the bot doing it for you per 4). So everything seems OK, yes (basically, remove all duplicate parameters and all duplicate _Refs (or simply all), for the parameters make a choice what is correct and what to do, for the _Ref, the bot will take care of it). --Dirk BeetstraTC12:25, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
May we inquire why You felt that Architecture Advocacy deserves to be deleted? It is a legitimate, non-commercial organization with an advocacy for the built environment and for ethical professional practices in the Philippines (which is opening its doors to an economic integration with neighboring countries/ economies next year). And yet, we find on Wikipedia, a number of similar professional organizations as well as commercial enterprises like banks which are profit centers. Does Your decision have to do with the format of the article or perhaps part of the content? We shall welcome Your comment and advice the soonest that these are made available to us. Thank You very much. Warm regards, AAIF (Manila) Architecture Advocacy (talk) 05:59, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
I found it blatant promotion, and I now see that it was earlier tagged as not notable for an own Wikipedia article. Further explanation is actually on your talkpage, and you can use that to move further. May I suggest Wikipedia:Articles for Creation as a starting point for you? Thanks. --Dirk BeetstraTC07:37, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
Some bot quirks
In my recent AWB edits in {Chembox} and {Drugbox}, I met some curious situations that could be CheMoBot-related.
Point is that the end of line =-sign is unexpected. No harm.
Notes
In my recent 850+ AWB edits in {{Drugbox}} and {{Chembox}}, I met these dozens but not hundreds of times. They were edited out. They could be very old, and already may be prevented in improved bot code. They cause no issue with me, I'm just noting them for you. (I will not follow or continue this thread, unless you ask me something). -DePiep (talk) 14:48, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
Most of these are propagations of errors in the wikicode, and some are indeed old problems with the bot. The B-one is one which may still be there in the bot - where someone is removing all \n's from the bot-code, and the bot just does not find 'the right line' and just adds one in the beginning. The 'double =' is something that (IIRC) stems from a 'parameter ==' problem - the bot 'interprets' the item a 'parameter' = '=', but the replacement 'parameter\s?=' with 'parameter = something' resutls then in 'parameter = something=' in the box. I think the first one is a very old one, indeed - I think that came from my replacement of 'StdInChI' to add the '_Ref' field, but if that _Ref field was already there without proper data then it resulted in the 'StdInChI' of the parameter 'StdInChI_Ref' to be replaced with new code as well, giving very curious codes (and in some cases, that was repeated, resulting in 'parameter = parameter = parameter = parameter = parameter_Ref = ...'. I did not know we still had pages with those problems around.
I am the biographer of this Armenian singer, Norayr Mnatsakanyan. I have all the materials and manuscripts, but some are in the Armenian language. Please, help me cite them appropriately. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noki (talk • contribs) 22:24, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
Please, do NOT revert again, as that will get you blocked, you are very close, if not over, our bright line of the policy on repeated reverting.
Those links you include are utterly inappropriate.
What you need to do is to include a list of articles about the subject, not by the subject. They do not need to be online, e.g. an item could be '"Armenian singer Norayr Mnatsakanyan", in 'the Armenian Journal', 13 May 1967, page 4". Please see the links to Wikipedia policies and guidelines I left on your talkpage. --Dirk BeetstraTC22:29, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
By the way, that you are the biographer does give you somewhat of a 'conflict of interest', please be careful with that as well. --Dirk BeetstraTC22:32, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
Well, I want to explain to you. The videos included are ABOUT the subject, introducing the subject's life and activity. There is no copyright violation because all the materials are publicly available in wide circulation. They are not in English.
I am an unbiased contributor to Wikipedia; however, I write on subjects I have expertise on. Please, help me reestablish the Links section for "Norayr Mnatsakanyan" because all proper cite information is available. I need your help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noki (talk • contribs) 22:38, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
You are telling me that the only references on this subject are on youtube, no other references, like in local (or global) newspapers, review magazines, independent organisations .. really, only YouTube movies? --Dirk BeetstraTC23:17, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
If these are copies from originals made by others, then be a) very careful with copyrights, they may be with the original broadcaster and not with YouTube, and b) how you refer to those - I would then write out the reference. properly attributing the original, and followed by a 'available on Youtube' with a link, not the other way around. --Dirk BeetstraTC23:20, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
You're welcome. I couldn't find it either first, the rule on meta is '(prosaleshop|bestbidbuy|adirect)\.org'. Actually, the log does not show why this one was wrapped into it, but I'll believe that it was part of the abuse. There will not be many domains worthy of linking ending on this, so I think whitelisting is the best. --Dirk BeetstraTC16:05, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
Deleted, No need for an MfD, I will delete such reports without question (the bot will recreate if it detects spamming again, though). --Dirk BeetstraTC10:12, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
Following this talk (you are in), I plan to add new parameters to {{Chembox}}. I am asking if you can add them to the botlist for checking. Note that it is not definitive yet.
Currently there are six parameters |CASNoN=: |CASNo= and index 1–5. To cover more potential CASNo's (in the 10k chemboxes), I plan to add |CASNo6= and |CASNo7=. All eight will be fully supported (add _Comment, use indexes at will, show red/green botmarkers, etc.). For the bot, these two should be added to follow; I expect the bot to work with |CASNo6_Ref= and |CASNo7_Ref= then.
For the article editor: they have those two available, plus their supporting parameters _url, _Comment, _Ref. Deeper within the template (in {{Chembox Identifiers}}), I'm managing them. If these inner workings could matter to the bot, please tell me.
Can you add them to the botlist for {{chembox}} (once we have decided to add them)? And, do you have a preferred sequence: add to bot first, or template changes go live first? -DePiep (talk) 15:17, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
Those 'secondary' identifiers are not followed by CheMoBot:
We can set those to verified or watched at any time - but since we are only making some effort to get the first verified .. all the others are all unverified/unchecked at the moment. We should make sure that in the verified revids also the majority of those are correct before we should mark them 'verified'. I'm fine with having them there, the more verified data we can have the better in the end. Will however take some effort to have the indices properly updated so all verified revids are actually containing correct data. --Dirk BeetstraTC11:55, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
So, the good news is that we can add more numbered parameters as we like, because the numbered ones are not bot-checked at all.
I will proceed with this then. I am not intending to touch the images at all (and so no change chembox_imagefields= is at issue). I do keep {{drugbox}} in mind, to keep the two aligned as much as possible (same principles; possible same future Lua module).
For the bot issues you mention, first let me describe some jargon & background. |CASNo= and |CASNoN= we can call indexed parameters, with "CASNo" treated as having index 0 but we never write 'CASNo0' in public. Suffixes are added in the pattern: |CASNoN_Ref=. (all this is current practice already). The number is chemically meaningless and will be used by {chembox} to order the sequence of presentation. It is up to the article editor to use the ordering in an article. IOW, between substances in one article, there may be a hierarchy, or equalness, or derived variants relation, etc. {Chembox} should not assume one of these between indexes.
(In the long future, we can set the guideline that CASNo7==SMILES7==MeltingPt7 etc. Rule: same index=same substance; different index=different substance. {Chembox} can have a new parameter when this is confirmed: like |index_checked=yes.)
That is the idea, yes. The behind the bot is that some of that data is 'immutable' (it is not an editorial choice what that number is - the boiling point of water is 100 degrees centigrade (the actual number more precise actually), and if s.o. changes it to 63 that is simply vandalism. For water we know what the boiling point is (100) (and practically anyone from primary school and up knows that), but for e.g. trimethylphosphine I do not know it by heart, and if s.o. changes it, I would have to dig up the reference, check whether the editor changes it to the good, or to the bad. Any such field which is really immutable should have, next to the '<parameter>' field a '<parameter>_Ref-field, which can be maintained by the bot. If there are multiple, the only problem could be, as you indicate between the lines, that an editor decides to change the order, which would be resulting that all the correct identifiers are still there, but in a different order than in the verified revid .. and the bot would mark some as 'changed' (all that needs is an update of the revid in the index).
Anyway, please do prepare the _Ref field along with any identifier of which editorial choice is limited (the immutable data) you add. There is no need to put them in the mainspace (CheMobot will do it when needed), or in the template documentation (people don't need to add these by hand anyway - maybe just a note in the documentation that a certain field 'supports' bot-verification). --Dirk BeetstraTC09:40, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
Verification of indexed parameters
Now about the bot checks & validation of the numbered params and box verification (verified revid) you mention. Note that this process is independent of a prior addition of more numbered parameters (= params with index >=1).
Technically, the bot should be able to accept the numbered params. That could be hardcoded in the list (N-folding a list length), or the bot could detect the number. I don't mind. At least we should be prepared to have indexes 0–9 ("0" showing blank always); in principle the numbers could be higher (up to 99?; a practical max of 20 is mentioned today).
To pick a detail in the verifications: CASNo. At the moment, we have 2426 Articles with changed CASNo by {chembox} and {drugbox} together, from 10,021+5779=15.7k transc's in all ns. That's 16%. Adding the numbered params to be verified surely would increase this number (I've seen a lot of |CASNo1= and |CASNo2= used), say 1500(?) extra articles (not counting those with 2 red CASNo's), or 25%. In the load of work still to do, that is not devastating! And when an editor actually checks a page, likely they will check all CASNo's together.
And there is this. If the bot does not mark them at all, that is a misleading sign ogf quality for the Average Reader. Because if the whole chembox has a green tick, there still may be bad CASNo's! For this, it might be good to start marking them all (red for the newly checked ones, that is the numbered tracked parameters). Come what may. It would require a chemistry taskforce to clean them up indeed. As it needs today.
I conclude this process would be good: 1. add numbered parameters to the template, all that are required/needed (think 1–9 for all tracked params). 2. Accept/reject the rule "same index=same substance". 3. Add them to the bot tracking list. 4. Wait for/start a taskforce to clean up. 5. Celebrate newyear's day 2025. -DePiep (talk) 07:58, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
I think about 80% of the (chembox + drugbox) articles have a recorded verified-revid.
CASNo's have always been a pain - it is not always assigned to the best practice (there are compounds with multiple CASNo's, since people have resubmitted identical compounds to CAS and the duplication was not always noted - there are compounds with 'wrong CASNo's' where the compound did not turn out to be what it actually was thought to be, and the CAS is for the 'what people thought it was'-compound. Cleanup of this is unclear for this, I know e.g. that ChemSpiderIDs are being deleted after duplicates are found and/or updates are found. Anthony Williams has written a lot about this).
Having it check the other numbered parameters is a quick change of the on-wiki settings (not sure if CheMoBot loads the settings before edit it performs, I think it goes live quickly though, maybe a lag of a couple of hours) - I could do that now. Point is, there are 4 scenarios:
There is a recorded verified-revid, in that revid CASNo is checked and correct, and CASNo1 is set as well and (as it was not part of the previous cycle of checking: accidentaly) correct as well - the bot flags it correctly as correct.
There is a recorded verified-revid, in that revid CASNo is checked and correct, and CASNo1 is set as well and (as it was not part of the previous cycle of checking) incorrect. The bot will however flag it as correct because it is the same as what is recorded in the verified-revid. Bugger.
There is a recorded verified-revid, in that revid CASNo is checked and correct, and CASNo1 is set but incorrect. In the meanwhile, the CASNo1 has been updated to a correct value, and the bot would, because the values are different, mark it as incorrect. Bugger.
There is a recorded verified-revid, in that revid CASNo is checked and correct, and CASNo1 is blank. If it is still unset, the bot will ignore it, if it is now set, the bot will mark it as incorrect.
In other words, for CASNo we know that we have checked most of the numbers and if the bot says it is the same as in the verified revid, you can assume it is correct, and vice versa. Anything from CASNo1-# will be unreliable completely - marked correct values may be incorrect and marked incorrect values may be correct .. that is confusing. The good news is, that many are correct (when I was actively checking the values, it turns out that many are plainly correct), and maybe we can count on that and just let the bot start marking.
Taskforce issue - how do you prevent that multiple people in the taskforce do not check the same page again - splitting up these 15000 pages into manageable groups? It would be good though to have this done.
Note: WikiData is going to be the next pain - in principle en.wikipedia can pull its data from WikiData, and the whole template could be emptied in favour of that link ('if CASNo is set on WikiData, display it here'). Problem is, WikiData is the schoolbook example of data-drowning. They have billions of 'datapoints', and no-one knows what is correct, and there is no way of tracking it. In principle, I could rewrite CheMoBot to do the checking on WikiData (with a whole list of yet more datapoints in WikiData, showing correctness of another WikiData datapoint) .. but checking that is an even bigger task than doing it on an actively edited Wiki. IMHO - WikiData is utterly, completely useless for this - here you see that someone changes the boiling point of water to 22 degrees Centigrade, and someone else will revert it to 100, on WikiData that is less visible, and it possibly transcludes to 100s of Wikis, even if the bot tags it. If the tag also gets interpreted on en.wikipedia, it gets marked here as 'changed' .. but most editors will have no clue that the mistake is on WikiData (they can't even find the '22' in the wikicode on en.wikipedia, more so since it is a template that is doing the invisible transclusion). What a mistake. --Dirk BeetstraTC09:40, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
Note that all individual checked parameters have their own checkmark - the one at the bottom only being green if all other are also checked. I don't know if that causes confusion (if so, we just remove the overall-check from the template). --Dirk BeetstraTC10:08, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
A lot to digest for me - I'll take my time. At the moment, I am do not want to reconstruct/disrupt anything of the v&v processes, done by bot or manual. I am not into that by kowledge, and I am working on {chembox} improvements only.
About adding the 1+ parameters to the botlist: best to wait till after I have added some to chembox, one of these days. That's also when they are decided. (Don't know if I'll pick up the other ID's like PubChemN & SPIDERN too, this round). BUT, given your idea "they may be right beforehand, so let the bot assume they're OK from checking start"(?) approach: I don't know, weird logic logic to me. For this, we may be better postpone (adding those CASNo1+'s), until any better check (task force?) process is in place. I leave this up to you, I expect you will warn me if I would interfere with any process. For now, I uncouple the topics.
About Wikidata: even today I have not the faintest idea how we are supposed to get data out if it, for usage in enwiki. wd is a central database in theory only, for me. Making stuff better here at enwiki only is the best we can do, imo. Keep chembox+drugbox simple, tough & full of quality. I guess Wikidata will come asking when we have all chemboxes filled with green ticks. -DePiep (talk) 23:19, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
For pulling data out of Wikidata: go to benzene, click 'edit', blank your edit-screen and type '{{#property:P231}}', click preview (don't save ..). You could also do that through the chembox code, so the actual values are directly pulled from WikiData. The green ticks then do not mean a thing anymore, as they do are related to the data from the Wikipedia page (where it is not anymore - it is on WikiData). Problem is, we do not have any overview whether the data on WikiData is correct and that would need a completely new set-up. And then the problem is that either we mark things verified on WikiData (where no-one sees it), or we either mark it on en.wikipedia (or mark it on WikiData and also transfer that 'property') and only some specialists know how to actually solve a situation of a red tick.
Fun starts when WikiData is storing data as property:boilingpoint = '100°C' vs. property:boilingpoint = '100' / property:poilinpointunit = 'C' .. the latter is more scientific and allows for easier machine manipulation, but also more prone to mistakes.
The bot workings are independent of what you do indeed - the only thing maybe being that you could prepare for the _Ref-fields for all 'immutable' parameters in the box (and even there, the bot would not care whether the template can or cannot display a _Ref-field, and we can just ask to add it to add the _Ref-field regardless. --Dirk BeetstraTC06:41, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
I get it, good example. If and when we (enwiki) start using wd for this, the template can follow, not the other way around. I note for lol: the benzene example is wd-sourced from itwiki. For now, I'll stick with the template improvements I took up.
wrt _Ref: yes, they are build in for all, today in the live code (eg {{{PubChem5_Ref|}}} is used). So when I add |PubChem6=, PubChem6_Ref= will be read (recognised) too, with same behavior. They will always show regularly when entered in the article, whoever or whatever puts them there. Except for the numbered ones, I have read not request/suggestion to add other _Ref params. (Next time, I'll ask you to name them "_check" or so; now we can not use "_ref" for reference ... ;-) ). My developments are visible in Template:Chembox/testcases. -DePiep (talk) 08:54, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
External links in the English article on Legio II Traiana Fortis.
Hi!
Why did you remove the external links to the websites of two reenacment groups? Although this article is about the real legio II Traiana Fortis, those links might provide readers with interesting information. Reenactment groups use reliable sources, either ancient or current, to explain and reenact History, and their websites allow people to see how Roman soldiers fought or how they looked like for instance...
Because they do not comply with the external links guideline. We are not writing a linkfarm, we are writing information. The article itself is unreferenced (there must be reliable sources out there to verify the information), it does not mention the mere existence of re-enactment groups in the prose. Part of that information is that there are reenactment groups, and I would argue that these each can very well have their own Wikipedia articles.
Please note that other articles may have things on them which are also not in compliance with our policies and guidelines, it is not a reason to have them here. --Dirk BeetstraTC03:20, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
Fair enough. Then, am I allowed to remove any external link to a reenactment group website that I see in an article on Roman legions?
Sorry, I was busy researching something else, so I was a bit short. My apologies. What I wanted to say was that you seem to be knowledgeable on the two re-enactment groups that you added links for. I would say that the information itself is notable enough to have a section in the article, and possibly even the two re-enactment groups should each have their own article, linked from that section. I would say that there will be at least enough sourcing out there suitable for the section (local newspapers must have reported about the re-enactment group re-enacting the battle), and if that has been in the larger news then it may rise to an own article for each (or one of the two). On the own articles the links you used are their official websites, so they should be on that article. I hope this helps you further. Thanks! --Dirk BeetstraTC18:37, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
1. This _Ref alignment (spacing) is not helpful when I look into the article code.
I propose to remove/not-add the extra space.
2. The sequence with StdInChI is not clear. We expect a sub-parameter (dependent) to be following. That way, the human eye recognises similar parameter names. Like this Y:
I'll have a look at the extra space. It is difficult to detect how many spaces the other parameters use and how many the added parameter should use. I'll see what the code there does. --Dirk BeetstraTC10:45, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
Hi Beetstra! I'm Mediran. I've tagged User:Mediran (alt) for deletion like 2 hours ago and I see that you're the latest active deleting admin. This sounds funny, but will you please delete that for me? Thank you so much and merry Christmas, Beetstra! :-) — Mediran[talk]07:22, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
Hi. I have deleted the page (but do note that alternative accounts should be disclosed, though not necessarily on-wiki - just sayin'). --Dirk BeetstraTC07:28, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
I am responding to your remarks regarding removing my external links to the Noonan Syndrome Foundation and their Facebook links. I am new to Wikipedia, however, according to the user guidelines, it is not acceptable to negatively remark about a user/editor. Your comment about the editor posting "purely for promotion" is just that.
Here is Wikipedia's statement regarding this:
"Do not make personal attacks anywhere in Wikipedia. Comment on content, not on the contributor. Personal attacks harm the Wikipedia community, and the collegial atmosphere needed to create a good encyclopedia. Derogatory comments about other editors may be removed by any editor. Repeated or egregious personal attacks may lead to sanctions including blocks."
I have no affiliation with the foundation but am a person affected by Noonan syndrome. I placed the external links for the foundation as the website is filled with more information on Noonan syndrome symptoms, treatments, medical professionals and clinics who treat people with Noonan syndrome and support groups (where I have been able to talk with others and compare symptoms and treatment) than I have found on here on Wikipedia or on any other website. I thought it would be useful information for others with Noonan syndrome as it was very helpful for me. I will not re-post the Facebook links as they are on their website and maybe a little redundant, however, I was just trying to make the information easier to get to. I am going to re-post the link to the foundation's website though for the reasons listed above.
I would appreciate it if in the future that you would not assume the reason behind a post and next time post a question to that user/editor before jumping to conclusions, remarking negatively and/or blocking them.
I am not assuming anything - those links are against our policies and guidelines, your insistence is inappropriate and hence they were removed and should stay removed. --Dirk BeetstraTC18:35, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist
Thank you for your good work around MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist. This really needs half a dozen or so more admins, of course. What a depressing mess this huge page is. I'm sure that, like me, you have many more attractive alternatives to working on moving old stuff into MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist/Archives, but shall we have a go at this anyway?
Incidentally, I discovered something interesting after I had (too sleepily) whitelisted a page several hours ago: that some impatient editor seemed to have tired of having material remain blacklisted, and had simply copied a couple of PDFs from a blacklisted site to Google Drive and linked to them there. (See this diff. "Seemed to have", because right now I can't be bothered to examine the article history.) This suggests that Google Drive is open to any kind of copyvio; in view of this and the difficulty (impossibility?) of knowing which bit of Google Drive is whose responsibility, I'm very surprised that links to Google Drive are allowed. -- Hoary (talk) 01:26, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
That is at least a blacklist evasion, and could also be a violation of copyrights - a block may be in order, as well as blacklisting. --Dirk BeetstraTC18:37, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia. We always appreciate when users add images to discussion pages. However, it appears that one or more of the images you have recently added to a discussion may fail our non-free image policy. Most often, this involves editors adding non-free material to a non-mainspace page. Please note that we take very seriously our criteria on non-free image additions outside of the main article namespace, and users who repeatedly misuse non-free images may be blocked from editing. 
Wikipedia does not have firm rules. Rules in Wikipedia are not carved in stone, and their wording and interpretation are likely to change over time. The principles and spirit of Wikipedia's rules matter more than their literal wording, and sometimes improving Wikipedia requires making an exception to a rule. Be bold (but not reckless) in updating articles and do not worry about making mistakes. Your efforts do not need to be perfect; prior versions are saved, so no damage is irreparable.
Northamerica1000 (talk) 12:55, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
This is your last warning; the next time you vandalize Wikipedia, as you did at List of Rozen Maiden characters, you may be blocked from editing without further notice. Fleet Command (talk) 15:27, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
Done. --Dirk Beetstra T C 22:25, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
I think I'm one of the few admins who grew a high edit count organically. ~Amatulić (talk) 21:40, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
Hello. You have a new message at Steven (WMF)'s talk page. 18:33, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Template:Chembox subst explosive has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Bulwersator (talk) 14:46, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
Defer to Global blacklist - I don't think it stands much of a chance), or ask whitelisting for the specific link on the wiki where you want to use it (here on en: 
until someone verifies if that is the correct ChemSpiderID.
Added') on the revertlist talkpage. Happy anti-spamming (you interested in working out at WT:WPSPAM and the blacklist - they need more volunteers there (even for recommendations and such, and XLinkBot is accessible to trusted users anyway). Anyways, happy editing! --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:42, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Level one user warnings. (This invitation sent because you signed up as a member of WP:UWTEST) Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 18:22, 27 June 2012 (UTC) Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 18:22, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
