User talk:Beetstra/Archive 9

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.

Archive 5

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Archive 7

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hi

I replied to you.--Otterathome (talk) 22:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I have (now) seen it (it was one of the things I was waiting for), I will have a second look, and probably add it when I am behind a secure computer. Thanks! --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 11:25, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Did you forget?--Otterathome (talk) 17:44, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

No, I am waiting for another admin to have a second look. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:14, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

mtcn.free.fr

I have just received notification of a automated report generated by COIBot.

The Link and text I have received is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/mtcn.free.fr

Links: www.lullabies-of-europe.org/ mtcn.free. fr/mtcn-traditional-music-midi-counting-rhyme.php www.easybyte.org www.rowy.net/sheet_music.html ...

I have no idea what this means or why we have been sent this.

We have a link to an external website on the Wikipedia Lullabies page. This is for a project for education, funded within the European Union Socrates Department of Education programme. This is a non-commercial project that is building a list of Lullabies in Europe to be used as an language resource to promote multilingualism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.139.103.98 (talk) 16:43, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure, what is your relation to the link, and where did you get notification? I see a user Mtcn adding the link to several different wikipedia (en, ca, pms, it, es, fr). I don't know about the other 5 wikipedia, but here we are writing an encyclopedia, and not a linkfarm. It may be that the link is appropriate, but I think that account has a conflict of interest, and that that maybe should be discussed first. Hope this explains, and I hope to hear back from you. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:49, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I should add. You say "This is a non-commercial project that is building a list of Lullabies in Europe to be used as an language resource to promote multilingualism.". In other words, even though the link is non commercial, it does promote, and does need the promotion. Also that is a reason why this link should not just be added around different wikipedia. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:51, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Man-Ching Donald Yu

Hi Beetstra Recently, i have figured out that there are somethings called Spams occurred in the "what links here" of my webpage (Man-Ching Donald Yu) and wonder why will this happen and see if these can be removed. Mr Yu —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.218.105.90 (talk) 03:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Your link additions may have been recognised by my bot as having problems with a conflict of interest, could you point me to the report (link), then I can have a look. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

My link is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-Ching_Donald_Yu, the publications and discography's informations have been added recently, also i find that other composers' website did that as well... Donald

Guess the problem was that you edited the document yourself. Though not strictly forbidden, it is better to suggest those things on the talkpage, as it may be difficult to keep information neutral when you edit yourself. I only see links in the COI-reports, if there is no concern addressed at you, then I think there is nothing to worry about, the same info is available form the edit history, from which these lists are compiled. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 23:17, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Request for whitelisting incorrect report

Concerning my request, I hope to hear from you soon. AK

I replied to you on the es wikipedia. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:30, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot you for your help. AK

Speedy deletion of Template:ChemicalFormula

A tag has been placed on Template:ChemicalFormula requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section T3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a deprecated or orphaned template. After seven days, if it is still unused and the speedy deletion tag has not been removed, the template will be deleted.

If the template is intended to be substituted, please feel free to remove the speedy deletion tag and please consider putting a note on the template's page indicating that it is substituted so as to avoid any future mistakes (<noinclude>{{transclusionless}}</noinclude>).

Thanks. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:03, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I went on and deleted it. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:17, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Removal of link from Image Stitching Page, 14:07, 24 March 200

I have a link removed and a message from you stating that this was spam. I have read through the guidelines and am unclear on why it was considered as such. My page has interactive calculators (although not required for the page to function) and a very detailed illustration of parallax, among many other substantial additions to the wiki page. The link removed can be found at:

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/photo-stitching-software.htm, although http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/digital-panoramas.htm and would also be relevant

Look forward to hearing from you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.179.182.66 (talk) 14:20, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

You were performing link additions only, all to the same site, to different wikipedia pages, which we regard here as spamming. We are writing an encyclopedia here, not a linkfarm. Maybe you can add content to the pages with information retrieved from the site you were adding? Hope this explains! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:34, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Ratramnus

Hi, why did you remove the external link from Ratramnus? Hackloon (talk) 21:39, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Please see above discussion, and user talk:Bepimela. I have explained my concerns in these discussions. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:44, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I think essentially that there is little difference between having a link to that site and a section for "Further Reading". We could have a link to whatever volume of the CPL Ratramnus is in, but why not link to an internet resource? Especially for someone like Ratramnus who is not exactly mainstream... Hackloon (talk) 22:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

The problem was the total edits of the account, not specific pages. If you believe it is a good link on this page, then you can add it (though I do believe that these links could be used very good as citations). Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 22:57, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

ChinaTravelGuide.com

Hi, Dirk,

My name is Jay Fang, and I am one of the founders of ChinaTravelGuide.com. I just got your message you left on my talk page on March 11, when I was adding "Train station in Zhejiang" Province article last night. It appears that some friends who worked with me on the "Chinese cuisine" article had attempted to put a couple of links on wikipedia related to Chinese cuisine.

I agree with you even though I can also see his points in his previous discussion with you (that it's two relevant links, not a wide-scale external link spamming).

Would it be possible for you to further look into the spam through the links from our web site? Is it still happenging? Can you whitelist our site? As a commercial-free wiki, it's also ChinaTravelGuide.com's policy not to tolerate any kind of spams. As a member of the wikipedia community, I understand and greatly appreciate your effort in fighting the spam.

In addition, I'm thinking to put our site as a reference to the articles I am writing regarding a list of train stations in China. We have a frequently updated database with such info as the distance between stations, etc. which I can not possibly put on wikipedia. If that's a problem, please also let me know.

With regards, JayFang (talk) 22:48, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Established users can use the link without problem. There are some places where it does make a reasonable external link, but here, the editor seems to have a conflict of interest, and he used it also quite inappropriately in some other cases. Other possibilities is to block editors, but I think it is better to ask them to adapt their editing style. For now, it fails parts of the external links guideline (I don't think this qualifies as "Links to open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors. Wikis that meet this criteria might also be added to Meta:Interwiki map.", which are to be avoided), and it does not qualify as a reliable source (which is also true for information on this wiki). I prefer to keep it on the revertlist for now, so that it can be used, but that unestablished editors and IPs get reverted (until we whitelist them). When they have read the warning, and still believe that the link does add, they can revert the bot, it will not revert again. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 23:02, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

That does explain, and sounds reasonable. Most editors on our web site should already know the editing style after this incident, but I will still spread the words around, though it's out of my control to enforce everything. Hopefully our link will be whitelisted soon. JayFang (talk) 06:26, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

We can follow what happens, you can put the report I mentioned on your watchlist on this wiki, so you can see when things happen and what. Occasional use is fine, but at least one of the editors in the current report has been adding the links to a number of pages. See you around, happy editing! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:28, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Dreams Come True and DCTJoy

Hello, Mr. Beetstra. Thank you for your comments and notices. I assure you it is not my attempt to spam the Wiki with my site.

DCTJoy.com is an extensive promotional collection of English language information for the band Dreams Come True not found anywhere else (in English). It includes plenty of content that would be of interest to fans that would not be viable on the Wiki (romanized lyrics, fair use music samples, lost news articles & reviews, etc). When I read up on the definition on 'External Links', non official sites with such content did seem to be acceptable.

The link to DCTJoy has been on the Dreams Come True page for almost three years (May 2, 2005) now and no user has had any problem with it until the person who contacted you about all of this. Is it really necessary to re-prove the Wiki viability for my site after all this time on just the word of one person?

Thank you for your time and help in this situation.

DCTJoy.Com (talk) 03:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

That is my reason for deleting your link. It is a typical fan-site. The Dreams Come True article has not been edited by many people since it was created, and was of poor quality with no reliable references. 220.253.41.244 (talk) 08:24, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

The link got challanged, and then it is better to discuss on talkpages then to enforce inclusion. And you do seem to have a conflict of interest. Hence, again, please discuss (and I guess that goes for both of you). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:19, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu

Dirk, regarding Eudes de Sully and www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu and Bepimela (talk · contribs), the page linked to has works by - or at least attributed to - Eudes (or Odo De Soliaco as he's called in Latin). Likewise, for Jonas of Orléans, had I been aware of this site when I was writing the article, I think I would have included it. I've put the link back there as it seems useful to our readers. I don't see any ads on the site, the material is free (in all senses), so this is the kind of information source we can and should link to, where appropriate. I fear that a number of babies went out with the bathwater when you mass-removed the links. I know that dealing with spam is a thankless and tedious task, and I do appreciate your hard work on it. I think you may be wrong just this once. Anyway, no huge deal! All the very best, Angus McLellan (Talk) 20:47, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

As I explained to Bepimela, wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a linkfarm or an internet directory. I believe it is a credible source of information, and I have suggested that the editor uses the information to expand the documents, not to indiscriminately add the links to references (especially when the link has not been used as a reference), notes and/or external links sections. For bringing this link to our attention, that can be, and maybe more efficiently, done via a wikiproject, or via the talkpage of a page.

As you seem to be knowledgeable about some of his links and the documents he adds the links to, can you engage in a productive communication with this editor? There were already two other editors who had concerns as well. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:26, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll have a word with him. Angus McLellan (Talk) 21:30, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

That is fine, the link appears to be fine, but I am a bit concerned with the way it gets added now. The problem is that this should have been followed-up on earlier. I'll keep an eye as well.

It appears that practically all the links currently on wikipedia were added by this account, at least the ones over the last couple of days (since the 21st; the only other user involved over the last was performing a vandalism revert; see this deleted report: link). I would be more confident if there were more users adding this link. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:38, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Of the two articles I wrote where it was added - Jonas and Rodulfus Glaber - I would certainly have added the link had I been aware of it; the lack of others adding links is probably down to ignorance. I didn't know it existed. Of course, yes, we should do a lot more than just add external links, but I've left a note for Bepimela explaining where I think we should go. I don't think there's any cause to be overly concerned from a spam point of view. Angus McLellan (Talk) 21:58, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to see that a wikiproject endorses his link-additions, when that happens, drop me a line and I will take this editor out of the alerting system (at the moment he was the sole editor using this link, which gives a couple of red flags on IRC), and I do believe that some of the links could have been chosen better, and the editor should maybe have reacted more to the concerns that were stated earlier (but that is also the problem that such edits may go unnoticed). I hope from more discussion from his side, and maybe we can actually use the information further. It seems like a fine reference, and, when people can read the latin, they can actually get info from these documents, I presume. I will keep an eye open. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 23:13, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I endorse the links I have seen from User:Bepimela. I'm not a project, but I have been filling out all the links from Patrologia Latina - over 50 new articles. The links to primary sources are perfectly OK, in my view. Charles Matthews (talk) 12:55, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

As I said, the info is perfectly OK, but the placement, how they were added, and the 'directly linked' was questionable (the latter mainly because it is not clear from the page linked how it is connected to the subject .. at all; it needs to be further researched, that could be done in a more clear way). And I believe there is more to get from the site than a link in the external links sections. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Removed edits from Performance Analysis page

Hi Dirk,

I've tried to add some text to the "List of Peformance Analysis tools" page, and initially, you removed it due to the external links. I have revised the text, so that it is similar to other listings on the page e.g.

RapiTime a commercial, performance profiler and worst-case execution time analysis tool.

However, it has once again been removed as spam.

It appears to me that my latest edit is no different from many of the other listings on this page (RapiTime is a real performance profiling tool - see www.rapitasystems.com).

Please let me know why you think this addition is inappropriate, or indeed if its ok without the external links. I'd like to put it back.

Best regards

Rob (85.118.3.38 (talk) 16:40, 25 March 2008 (UTC))

The link additions were clearly promotional (see WP:SPAM) (and others there may have been as well, did I clean a couple of these pages? .. unfortunately: WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS ..).

RapiTime does not have a wikipage, so then it does not have to be linked, and I am not sure if it is notable enough (see WP:NOTABILITY). Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:03, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/uranian-institute.org

I found a reference to my account at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/uranian-institute.org

Can you please tell me if I have in some way violated Wikipedia policy, and if so, how I might correct the problem. I have had numerous problems elsewhere with deceptive hackers and detractors and various attacks from people with competing interests, and want to keep my record on the up and explain my position in any situation questioned.

Blake Finley, MA, ABD-2 Uranian Institute —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.81.74.219 (talk) 04:31, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I see you have used the same username as your link, which triggers the bot. I would not directly call it 'violations', but there may be concerns. You seem to have a conflict of interest when linking to your own site (see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest), which is discouraged. And there may be other policies and guidelines that are of interest there. I'll drop a welcome template on your account (user talk:Uranian_Institute), please have a look at some policies and guidelines here, I will delete the report. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:16, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Vertebral Stapling

Hi, I ignorantly added a link to the scoliosis page regarding a fairly new treatment, called Vertebral Stapling. We started a support group for other parents of kids going through the same thing, and wanted to share this information. I did not mean to violate the rules.

Can this page PLEASE be changed? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/vertebralstapling.com

It is the first page listed during a google search,causing our new website to look like it is spam. We are a group of mom's trying to help other parents deal with their child's diagnosis of scoliosis. Please advise. user:Carawinslow (talk) 11:25, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I have deleted the report and removed the rule from the monitorlist. Please read up on our policies and guidelines, wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not an advertisement service or a soapbox. Happy editing. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:56, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your quick assistance. I am now learning more about how to contribute before I ever post anything here again. Thanks! Carawinslow (talk) 14:09, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

You are welcome. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:16, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm

You welcomed [1] but he looks like a spammer to me? I was on my way to do a welcome spammer and revert all contributions? --BozMo talk 15:52, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm .. indeed. Maybe that user should be warned for that. I'll keep an eye open. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:05, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Another archivist

Sashafresh (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)

Seems to be affiliated with University of Texas at Austin. Currently actively adding links at this moment. Katr67 (talk) 17:19, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm .. I will point him to WP:COI, and tell that he could do better than this. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:32, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Note that s/he attempted to communicate about these links and is aware of the policy. I'm sure it's frustrating to not get a response, as Wikipedia is Slow. Another case of needing to hook this person up with a WikiProject or create a template... Katr67 (talk) 19:16, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I saw. He seems to have stopped now, I hope he starts to communicate. I will indeed try to tie him up with a wikiproject, can you keep an eye open as well and respond as soon as he starts to discuss. He should get response ASAP when he is talking. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:26, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I am watching also. I will try to get into contact off wiki from my university address. DGG (talk) 02:40, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Listing

Hi Beetstra, thanks for your quick reaction! Whether the listing was the reason or not, I hope google goes back to normal soon... best regards --C.Löser (talk) 18:44, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

You are welcome. Google will find it for some time, but noone will be able to see the data. See you around! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:01, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

industrial robot

thanx for removing that commercial link. I only have time available to maintain this page and no new contributions and I log in occasionally to get rid of stuff like that. But you got there first. Two questions: how do you know they are there (I use history) and second question is if I find myself in a delete/redo situation who can I refer to? Robotics1 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 13:45, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome. I observed the editor spamming on IRC (we have bots that check every edit for link additions), and for the rest we use the history and special:linksearch. I am not sure what you want to refer to in delete/redo situation. Such situations should fall under certain points of our guidelines and policies, there are no people who decide things by themselves, it should all be community decided. Hope this answers your questions, see you around. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:01, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Mesoporous Silica Article

Hello, I am writing to you because you contribute to chemistry pages and Quantockgoblin recommended you. I am currently editing the page on mesoporous silica, and I want to know how to make it better. I would appreciate your input. Apheontai (talk) 16:25, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll shine my light. Does not look to bad already. I will add some tags, those will link to some guidelines which give more info. Happy editing! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:35, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

X Link Bot - too powerful a weapon for mere mortals

Thanks for being awake and doing the human reviews of the X Bot's work. That tool is an atom bomb. I appreciate the time you put in for the review process. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.228.80.217 (talk) 16:54, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

It is, and unfortunately it needs to be. Really, most of youtube is crap, and there is no way to close the floodgates anyway. I see you have had a couple of encounters with the bot, I would suggest you create an account, users with an account older than about 7 days get ignored by the bot (or I can whitelist you when you tell me which username you have chosen). I am a bit weary whitelisting IPs, except when they have a long, stable edit history (your IP only has something like 10 edits). Hope this helps! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:02, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, please make clear in the edit summary what the source is, so that it is clear that you do a genuine addition when reverting the bot, otherwise you may be reverted again and again until someone is looking into it more carefully. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:11, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

UnBlockBot

I see you're the author of the bot in #wikipedia-en-unblock. I wonder if you'd share the code with me, I'd like to look into adding that function (or one similar) to the bot I run. Thanks in advance. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 00:17, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

No probs, the code is here on meta, I refreshed it for you. It is written in perl, and you need the perlwikipedia module (somewhere available .. err .. don't know where exactly ..). Hope this helps! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:08, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Devant-soi.com

Hello Beetstra ! Devant-soi.com is a website that contains numerous newspaper articles on-line about the French singer Mylène Farmer. I'm using them as sources for articles on this artist. PS : Sorry, my English is not excellent, it is not my native language ! :-) Regards, Europe22 (talk) 14:56, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

And others, I presume. It is fine, you are using them appropriately (as references) and are adding content, just wanted to check. I will whitelist the link. Just to know, your last edit was notified to us with a count of 153 additions of this domain, all by you (but after whitelisting the link I will not see it anymore). You might want to inform an appropriate wikiproject (see Wikipedia:WikiProject for a list), it seems that the site contains a lot of information, and others might want to benefit from the site as well. Happy editing! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:50, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Chris Walter

Hi Dirk, I did not add any Led Zeppelin link on the page on me, that was done by whoever originally created it. This link shows some on my album use (only the photography references), there was also a Doors one a couple of months ago. I did add the links to my home page and my Photofeatures page, and a couple of accuracy edits. http://music.msn.com/artist/?artist=16259791&menu=credits&sb=2&startingItem=1&ipp=25 Chris --Photof (talk) 16:37, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, you did. It is your account ('Photof'), and the same link (to photofeatures.com). What I did not see, is that that already happened quite some time ago. Please read the policies and guidelines. Though the conflict of interest page does not forbid you to edit your own page, or to add your own links, please be carefull with it. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:46, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi

Hi there, I started editing wikipedia recently but one thing are troubling me, a user named "Shipseggsbasket" are deleting my contributions to wikipedia, even though I have sources and he doesn't, this troubles me a lot since I try to be serious and provide wikipedia with reliable sources, is there something an admin could do about it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Irtehprwn (talk • contribs) 12:36, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I see. Let me wait until Shipseggsbasket responds, it indeed looks he is reverting edits with references. Hope to hear more. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:42, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

This is false, this user is going around wikipedia changing numbers to fit his agenda, he removes sourced numbers and changes them to fit his own personal agenda, here are some examples of his vandalism, this user is perhaps the greatest vandal in all of wikipedia and he started with his ips he has many of them or had and observe that close to 100% of his edits are pure acts of vandalism, the ips are 83.250.44.122 and 83.250.44.12 and 83.250.40.152 and

Times he changed numbers because he feelt like it deleting any source if there was one and adding any number he saw fit

Sometimes his acts of vandalism are reverted but sometimes his acts of destruction are left untouched As can be seen here others noticed his acts of vandalism but he continues none the less of his crusade to alter all the numbers in wikiepdia to fit his own personal agenda, whatever it may be

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Stamford_Bridge&diff=151783431&oldid=151750346 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Holowczyn&diff=202262219&oldid=202173318

Do you see now why he must be blocked, he is a vandal of the worst kind driven by his own personal agenda to re-write history so that it fits him and to change all the numbers so that they fit his needs Shipseggsbasket (talk) 14:51, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

He does NOT give references to 99,999999% of his edits do you not see that?

Show me the reference for these changes here

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_L%C3%BCtzen_%281632%29&diff=156619495&oldid=151408514 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_N%C3%B6rdlingen_%281634%29&diff=156620676&oldid=154193835 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Stamford_Bridge&diff=151750346&oldid=148499516

ETC ETC ETC he does NOT give references to 99,99% of his edits but he GLADLY deletes them Shipseggsbasket (talk) 15:08, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

99,99999% of his edits are not sourced, out of those sources all are homemade pages, and he removes sources whenever he sees fit, he is the greatest vandal in all of wikipedia and i have linked you several time where he does not use sources do you want me to link you 100 times where he does not use sourcesShipseggsbasket (talk) 15:28, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

NO sources changes

ETC ETC ETC just look at his edits with the different ips and you will see 99,9999% are unreferenced edits

It will never stop it will never end he will change all the numbers in all the battles in all the articles until they say what he wants them to say, he is the greatest vandal in all of wikipedia and needs to be blockedShipseggsbasket (talk) 15:33, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Edits since 2008 which have been unreferenced deleted altered etc etc etc

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Great_Northern_War&diff=191750259&oldid=191691404 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Lutter&diff=196416603&oldid=195155167 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Hogland&diff=193104541&oldid=159451219 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Vyborg_Bay&diff=188178307&oldid=183732542 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Surrender_at_Perevolochna&diff=197355718&oldid=193969900 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Stralsund_%281715%29&diff=202175842&oldid=202060616 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_L%C3%BCtzen_%281632%29&diff=202279491&oldid=202064353

The list goes on and on and on

His agenda is to change the battles to minimize Swedish casualties and to maximize whoever they were fighting, his "sources", the few times he lists any, are homemade pages, he deletes reliable source, he has altered the numbers in 100s of articles and will continue to do so because that his agenda to minimize Swedish casualties and maximize whoever they were fighting, he is a vandal and he is the reason why there are problems with reliability in wikipedia, people with their own agenda who want to change battles and the outcome of them to fit their own needsShipseggsbasket (talk) 15:55, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi again, I just wanted to say that I have added sources afterwards to these sources, but there's one more problem than the vandal deleting my sources, now he's harrassing me too, accusing me of thing and spamming my discussion page. Irtehprwn (talk) 18:20, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes these "sources being home made internet pages that anyone can make and hardly following the rules of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability, and calling me a vandal when he is the greatest vandal in all of Wikipedia is priceless, and the "spam" being the links which show some of the many many acts of vandalism he has made Shipseggsbasket (talk) 18:37, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I am still waiting for a review about the verifyability of the sources, Shipseggsbasket. You are misinterpreting Wikipedia:Verifiability. The data that Irtehprwn is adding can be verified to these sources. But I don't know, again, if the sources cited are good following Wikipedia:Reliable sources (and neither of you can tell me if they are or not, I want to hear that from established wikipedia editors who are knowledgeable in the field). I am hoping for more input. In the meantime, stop calling each other vandals, you are both harrassing the other, and it does not help improving the wikipedia (and it is a blockable offense, see Wikipedia:BLOCK#Disruption). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:08, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

doubts

Hi, I found this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/logosphera.com

and there there is this information:

For more information on the working of the bot, see the user page of COIBot. If you have further questions, notify COIBot's maintainer, Dirk Beetstra, or ask on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam.

I really added links to some pages in wikipedia, but I thought that is is not spam. I put this links in pages related to classics thinking that it was the adequate place. Sorry if I not act according the polices of wikipedia. Logosphera.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.209.57.140 (talk) 23:17, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for your question. Yes, you were adding the link to pages on several different wikipedia. We are writing an encyclopedia here, not a linkfarm or a internet directory. We consider that as 'cross wiki link spam' (see the spam guideline), and, depending on the site being linked to, such links may be considered for blacklisting. Hope this explains, if you have further questions, don't hesitate to ask. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:02, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Your edits seem propaganda

Hi Dirk Beetstra

You left me a message including "... Your edits seem propaganda ...". I noticed a couple of entry's that appear to be heavily biased and condescending, and attempted to balance them. I quite possibly did stuff up somewhere, I am new to this, but if you could be a little more specific it would be nice. Laughton.andrew (talk) 14:41, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Answered on your talkpage. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:10, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Requesting Whitelist

A few of my biographies have been picked up by COIbot (Charles J. O'Byrne today) for links to Irishabroad.com, an Irish magazine. I request to be placed on the whitelist to avoid future instances. MrPrada (talk) 07:34, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I have responded on your talkpage. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 13:32, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Re: Block length.

Yep, I've unblocked and reblocked the sock account for indef. The master account I've blocked for 48 hours. If he uses socks again then I'll indef. I was a bit hesitant to take any action agains Shipseggsbasket as those numbers were pretty unsourced and Irthpr was editing rather aggressively. I'll ask that Ships refrains from getting involved in any edit wars and reports the user(s) directly to an admin. Thanks for your note, friend. If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact me. Scarian ^{Call me Pat!} 13:06, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

mtcn.free.fr

Hi Dirk Thank you for your reply.

The project is an education resource for learning languages and is funded by the Department of Education of the European Union, it includes lullabies, translations and background to the lullabies and the website is in 7 European languages. We have added a link to the site in Wikipedia in 2 languages, English and Italian. The aim of the project is to create an educational resource.

There is no commercial gain in this project. I am also surprised at any negative reports to the link to our site, as other links in the lullabies article include commercial sites selling CDs.

I hope this is a sufficient explanation. Thank you for the advice.

Joel —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.139.103.98 (talk) 17:36, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Still, you have a conflict of interest, I suggest you to not add the links yourself, but to discuss, preferably with an appropriate wikiproject or otherwise on talkpages. Your actions here (at least on en) are questionable against several of our policies and guidelines, and therefore it is better to discuss. Hope this helps, see you around. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:50, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Webhost bias

I am getting really tired of being called a spam person and my attempts to add anything get blacklisted. My website is hosted on tripod.com - has been for 10 years - and I pay for the service. There are no ads, it is a legitimate webhost. I have two domain names. I have tarotcanada.ca which does not allow direct linking into individual pages. I bought tarotcanada.org recently which does, prior to this to direct link into a page I had to use TarotCanada.tripod.com and link directly to the page URL. Now for some reason and I think it is webhost bias or bias against Tarot as a "New Age" subject that my link to Antonia Merce has been blacklisted. It is an excellent article - well researched and contains significantly more information that the Wikipedia section does on her. I don't have problem with the pictures I posted for the Ice Storm of 98 but I am sure you will have to remove that as well. I also had problems with an article written by a 73 year old Lutheran Minister who lives in Germany and has lived there all his life who wrote a piece on Collective Guilt based on the pain in Germany's past. You are very young, what do you think you know about that time in history, where is your degree in theology, that you can judge his work as lacking merit. I don't submit anything that isn't appropriate and of good quality. Please explain your exclusionary biases. I looked at the guidelines and my pages follow them quite well.

Cheryl tarotcanadaintl@yahoo.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.99.131.49 (talk) 01:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

That it does not contain ads or is a regular host is not the problem. XLinkBot reverts hosts which are in most of the cases in violation, or at least very questionable, against some of our policies and guidelines. Here you say it is a page that you created, and there lies the problem with tripod, people linking to tripod often link to self published sources. Unestablished accounts and IP users (which are generally also not aware of the policies and guidelines) are therefor reverted when the add that link, and are pointed to our policies and guidelines. To be specific here, you have a conflict of interest, and that guideline strongly discourages linking to websites you are involved with. So IMHO the bot did his work appropriately. To avoid further reversions I suggest you to create an account, then I can either whitelist you, or the bot will ignore you after a couple of days (7, IIRC). Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:08, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry, I could not find any records regarding these links, could you be more specific as to where you get reverted or reported? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:12, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

sorry!

Hi Dirk, Sorry, I wasn't trying to be difficult and I wasn't sure whether or not I was supposed to be linking to the BPMA Philatelic Glossary on Wikipedia or not. I figured if what I was doing was unacceptable then someone would tell me, and you have - so thank you! Since there isn't a philatelic glossary on Wikipedia, but there is obviously a community who are interested in philatelic terms, I thought it would be ok to direct people towards our Wiki version. I'll stop linking now if it's not what I'm supposed to be doing. Once again, sorry! :-) Rhiannon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.6.250.43 (talk) 08:53, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I have reverted all your link additions, please have a look at our policies and guidelines (WP:5P is a good start). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:57, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

It is

It is great that you think that this can be talked through, but what do you expect to get out from a guy who guy does not respect the Wikipedia rules and evades his block by editing from a different ip http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/213.142.24.146 Shipseggsbasket (talk) 15:16, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

He is already blocked. It does not keep others from discussing the information. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:30, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

DOI bot

Hi, thanks for your comments! I (perhaps naively) believe that given the nature of the DOI system, the bot can be tweaked to run without false positives. So I feel that it's more useful - especially at this early stage - if any incorrect edits are reported to me, so I can tweak the bot to prevent a repeat appearance. (It would also save me a lot of coding which I don't really have the time for!) Verisimilus T 10:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, is fine. It was just a suggestion. The bot is doing good work, I like it! Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:07, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Judo video links

Hi Dirk, I undid the undo on Ben Spijkers, as the links have been discussed and agreed on with Wiki martial Arts folks.. The videos have valuable information that cannot be described in words, hence the extrenal link.

Feel free to read the discussion on the topic on my talk page.

Thanks, Evdz (talk) 11:32, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry, I did not interpret the discussion as such. Still I think it is better to add content to the articles as well, as I quoted, we are not writing a linkfarm or an internet directory. I will revert my reversions. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:40, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Not a problem, if you have suggestions as to the format of the link, please share!

Wiki is definately not a link farm, but the only reason these video links are posted, is to bring an extra bit of info to the articles that cannot be put in words.

Thanks, Evdz (talk) 11:47, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi

Hi, if you're an admin (Which I suppose you are?) could you change this account to my master account instead of Irthpr?

Björnebacke (talk) 15:14, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Please request unblock on the account you use as your master account (see {{unblock}}), and make no edits with any other account. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Sports Museum of America

The Sports Museum of America has over 50 Founding Sports Partners (single-sport Halls of Fame, National Governing Bodies, Museums and other organizations across North America). Yes, some of our links and excerpts are going to be the same, but we need to be cleared for editing pages, because this is for informational purposes and is NOT spam. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.105.223.125 (talk) 16:01, 4 April 2008 (UTC) Now I have a login, Jlmiz. Hopefully that will prevent my links from seeming like spam or a bot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jlmiz (talk • contribs) 16:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

We are writing an encyclopedia here, not a linkfarm. Please consider adding content, not links. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I had a second look, all the links you have been adding are not appropriate per our external links guideline. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:31, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank You!

Hi Dirk,

Saw your response and just wanted to relay a simple thank you for the information.

Kind regards,

Johnbushiii (talk) 17:15, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

You are welcome! Hope it helps, see you around, happy editing. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:30, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

COIBot related

Hi. I've just found my username listed in Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/cia.gov, Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/fides.org, Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/catholic.com, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/digital.fides.org.pl. Ouch! Anyway, I'm not CIA / Catholic / Catholic promoter. You may never be absolutely sure of the 1st one, though ;).

the cia.gov related diff is rv ~~spam~~ vandalism
catholic.com: adding a link to an article which I've destubbed; the link is to a Roman Catholic comment/POV on an Eastern Orthodox tradition (the subject of the article). I'm EO (see my userpage and edits). The guy writing the ext linked page is (presumably) RC (I've never edited RC related articles). So no spam/COI. I've found it interesting enough to be included in ext links: an apologetical RC article link about an EO tradition, like let's see the others' POV, per RC good (as close) enough; Protestant theology too far (rejection of Tradition, no saints cult), so no good on the topic (their POV in the theological article, not in the place article); secular scholar sources on the Assumption of Mary? nah :P. The diff in EO/RC POV are also addressed in the article, plus wikilink to the RC similar article.
fides.org/digital.fides.org.pl: the link points to a ref which I've used only for the year of a text. The ref is to a theological studies source. Overall, not much info on the article's subject. I've been there, made some pics (especially for WP), seen the article was stub, expanded it, searched for sources, found very few, used them as good as I was able. The article was accepted as DYK.

Thanks for reading. I too assume COIbot's good faith. Cheering you both, adriatikus | talk 08:49, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I have whitelisted you, thanks for the remark and the explanation. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Mesoporous silica help

Thank you for your help with the Mesopourus silica article. Apheontai (talk) 16:39, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

New Mexico Magazine/New Mexico Tourism Department

Dear Mr. Beetstra,

I do not understand why you have removed the links I have placed in the New Mexico article globally for the New Mexico Tourism Department (www.newmexico.org) and New Mexico Magazine (www.nmmagazine.com). The New Mexico Tourism Department is the state of New Mexico's official website for promoting all attractions statewide, while New Mexico Magazine is the state's official magazine, covering the history, arts, culture and people of New Mexico. These are not private businesses, nor has any spamming taken place. You were wrong in your assessments and mistaken to remove the links.

Please advise how I should go about reinserting the links so they are not arbitrarily removed again.

Jon Bowman Associate Publisher New Mexico Magazine

PS: I checked the Wikipedia article for the Netherlands, and found a link there for the official Holland travel administration. The New Mexico Tourism Department/New Mexico Magazine is the equivalent for our state, so these links should be treated equally. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JonRBowman (talk • contribs) 22:14, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

JonRBowman, as the template that is left on your talkpage says, you have a conflict of interest, and therefor it is better for you to discuss the links. Moreover, the links you add are not appropriate on the article New Mexico (they are appropriate on the page for the magazine or for the Tourism department). Indeed, other links may also not be appropriate, that is not a reason to add more of them. The way you were adding the links, to many, many wikipedia, is spamming, and is very easily explained as having a promotional intent. Therefor, I ask you to stop, and start a discussion on the talkpage, i.s.o adding the links yourself. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra

Mr. Beetstra, There were already Tourism Department links in the main Wikipedia New Mexico articles (English, Spanish, French, etc.), but they were outdated and inaccurate. All I did was substitute the correct URLS, and then add those same URLS to the related articles in other languages. I checked and it's not just New York, but the official Tourism Departments are pretty much listed for all the states -- California, Hawaii, Virginia being the first ones I reviewed and all had these links. Maybe I'm the wrong person to add the links, but they should be added to bring the New Mexico articles in conformance with those for the other states and nations. Jon R. Bowman ^{T C} 09:25, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

That other links were there is not the point (see WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS), they probably should also not be there, the article is about the country, not about the tourism department or about one of the magazines. And still, you should not be adding the links, you have a conflict of interest. For you it is the best to discuss and suggest on talkpages. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:39, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Invisible Barnstar

		The Invisible Barnstar
		Beetstra, For all the unseen contributions you've made to this project and in recognition ...Wikipedia is a better quality project because of hardworking and conscientious editors like you! Hu12 (talk) 06:36, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Did not have this one yet! See you around! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Deleted Links

I don't really understand this policy. Why have the links I posted to reviews been deleted and why are you threatening to block me from editing the website?

All I'm doing is adding further links to the website that may be of interest to people. You've even deleted links to reviews of albums people have not previously reviewed. Surely by removing reviews of albums that are currently not written about you are in fact detracting from the overall usefulness and quality of the system. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Themosthardcorelegend (talk • contribs) 15:49, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll answer on your talkpage. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:56, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello hello

I saw that you blocked the ip from the guy who changes the numbers in old historical battles, but you did not block his reserve ip which is this 213.142.24.146 Shipseggsbasket (talk) 19:45, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I will have a look. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:42, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Why did you delete my edit?

I want to know what's the matter.

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Soccersh (talk • contribs) 02:03, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Replied on your talkpage. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:41, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

do you think this is a good External link in First day of issue?

http://www.universalstamps.com/type/first_day_covers it's a online shop.

Do you want what is the FDC? do you know what is philatelist want to visit? if you are not a philatelist, why could you edit any philatelic page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Soccersh (talk • contribs) 02:13, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

replied on talkpage, will have a second look. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:42, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

"Tone"

OK, so if you're going to add {{tone}} to First day of issue, you could at least take the time to say what the problem is. I wrote most of that text, and in what I'm pretty sure is good WP style. Stan (talk) 13:10, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, did not write on the talkpage yet, did mention in the page itself. To me there are a couple of sections which read a bit 'manual'-like, and I got a bit the feeling it was written for America, while I suspect this is a worldwide subject. I hope this explains. Will have a second look at it. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:12, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Friedrich Kellner

I use my real name for my Wikipedia user name, and when I edit articles about my grandfather (with the same last name as mine), I get spam notices placed on my "What links here" page. My edits are okay and they do not get changed in any way, but I would still like to stop the spam notices from constantly appearing. Is there anything that can be done about that, or is it something I just have to put up with and ignore? Thank you for your help.--Rskellner (talk) 13:20, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I have whitelisted you against everything, the bot will not report you any further (or will strike-out your name when the bot recreates a page where your name is on). Where you feel necessery you can put <s> and </s> around the line of the report. Thanks for reporting this, and I hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:51, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for responding so quickly and so helpfully. I appreciate it. Rskellner (talk) 14:31, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome, see you around! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:35, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry to trouble you, but all of a sudden the Friedrich Kellner article won't open, it "cannot be found." I'm sure it couldn't have been anything to do with my using the "no spam" codes on the spam pages. Are you able to check on this, or can you tell me who to contact? Thanks. Well, now it is working. I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope it continues to work. Thanks, Rskellner (talk) 03:59, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I also have no problem, and I see nothing strange in the logs. It has nothing to do with spam or whatever logs, the only thing that could have been is that there is a link on the page which is on the blacklist (but then you can still open the page, you just can't save it). Maybe a glitch in the mediawiki server? Hope all is resolved. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:45, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Femto blogs

Hi there Just wondered why you removed the blog links on the femtocell page - these blogs track the femtocell industry and are not promoting products. Cheers

Andy —Preceding unsigned comment added by Atiller (talk • contribs) 13:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

They are not the official blogs, see the external links guideline. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:41, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I am going to expand on this .. that article is an external link mess. It could use some serious cleanup, the article is not conform WP:MOS and WP:NOT. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:59, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Myocardial infarction

Why did you delete the references put in by the previous editor? I don't want to mark you for vandalism, but it appears to be exactly that. --DiamondElusive (talk) 15:03, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

References, if so, he is spamming references to exactly the same site url to a lot of articles, please see Special:Contributions/Vadkins100. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:06, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Moreover, all the additions were to external links sections, that is not 'adding references'. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:06, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

And it is a blog (well, actually, the site added is a redirect to a typepad blog), now blogs can be appropriate, even as a reference, but generally they are not. Hope this explains more. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:09, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying! --DiamondElusive (talk) 15:20, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Pivot Table Version of the Periodic Table

Hello:

I see that you removed my external link to the Pivot Table version of the Periodic Table:

http://www.numbergo.com/Cooldata/PeriodicTable.aspx

Was there a problem with the link? Many students have found the NumberGo format to be a useful and informative way to look at the Periodic Table. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at: brianjamesscanlan@gmail.com

Brian —Preceding unsigned comment added by BrianScanlan (talk • contribs) 15:20, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, we are writing an encyclopedia here, not a linkfarm. There are already quite some links there, we don't need to link to all available periodic tables. If you think yours adds to a page, please discuss addition on the talkpage, or on the talkpage of e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals or Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:23, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Meta bot listings

Hi - trying to get to grips with some of the massive backlog today. What I did find was some reports where the same IP appears in multiple reports. You will have to run through my contributions - the page is just to unwieldy to keep "refreshing" so the narrative was not my best. The point it raises is whether there is a way to report on this aspect of activity - IPs placing multiple links - as this is a pretty sure sign of spamming to me. Realising that I just happened to be here, replying anywhere will do! Regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 19:32, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

If you give me the IP of the user, then I can try to generate a userreport. That gives the best overview of the users activities, I think. Hope that helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Link Removal

Please explain to me the difference between links added that are promoting the consevation and aviculture of the species mentioned within the pages are different and are grounds from removal as compared to the same pages with links to BirdLife or other pages with less than accurate information?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.137.100.21 (talk • contribs)

My intention was to provide additional informaiton regarding the species, if you had noticed the links did include additional images that were not included on Wikipedia. Spam was not the intention and I feel the links were removed spitefully and not correct. If you were to view the pages in complete, you may agree, but I am not sure where you are coming from with your assessment. I believe you are wrong in what you did today.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.137.100.21 (talk • contribs)

Still, we are not a linkfarm. An encyclopedia is based on information, content. You were performing link additions only (see our spam guideline), where the links that you add are arguable under our external links guideline. You are the only, and first user who adds this domain, I suggest that you discuss the link-additions with an appropriate wikiproject first. And yes, other links that are there may also be not too appropriate, but that is not an argument to add more links. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:16, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Re: Link Removal

Thanks for clearing this up, I am so glad that you are here to patrol wikipedia and keep people from gathering more information. You are to be congratulated on your good work, I appreciate the service you provide. I apologize if I was in the wrong for attempting to help people, I will request from the webmaster if we can use the information on wiki and WILL NO longer add any more links to any of those pages. In fairness, I recommend removing all the links if you will not allow what I posted. Keep up your good work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.137.100.21 (talk) 14:56, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

That shows that you are here only to add links, and not to contribute to the encyclopedia with content. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:03, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Unblocked

Done! In the spanish wikipedia, you cannot run a bot without permission or explaining the work that will be done by it. I saw that the link of the last contributions of the bot doesn't exist. Can you explain with detail the function and work of the bot on his page, please? You ask for a "warning" but I think that you have to inform us first... RoyFocker (talk) 16:51, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Betacommand is not running a bot, he is using a user-assisted script. He can probably explain it better himself. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:01, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

About editing an article

Hi, is it ok if I change the current number of Swedish casualties in the Great northern war from 230,000 to 200,000 since the source which the number uses says so.

Björnebacke (talk) 15:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to hear from established editors if they trust the sources, then Shipseggsbasket can not say that it is vandalism, and should also discuss. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:32, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Great_Northern_War&diff=125862017&oldid=123899840 This is the original numbers for the Swedish casualties with this source added, this edit however:http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Great_Northern_War&diff=189294101&oldid=188969254 did Shipseggsbasket use as "original numbers". And one more thing, could I restore my old edit on Poltava since the source which is currently used is stating that they surrendered at Perevolochna, this event already has an article, so I think my numbers would suit better since the article Battle of Poltava is about the day of the actual battle.

Björnebacke (talk) 20:15, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I know, and I tend to believe your numbers, but I want you to have backup from specialists in the field, otherwise it will result again in edit-warring with Shipseggsbasket. I am not a specialist in the field, but I know that edit-warring will not resolve the problem. Please contact editors in the field (see e.g. this list and find a couple of editors who have substantially edited the document in the past, and/or who are established editors). I see you also contacted the wikiproject, I have the feeling that the posts there are ignored. Please, be patient. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:55, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Category:No-Category Version 0.5 articles

Hi Beetstra. I found Category:Uncategorized Version 0.5 articles. Is there still a need for Category:No-Category Version 0.5 articles (which you created)? If not, please post {{db-catempty}} on the top of the page. Thanks. GregManninLB (talk) 00:50, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Did not even know the cat was there, I have tagged and deleted it. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:05, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

malfunction :(

Can you check out the two posts starting here On the 16th, it seems like XLinkBot created a new page all on it's own using content from an existing page.. and clobbered a disambig page with content from another article. I'm mostly offline for the next few days.. but will check in when I get a chance. --Versa geek 05:31, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I know, I blacklisted a link that was added to lawyer firms (many of these pages had an ampersand). Something in perlwikipedia broke when there are ampersands in the pagename (well, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Beetstra&Versageek&action=edit does not work, since the title is then not "Beetstra&Versageek, but the title is Beetstra, and the mediawiki software does not know what to do with 'Versageek' .. ). I have repaired it, I think. Waiting for a similar one, please keep an eye on this type of things, it is annoying. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:02, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/ac-nancy-metz.fr

Hi, the link to ac-nancy-metz.fr is a scientfic link and no spam. Therefore I request whitelisting it and please remove my name from this and this list. (BTW: I've changed my username some time ago, therefore I corrected the link on the page). --D.H (talk) 08:27, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the rule from the list, whitelisted you, and protected the link against automonitoring. I will regenerate the reports shortly. Your old username was "D.hainz"??

The bot is not only for catching spam (and generally, a link is not spam, the way links are added is defined as spam, what is being linked to is not necessarily a question). But here there just seem to be a couple of cases of conflict of interest (also not always a problem), the rest are certainly good edits. Thanks for clarifying this. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much - and yes, that was my old username. Best wishes. --D.H (talk) 09:37, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/gp-field-guide.org.uk

Hi, the link www.gp-field-guide.org.uk points to a new book on the field of Genetic Programming, which is part of evolutionary computation and is related to other AI search techniques. I am the first author of that book.

The book is freely available to people under a Creative Commons Licence. This, however, does not mean it is not a reliable source. Wikipedia's policy on that states that "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." We can claim this for the "field guide". You can check my credentials by searching for Riccardo Poli on the web, look at the authors' CVs at the beginning of the "field guide" or look at our contributions to genetic programming at http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~wbl/biblio/gp-html/index.html

In summary, I have previously published over 240 peer reviewed papers in international conferences and journals, plus a highly cited book (Foundations of Genetic Programming, published by Springer, 2002). I'm also an associate editor of three international journals (including an MIT Press one and a Kluwer one). I've been the general chair of the biggest conference in the field (ACM's Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference) and many others, editing at least 10 proceeding's books and several journal special issues.

The second author and third authors have similar experiences. The reason why we went self publishing is simply to share our knowledge on this field of science free of charge. Essentially we had the same objectives of the wikipedia and we mention Wikipedia as a useful source in our book.

Could you please put this link and my username in the whitelist?

Many thanks

Riccardopoli (talk) 09:56, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

No, I am waiting with this. The link was massively spammed to many, many wikis. The book may be of interest as a reference, and hence does not clasify as something we can put on a blacklist, but I do not believe it is a good external link, and its pushing is certainly something that has to be looked into. I would suggest, please read the external links guideline, the citation guideline, the footnotes guideline, what wikipedia is not (especially the repository and directory sections), the manual of style. I will drop you a welcome template with more info. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:03, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Dirk, many thanks for your reply. I've replied to this and your other comments (in my talk page) in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Riccardopoli#Your_question Cheers Riccardopoli (talk) 11:16, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi again, I got your comments. I clearly need to learn the ways of the wikipedia a bit better. Cheers -- Riccardopoli (talk) 12:58, 24 April 2008 (UTC) (PS: despite having being in academia in the UK for a long time, I'm originally from Italy. Italians are traditionally not very good with English, but, in recent times, most of those who have gone through secondary or higher education can definitely read English.)

ADDENDUM: Our messages crossed. I've provided a further reply in my talk page. Cheers -- Riccardopoli (talk) 13:24, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Dirk, sorry to bother you again. I've followed all the links in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/gp-field-guide.org.uk and I have removed all references to the book's web site, using its ISBN instead. Will it now be possible to remove the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/gp-field-guide.org.uk? Many thanks, Riccardo -- Riccardopoli (talk) 15:12, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I will leave it there for now, I will remove them when the situation is totally resolved (there is another report on meta: see m:User:SpamReportBot/cw/gp-field-guide.org.uk). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:25, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Another archivist?

FYI. User:RJM81. Enjoy your wikibreak! Katr67 (talk) 19:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Cruisedealership

Hello,

i am the owner of cruisedealership.com which appears as a spamming which is not true we DONOT condone it and i have spoken to my it department about ever posting on your sites they were not reading all of your guidelines.

please remove us from the blacklist —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.29.181 (talk) 19:31, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

There is an item on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam. You might want to contribute to that discussion. Give me a sign when the discussion is closed/archived, then I will delete the report and remove the rule from the bot. By the way, the bot is not meant to catch only spam, it is mainly built to catch cases where people have a conflict of interest. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:28, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I am having trouble getting someone to help. can u kindly help as i am very concerned when people are earching for my company information having that kind of comments related to my site. I spoke to my it department they tought in good standards they were trying to provide related content to subjects on wiki. or if you can foward this for immediate attention to the correct department —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.29.181 (talk) 22:30, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Pimping your company on Wikipedia is the Law Of Unintended Consequences.--Hu12 (talk) 22:49, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

It was a mistake of poor judgement we are asking for forgiveness have u ever made a mistake. please remove spam associated with cruisedealership as we are a very ethical company and assure you no cruisedealership would ever be posted on ur company site again--71.167.29.181 (talk) 22:57, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

vandalism is never a sign of good faith and was intentional edit from your IP. --Hu12 (talk) 23:13, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

HU12 kindly provide legal address as im wish to foward this matter to legal counsel for review as i am trying to resolve this matter as it came to my attention and i have advised my employees to avoid wiki as a place to provide content to wiki,. but the matter remains of the word spamming associated with my company their was no INTENT to spam. it was a simple misunderstanding of guidelines can you relate to that. I already tried to apoligize and assure you IT would Never happen again Thomas--71.167.29.181 (talk) 23:20, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Please see the detailed chronology of this matter at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#Unlist request of cruisedealership.com. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 01:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I told that I would consider removing the reports when the issue was resolved on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam, as for now it is necessery for that discussion. As to clarify, spam is the addition of unwanted links, especially with a commercial view. It does not imply the information linked to is rubbish. Spam is also an non-profit organisation pushing their external links to gain traffic to their site, for whatever reason. I hope you retract your legal concerns, and start discussing this in an orderly manner. The explanation that you understood our policies and guidelines on external links (WP:NOT, WP:COI, WP:EL, WP:SPAM etc.) and a promiss not to add the links again would, for me, have been enough to delete visible records. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

user:gjenvick

Dirk, it looks like your COI bot has identified user:gjenvick as a spammer and generated Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/gjenvick.com. I was contacted by Paul Gjenvick, who I worked with some time ago on some sailing articles. He is not too familiar with policies etc. and asked me to figure out what he was doing wrong. Paul is a good guy and a dedicated historian. He runs several websites related to history, which for cost and other reasons he is consolidating into gjenvick.com, which is the home-site for his family's historic archive. The recent problem emerged when Paul decided to shut down his sight Steamship.org; the first step was to redirect pertinent steamship pages to parallel pages at gjenvick.com, but recently he has decided to shutdown the steamship site completely. A short time ago he went through WP to manually change the references from Steamship.org to gjenvick.com. I'm not sure what triggered the WP reaction. There was a newbie user named Maniac18 who was involved in COI enforcement (account seems dormant now), I think that he might have triggered a COI complaint that got your robot involved. I really don't know all the details and nuances, but I think that we've unjustly labeled Paul as a spammer and removed many valuable links from WP.

I'm only slightly involved in the ship project so I asked an Admin who works a lot in the ship project to confirm my assessment. Please see the talk page for user:gjenvick to see the recent discussion. If you agree with us, what I'm asking of you is to blank or delete Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/gjenvick.com and "whitelist" user:gjenvick and/or the site gjenvick.com. Are there other steps that we should take? Any help will be appreciated.

The links to his site are mostly to illustrations lists or graphics which would be impractical to include at WP, but add rich detail to historic articles, particularly the shipping series. I've discussed with Paul that the appearance of what he was doing can easily be construed as COI. We've also discussed the propriety of him inserting links to his own site into articles at minimum as an appearance of COI. I would like to work with Paul to evaluate the return of any appropriate links and where else WP could benefit from such links. --Kevin Murray (talk) 19:58, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Done, all whitelisted. Gjenvick <-> gjenvick.com clear overlap, but COI does not have to be a bad thing, and as long as it is discussed, I have no problem with whitelisting. There seems to be an item on WT:WPSPAM where you might want to respond as well? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:38, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much! --Kevin Murray (talk) 17:53, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Why have you show you home address etc details on the Internet?

I came across a blog with you home and wife adress info etc, this not very smart cause people can contact you an you no have more privasy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.168.142.38 (talk) 18:36, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Strange, I don't use blogs. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:54, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

cembrene page

Hi Beetstra,

I was looking at the page you created for cembrene, and noticed the structure and IUPAC name are incorrect (although the CAS number is correct). The CAS number is for cembrene, isolated by Dauben (Journal of the American Chemical Society [0002-7863] Dauben, William yr:1962 vol:84 pg:2015). The structure and IUPAC name, however, are for the cembrene-like natural product called "cembrene A" (also referred to as "neocembrene" and "neocembrene A" -- see Journal of organic chemistry [0022-3263] Vanderah, David yr:1978 vol:43 ss:8 pg:1614). I am not sure whether the text you've entered is intended to refer to cembrene itself, or cembrene A as you have drawn. I'm not really well-versed in wikipedia so I'm not sure how to fix this -- should a new page be made for Cembrene A or cembrene?

Laurbrown (talk) 04:33, 9 May 2008 (UTC)laurbrown

Hmm, I did not create cembrene, that was user:Edgar181. But I see I am in the history of the page. If something is wrong, then indeed it needs repairing. I am not sure if Cembrene A exists (I see now, that it does not), in which case, if these are two different compounds, then by all means, create Cembrene A, use the image that is now on cembrene, and delete the filename from the {{chembox new}} (after ImageFile, you can just clear the item). I don't know if the text in the document pertains to cembrene or cembrene A, I don't actually know the compounds well, but maybe you can repair it? Thanks already, and if you have further questions, don't hesitate to ask me! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:02, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah! My apologies, I don't know why I had interpreted you as the creator. I will do as you suggested and fix it up. Thanks! Laurbrown (talk) 20:10, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

No probs. I am still on holiday, so may not react too quick (travelling the next couple of days), but if you have questions, don't hesitate to ask, or you can pay the chemicals wikiproject a visit. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:03, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Removal of external links

Hi Dirk,

I'm writing to you from Excel Wines. We recently added a few external links to Wikipedia (Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Priorat and Toro pages)but now we see that these links have been removed. I have been reading through the guidelines and recommendations but am still not clear as to why this has happened. Could you please clarify? (In really easy, non-techie talk please)

Thank you, Ane Miren Lambe ExcelWines (talk) 08:55, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Easy, first of all, you are connected to the information you are adding links to. In other words, you have a conflict of interest (see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest). In these cases, it is better to discuss such edits. Secondly, you are linking to a blog, such sites are generally unsuitable (see Wikipedia:External links, links to avoid section a.o.). Thirdly, we are writing an encyclopedia here (see Wikipedia:Encyclopedia), not a linkfarm (see Wikipedia:What wikipedia is not#NOTREPOSITORY) or an internet directory (see Wikipedia:What wikipedia is not#NOTDIRECTORY). This website is based on content. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:02, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick reply, Dirk. I'm afraid we're new to all this and hadn't realised that we were breaking the rules. Now that we understand how things work we certainly won't make the same mistakes again. Is it possible for us to be whitelisted if we promise to be good girls(!) in future? Regards, Ane Miren —Preceding unsigned comment added by ExcelWines (talk • contribs) 09:27, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Done! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:22, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to be a pain, Dirk, but can you tell me why that page is still there? Is there some reason why it would take a while to disappear? Thanks, Ane Miren87.235.72.37 (talk) 12:56, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I did not delete it yet (now done). Please be aware that the bot may regenerate the page again when you add the link. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:02, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

This link was placed across wikis if I recall correctly. I don't believe it to be a link that is needed on here or other wikis (there is also a clear Conflict of interest). --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Please whitelist

I am new to this, so please do the needful.

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

Added tags to row for whitelisting 62. 2008-05-10 02:26:39: User 122.171.2.183 (talk - contribs; 3) to List of social networking websites (diff) - Link: www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/toostep.com.

Please whitelist --Cricketrk (talk) 08:44, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry, I am not whitelisting IPs unless I am really sure it is static for a long, long time. If another user uses the IP inappropriately, then it would be whitelisted wrongly. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:55, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi Dirk... I don't know much about the IP thing but I just want to tell you that I was learning how to make contributions.I hope you understand that and help me out in this situation.

Atleast can you delete those lines from the listing"62. 2008-05-10 02:26:39: User 122.171.2.183 (talk - contribs; 3) to List of social networking websites (diff) - Link: www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/toostep.com."

or at least this "- Link: www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/toostep.com."

Please help!!! --Cricketrk (talk) 09:21, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

As the text above the list of links says, it is an overview of how a link is used, there are no consequences whatsoever. That information is available on the wikimedia server (see this link, and hardly anybody can change that, and I am sure that those who can will not remove that information from the database), and there is no reason why the information should not be there. If I would remove, then the 'statistics' on that link would be unfair, and as I said, I am not whitelisting IPs if I am not sure they are static. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:25, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Why do you want this information deleted so badly? It seems like a good and legit edit. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:32, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Dirk,

To be honest with you Dirk I dint understood your issues as I am a rookie on this. The only thing I want from you is: I don't want to be blacklisted and information regarding "Link: www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/toostep.com" should not be there on that blacklisted page as I am working on social networks.

--Cricketrk (talk) 09:43, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

There is no blacklisting there, and noone is accusing you of anything (and if they do, I will defend the IP, the IP did not do anything wrong there). There may be, or may have been concerns with the link, or we (WP:WPSPAM) may have reason to monitor alexa.com, and to gather some statistics on that link. The fact that that IP added a link does not mean anything, only when that IP would be connected to that link on a large scale.

I am considering to block the bot from reporting alexa.com, as it gets used widely, and there is in most cases nothging wrong with linking to alexa.

I have done so, and removed the report. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:55, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Dirk...

One last question Dirk (sorry for the trouble): If I want to add something on list of social networks like in this case: information regarding TooStep do I have to create a page for TooStep first, such that redlink on toostep does not appear there.

--Cricketrk (talk) 10:04, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah. Articles here have to follow our 'notability guidelines' (WP:NOTABILITY IIRC). If TooStep is notable enough, then indeed it deserves an own article, and I think you are welcome to create it (when you have a conflict of interest, then it may be good to have a look at WP:COI and WP:BFAQ, still it does not have to be a problem). Then it is good also to link it a bit around, where appropriate. Hope this explains.

And don't worry about the trouble, don't hesitate to ask if you have further questions. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:20, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Dirk....

Than I will be troubling you. I will create a new account which will sound more professional and let you know in case of any further doubts.

Thanks Dirk... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cricketrk (talk • contribs) 10:28, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

--Cricketrk (talk) 10:46, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Betacommand and 3RR scrutiny

Please see here for an ANI post about how Betacommand's use of multiple accounts seems to have led to a lack of scrutiny for a 3RR breach. As I've mentioned you there, your comments would be appreciated. Carcharoth (talk) 02:26, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I see the thread has been closed, and the discussion moved on onto another subject. Thanks for the notification, I'll keep an eye on the discussion, but see no reason to respond now (I would have responded to the 3RR discussion, I think). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:02, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Should have added, yes, you are right, both editors were in violation of 3RR, and I do agree that they were edit warring. Please inform me if that part of the discussion opens again, I might have to say something about it. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:28, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I gave my 2p to the discussion. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:46, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Deleted Post

Hello my name is Jess Monroe and I was wondering why my page about Courtney Morrison who is an actress and singer keeps getting deleted? Could you please let me know —Preceding unsigned comment added by JessMonroe (talk • contribs) 07:20, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you should be asking the deleting admin User:Eliz81, I've deleted the second recreation as WP:CSD#A7, before whriting another article about this person please be sure it meets the inclusion criteria WP:BIO. --Hu12 (talk) 07:33, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Per Hu12, generally, articles get tagged before deletion, and you get notified of that reason, that should explain the reason, I will create a section 'speedy deletions' on your talkpage, that contains the information of why the article gets deleted. Follow the links in that text to see an explanation. I will also leave you a welcome message. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:12, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

White list request

Add me to the white list please. Your bot is unkind to me ;-) Groetjes, Channel ® 12:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't see much dislike, but I have added you. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:24, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Links to wein-plus.de glossary

Hi there, I noticed that some of the articles on German wine and Austrian wine I've been editing as part of WP:WINE had links to Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkReports/wein-plus.de. What seems to be picked up are my references to Wein-Plus' Glossary section. Wein-Plus is a commercial German wine site with partially free content, which probably draws their subscribers in with their wine reviews. They also feature winery profiles, articles and an excellent glossary (Glossar in German), which is what I've been using. While many pieces of information (e.g., definition of modern wine terms and general descriptions of the most common grape varieties) can be found from industry organisations or governmental sources online, I've found Wein-Plus to be indispensable as a source for e.g. definitions of antiquated German wine terms, history of German wine, information on unusual grape varieties and grape heritage and genetics. For these subjects, Wein-Plus is often better than the Oxford Companion to Wine which otherwise is considered the wine encyclopedia on paper. I've previously encountered some problems with other editors (typically anonymous...) who've removed some of my carefully chosen references and called them "commercial spam", such as this and this (don't miss the edit summaries...), but as I've indicated, finding other reliable (online) sources is not very easy, to say the least. While I've always been prepared to explain (as here) why I use a partially non-free site as a reference, and how I try to avoid plagiarism, I'm more than a little surprised to see the WP:COI label that have been attached to my edits. I've read the bot disclaimer but I'm curious to know how you or your bot think that I have a conflict of interest! Tomas e (talk) 19:03, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

No, the bot did not pick you up because of a conflict of interest, it picked you up because it is monitoring the link. The link was blacklisted on the german wikipedia (diff), and that is why the bot 'has concerns' about the usage of this link. I will whitelist your name against this link (and regenerate the report), though I am not sure if this site makes a good reference, and I am afraid that the link may need more discussion. The database is not complete at the moment, but it looks like you are the only user using this link, maybe some more info is needed, how does WP:WINE think about these concerns (especially since it is blacklisted on de)? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:53, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, good to hear an explanation. Presumably dewiki blacklist it because it is a site with partially commercial content, such as German-langauge reviews of recent wines, which makes it more likely that they would like to draw in German readers to such content. (And I remind you again that I use their online glossary as source rather than wine reviews.) Do dewiki provide comments on why they blacklist it, and how this was decided?
It's not very odd that I've been more or less alone in using this source in recent months. The project has 40 participants, and most of them take a more or less specialised interest only in certain countries and regions. I'm probably the most active member when it comes to German wine and a couple of neighbouring countries/regions, and I have the benefit of being able to understand German-language sources. You'd probably also find that I'm the only one adding enwiki references to official German wine statistics and governmental publications on wine regulations, all rather dry material in German, but fitting to an encyclopedia. If you can find any, I'd be very happy to receive your advice on what a "good source", preferably online, free and WP:RS, with the same content is. I don't think it will be easy, though. Tomas e (talk) 13:05, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I did not mean to suggest that you were using the link inappropriate. I only state concerns, I am not saying that it can not be used appropriate, or that we should not link to it, but there may be discussion necessery. I don't know the reason the German wiki has for blacklisting, but I find it odd: if the German wikipedia blacklists a site hosted in Germany, then addition to other wikis would also be questionable. The bot is only following that, if a site gets blacklisted somewhere, then that is a good reason to check what happens on other wikis (for crap-sites, spammers sometimes/often switch wikis when they can't advertise their stuff on one wiki). I will leave it to WP:WINE to discuss the matters, and as you are whitelisted now, COIBot should only report again when other editors start using the link. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:11, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Spam-blacklist

See -MediaWiki:Spam-blacklisting

Have added a supplement, a general " how-to: of sorts. Improve if needed, ect. A shortcut has been created WP:BLACK. cheers--Hu12 (talk) 10:42, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll look more later but this is impressive/useful - reason for posting here - I think we should steal it for Meta? :) Cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 10:45, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Great, I've commented on the talkpage, I feel there are things missing. This only shows the request-phase as a reason to add. The list can (and should) be used to avoid disruption, I think it is important to say there is consensus, but that proof only can be enough. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:05, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Herby, Steal and adapt for meta. I can't edit MediaWiki pages there. Dirk, edit it however you like. --Hu12 (talk) 04:50, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

We will, needs some expansion. Hu12, you're not an admin there? Please request that status .. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:51, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Please whitelist or remove me

I reverted a vandal page blanking. [2]

Ta. Azazyel (talk) 07:29, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I have whitelisted you on the bots. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:25, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Permission sought to add an external link

Dear Mr Beetstra

I have read the protocals on your discussion page regarding external links. The following request does, I believe, not infringe Wikipedia external link guidelines:

In Student-centered_learning, would you agree to allow the following link to be included under External Links? Children First: the case for child-centred education. The website (of which I am NOT the author!) includes a paper discussing the practical experience of applying a child-centred approach to learning in the Primary school as well as a video of the approach in action. I think it is both relevant to the article and would be interesting for visitors to the page.

--MargyW (talk) 14:25, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

If you think it is a good source, why not incorporate some information the page provides, and use the page as a reference (see WP:CITE and WP:FOOT). It is mainly contents here that counts, external links can help, but generally not as much as contents.

Hmmm .. more interestingly .. the link you added earlier leads to a 404 (and reverted by XLinkBot) .. oh, here this one works. Hmm, now I get an empty page for the actual text. You might want to discuss this first on the talkpage, or with an appropriate wikiproject (See Wikipedia:WikiProject for a list). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:35, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

WTF???

Why do you keep removing what i wrote ???? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hasse:D (talk • contribs) 14:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe because the content you are adding (pushing, I should say) is not appropriate? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Desktop alert

Just wanted to say thanks for all the work you're putting in over at Desktop alert - it's on my watchlist too so I'll keep an eye open. The persistent reverter seems to think it's me doing it, and says (s)he's going to file a complaint, but since (a) (s)he hasn't really got a leg to stand on and (b) if (s)he can't figure out who's doing the editing, (s)he probably can't figure out how to complain, I'm not too worried... Gonzonoir (talk) 15:15, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. They is mainly spamming the link, using several accounts. Their edit where they add 'references' may contain some good info, though, but their way of pushing is inappropriate. I (and the bots) will keep an eye on it! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:33, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Bryanethomas

Hey, this user requested a unblock stating that they have no connection to the account you say they are a sock of (dont they all). After reviewing their contribs they appear to be very close and strongly support your block. I was just wondering if there was anymore evidence or a WP:RFCU. Tiptoety ^talk 00:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Bryan E. Thomas is the president of the company he is writing about, and several similar accounts have done (very) similar edits. Long, long time abuse. I will outline some diffs on the users talkpage, thanks for contacting me! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

imaginationtakeover.blogspot.com

Why on earth did you remove imaginationtakeover.blogspot.com links from the Shuji Terayama pages? How should that be forbidden, if the UBUWEB link to similar kind of resources is allowed.

I am not sure how much you know about Terayama, his cultural significance and the fate of his works, but to give you some idea he is (considered by many as) a remarkable cultural phenomenon that has been essentially blocked for a few decades by the commercial media distribution from being broadly appreciated, and had a sort of comeback with the emergence of Internet. Why one should stand in the way of this process is quite beyond me! InMemoriamLuangPu (talk) 07:42, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Quite simple, it was cross-wiki added, see m:User:COIBot/XWiki/imaginationtakeover.blogspot.com. We are writing an encyclopedia here (based on content), not a linkfarm, nor a internet directory. These links are linking to emule/edonkey downloads for the movies, that is not linking to information. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:42, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

How is that different from the links to UBUWEB? Not to mention that these eMule downloads are the most important information one could provide in relation to the article, given that they actually are the only way to become familiar with most Terayama's works (outside Japan, at least)!!! InMemoriamLuangPu (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 16:21, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Contents versus links. Seems clear, contents improves an encyclopedia. Links, maybe, if they have content which can not or is difficult to incorporate, you might want to check Wikipedia:External links. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

InMemoriamLuangPu, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia - as such many links do not belong here. Equally Wikipedia is not a place to to promote a site. In addition, its a Link normally to be avoided and fails Wikipedias specific inclusion requirements of our External Links policy, Verifiability Policy and Reliable Source guidelines. --Hu12 (talk) 22:06, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Expanding on this. After blacklisting imaginationtakeover.blogspot.com globally, a site was added which was a url-shortener for the blogspot. Also that site has now been globally blacklisted (as we do with all url-shorteners). Thanks for pointing us to that, InMemoriamLuangPu! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:03, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Coibot request

MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#supermodels.nl - Could you run a Coi-bot report on this suspected malware site..please. thanks..--Hu12 (talk) 22:03, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

queued. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:27, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Whee .. see new function here! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:31, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Niceee! I will try to show some restraint in adding to it. ;)--Hu12 (talk) 14:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Threat of block

Hi: I think you're saying that I have a COI for Common Purpose UK and you have threatened to block me if I make any more changes? I am certainly a supporter of the work of Common Purpose in leadership development (and I have attended a programme so I think I have a far better knowedge of the subject that most of the conspiracy theorists ranting away on that page!). I don't make any unexplained changes unless it's a correction (or unless the link I'm removing never had any explanation itself for being added - which is the case with the last case you commented on). Much of the links to negative blogs from that page links to factaully inaccurate and absurd sites with scurrilous accusations of criminal activity - I would have thought Wiki would not want to be aligned with defamation... I would appreciate a retraction of the threat to block so I can continue to try and keep the article neutral. Thanks! Rangenews —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.150.113.250 (talk) 12:01, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi Again: Just read your message about the COI messageboard and will try and use that in the next instance of biased or hostile attacks on the page. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rangenews (talk • contribs) 12:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I am asking you to discuss and to show restraint! You are not only a supporter, you are editing from an IP issued to Common Purpose.

We are not excluding blogs or something because they have negative information, if there is negative information about Common Purpose, than that deserves to be discussed. See also this edit, that is not encyclopedic, and just an inappropriate edit, especially since you have a conflict of interest. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Expand: yes .. we " can continue to try and keep the article neutral", that means, that if there is negative publicity (even when not proven true, or untrue), than that needs to be discussed. All edits I see (especially from the IP) seem to try to give a clean sheet. I appreciate that you help, e.g. the part where you descibe who is the founder etc., though if someone adds a co-founder (or how you want to descibe it), then that information can be polished, it does not need to be deleted, even if the person is (maybe) not notable enough to have their own wikipage. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:30, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Accepted Beestra - I'm perhaps not very savvy with Wiki etiquette. I do use Common Purpose PCs as they allow volunteers to use their facilities. There seems to be a hate campaign by a few extreme right-wing groups against the organisation and if I'm not allowed to try and balance their unsubstantiated attacks I woudl appreciate if you kept a close eye on the amendments being made on this entry (especially the links to these group's websites). Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rangenews (talk • contribs) 13:58, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

You don't have to keep it out, you can try and word it into a section which describes it, I will allow you to edit the page, but please try to keep it neutral, don't just wipe all negative info, and only add positive information. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:05, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Ugh! Server HDD was full..

Seems to have started around 6pm my time.. just fixed it around 2am. We've gotta delete those nohup.out files more often! --Versa geek 06:13, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Hmm .. I am running a re-index on the linkwatcher database, is that related? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:27, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

More from Bryan Thomas

Hey Dirk. Just letting you know that I just blocked User talk:SavvySavants as a sock of Bryan Thomas. The user posted a cc of the US Adjusters article. That's all he's done with the account but it's so bleeding transparent who is behind it that I've blocked it without worrying about CU. I've also protected from recreation eight variations of the article title. I think we should consider adding his website links to the spam blacklist. Outside an article on the company itself, I can't imagine that they'd ever be considered suitable to use in any article and it might be the only way to get him to stop. Cheers, Sarah 02:30, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I also reblocked the IP 76.108.44.199 which you had blocked for one week block log. This is the IP that Bryan Thomas wrote to unblock-en-l trying to get unblocked and I just noticed that the new account SavvySavants was created a few hours after your block expired. I think I'll confirm that IP with a CU but it seems a bit too much of a coincidence for me. Sarah 03:01, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. Persistent guy. I see you protected some of the pages, but I am curious if he comes up with new ones. Good job! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:02, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Reporting For Spamming Stoped Page Removal From COIBot list

Hi User Beetstra, This Is Hardik Kansagra a user of wikipedia under username Hkansagra Reporting To You For Removal Of link for my created page Grahasti from COIBot Report link.

Reason For Removal: Spam Suspected was cleaned my me but bot not give me clean cheat, that spam removed from this page.
Page link for requested to change:Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/LinkReports/india-forums.com

Hardik Kansagra (talk) 12:14, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, the report does not say that a link is spam, only that there may be concerns with it being added. It may very well be a good link, but that it is added by one or two editors with a conflict of interest, for example. Therefore it is monitored. Your name is there because you once added the link, the bots don't detect link removals. However, I have whitelisted you, regeneration of the report should give a strikethrough through your lines in the database. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:46, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

One for more of a wp expert

Here are rather a lot of focussed magazine pages? Or is it just me? Regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:35, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I found in TaxationMagazine: LexisNexis magazines – www.lnbconnect.co.uk, but I don't have data on additions of that link (outside database?). COI, I am afraid, maybe worth to have a look at this. I'll do some research. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:43, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I dropped a COI on the user page.

I picked it up from the bot

lexisnexisconnect.co.uk: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

Cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:55, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

(ec)

User:

Lnconnect (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)

Links:

lnbconnect.co.uk: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
barcouncil.org.uk: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
new-law-journal.co.uk: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
lexisnexisconnect.co.uk: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
lexisnexis.co.uk: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

Note: LexisNexisCONNECT.co.uk. So, COI. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

~~Curious .. Herbythyme, have you tried visiting lexisnexisconnect.co.uk? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:28, 13 June 2008 (UTC)~~, forget that, it should be www.lexisnexisconnect.co.uk. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes - I would imagine they are quite legit.... However if someone went around placing links we would probably removed them, so is creating an article better, worse, more subtle? As I say I think this one needs someone with more en wp knowledge than I have. Thanks for the research --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:49, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I am doing a big tagging round, messy/advertising, but probably worth articles. Editing is fine (though they could get a block on their username ..), but they need to be neutral, and discuss. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:51, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

More a heads up

Not sure anything is needed. I was following around this one (maybe not overlinked) when I found this? I guess there is a sense in which "why is it not in the mainspace" as much as anything. Just thought I'd mention it for future reference, regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:21, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Some people write things in their userspace, and then copy it to mainspace. Keeping an eye on these things does not hurt, indeed, it is quite often a coi (I sometimes wonder if it is wise to exclude userspace from the linkwatchers ..). Thanks for the heads up! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:37, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Brigid of Kildare

You have successfully intimidated me so I will not undo your elimination of my informational link. Have a nice day. Am not sure your one person war against external links is much of a service to Wikipedia but it may be that you are more into the game. I decalare you "da winna and champion of de woyld." --Clodagh831 (talk) 19:42, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I responded on your talkpage. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:21, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Lake Baikal

I don't understand why the information I added to the Lake Baikal page was deleted. I'm new to editing articles, but I thought that I added appropriate information from an informative source and referenced it correctly. What "spam link" are you referring to? Thanks Sacredland (talk) 00:00, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Not necesserily 'spam link', but you are pushing links to a site which has the same name as your username. All articles are written (or co-written) by Amy Corbin. Although you may be adding good information as well, you seem to have a conflict of interest, and that is where our main concern is. You are involved in the site (and you may very well be Amy Corbin ..). Please stop adding that link for now, and discuss on talkpages, or with a wikiproject. If established editors consider this a reliable source, and an appropriate external link, then they will start using it as well. You often use it both as a reference and an external link, which also suggest you have an interest in linking to the article, not only in enhancing the encyclopedia. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 00:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I can assure you that I am not Amy Corbin. I have never met her and have absolutely no connection. My only intention was to utilize the thorough information available on the Sacred Land website, especially for some of the more limited Wikipedia articles (or, in Lake Baikal's case, articles that have some incomplete sections). In the future, I will refrain, since it apparently comes off as self-promoting rather than helpful. My sincere apologies. Sacredland (talk) 00:21, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Your focus (only this site), your editstyle (adding sometimes the same link twice!), the fact that for a couple of links that I followed all were written by Amy Corbin, and your username do suggest differently (though you indeed still may be right!). All in all, I suggest you to discuss further edits on talkpages / with an appropriate wikiproject before continuing. There is no harm in discussing the edits, is there? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:10, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

external links on Ford Maverick (North America)

Streetavenger seems to have a very strong interest in promoting the link to maverickbuffet.com. On June 11, 2008, he moved maverickbuffet to the top of the list. (dif) On the same day, Streetavenger deleted the link to a competing forum! (dif) This does not appear to be consistent with keeping a neutral point-of-view. It appears he is promoting one forum so that it becomes more successful than the other.

I've previously had a difficulty with Streetavenger where he stubbornly kept removing the Notes section after I restored it, so the footnotes on the page don't show up now. He'd revert my edits without explanation or comment. I tried to open a discussion, but it didn't get anywhere; this situation was so frustrating for me that I took a WP:Wikibreak because of it. --Smiller933 (talk) 15:05, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

He is only one offending edit away from a block (and that may be only one or two edits less than the other account, who is also not discussing). I noticed this 'spamming' some time ago (he is the only editor using this link, which gets noticed by the bots), did some research today. Thanks for the heads up! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:08, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

166.70.79.252 spam links

They're at it again - adding spam external links, after your warning. I've reverted that change. Should they be blacklisted now? Who do you/I/we contact about this? -- Bdoserror (talk) 19:47, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I have blacklisted the links (as I promised), and blocked the IP for 3 months (I do not believe it is used by other editors). Maybe this will get the message through (earlier blocks did not). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:45, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Template:IUPAC

A tag has been placed on Template:IUPAC requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section T3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a deprecated or orphaned template. After seven days, if it is still unused and the speedy deletion tag has not been removed, the template will be deleted.

If the template is intended to be substituted, please feel free to remove the speedy deletion tag and please consider putting a note on the template's page indicating that it is substituted so as to avoid any future mistakes (<noinclude>{{transclusionless}}</noinclude>).

Thanks. --MZMcBride (talk) 07:23, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Seems to be unused, can be deleted IMHO. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:45, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Hu12

Thanks for your message on Hu12's talk page - I feel it is more appropriate to reply here. You make some good points. I have offered the other editor in question my help in contributing positively. I will note that some of the links Hu12 mass-reverted had been in articles for a considerable time, so I think it is reasonable to assume that other editors had seen them and decided that they should stay. At least one was in fact being used as a citation for an article, and the reaction at WP:SPAM is, I think, telling. Any editor who goes on a spree of reversions without bothering to reply to concerns is inevitably going to attract some criticism. Hu12 continued editing while discussion was going on, and frankly made no attempt to actually address the concerns of others. Had he actually stopped editing I would have stayed off his talk-page. DuncanHill (talk) 18:53, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that blocking and mass-reverting is maybe a bit over-the-top, especially when persisting during discussion. I have had similar situations, where things seem appropriate, but where an editors conduct is out of line (cmp User:Fleurstigter vs. User:VAwebteam. Both have a COI, Fleurstigter refuses, and insists in inappropriate edits, VAwebteam has turned into a good editor. Some editors have, together with the editor, gone through the edits, and on a case-by-case basis it was decided what to do (remove link, leave link in EL, turn into reference). I am ~~(still)~~ reverting all additions by User:Fleurstigter, even the appropriate ones. WP:RBI applies there, I think. Here we have not gotten to that point (and I hope we will not get there), but I hope these two examples show the extremes of what the 'spam'-watchers sometimes have to handle (I prefer 'link-pushing' over the word 'spam', the links are not necesserily spam when they get pushed). Thanks for the heads up! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:00, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Graag correctie

Hallo. Ik zou het op prijs stellen als je een einde zou maken aan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam/UserReports/Fleurstigter

Groeten, Fleur Stigter

PS: wist mijn oude inlog niet meer en heb dus even een tijdelijk account aangemaakt voor deze boodschap —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bekend (talk • contribs) 21:29, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Ik zal je rapporten verwijderen.

Je kunt je paswoord resetten als je een e-mail adres hebt opgegeven in de settings van je account, ik heb dat nog nooit gedaan, maar waarschijnlijk gaat dat via het inlogscherm.

Vriendelijke groet, Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:11, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

IRC on Tuesday

Dirk, will you be available for an IRC on Tuesday at 1600h UTC (1700h British Summer Time?)? I'd like to see if we now have a working scheme for presenting validated chemical data on WP, and your skills are pretty much unique in that area - so PLEASE can you come? If not, is there another time you can come? Also, do you think we have the tools we need to do this? Answer here if you wish, I watch this page anyway. Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 03:57, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll try, it is normally about the time I leave the lab. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:23, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Ford Maverick (North America) Editing

I'm sorry, I am new to editing wikipedia. This is my first time to use a talk page. As far as editing the page, I'm not sure why StreetAvenger doesn't want to list ALL relevant external links. Today, I edited the page again - adding back his link as well as another forum. There are also other forums that we could add to the page as well. I do not want to be banned and will learn how to add relevant comments to the changes I make. Thank you for being patient. Please contact me with any comments. --Runningman1996 (talk) 19:15, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. The way I see it, we should have links to multiple relevant forums or none at all. An individual posting his/her favorite does not help the wikipedia entry. I'll read up on the external links rules. --Runningman1996 (talk) 19:26, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Why were the links to the club websites removed? I understand why the forum links were removed. I see other car entries with links to club sites and thought that these were relevant. Thanks --Runningman1996 (talk) 12:47, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I moved everything to the discussion-page. If you think they merit inclusion, then make a post there, and reinsert them (I personally don't have a clue, they look all like fan-sites to me .. ). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:55, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok, Thanks. --Runningman1996 (talk) 18:08, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Nicole Wray

An article that you have been involved in editing, Nicole Wray, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nicole Wray. Thank you. 4.129.65.144 (talk) 16:12, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Nicole Wray

No, because unlike I follow the rules. 4.129.65.144 (talk) 16:22, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Nah, not really. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:24, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Vaporizer - links to medical studies

I can't see why links to honourable scientific studies are deleted by Beetstra. These Medical Studies provide information about recent research and I see a great benefit in providing links to these studies. I would suggest to provide the links again (see 4 July, 2008). I am sure that it is worthy information. Esender1 (talk) 06:57, 8 July 2008 (UTC)Esender1

I replied on your talkpage. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:10, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Boston College

Hi,
I need your help. I am working on a research project at Boston College, studying creation of medical information on Wikipedia. You are being contacted, because you have been identified as an important contributor to one or more articles.

Would you will be willing to answer a few questions about your experience? We've done considerable background research, but we would also like to gather the insight of the actual editors. Details about the project can be found at the user page of the project leader, geraldckane. Survey questions can be found at geraldckane/medsurvey. Your privacy and confidentiality will be strictly protected!

The questions should only take a few minutes. I hope you will be willing to complete the survey, as we do value your insight. Please do not hesitate to contact me or Professor Kane if you have any questions.

Thank You, BCeagle0312 (talk) 19:45, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation, but I think I have not added to much content to the article, but have been mainly cleaning up things. I'll have a look, but I don't think that I can be of much help. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:04, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

tips for more considerate Demonstrations

Dirk, thanks for everything you do for Wikipedia. I present at various conferences about the value of wikipedia and similar organizations, with a common theme of helping people overcome their fear of letting-go of control of their content and opening themselves up to more community participation and contribution.

A few years back, in more than one conference, it was a real "hit" to visit Jimmy Wales' entry on wikipedia, delete everything and replace it with the words "jimmy Wales is a boob".

I would always revert the change within seconds, but after only 2 or 3 of those "demonstrations" over a 2-month period, that page was locked, and remains so to this day. (I've often hoped that this move had to do with much more vandalism than my demonstration).

Today I was presenting at the Alliance For Community Media national conference in DC, trying to convince Public Access TV stations and Community Media Centers to power their edges a bit more, allow their community to create and edit the metadata for their own shows, help determine programming schedules, and so on. As always, Wikipedi was one of my primary examples of where this approach works.

When the inevitable question about vandalism or "punk kids adding profanity" arose, I again used Wikipedia as an example... encouraging them to build tools to deal with such behavior, to encourage and empower their community to deal with such behavior, but reminded them that the benefit of facilitating widespread participation outweighs the risks of losing control of your content.

I deleted the entire entry for Public Access TV and replaced it with the words "Public Access TV sucks".

When I tried to show them the simple functionality for repairing such actions, just a minute or two later, I was unable to revert because you had already reverted and banned me from making any changes... which presented an even better lesson and example for my presentation.

So. Thank you for doing that, but here's my question.

I am concerned that my vandalism demonstration might have negative repercussions (like getting pages frozen) and want to make sure that I am in no way harming Wikipedia. Do you think what I'm doing is OK, provided that i revert my changes within seconds, knowing that one or two visitors might see it, or do you have any other suggestions for how I should go about demonstrating this powerful example of powering the edges? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.94.250.137 (talk) 04:25, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. I certainly do not consider using this type of demonstrations as a proper way of using wikipedia. The edits you performed were offensive enough for me to just block the account quickly (I think for a couple of hours, 31?), generally further repercussions are not necessery (if you would then have changed your IP and repeated, then after 2-3 IPs I would indeed have protected the page against editing. You were (un)lucky enough to me actually refreshing my watchlist at that point. The only 'repercussion' in the end may be, that the IP now has a block in the log, and further vandalism (by another user using that IP) may result in longer blocks than necessery. There is nothing that we can change about that.

I would suggest you do not use Wikipedia for such, but find yourself a webserver where you can run your own wiki, and perform the demonstration there (you could ask someone, e.g. in the audience with a laptop, or 'at home' knowing you are presenting at that time) to revert and block you, although I understand this has a higher impact. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:20, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

...or you could make a constructive edit. Daniel (talk) 09:22, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Another option is to show them Special:recentchanges and follow one of the antivandalism bots we have here (User:ClueBot,User:VoABot II, User:XLinkBot), without actually making (vandalising) edits yourself (we have enough others who do that). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:42, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. When I refer to "repercussions" I don't mean at me, I mean the negative results such as Jimmy Wales' page being closed for editing... and thus now lacking the inherent value of open editing.

As for the other helpful suggestions, I do often make constructive edits in demonstrations, but there is OFTEN the question and fear about "what happens when some dumb kid replaces all our hard work with a cussword?" or other fears of vandalism, and nothing is so effective as deleting year's worth of work on a Public Access article with the words "Public Access Sucks" and seeing how easy it is to fix that... or showing that if one of the "smartest" and most popular websites on the planet, Wikipedia (with a much stronger "brand" to protect than most of these little TV stations), feels that the benefit of open participation outweighs the risk of vandalism, they don't need to fear it either.

The more "sacred" that wikipedia page, the more the audience can grasp the message, which is why I used to use Jimmy Wales' page. Anyway, I appreciate any other advice, as I hope to keep evangelizing the open-participation method and want to find effective and responsible ways to do that without harming this organization which i respect and support. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.94.250.8 (talk) 14:53, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The repercussions are not only against you, it may also be to the host-institution where you give your talk. They do get the block in their records. If we would get complaints about that, then you may run the risk that one of our administrators does get back to you personally. Please don't vandalise, but consider showing, as I said, e.g. Special:Contributions/XLinkBot, Special:Contributions/Cluebot, or Special:Contributions/VoABot II (and show that the edits are here with a bot reverted withing seconds (XLinkBot has a reversion time of about 14 seconds, don't know about the speed of Cluebot and VoABot).

I still like the idea of you starting a wiki on your home server more, and then having someone helping you behind the scenes when you 'vandalise' one of your own pages. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:59, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't feel that I spammed anything....

When I added the link to a book on Amazon after saying that the book had a plot that involved the collapse of Cumbre Vieja. I linked to the book's site on Amazon as a reference - to cite the information I was providing. I think it is unfair to blacklist me, and thus to call into question my integrity as an editor on the wikipedia, and further to link to my page with this unfair claim, automated bot or not. Please in the future, write to me if you or your bot have a problem with one of my edits before placing me on a blacklist.

2007-12-29 20:34:04: User en:Saudade7 (talk - contribs) to en:Cumbre Vieja (diff). Links: www.amazon.com/Scimitar-SL-2-Robinson-Patrick/dp/0060086645.

Thank you. Saudade7 11:36, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

please check my comment on beestras talk page. β^_command 12:01, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't feel that I spammed anything...

When I added the link to a book on Amazon after saying that the book had a plot that involved the collapse of Cumbre Vieja. I linked to the book's site on Amazon as a reference - to cite the information I was providing. I think it is unfair to blacklist me, and thus to call into question my integrity as an editor on the wikipedia, and further to link to my page with this unfair claim, automated bot or not. Please in the future, write to me if you or your bot have a problem with one of my edits before placing me on a blacklist.

2007-12-29 20:34:04: User en:Saudade7 (talk - contribs) to en:Cumbre Vieja (diff). Links: www.amazon.com/Scimitar-SL-2-Robinson-Patrick/dp/0060086645.

Thank you. Saudade7 11:37, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

please check your facts, you have not been blacklisted, on the other hand links that you have added have been monitored for other reasons. Just because the logged a link you added, that does not mean that you are a spammer or even blacklisted. I have come up several times on those lists and so has ClueBot and others. it just means that you have added a link that is being monitored. those reports need proper interpretation. β^_command 11:59, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, it is as Betacommand is saying, the bot is monitoring links because it has some reason of monitoring these link additions, the bot does not decide if it is spam (or linkpushing), or that the user has a conflict of interest. The later reports have a appropriate header, I'll try to regenerate this one as well. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:04, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Please white list my page and recover

07:36:59, Mon Mar 31, 2008 - user:Imeadors - user talk (contribs) on page Ivy Meadors (diff) -> calculated overlap Imeadors <-> Ivy Meadors (U->P: 100% - P->U 79.99% -> ratio 79.9%)

Ivy meadors ivy@hthts.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by Imeadors (talk • contribs) 03:29, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Why, you have a clear conflict of interest, and the page has been deleted. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:06, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Some Questions...

Hello,

I notice you and Flowanda have removed some links which I really don't understand the reason for. I realize you want to keep Wikipedia clear of spam, but some of the links that have been removed are full of more information than many of the other currently listed external links.

Regarding ffxii.us, I would appreciate it if you could get it removed from the blacklist. The cross-wiki spamming was a mistake; I honestly didn't think it was hurting anything as the link in question is one of the most extensive resources on the net for its subject matter. If nothing else, at least getting the link back on ja.wikipedia.org would be nice as it had been there for over 18 months and wasn't a part of the cross-wiki spamming incident.

Thanks. Jed K (talk) 13:04, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Jed K, most of the links you are adding are on the same server, which suggests that you are involved with them. If editors who are here for a long time keep removing your links, then that should suggest that maybe you first have to discuss them. Since these are different topic where you add these links, I would suggest on the individual talkpages, and please wait for consensus before reinserting them (or better, let an uninvolved editor add them). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:33, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Understood. Note, however, that it isn't editors who are removing the links; it is 'one' editor (Flowanda). I've noticed a number of other people questioning his/her link removals over the past few months and thus do not feel his/her removal alone is a good indicator. Some of the sites that have been removed were quite helpful. As for ffxii.us, how can I go about getting it off the blacklist? Thanks. Jed K (talk) 13:46, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I am removing them too, and the ffxii.us links were also removed by other editors. No matter if it is one or two editors who reverted your edits, there are concerns, so therefore it is better to discuss. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:56, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Note: also user:Bluerfn reverted your linkadditions here. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Bluerfn reverted the ffxii.us addition to en.wikipedia.org, yes; however, the ja.wikipedia.org listing was deleted as a result of ffxii.us being blacklisted. Anyway, future additions will be discussed first. Thanks.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Jed K (talk • contribs)

Yep, the ja-deletion is a, for you, unwanted consequence. If certain wikis do think the link is a good addition, they can ask for whitelisting. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:14, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Your block of 41.232.181.152

Good move! So was adding the domain to XLinkBot's list.

I strongly recommend against actually blacklisting the domains, since there may be a Joe job involved. See my comments at User talk:EdJohnston#Strange IP address editing. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:15, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmm .. so WP:RBI? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:19, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, what about page protection (and blocking the 'established enough' editors who insist in this warring). --~~

Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe we just leave it like it is for now until something else happens. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:20, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Removing Link

I see you removed the link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Signaling_System_7&diff=226057438&oldid=226049293

Citing it was already in References. In the talk page for the article the issue was never placement but that was my guess as to why the user dsytb was still removing it (in the past 24 hour period). I made it very clear that the version in References should not be hyperlinked due to the book still be for sale in two electronic formats and undermining the publisher etc. The version at the site linked to an external links is not at the same quality level as the ISBN electronic publication by the publisher (by far) and placing it there is giving the impression that it matches the ISBN electronic version as sold by the publisher. Hence external links was more appropriate and removing the hyperlink in references. Please consider reverting and come back to me. Thanks Leedryburgh (talk) 17:22, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Also please note the text of the version online does not quite match the ISBN in references. Leedryburgh (talk) 17:24, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Still, the external link is the same as used in the references section, you could, however, add the second ISBN to the references (I wrote a book, I have two ISBN-numbers, one for the electronic version, one for the hardcopy). Makes perfect sense to me. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:38, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Ludwigs2 has been listening to Leedryburgh's wishes (using one of his IP addresses (80.108.90.135) again, probably because it was against A. B.'s directives) and has inserted the links into the external references section on Signaling System 7 and also into the external references section on SIGTRAN, with big splash, and at the top of the External links sections, even though they still appear in the References sections. Please revert as this can hardly be viewed to be concensus in this matter, now, nor from the start. I cannot revert them myself as I have told A. B. that I will not revert these links. — Dgtsyb (talk) 10:17, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. I still don't see why the link needs to be there, the OFFICIAL copy is in the references .. I give up, I had my say, lets wait what the sockpuppetry case gives. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:33, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, the sock-case is closed, so that is not a problem. Well .. I guess we will have to live with that external link for the moment, and interested parties will have to dicuss the removal. IMHO, and that opinion is on the talkpage, it is superfluous, the link to the official copy is there. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:41, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I was going to mention that. I'll ask A. B. to remove the links tommorrow. — Dgtsyb (talk) 10:45, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

re:They are persistent

Hello, Beetstra. You have new messages at Tinucherian's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

04:37, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

-) You are welcome. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:03, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Can this bot work on a different, outdated MediaWiki installation?

I've made a bot request here, and I am wondering if AntiSpamBot, ShadowBot or XLinkBot would work on Valve's outdated MediaWiki or if it can be adjusted to do so? Valve's MW version has some differences to Wikipedia which I pointed out in the link above, namely the old version number, the lack of a bot api, no recent changes in IRC (but there's a news feed), and Valve doesn't have a tool server. --Pizzahut2 (talk) 16:00, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

It might be made to work there, but it would need a serious rewrite. Both the linkwatcher (the bot finding link additions) and XLinkBot are highly dependent on api.php and IRC. I can give you the code for both, I don't have time to do that myself. Can you install the blacklist extension? In that case you could just blacklist everything, and use the whitelist to allow what can be added. That gives some work, but it takes away the spam-problem. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:04, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

see User:XLinkBot/Code. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:16, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

The blacklist extension does only work for MW v1.6 or newer. Valve's stance on this seems to be that they won't make any changes to the current wiki until the major update which they have been working on two and a half years so far while there is still no ETA when it will happen. --Pizzahut2 (talk) 16:56, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Please review this block

I just blocked Dgtsyb for expanding his disagreement to the 2 neutral editors working on the SS7-related pages.

Please take a look at User talk:Dgtsyb#Blocked for tendentious editing and let me know if you think this appropriate.

Thanks! --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:40, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

A short block would be good. I stil think that the link has no place on the page, as there is a reference to the official (i.e., not changed) version of the book. If the reference contains the appropriate information, then we do not need to link externally; generally, external links are a service to the reader, but in a large majority of cases, they can also be 'linked' without a live external link. I'll have a look at what is happening at the moment. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:05, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

q re: petitionspot.com

At Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spam#Request_opinions_on_petitionspot.com you suggested this link to be a candidate for XLinkBot - but I'm uncertain how to request it be added to that bot's filters. Can you advise? FYI: The link was re-added today to the NetZero article with the edit summary: "it's obviously relevant; google this company. if you push, I'll take it to arbitration". As the link still fails WP:NOT#SOAPBOX and WP:ELNO, I view this as an attempt by someone with an agenda to use the threat of arbitration to intimidate, and re-removed the link (note: the petition shows total signatures to date: zero). I also added a comment to the article's talk page. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 17:18, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

The edit that adds that link to NetZero is blockable, IMHO. I will add it to XLinkBot, what we generally say for blacklisting or revertlisting, is that we need reasonable proof a link is inappropriately pushed, I think we have some occasions here for petitionspot, and petitiononline is already there as a precedent. Proof is for me: a Special:Contributions of a user, a discussed item on the request page, a discussed item on either WT:WPSPAM or the blacklist. If it then creates too many problems then it can be removed easily as well. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:55, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar

		The RickK Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
		Awarded to Beetstra for reverting Vandalism on Cisco Career Certifications and blocking the Vandal -- *Tinu* *Cherian* - 05:25, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Ref: this

As I expected, they have changed domain after it was blacklisted (did I do that?). The new domain is now on XlinkBot, but I am not sure if that is going to help. Thanks for the barnstar! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:03, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

links to bibliotraducciones.com

Dear Dirk.

Thank you for your remarks about the links I have placed to the site referred to.
Bibliotraducciones.com is a non-commercial site that has finally seen the light after over a dozen years of painstaking research into the world of books, authors and publishing firms.
As far as its creator is concerned and judging by the number of visitors that get to the site from Wikipedia pages in search for deeper or wider information on a particular author/book/publisher, although placing such links may seen to violate the Wiki's editing rules, in fact, this kind of work is pretty much in tune with the philosophy of this great site of which you are a prominent contributor.
All the work I have done by placing those links to my friend's site is done on a voluntary basis as we believe in spreading culture-related facts and knowledge for free and to the widest possible audience. Obviously, the Wiki is the best means to achieve such an objective.
As you suggested:

I am going to stop placing links to bibliotraducciones.com for now;
we are going to try to find an alternative way to make this wealth of information available to Wiki users by means of adding a specific section to the articles or expanding an existing one;
we will think about joining an existing project within Wikipedia and/or starting a fresh one if there is no existing project that matches the kind of information we have compiled and wish to make available.

I can assure you that we have no intention whatsoever to boycott or sabotage such a great site as Wikipedia, nor do we wish to do anything that could be regarded as spam - a kind of plague that we, as heavy internet users, have to suffer all the time and that has brought this wonderful means of sharing knowledge -Internet- into disrepute by bringing misery to its users.

I will welcome any other comments, thoughts or suggestions that you see fit to address to me.

Thanks a lot and regards Ealconchel (talk) 12:31, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

It is not the nature of the link I am questioning, but the appropriateness of the link additions. We are writing an encyclopedia here, not a linkfarm or an internet directory. The link may make very good references, or may be, on some pages, be good external links. I therefor urge you to discuss further link additions first on talkpages, and/or with a wikiproject, as you now suggest, and I am sure they are able to help you further. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:35, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

IRC on the bot

Dirk, can you update us on your bot work on IRC on Tuesday as usual? Several of us have been watching this discussion, but I was wondering if you could take a few minutes to explain where things are and what still needs to be done? I may not be able to make it until 1630h UTC, I have a 1500h UTC meeting and I don't know if it'll run past 1600h - if it does and there are people to listen, go ahead and start, I'll try and log it in my absence. I expect this shouldn't be a really long meeting, unless people want to discuss your latest idea. It sounds very surreal to me; if someone updates data in the present, then immediately in the future the bot will go back in time and reinstate the past into the present, when it arrives - have I got it right? Maybe it will be a long meeting.... Please let me know if you can't make it. Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 05:51, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure if I am there this evening, I will probably leave here quite on time.

The old-revision idea may work. It is a bit like the 'sighted versions' principle on Wikipedia. If we 'sight' a certain box in a certain revision, we mark that revision by adding it to the index. If then someone edits the box, and changes a verified field, the bot could revert to the old revision. The problem is, that I am building 'advanced vaues' into the box (stupid example in short, if you put in the verified version of the box for the boiling point of concrete the value '#NA' (as it simply does not exist), then when someone comes along and puts a boiling point in the box on concrete, the bot could see that as 'vandalism', revert and warn. It is a bit silly to create a permanent revision with #NA in it, remove it again, and then mark the forlast version as the 'verified' one in the index (though I can also think of a possible workaround). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:42, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

wikipedia's conflict of interests

Hi Dirk, first of all I apreciate your dedication in keeping things neutral, I indeed understand that is what keeps science and wikipedia credible, I can also understand that the transparency (no nick name) I adopt, aside from prooving my credibility, may lead to suspect ambiguous aims.

My business is in the Information Technology (as you can ascertain here), NOT int the medical field, as such I'm commercially neutral for health topics, my interest in posturology science and the material I've developed is for my own health sake and may be useful for general health, as such my research is banner free and freely online available (exactly as wikipedia is), if one's own health is a interest conflict who is eligible to edit a health article ?

Wikipedia scope is to share knowledge that is credible, this is what every author should be committed to and this has been my approach since early stages:

I've first created WikiProject Posturology to gather authors
subsequently edited articles concerning topics previously untreated, as such requiring to be described
always keeping WikiProject Posturology up to date
putting bibliographic refernces

As far as conflict od interests in editing topics is concerned, every author belongs to one of these categories:
1) person in conflict
2) his friends
3) his enemies
4) neutral informed on the subject
5) neutral disinformed on the subject

Wikipedia goal is to determine entitled person to treat the matter

The question you put is: who is neutral ?

remember that every acknowledged scientific citation, to be uniquely identified, references a journal or other commercial media, how to garantee neutrality of every editor against every reference ?
how to exclude that an apparently "neutral" author features his contributes over wikipedia on his professional curriculum to get benefits for business porpuses ?

The question I put is: who contributes more to wikipedia ?

is it wise to cencor an author, shading his unique knowledge over a wikipedia NEGLECTED topic, only for suspecting him to get something out of wikipedia ?
would'nt it be fair to have his contribute judged by a scientific committee ?
is not by chance that WikiProject Posturology has neither members nor discussions so far

Wikipedia is then responsible for judging ambiguous positions in terms of balance between extent of scientific contribution they provide vs. neutrality, this is YOUR conflict of interests, please let me know the decision wikipedia committe will take and I will gladly eventually cancel my contributes and project.

Thanks for your dedication to neutrality
--Paoloplatania (talk) 08:38, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Paolo for this remark. No, this is your conflict of interest, a guideline (based on policies) which has been agreed upon by many established editors here on wikipedia. And it does not forbid you to add this information. But as your account is only 4 days active here (at least as registered account), I found it needed to point you to that guideline. Again, it does not forbid you to add the info, but it asks you to be very careful with that, as it may seem self-promotional.

As you can see (and I did look at your contributions), I did not revert or remove anything you added, as I did see that you were adding content along links to a website you are involved in. I was therefor not censoring anything, but, again, merely asking you to be cautious.

I have been here for quite some time, and have been involved in many situations on both ends of the spectrum. It is good that you are fair about it, and I also thank you for that.

You are talking about having a 'scientific committee' judge the contributions, unfortunately we do not really have such a committee, although there are some mechanisms that judge articles. For now the place to be would be a wikiproject, such projects bring authors together with similar interests, a full list can be found via this page: Wikipedia:WikiProject, and I would suggest that you find one (or more) that is linked to your interests and join them. (Another way to find them is to go to one of the pages of your interest, click the tab for the talkpage, and see if there is a project banner on top). They also 'judge' articles in their speciality. I see now that your are trying to start your own wikiproject, it might be an idea to link that to other projects which have links with your subject, I guess some parts of medics are overlapping with this. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:56, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Blacklist fodder

rationalvedanta.net/node/137
scribd.com/doc/3245023/Buddhism-and-Quantum-Physics
blog.civilisations-matter.org/2008/01/15/east-meets-west
blog.civilisations-matter.org/category/blog-von-christian-thomas-kohl
cm-germany.org/wordpress/2008/02/09/east-meets-west/
newdualism.org/papers/C.Kohl/Buddhism-QP-Parallel.htm

You know why. MER-C 09:36, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll get to it this evening or tomorrow. I am on public access at the moment .. (whee .. no admin buttons :-) ). --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 13:11, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Done, here. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:14, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Why am I leaving Wikipedia?

Beetstra, take a good look at my user page. I believe it documents that fact that I have been a long time contributor of good articles related to my many years of engineering experience.

So why have I decided to leave Wikipedia? Because I have grown weary of the revisions made by unexperienced people who think they know a subject when they really don't know it. I am also weary of people who make revisions because they "know better than anyone else". In particular, the actions of one young postgrad student who calls himself Headbomb with whom it is impossible to reason because of his firm belief that he is infallible ... and that he and only he "knows better than anyone else". His attitude has finally been the last straw in making my decision to leave Wikipedia. I am simply tired of trying to reason with the likes of Headbomb.

Goodbye to all the friends I did make here in the past two and a half years or so. mbeychok (talk) 15:13, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

A SAD, SAD moment .. sorry to hear this, Milton. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 13:11, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Whitelist?

Hi
I happened to see that you, dear bot, listed me on one of your list of suspicious diffs for this change I made while desperatly trying, and ultimatly failing, to establish notability of Heiko Schrepel. The link was added in good faith, and I would very much like to be added to your whitelist.
Cheers, Amalthea (talk) 21:41, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi, thanks. No, this is not a list of 'suspicious diffs', but a list of link-additions, nothing suspicious there. I am on public access at the moment, but I will look at whitelisting tomorrow. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 13:13, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I have whitelisted you, that does not take you off the bottom list, but it should put a line through any linkadditions you perform. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:25, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

CheMoBot

Hi Beetstra, I've just got back from my trip, and I was wondering how CheMoBot and the validated data collection was coming along. I saw this recent post, thanks, it's good that they seem supportive there. Did you agree with Dmacks on how to implement this? Did you set up an on-wiki database, or do you plan to do this all through separate article data pages? Cheers, Walkerma (talk) 17:29, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

We're getting there, there is a request for bot status now (see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/CheMoBot), and I have been working with them to define how to set up a database. Format is going to be on-wiki for now, for {{chembox new}} currently subpages of Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/Index. I am getting the wiki-editing in place. It is going to be bloody powerful, I think, also usable for all other boxes out there. I could not resist putting something on the botpage: User:CheMoBot. Have to start working on a manual .. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:35, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that sounds great! I'm getting quite excited by the possibilities! Please let us know when you start testing the dataset. Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 18:52, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Still quite some things to do, though. But we are getting there. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:03, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Forgot to say .. actually, the testing of datasets is already continuous, I could use some help in actually getting a useful dataset, though. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:40, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, how can we help?! Is the test set we suggested (the first 50 from Antony's 500) unsuitable? What do you need to get a better set? Many thanks, Walkerma (talk) 13:46, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Let me know if there's anyway I can help with providing a subset from the file under curation? I think you already have the majority of the 500 though?--ChemSpiderMan (talk) 04:19, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi ChemSpiderMan (sorry, missed the message). I am waiting for the bot to be allowed to edit, after that I will start making copies of pages into the repository. When that is done, we will have to go through them and 'verify' them. If you want to make a start, you can (using the format on e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/Index/B (0); one 'chembox new verified' per section, sectionname equal to mainspace name, in format '== Benzene ==' (with that exact spacing)). If I meet you online I will tell you a bit more .. and then I need to write a proper manual for this ... Thanks already. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:55, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Whitelist ChinaTravelGuide.com?

Hi, Dirk, back in March, we were discussing about white list ChinaTravelGuide.com. See User_talk:Beetstra/Archive_9#ChinaTravelGuide.com

Would it be possible for you to further look into the spam through the links of our web site? Is it still happenging? Can you whitelist our site? As a commercial-free wiki, it's also ChinaTravelGuide.com's policy not to tolerate any kind of spams. Thanks. JayFang (talk) 22:38, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

chinatravelguide.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

There are still some cases, and I am afraid the type of site will result in this. The problem is not the commercial nature (often commercial links are even more appropriate ..), but the large potential in conflict of interest-like edits (it is a self-published source if editors first make the page on chinatravelguide.com, and then link it here ..) and that we are not a linkfarm etc.

I have removed the link from the monitoring-list, but I think it is wise to have a look every now and then (you can see the latest results in the COIBot report link in the above LinkSummary template). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:23, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Added due to reverts

Hi, I just noticed that my username has appeared on multiple Spam Link Reports: thenisai, philstar, rugbyleague. However, all these are because I reverted vandalism, and the revert reinstated the links: rugbyleague thenisai philstar. Is this anything to worry about? Thanks, ~ Ameliorate _{U T C} @ 05:22, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

No, nothing to worry about at all. The lower part of these pages are just lists of who added the external link according to the databases (you will also find my name there sometimes, and e.g. the vandalism revert bots (XLinkBot, ClueBot, VoABot II). We need the full data, if the link gets pushed by one or two accounts, but is also used genuinly by established editors, then we have to be more careful in e.g. adding it to a blacklist (as it has good use), otherwise we can be a bit more aggressive in such things. So for established users there is nothing to worry (you actually, unknowingly, help us assess the use of a link). But I have whitelisted you, when the bot now creates reports, your link additions should have a strikethrough. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:30, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

That's great, thanks for your explanation. ~ Ameliorate _{U T C} @ 09:52, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Removal of reference on crab fishing

I received this message from you regarding an edit I made on several pages regarding Alaskan Crab fishing:

"I don't know, but shortly after I reverted user:NatFisherman on Deadliest Catch, this account is created, starts editing Deadliest Catch inserting a link to exactly the same domain (as a reference, that is true, but thereby removing a reference), which has hitherto NOT been used on wikipedia. That strongly suggests that you are the same user as User:NatFisherman"

I'm not NatFisherman, but I would like to update the data regarding labor department stats on commercial fishing. I removed the other reference because they link to 2005 data, and I was hoping to link them to 2006 data. I also added statistics on the effects of Russian crab imports on alaskan fishing industry, which you also removed.

I have reviewed the posting guidelines, and if possible, would appreciate it if you would replace my posts. Or offer some suggestions as to how I might be more successful in the future if I try to add information to the Wikipedia.

Thanks

Thanks for restoring my post on russian crab imports, is it alright if I also restore the edits on the labor department stats?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Hg.erg (talk • contribs)

I am sorry, but I am feeling to request a checkuser on all the accounts who are involved in pushing these and similar links to wikipedia, there are too many accounts, and I am sorry too, but I don't believe that you are not the same user, it is just too much of a coincidence that you are, seconds after NatFisherman inserts the same link onto the same page as you perform an edit on. I will have a look at the accounts again, ~~and then file the WP:RFCU,~~ sockpuppetry is not allowed here, especially not with the history of link abuse here on wikipedia. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:18, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, I had a second look. To me there are at the moment three groups of editors with three different links busy. I'll keep my eyes on all three of them, not all of these edits here are appropriate. We are not an advertising service, or similar. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:05, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I am a long time commercial crabber and subscriber to National Fisherman. I think they are an excellent source for industry news and data. I am still trying to figure out this whole wikipedia world, so please bear with me, and I would appreciate your patience. If what I'm doing is advertising, I should tell them to pay me for it - haha. I only trying to get some of the data up to date, and National Fisherman is where I go to find it. I hope they are a good enough source for wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hg.erg (talk • contribs) 14:18, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I will bear with you (even if the coincidence is really big). You could consider finding an appropriate wikiproject, they may be of interest in your contributions, and maybe give you ideas on which articles you may find interesting. A list can be found via this page: Wikipedia:WikiProject. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:00, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Links in pathology

Hello Beetstra, I think it is useful for medical students to add links to pathology images that are still missing for these oncology pages. They are still stubs that need to be completed. Thanks patho (talk) 14:04, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree but these images are not mine. Before Wikipedia could get free images, I think it is important to link to interesting resources. Up to you... patho (talk) 14:10, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

No, it is not mine. I understand your point. I will see if I could get some free images... patho (talk) 14:21, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Links to Outside Debate Site

I recently received a message from you regarding links I have been putting into the External Links are to a new site called Opposing Views. I have reviewed the guidelines for entering content, especially as it relates to external links, a number of times. I have also reviewed many other listings for organizations and similar subjects to those that Opposing views deals with.

I don't understand how entering links to this site as an external resource for additional information which is completely relevant to the article subjects is in violation of the policies. There are pages on organizations such as those on Opposing Views (NRA, PETA, Lambda Legal, ...), and manyof those pages contain links to sites that give more information about them or point to places that demonstrate their work. Exactly like our site.

I have also looked at topics similar to hose we cover... such as capital punishment and other debates. In those they list the parties that take a pro or con side, as well as links to major debate sites, such as procon.org. Again, exaclty like what Opposing Views does, except we are MORE authoritative because we are the source that these organizations and people are using as their platform for debate and online discussion, unlike procon.org and many listed in Wikipedia which merely write up their opinion of the issue.

I am sorry to be long winded, but I truly, truly, believe that we have additional information on these subjects that does not belong in Wikipedia, but augments it. How does that violate the guidelines?

I never, ever, ever spam. And certainly will not do so in Wikipedia. But I don't see how this isn't correct.

Sincerely,

Russell Fine —Preceding unsigned comment added by MisterFine (talk • contribs) 03:44, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, accounts who are only performing linkadditions are generally in violation of our spam guideline (spam in a wider context, 'link-pushing' etc.), and as you say above, you are connected to the site, so you are in that way also in 'violation' of our conflict of interest guideline. Generally, we are writing an encyclopedia here, not a linkfarm or a internet directory. Links can help in the understanding of an article, but generally, and I would argue that that goes especially for your site (as has been discussed somewhere else; err .. here, I think), they are often better as references (see the citation guideline and the reliable sources guideline) (see also [[WP:EL|the external links guideline, somewhere in the top "... but Wikipedia's purpose is not to include a comprehensive list of external links related to each topic. No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justifiable.").

Opinion sites can be a problem, and some of them are blacklisted (so they can not be used anymore at all on wikipedia), and others are on the revertlist of User:XLinkBot, because there are often concerns with them (in terms of WP:NOT#SOAPBOX, WP:COI, WP:SPAM). I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:47, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

linkwatcher bug

This seems to be killing off the linkwatchers (except for wikt.linkwatcher)..

Undefined subroutine &main::check_mysql called at ./*.linkwatcher.pl line 1174.

Leaving you a note, in case I don't catch you on IRC later.. --Versa geek 14:07, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Heh, true, forgot that, OK, will fix it .. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:19, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Solved. I gave the linkwatchers the possibility to report to the coibots without use of IRC (i.e. using COIBots db), but I forgot to copy a sub. It was running all fine until apparently someone started XWiki spamming. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:25, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

CheMoBot testing

Hi Dirk,

I just wanted to find out how the bot testing is going. It looks promising from your comments on the approval page. Do you want to share your results with WP:Chem on IRC this week, or is it too early? Let me know, and I'll call a short meeting on Tuesday if you think you'll have enough to update us with. I have a real-world meeting at 1700h UTC (one hour after the start) so I certainly can't talk too long. Let me know, and thanks for all your work! Walkerma (talk) 04:28, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Editing my contributions

Why was my edit to Hansen_Natural changed? They are the producers of Joker Mad Energy. I would have cited it, but you guys keep removing my links. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AlexPBenes (talk • contribs) 14:59, 11 August 2008 (UTC) Also, why do you remove my links to review sites, when a) There are links of other review sites and b) The EL guidelines state: "4. Sites with other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article, such as reviews and interviews."

I'm not trying to annoy anyone or spam, I'm also a little confused on why why stuff is getting removed. Please let me now, I'm sorry if I broke a rule, but I can't figure out what I did wrong!

Sorry Beestra, I found a site that I thought could be linked to and I got all excited that I could add stuff to Wikipedia. It was in no way promotional, and I'll double check next time before I add stuff.AlexPBenes (talk) 15:41, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Please read

Thank you for your kind and helpful comment on my talk page. I trust you will read my reply [[3]] as well. Kind regards, MoiraMoira (talk) 14:35, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Reference spamming

Hello Beetstra, on 21 July 2008 you blocked the anonymous user with IP address 86.83.155.44 for a period of 1 month for "Disruptive editing, Edit warring, reference spamming" and unblocked him 4 days later (see block log). On his talk page you wrote about the unblocking:

"As blocking admin, I am going to unblock you on the promise that you are going to make your case on appropriate talkpages, waiting for consensus there, and trying to work together with the editors who oppose your edits (and please try to speak in English, not many of us do understand Latin, and that behavious, generally, does not help your arguments). Please have a look at the conflict of interest guideline on this wiki, which gives some information on how to handle these situations." [4]

After being unblocked he did so far 4 edits in the article namespace (in 2 articles: Tram, List of town tramway systems). In both articles he reinserted a reference to his book which were both later reverted by another user after which he reverted that other user. Even after those reverts he didn't edit on the talk pages of these articles. A few days after he was unblocked he wrote on my talk page:

"As explained many times: there is nó selfrefence, because there is no other one possible in this field of profession." [5]

To me that proofs he still doesn't understand the concepts of "self reference" & "conflict of interest". When you unblocked him you wrote in the summary of the unblock "Per my suggestions on talk, please reblock if editor decides to persist in his behaviour" [6]. I think it is obvious he persists in his behaviour so reblocking and reverting his last edits seems to be the only logical steps. - Robotje (talk) 08:57, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I have reacted accordingly. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:26, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick reaction and all the effort to explain the case on his talk page. - Robotje (talk) 10:34, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Please take a look at this, where he again creates a red link to a non-existing page "dAb". - Erik Baas (talk) 12:14, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

And here ([[Borgdorff]]).- Erik Baas (talk) 12:17, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, I have left already a message on his talkpage earlier about self-promotion, egotism and adulting behaviour. Also note that his last signature after my last message does not contain anything like that, so maybe that helped.

This is on talkpages, not in mainspace, it would be something to worry about if it was in mainspace, or if he actually made the page in mainspace. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:21, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Although using my title can be explained still as adulting behaviour ... --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:23, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I've corrected (owing to your wish) not using your title etc., but now just Mrs. MoiraMoira again is destructing my pages, here as well as in other countries. This brutality is imho out of proportion anyhow and anyway, to kindly state. I'd like to draw your attention to this hazing again with your permission, being truly yours: D.A. Borgdorff 86.83.155.44 (talk) 15:40, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I saw it, I would suggest that you put older stuff (say of more than a week old) into an archive. E.g. you can go to User talk:86.83.155.44/Archive 1, move all old things there, and then create a link to that page on top of your talkpage. Deleting is generally frowned upon, though not strictly forbidden, and MoiraMoira should not do it in this way. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:43, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, MoiraMoira is wrong, I think, you only moved things, and refactored your own edits/comments. I'll keep an eye on it. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:45, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Dirk, but unfortunately al the time she = "MM" is deleting into my (international) pages, and only today in Catalonia and Italia my such pages are damaged by her again, in the last country followed by a year block up, !! -- now by some M7 who I thus can't reach for explanation. All that people seem to be biased about my carefull edits, only from so blacklisting once on the metawiki, I suppose... And thanks, Beetstra, in advance for your intervention with regards: D.A. Borgdorff 86.83.155.44 (talk) 16:53, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

You do have a way of insisting to add certain things, without too much discussion when they get reverted. But also on IT, I believe that this is an unwarranted block, there are no warnings considering this, and if IT has similar guidelines than en, then having those links there is not a bad thing (it is not like the links are selling anything). Try to request unblock, stating that, and I hope they are willing to discuss. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 17:04, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

As you probably can see from history, the intro links were there from the beginning, without any (Italian) objection -- till recently, when MoiraMoira (again there too) had focussed on this specially to boycot me everywhere only after she and mr. Waggel made statements initially about the 'Vallée' refence into the De Broglie articles that I started on a dozen Wikipedias. This was all mentioned unfortunately but with purpose on the (= curiously: → disappeared) RfC on the MetaWiki, where also editing etcetera was made impossible for me. It therefore looks like "witch"-hunting, as it was still called there too. Though "undercover" there, I'd like to thank you with utmost regards as I'm used to be doing in the mean time attending M7 on the talk page here as I was made impossible to edit on my page there ...! D.A. Borgdorff 86.83.155.44 (talk) 18:12, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

So they also protected your user talk page there. Hmm .. I am not sure if there is much I can do, but I am certainly keeping my eyes open. I is a bit worrying to see that MoiraMoira is accusing you on the Italian wiki of having no useful contributions, while they does not have many either. Lets see if they come here as well. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:54, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

БΥЯ: ł - Thank you so much, Beetstra ... Borgdorff, D.A. 86.83.155.44 (talk) 14:23, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I herewith like to thanking you again for your understanding and patience, while I'm mostly used to writing in Dutch. I'll share my feelings of respect to you specially, as was done to your colleague Sir M.R. Beychok. Imho, scientific sources were replaced by newspaper items ? I'm very sorry all the time being the origin of inconveniences apparently, reasoning to have stopped with editing into mainspaces. Still obligated and grateful for your (international) support, I'll remain reminding: D.A. Borgdorff 86.83.155.44 (talk) 11:47, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Question

Hello Beetstra, on WP:ANI you wrote something about group 3RR. On WP:3RR it says:

"An editor must not perform more than three reverts, in whole or in part, on a single page within a 24-hour period. A revert means undoing the actions of another editor, whether involving the same or different material each time."

Maybe it is explained somewhere else on this huge Wikipedia, but on that page I couldn't find anything about it. Like an explanation on how members of what could be regarded as a group can be held responsible for edits done later by other members of that supposed group. Let's take an example of the following edits done on a page within 24 hours:

user X makes an edit
user A reverts it
user X undoes that revert
user B reverts it
user X undoes that revert too
user C reverts it
user X undoes that revert too

Now we have reached a point where user X made 3 reverts and none of the others did more than 1 revert. How can you blame user A for a revert he thinks is needed but turns out to be the first in an 3RR violation? Maybe user A already logged off short after that first revert and doesn't even know what happened later until he logs in a few days later and finds a warning or block message on his talk page. As an admin on the Dutch Wikipedia I'm interested how such a case is handled here. - Robotje (talk) 10:43, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Edit war:

An edit war occurs when individual editors or groups of editors repeatedly revert each other's edits to a page or subject area. Deliberate engagement in edit warring instead of discussion is considered a breach of Wikiquette and may cause a user to be blocked from editing. Attempts to win content disputes through brute force undermine the consensus-building process that underlies the ideal wiki collaborative spirit.

And

The most common measure of edit warring is the three-revert rule, often abbreviated 3RR. The three-revert rule is a useful tool for measuring edit warring, as it posits that surpassing the absolute limit of three reverts on any one page in under 24 hours constitutes edit warring. While the three-revert rule is not to be interpreted blindly, reaching this threshold is generally a strong sign that there is serious misconduct afoot. The 3RR metric is not intended as an exemption for all conduct that stays under the threshold. For instance, edit warring could take the form of 4+ reverts on a page in a day, or three, or one per day for a protracted period of time, or one per page across many pages, or simply a pattern of isolated blind reverts as a first resort in response to disagreeable edits.

OK, you are right, none of you exceeded 3RR in any way there (maybe except DAB), but seen that you seem to operate as a group here and there, I would not be surprised that the operation as a group 'forces' DAB to exceed the 3RR. That it gets so far is not an excuse for DAB to continue to revert, but the behaviour of the group of editors is then also edit warring, and getting close to the same 3RR as a group (though that is not defined there). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:56, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Just to be sure, DAB's edits were inappropriate, and should be scrutinized. I do not blame any of the Dutch editors that they do that, and that they help in cleaning. The problem starts after that, the removal has now proven a couple of times to end in edit warring. DAB should stay away from it, but at the moment that other editors get again in an edit war with DAB, also they should show a bit more care with it. Especially when this warring gets to talkpages belonging to one of the accounts, the person who made the edits is certainly allowed to change them, and to refactor or reorder information. Editing those comments by others is highly frowned upon, except if they are clearly disruptive. IMHO, links to images or archives, or redlinks to ones own name is hardly disruptive, and does not need refactoring, clear spam links do, as personal attacks. Insisting on it is IMHO even worse. And that is what I mainly question here. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:03, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Also, if I gave that impression. I have no proof you are operating as a group, in any co-ordinated way. Though, I am sorry to say, it does feel like that. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:09, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

First of all, thanks for your clarification and relevant links.

As for operating as a group, I can tell you for myself, there was no coordination. Since I don't know of any coordination, I also don't know if there was some coordination between the others or not. Also for the reverts on dAb's talk page, I was not involved. So please don't consider me to be part of that 'group'. As you invited me almost one week ago on my talk page to discuss with dAb and Erik Baas the edits concerning the articles 'Tram' and 'List of town tramway systems', I asked some questions to dAb on the talk page Talk:Tram and asked Erik Baas on his talk page to also participate in the discussion on Talk:Tram as well. Let's hope that this will result in some kind of consensus. - Robotje (talk) 12:25, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

You are right, you did not perform such edits on the talkpages, and your role seems to be quite minimal here (maybe, unintentional, initiating things, though DAB should be more careful in reverting edits that remove his information, especially he should discuss). Frankly, I don't believe in 'coordination', but a small group of editors who have the same origin, and the same watchlist here. I do think that one of these editors should (or could) have taken this to a local noticeboard earlier (and that includes DAB).

And I know that both you and Erik Baas did notify me of edits made by DAB after I got 'involved', something that now is being done by DAB as well (he did initiate the discussion on Talk:Tram, I guess my warnings did help!). I hope that some local editors who have knowledge about trams get involved in that discussion. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:38, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I have left some thoughts on Talk:Tram. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:20, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Legit Angelfire Website...

Hello Dirk:

I've had my Angelfire website link listed in the External Links section on the Passover Wiki web page for years, and I just noticed that it was removed from that section. I read that due to link spamming, you placed a ban on Angelfire websites as references/sources on August 1st. I do plan to move my Angelfire website to a .com domain on a green web host soon, but in the meantime, is it possible to make an exception and re-include my Angelfire website back in the External Links section on the Passover web page until I return to change the link to the new .com domain? I have legitimate information content on a 350-page website.

Dank U Wel, Eli.

Passover (talk) 02:27, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry, but no, you say it is '... my Angelfire ...', in other words, per our conflict of interest guideline, I would discuss the inclusion on appropriate talkpages (e.g. on the talkpage of the page you think the link might be of interest, or on an appropriate WikiProject), and not add it yourself, but let uninvolved editors add the link. Angelfire is not only blacklisted because it is sensitive to spamming, but also because there are very often concerns with additions of that link with other policies and guidelines here (a.o. WP:EL, WP:COI, WP:COPYRIGHT, WP:NOT#REPOSITORY, WP:NOT#DIRECTORY, WP:NOT#SOAPBOX, etc.). I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:12, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello Dirk:

Yes, although the link is from my website account on Angelfire, the information is common knowledge to the target audience and generally represents the views of all concerned in that topic. My website's goal is to present all points-of-view on an issue in my topic area, which coincides with the aim of Wikipedia to produce a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopedia. Dank U Wel for the reply and it's now on to the TalkPage for my topic. - Eli —Preceding unsigned comment added by Passover (talk • contribs) 21:28, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Info

And really only that. here. I see Mike has more fr than you or I so I'll nudge him I think. If not I'll find someone on Commons I'm sure. Cheers --Herby ^{talk thyme} 09:25, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

My French is not really good, I can read it (with difficulty), but certainly not write or speak good enough. If I see the link, then indeed, it may be a good external link on the fr wiki, but hardly here or on, e.g., cs.wikipedia. IMHO, fails WP:EL here, and persistent behaviour like in the history here (note: using different IPs) does show that the editor does not want to discuss, but rather chooses to push. He can now defend his behaviour, and try to get established, uninvolved editors to tell us that the link is of interest on other projects. Therefor, I endorse blacklisting for now. I hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:33, 15 August 2008 (UTC) (refactored: --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:34, 15 August 2008 (UTC))

Discussion with Borgdorff

Dirk,

I'ld like a second opinion. The discussion at Talk:Tram#Removal of ISBN 90-9013935-4 & adjacent Ref: am I somehow dense or extremely unclear in my posts, or are the replies by Borgdorff getting more and more besides the point? I find it very difficult to have a meaningful discussion with him. Fram (talk) 15:24, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, I see the problem, and it seems to be the general problem with him. I have answered on the talkpage, in a similar way to you. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:36, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Your remarks on AN/I "vanished" & fading away, meanwhile Robotje pushing further on, and Fram giving no sign to restorating or nuance, on the contrary. Besides on several other mentioned Wikipedias, your appreciated reaction is nothing done with, but on the contrary, the disruption from Moira e.g. is even supported by M7 and Brownout ... very absurd for human treatment, mostly arbitrariness to cope with if at all. Only blocking for nothing but peanuts in my opinion: hazing, badgering, nagging, bothering, bantering, mobbing ..... simply from bias, bias etc. Just my (.!.) is mostly standard gauge here (obviously) of course imho again. You suggest to invite experts for discussion, but not such neutral peer colleagues were presented there, only people already especially involved with the 3RR battle to me, going on even further. I explaned also my expertise, but they: Fram, Robotje don't take this into account, again even by nothing comprehending the value of said refs, only to follow hot newspapers item with no depth to compare with. Just like 'Sysyphus': my efforts and time. Now you requested sources again, while my works are of such state for later books, and I used more than hundred sources for parts of the content which I referred to in said litt.list. - Why all that questioning and/or misunderstanding? For 11 months, it was sufficient as I quoted again and again, even for Slambo and others, otherwise they had removed or objected lang ago.!! - Hope this to explain my weird feelings about what happens recently, i.c. all that wasting of time by those stalking consequences. Obligated as earlier, with kind regards: D.A. Borgdorff 86.83.155.44 (talk) 02:02, 15 August 2008 (UTC) This GTL8 series were really unique pioneering, famous in the (PE) world from early 70's time, but "nowadays" long forgotten by people who aren't interrested in those advanced technical novities of Tram- and Railways, I suppose: D.A. Borgdorff 86.83.155.44 (talk) 02:30, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I have early on suggested that you may find other people interested in these subjects in an appropriate WikiProject, I would again suggest you see if there are other editors who you can exchange thoughts with, and what they think about the reference.

My suggestion to use not books you are involved (in any way) in as a reference, but references that were used to write said books to improve the information here, is that it takes away their argument (which is valid) that you are only here to make sure your name appears in the documents. If you improve the wikipedia in that way, that also shows that you are an expert in the field, and may give you more credibility than your (history of) self promotion. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:18, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, by the way, the information on AN/I is not "vanished", it is archived. Otherwise that huge page is getting too big in time. But admins will have noticed it, and as you have seen, some have given a clear thought about part of the behaviour. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:52, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Update

The good news is he started answering my questions on Talk:List of town tramway systems, the bad news is he is still rather persisting in making internal links to the non-existing article 'dAb' on talk pages as kind of his signature ([7] and [8]) or undesirable external links like here where he links to a page on Google-books where you can see books he has on his book shelf. What has that to do with the topic 'Talk:Tram' that is discussed there? - Robotje (talk) 15:32, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Good to hear he is starting to answer questions. I would prefer he would now start to make some helpful edits which have no relation to his book whatsoever (as I suggested on his talkpage), but it feels that if he can't promote his own work, he will not edit. It is a step forward though.

Pff .. I am not sure if I want to worry too much about creating the redlinks .. though it is completely unnecessery, I don't think that anyone will ever follow them and create the articles (especially not dAb). I have no clue what he wants with this edit, indeed. It is as if he wants to show that he indeed has that book really exists (which I do not doubt), but I don't get it. Does not seem too worrying all in all, yet. I'll keep an eye on it. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:08, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Help with Regex

Hi I was looking for a little help with Regex and AWB. Since u seem to use it Regex. I figured I would ask you.

I need to replace Navy of x with Navy of x: None.

I have already figured out how to replace with Navy: None. Is there a way to capture x from the search string and add it to the replace string.

If I have knocked the wrong door, please point me to the right place. ChiragPatnaik (talk) 10:04, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi, yes there is .. but it is quite some time since I used AWB, I think this was the trick:

replace:

\[\[Navy\sof\s(.*?)\]\]

with:

Navy of $1: None

In this, \s is the escape for a space (though often just a space works as well), as [, {, and ( are special characters, also these need to be escaped (and there are more). The trick is the part between the '(' and ')', everything between those get 'stored' in memory and you can recall them. '.' is 'any character' (use \d for numbers only, and there are more), '*' says that it should capture as many character as possible, and the '?' says that it should end when it hits anything that fits the regex part behind it (in this case, it stops at the first ']]' it encounters). So it now captures everything between 'Navy of ' and ']]'. For the 'first' set of data, that is stored in '$1', so that is what you replace it with. If you would do '\[\[(.*?)\sof\s(.*?)\]\]', then $1 is 'Navy' and $2 is 'x'. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:51, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Believe it or not, I figured it out by trial and error... :). I am completely unfamiliar with Regex. Anyway. I was using

\[\[Navy.of.(.*)\]\]

As you can see, I didn't use /s and ?. Any particular reason I should use them, since it works without it anyway? ChiragPatnaik (talk) 11:07, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

The \s is not necessery (' ' should work as well, '.' may give strange results, see later), but 'more correct'. The ? may be necessery, as it may give strange results. E.g. if your line is 'Navy of x (also referred to as Navy of y)', then with '\[\[Navy.of.(.*)\]\]', $1 may become 'x]] (also referred to as Navy of y' (as that would also fit the regex. With the ? it will stop at the first match of ''. As the . matches any character, \[\[Navy.of.(etc.) may give strange results (though unlikely here), but also Navybofandria matches (giving $1 = 'ndria'). Good luck! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:08, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

More Regex

I am chasing down spam links across many India related articles. So I came up with these regexes

<ref>\[http\://www\.xyz\.com/(.*?)</ref>
\[http\://www\.xyz\.com/(.*?)\]
\*\s\[http\://www\.xyz\.com/(.*?)\]
\*(.*?)\[http\://www\.xyz\.com/(.*?)\]
\*(.*?) http\://www\.xyz\.com/(.*?)\s
\*\[http\://www\.xyz\.com/(.*?)\]
http\://www\.xyz\.com/(.*?)\s

Is there any way to merge all of them into one, (or perhaps a fewer what they are now)

I figure the .com can be replaced by

(com|edu|net|org|biz|info|name|us|ca)

Other than this, I have no clue...

The purpose being to select the entire ofending piece and replacing.

Many Thanks ChiragPatnaik (talk) 18:20, 20 Augus&t 2008 (UTC)

I know the problem, it gets even more complicated if you also want to catch <ref name=something>[http://www.xyz.com/blah blahblah] blah</ref> and similar. There is unfortunately hardly a clean way of doing this (try to catch <ref>{{cite book|name=blah|writer=blah|url=http://www.spamlink.somewhere}}</ref>). I have been trying to do some things there, but you will have to do every single one with a specified regex, and deciding which one has to run before others because the more general ones screw up for the more specific ones. A difficult case, you will just need a set to work with, and if there is a new case emerging, then you have to write yet another rule for it. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:28, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Removing the url from the blacklist

Hello Beetstra. Before I could request removing my website from the blacklist, I would like to say about my past editing that really violated wikipedia terms. I really did spam on wikipedia long time ago. I did it many times and finally got my site listed in the black list. Site associated with my spamming was freetutes.com. I have stopped spamming since I realized that spam links in wikipedia would be penalized by search engines. And now I want my URL taken off from the blacklist URL list. And also I want my site blocked from being added to wikipedia, so that would make sure there will no spam links from freetutes.com.

I look forward for a positive response.

ilasabba —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.115.29.238 (talk) 02:51, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi Ilasabba (could you please log in and sign your posts)? Thanks for the remarks, but I am sorry, we generally don't remove links from blacklists or whatever after requests from site owners or other involved editors. Sites get removed from the blacklist because local (high volume, established) editors need them to e.g. use them as references. What I would suggest is that you start adding content, and become familiar with the policies and guidelines here, and join an appropriate WikiProject. The people there may be able to value your links, and when they agree that it is useful, de-blacklisting can be considered. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:36, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Roy Wood

Why did you consider - *Roy Wood interview with Martin Kinch to be spam ? User:Manintheclinic seems to be genuine.

This is not a criticism of your work, because I also dismissed his edit (in a fit of pique) - but why?

Derek R Bullamore (talk) 00:01, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the question. The thing is quite simple, in his contributions you see that he uses as edit-summary (e.g.): "updated new link to my interview with Kelly Groucutt", and these interviews are hosted on free webservers. So first they has a conflict of interest (guideline, where people are strongly discouraged to add links to work where they are affiliated with), and secondly, I am not sure if these are notable enough to be added to external links (some even on top, here). Seems questionable against Wikipedia is not a linkfarm, and may not pass the external links guideline. I would suggest the editor seeks contact with an appropriate wikiproject, suggest the existence of these interviews, and let uninvolved editors who deem the link appropriate for the article add the links. As Manintheclinic seems to know something about the people where the link was added, he could of course use the interviews to expand the articles. I hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:43, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

"Green Weed"

Yeah, Protective Groups in Organic Synthesis' by Greene & Wuts is one of the the organic bibles. DMacks (talk) 00:24, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Heh, :-) .. funny if the student heard 'Green and Weed' .. try to Google that! Even with 'Protecting group' as additional search terms .. Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:47, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Another librarian

Libroman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · blacklist hits · AbuseLog · what links to user page · count · COIBot · Spamcheck · user page logs · x-wiki · status · Edit filter search · Google · StopForumSpam)

They are unstoppable! :) Katr67 (talk) 05:09, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, this seems too good to be reverted, and I don't know if this user has a conflict of interest. Difficult. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:20, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

gina philips

hi you keep removing my link about gina philips

can you please help me create a link that conforms to your standards its a good site www.geocities.com/theginaphilipswebsite —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bstar2010 (talk • contribs) 10:18, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The link does not comply with our guidelines and policies, as linked from the warnings. Please do not insist in pushing links, but choose discussion on talkpages, or with a wikiproject instead. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:20, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Blh y sck cmptr gk n g trp bllcks t wk frst nd lst d sng thnks t y knb.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Bstar2010 (talk • contribs)

Roseville Visitors Association

While the article has been improved, I still don't believe it rises to the level of meriting an article. I would need better sources--not directory listings or press releases--ones which directly lay out the organisation's importance. --CalendarWatcher (talk) 13:30, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I would not have a clue, the sources indeed do not seem to help too much, but I don't know about the subject at all. Was just clearing it out/wikifying it a bit (easy work). Needs a specialist, I think (I don't even recall how I ended up on that article, must have been one of the external links). Maybe put it up for an AfD? Cheers! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, the main editor on that article was the only other user who added the external link wegoplaces.com, which was pushed inappropriately by another user earlier). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:37, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

History of the petroleum industry in Canada

I appreciate your comments. However, I am going to reverse your reversal. Here is why: First, there is no entry in Wikipedia on the Great Pipeline Debate. I've been hoping someone would write one, but there isn't a lot of collective memory out there on the topic. (It happened 50 years ago.) Second, if you take a look at the blog entry, you will notice that the article comes from Oilweek. That is a 60 year old magazine that has always been the bible of the Canadian oil industry. Its reports are good. It's better to have an outside link than no link at all. Cheers. 21:14, 10 September 2008 (UTC). I would add that I have effectively written the Cdn. Petroleum History series,and they are based on the published books and other published materials that I have also posted on this blog.

Any questions, please ask.21:18, 10 September 2008 (UTC)—Preceding unsigned comment added by Pmbcomm (talk • contribs)

I again reverted, that blog is simply not a primary and reliable source, you say the article is from Oilweek, then please cite that. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:16, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Removal of link from a personal page.

You wrote:
I went forward and removed the link. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:15, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

My reply:

Sure you are most welcome to remove the http://ip address no problem, but why do you call that "promotional", with all the respect, it links to a page with much higher page rank... maybe it is WP-my personal page that is being promoted? --און 16:51, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

It is not your personal page, see WP:OWN. And putting the link on a userpage which is used in the promotion earlier is just pushing it. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:02, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, its my user page, ok then. But it does not justify your lie on the whitelisting saying thatI added the ip link here: Webapp. You know better then me that this is a plain lie. Next, you also say "now" for adding ip link, the ip link has been posted 3-4 times in the whitelisting page long before it was added to my userpage, because no one cared about it. --און 22:08, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, maybe a typo, I meant on user:Webapp (I see that it is wrong in the text, I am sorry). Concerning the IP, those were added in discussion, the placing on user:Webapp and User:On.Elpeleg (and especially on the former) is simply inappropriate. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:01, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

1.) "sorry": you still have not corrected the typo error, it does provide a false impression that a spam made made by user account, thanks to you mistake. Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Spam-whitelist#web-app.net 2.) I am also surprised to learn that you have not informed about this mistake here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#On.Elpeleg.27s_indefinite_ban_--_review_requested 3.) It is important that WP admins would demand just as high standards of ethics and good faith from themself when demanding it from others, no one is perfect, we all do mistakes.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.90.78.169 (talk • contribs)

The page read: "user page of Webapp", not "user to the page Webapp", still adding that link was inappropriate, and linkpushing, your site just needed to be linked here in one way or another. All in al, that is not a lie, that is a typo. And that typo of me has in no way an effect on the whole result of the discussion. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:57, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

History of the petroleum industry in Canada

I take your recent behaviour to be vandalism of this article. Before I revert again, I would appreciate an explanation.

The article Canadian Oil and Gas: The First 100 Years is a staple of petroleum history in Canada. I wrote it 20 years ago, and it is still in print, published by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, which includes such member companies as ExxonMobil, Shell and BP. It was a major source of information for this series, including the three quotes to which it is attributed. The only place it is available on line is at the link given.

The Great Oil Age was published in 1993 by Temeron Books, Calgary, and it was a regional best-selling book. I was one of three authors. My co-authors have respectively published three books and 21 books, mostly on energy and historical topics. As for me, my fifth book is coming out next month. All three of us are considered knowledgeable -- in some ways, expert -- in petroleum history.

This book was another important source of information for this series of articles. Like The First 100 Years, the only place this book is available online is at the link cited.

I will revert again within 24 hours unless you can intelligently explain to me why these authoritative sources should not be cited. I also ask others who are following this series to weigh in on this issue.

Please do not vandalise this article again. I have certainly spent more than 1000 hours over the last two years developing this series -- with, of course, great help from other Wikipedians.

13:55, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, so you also have a conflict of interest, please read the warnings, that series is not a primary source. Please stop adding it. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:12, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't wish to butt in, but could you please explain your use of the term "primary source" here, and in your edit summaries when adding the primarysources tag. To my understanding they do not match the Wikipedia definition and policy of concentrating on secondary sources. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your meaning, but it seems to be a possible point of confusion here. Thanks. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 14:46, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I indeed may have misquoted it. What I mean is that the article should be sourced to reliable sources, not to the blogspot, I do mean secondary sources here, if I see it correctly. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:49, 11 September 2008 (UTC)