User talk:Brossow/Archives/2006-03

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Zero Wing (translations)

I am concerned that this article violates the spirit of our policy on lyrics and poetry (although it is a video-game script rather than lyrics), because the text of the introduction is surely still copyrighted. The translations also seem like original research. If this is somehow open-source, it might be more suitable for Wikisource, but I am considering nominating the article for deletion and wanted to know if you had any thoughts. (ESkog)^(Talk) 13:27, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate your concern, but there are several considerations here:

• Meta:Avoid copyright paranoia
• These are neither lyrics nor poetry, not even in spirit.
• These are used under fair use guidelines for both the Zero Wing and All your base are belong to us articles.
• If translations are fair game for deletion as original research, I fear much of Wikipedia will need to disappear.

The text was originally found in the AYBABTU article but moved as it applies to both articles. The amount of space the text used in the AYBABTU article was also a major sticking point in its recent FAC debacle. There is a legitimate fair-use reason for the text to exist and there is a legitimate reason for it to exist as a separate page as stated above. With all due respect, to nominate the page for deletion seems mean-spirited and short-sighted. The text has existed on Wikipedia for years without issue and has survived similar suggestions in the past; to suddenly and unilaterally decide that it needs to go doesn't seem right. Again, with all due respect. --BRossow 14:09, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the claim that the use of the entire opening script to a video game constitutes legitimate fair use, and I do think I should go ahead and nominate the page for deletion. In reference to your individual concerns:

• That meta page contains a debate among many interested parties, and is certainly not a settled issue. Further, I don't think this is "copyright paranoia", but rather a clear situation where copyrighted material has been reproduced in full.
• I know they are not lyrics or poetry, but I think that the logic in that policy applies here, as it would to the reproduction of any other copyrighted script.
• I'm not saying the translation is original research, but the presentation of several possible translations is, in my opinion, against the use of Wikipedia as a secondary source - we stop reporting what sources say and become our own source, which is the definition of original research.
• I don't understand the claim that this is a "mean-spirited" move - to whom am I being mean? the article? If it's not the sort of material that belongs in Wikipedia, it doesn't hurt anyone to remove it.

Finally, it wouldn't be a unilateral decision; the decisions made by editors at Articles for Deletion are consensus decisions, and if consensus finds that the article should remain I would respect that decision. (ESkog)^(Talk) 21:23, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Do what you feel you need to do, then. It seems petty to me, but such is the nature of Wikipedia. Thanks for at least contacting me first. --BRossow 02:24, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

May need some help

Brossow- I may need some help. I've spent part of the afternoon removing number of images that were uploaded by user:Take Me Higher, and placed by that user into articles. In some cases I reverted the article to its last good edit. In each case, the images were 1)unlicensed, 2)poor examples of the vehicles photographed. In some cases I removed them because snow mounds or snow covering blocked the vehicle. In four cases, I removed the images because bystanders either blocked the subjects, or had looks on their faces that I found distracting. I understand that I may have stepped on this users toes, but it takes a lot for me to devote this amount of time to correcting something of this scale. Stude62 19:40, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I noticed a couple unlicensed images in Chevrolet Uplander and tagged them as such earlier today. I agree entirely that the photos are poor quality and have no business being offered as encyclopedic content. Whatever help you need, you've got it to the best of my abilities. An email link is above if you'd rather discuss anything privately to avoid stepping on toes. :-) --BRossow 19:50, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Nomination for adminship

Eddie -- per your "invitation" on the standards page for RfAs, I'd like to ask your input on my nomination at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Brossow. Thanks in advance for your vote regardless of how you vote. ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 17:27, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Sure, don't forget to indicate You accept the nomination, since another user put You in the running. -- Eddie UTC 17:36, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Just signed my acceptance on the vote page. :-) ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 17:45, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Your RFA

That is not the reason for my oppose vote on your RFA, it was actually because of a oppose vote of "to little time on Wikipedia" which I agree with that. Moe ε 21:30, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I respect that, though I'd like to point out that in terms of clock hours I would bet I've spent a good deal more time on Wikipedia than many people who have been regsitered longer and had no such opposition to their vote. Not arguing at all; just providing something to ponder. Regardless, thank you for your time and consideration. ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 21:42, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I made that point to my sole objector too, and he wouldn't budge. No taking account of the fact that like a good new user I eased myself in slowly, so I didn't edit much in the early days, and that since Xmas I've been pretty much full time. Oh well. I'm not here to grumble, and I can't complain at how mine is going (better than to be expected TBH), I'm actually here to dispense a little friendly advice from one RFA candidate to another:

I really think you should ask your nominator to turn his user page link blue, or do it yourself. It doesn't look good to be nominated by a redlink. I'm sure there's nothing fishy in your case, but let me just tell you my reaction when I saw it: "that's a bit strange". I won't be alone in having a reaction along those lines, I'm sure. Good luck! --kingboyk 21:13, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I see your RFA's going well - I always like my vote to be in the winning faction :-D --Latinus 14:12, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that it's going "well" but at least there's more positive than negative. Even the oppose votes, for the most part, say that I'm a great editor. The time requirement is fairly arbitrary given what I said above, but I can deal with it. Being an admin will allow me to contribute more, but if others feel that my help is not needed, I'll keep doing what I'm doing and try again later. What's bother ing me most are these new-user votes. I deleted one a few minutes ago and at this point, though it may sound paranoid, it almost feels like sabotage by someone opposed to my nomination. I don't know why else this would be happening now.  :-( --BRossow 14:20, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Image sources

Hi, I appreciate your effort on image tagging - just wanted to let you know that we can assume that the "source" of a corporate logo such as Image:VCX.gif is the company itself, and the {{logo}} contains all the appropriate verbiage. Similarly for newspaper covers (the source is right there in the image even!), and so forth. Stan 13:52, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

And similarly for screenshots, as with Image:Vb dot net.png. Stan 13:54, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I understand that. My purpose in tagging them and notifying the uploaders rather than just doing it myself is so that the uploaders learn the proper way to do it. "Teach a man to fish" and all that. If we who already know the proper way to tag images simply assume the workload for ourselves, we've really done nothing to actually stop the problem and we're taking time away from other more proactive contributions to Wikipedia. That's my take on it, anyway. :-) ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 14:08, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

That would work if the uploaders were actually still around. If they're gone (which I personally define as "no edits for a month"), then there's nobody to educate, and the net result is that somebody else goes and does all the work again later. At some point we'll get caught up enough that we can do like commons and flag images within 24 hours, which will have a much better chance of informing uploaders. Stan 14:28, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

A large number of the images I've tagged have subsequently been tagged by the uploaders. For others I've been notified by the uploaders that the images are no longer needed and can be deleted. In both situations, I feel that the uploaders have been educated and my time and effort was justified. Having said that, I'm not prepared to do a "background check" on each uploader to determine whether or not s/he is active before tagging each image. I understand that in many cases someone may have to come along later and tag the images properly if the original uploader can't or won't, but I think that extra effort is offset by the education of the others who've benefited from my tag-and-notify approach. I think it's just a difference in philosophy, and I don't have any problem with that at all; I hope you don't, either. :-) ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 14:45, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

RE:Thanks for your support in my RfA

I am disapponted that you failed in your recent nomination. However, I would like to advise you to try again in about one and a half months time. I am confident that you will be sucessful in your next RFA. In the meantime, continue to make excellent edits and you will be an admin in no time. Best of luck for the future! You will always have my support! --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 15:48, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

WP:DPL

I see you disagree with my math. I wrote a script that reads the link counts off the page and adds them up, calculates the percentage, etc. I have a few error checks (like making sure it counts the correct number of articles, doesn't find any zeros, etc.) to catch formatting glitches. Now, I haven't gone through the entire list manually to see which totals are correct, but I'll speculate that you haven't either. :-) You probably just worked off the last subtotal and added the recent entries; however, if there is an error way back in the earlier subtotals, you'll never catch it that way. --Russ Blau (talk) 23:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I didn't total the whole list, but I went back three or four sections and re-totalled as no one had segregated and subtotalled the last complete block of ten, and the one before that had the section total correct but hadn't changed the grand total from the previous block. Anyway, I just ran the current list through Excel and get a total of 57,390 completed. Somewhere in there is a block of 9 instead of 10, too, according to Excel. I'm going to go through and fix it up. --BRossow 03:34, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Our totals now agree exactly. I'm going to post my script on my User page (soon), hopefully this will save all of us some tedious work in the future. --Russ Blau (talk) 14:14, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Re: Thanks for your support in my RfA

Just wanted to drop a quick note — nothing fancy! — to say thanks for your vote of confidence in my recent request for adminship. As you might have noticed it was unsuccessful; most objections related to my lack of experience. While I disagree that nearly 4000 edits, whether spread over two months or ten, constitutes a lack of experience, I respect the vote and will try again at a later date. I'm disappointed that I won't be able to help out in the meantime as much as I could with admin access, but again I appreciate your support and hope I'll have it the next time I am nominated. ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 18:48, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

No problem, try again in a couple of months and perhaps it will get enough support to succeed. Good luck. -- Eddie, Friday March 10 2006 at 15:31

Edits on Dodge Dart

Just wanted to thank you for your edits on the Dodge Dart page. I made some additional edits that mainly removed some of the adjectives from 1967-1968 section. Stude62 19:12, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

No problem -- just sitting here bored at work. ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 19:14, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Why would anyone write about Dodge Darts? Nova SS 21:44, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I just said: I'm sitting here bored at work! ;-) (And I left my email client running at home this morning, so it's sucking all the Nova list email before I can nab it at work.) ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 21:45, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, so you're not in a rational frame of mind. I forgive you for this grevious travesty. Go, and never sin again. Nova SS 22:52, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Studebaker Motor Company

I've listed Studebaker Motor Company for AfD and am surprised to find that there is an effort to save the page by a user and a "new" user which posted its only comment to date on the AfD page, which is a good place for newbie start, don't you think? The writing for this article is on par with a grade schooler, as is the prose on the "company web site", both of which bears striking resemblence to the articles creator's style. I also found a "press release" on a Studebaker forum page in which the PR Department for the Studebaker Motor Company incorrectly spells "President". I can also find no state of incorporation, or address of record for the "company".

My concern for which is that Wikipedia is not a publicity tool, and while any company that would hope to manufacture a "car" in today's market, spelling, professional marketing, etc. would be high on their priority lists.

If you could chime in on the matter, I'd be greatful for the input. Stude62 03:56, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I've been a participant in this discussion as well. I'm pretty firmly on the side of deletion based on the evidence (all the stuff Stude62 raises above is spot on in my view), and doing my bit to address the concerns, attacks, misstatements, etc. raised by the defender(s). I am not sure I think refactoring all the give and take to the talk page was a good approach, as I've explained there, and I've half a mind to move it back. Wanted to pop in here first... feel free to reply here, I am in the 'watch talk pages where you start threads' camp too... or reply on the talk page as you like. Happy editing! ++Lar: t/c 18:20, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Normally I'd be inclined to agree with you. In this case, however, it was such a mess with Settinghawk ineptly defending "his" page that I felt it the best option in preserving a modicum of organization. Move it back if you think it can be managed, but as said user continues to blindly add commentary to the page I feel it best to keep it on the Talk page and ask said user to make his comments there, too. After all, is that not the reason for the Talk page's existence, to carry on discussions and make comments not directly related to the vote? A brief comment or two in response, sure, but a running dialog is not appropriate to the vote page, IMHO. ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 18:47, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Without going too far into WP:OWN, I thought I was doing a pretty good job of keeping things tidy with all the votes clearly at the top level and everything else not. Context is good. Moving to talk may confuse the user. He may be notoriety seeker so maybe I am wasting my time carefully explaining over and over... At this point moving it back may be hard so, I dunno, but I wasn't the only person thrown by it. It's pretty rare to do it and I usually oppose it when it's done for precisely the same reasons as here. Thanks for your thoughtful reply here and there. ++Lar: t/c 19:18, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

My comment about the "mess" wasn't directed at your efforts, BTW. Just thought I should mention that. It was the continued "additions" by the other user that made it an ongoing mess. Ideally, education of the user would occur and he'd learn how to more appropriately intersperse comments; however, I guess I wasn't feeling terribly optimisitc when I made the move. I don't know that it's too late to move the discussion back, but it looked like considerably more work than I'm feeling up to at the moment. ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 19:28, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Me either. I just started trying and with wp acting up today, it's no fun at all so I'm giving it up as a bad job... ++Lar: t/c 19:36, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Just as an FYI, the ownership of the web Domain was changed today (March 13, 2006) according to Network Solutions. I did a click and copy of it yesterday when it was under the private name. I'm almost beginning to believe that this is someone's fantasy, a very elborate fantasy. Stude62 22:49, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

DeSoto Airflow

Brossow- Apollo Boy has suggested that the DeSoto Airflow article be merged into the Chrysler Airflow article. I am oppossed to this move because the cars have completly different histories despite sharing the same inner design and name. I feel that the best way to improve the Chrysler Airflow article is to add information to it, not grow it by merging another article. If you could back me up on this, I'd appreciate it. You can weigh in on the issue on the DeSoto Airflow's talk page. Stude62 21:26, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

You got it! They're very different vehicles and should in no way be merged into the same article. There are many, MANY examples of rebadged vehicles that enjoy separate pages when in fact nothing more than plastic trim differentiates them. Suggesting these be merged is ridiculous. In his defense, the kid is only 16 and, while enthusiastic and eager to help, has made some questionable edits (IMHO, of course) that I'm in the process of cleaning up at this very moment. (And no, I haven't forgotten about your request from several days ago about looking at the other article.) :-) ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 21:30, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks - And i totally agree with you on Apollo Boy being one smart cookie and a great addition to to the Wiki auto project. More importantly, he's earned my respect on most other things, the DeSoto Airflow being a very rare instance where we don't see eye to eye. Stude62 00:26, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Rollback problems?

Hey, I saw your edit to your monobook.js on recent changes. Are you having problems with rollback now? There was a change in metawiki a few days ago that makes the rollback hang on IPs. If that is your problem, go to my monobook and check out the diff in my last change. That will fix it.--Adam ^(talk) 04:27, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, but the problem I'm having is that on Special:Contributions pages the rollback link is not correct and looks like this:

[Brossow&token=5a23f012c9572b3689d96a3cb8deb421">rollback]

instead of saying [Rollback]. Clicking on the link gives this error on a new page:

Please wait, reverting edits by title=...

Bad authentication token!

I get this error even using the straight script direct from Sam's page with no other modules/scripts. I've cleared my browser cache, of course, after each change. Maybe an issue with Javascript on my particular computer? I dunno. It appears that the URL is simply being written incorrectly by the script, but while I'm very good with HTML, I know jack squat about JS. (What I find most odd/frustrating is that the rollback link is perfectly fine on diff pages, and as far as I can tell from the JS code, it's using exactly the same code to generate the link on each page (diff & Spec:Contr, that is).) I'll mess with it on my Windows XP machine at work on Monday if I remember, but for the most part I edit on my Mac mini running OS X 10.4.5 and the latest Firefox. Certainly not a major deal, but frustrating nevertheless. On the plus side, everything else is FINALLY working the way I wanted in terms of scripts/modules....

I should also note that rollback links have NEVER worked right for me on Spec:Contr pages. Until tonight, I always got an error on diff pages, too, about a wrong token (even though the link itself appeared normal). That seems to be resolved with my latest changes to my monobook.js page. ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 04:44, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, check out the code in my monobook.js it works with the latest version of FF. It will NOT work on Internet Explorer. The latest code on Sam's page doesn't work with the latest version. If you would like, copy the code from my monobook.js and it should work. It works fine here. I had similar errors when linking from Sam's site.--Adam ^(talk) 04:42, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Just tried it, but unfortunately it makes the rollback link disappear completely from diff pages yet doesn't fix the Spec:Contr rollback link problem. (I'm out of patience and energy tonight to troubleshoot further.) Guess I'll just stick with using Lupin's popups to revert when needed instead. No big deal. Thanks anyway! ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 04:54, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway

Please take care when making format changes (i.e., regarding the " - " symbol) when dealing with image file names. Two image links were broken after you edited the subject article in this manner. Thanks!--Lordkinbote 07:32, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Whoops! I've been trying to catch all those. Sorry about that. :-( --BRossow 13:35, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Date Articles

Please note that I had to undo some of your work on the date articles you cleaned up with the AWB. As it turns out, dates are supposed to be self-referencing in these articles. The new wiki version simply converts these to bold, and by leaving dates as links, they display as per the user's preference. Rklawton 05:16, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Weird. Thanks for the heads-up! --BRossow 05:21, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Your AWB edits to aircraft articles

Stop right now please and modify your AWB find/replace filters. You are inserting nbsp's instead of spaces in a template. This is not necessary and makes the code very difficult to read. I will revert your changes. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 05:44, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Nonbreaking spaces keep units of measure tied to the numbers with which they are associated. Thus, if there is a line break it keeps the unit with the number, which actually makes it easier to read, not more difficult. Not sure I see your beef, and I hope you don't just do a mass reversion as I'm afraid it will get caught again as I replace [[General Motors]] with [[General Motors Corporation]] to avoid the redirect. If you can explain how it causes a problem, aside from your perception that it makes the code harder to read (certainly the vast majority of Wikipedia readers aren't reading the source code), I'll gladly take it into consideration. With all due respect, however, unless there's a clear reason NOT to do this I have no intention of stopping as, clunkier code aside, it makes things more readable for the end user. ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 06:10, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I do a significant amount of work on the back end in WP:Air so nbsp's are a major pain when reading and editing specs both manually and with AWB (a few extra seconds per article really adds up when you do 1,500 of them). Sorry I missed the GMC link in the Wildcat article. I did catch it in the XB-39. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 06:24, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

But once those specs are in place, I assume that they're not a source of perpetual change. Given that, I don't see how the benefit for the reader of nonbreaking space as described above is outweighed by the slight inconvenience for an editor who quite likely shouldn't need to change the specs once the initial edit has been made. I apologize for any inconvenience my edits have caused you personally, but at this point I'm not convinced that your convenience is more important than assuring proper and legible display for end users. Sorry. ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 14:01, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Removing non-printing space in articles

Please do not remove non-printing spaces and blank lines in articles, as you recently did for Youngstown, Ohio. [1] There is no compelling reason, either stylistically or for conservation of bytes, to do so, and there is a very compelling reason to add such space — to make it easier for editors to edit. I see that you have attempted to make the argument on a related issue that the source text of an article isn't as important because "the vast majority of Wikipedia readers aren't reading the source code". This is a very bad philosophy to base tiny changes on, because one of the key features that distinguishes Wikipedia from other encyclopedias is that it is easy to edit. The tendency of many editors (often with computer programming experience) to treat blank space as a sin hurts the effort to make articles easy to edit. (I say that coming from both a programming and professional writing background.) If anything, I would encourage you to add such spacing, not only between headings and image tags, but also between bullets and indentation colons, because (A) such markup is much easier to spot when spaces are included, and (B) many bulleted lists in Wikipedia article sources are so crammed fully of text without spacing that they are extremely difficult to read, let alone edit. Of course, you should not do these edits, either to add or remove spacing, except as part of more significant edits, per WP:AWB#Rules of use, but you probably know that already. Thank you for your cooperation. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 06:49, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Since you seem to be up on AWB, I'll assume that you know that AWB removes excess space automatically as one of its features. Given that "remove all excess white space" has been a feature of AWB for as long as I've been using it (which admittedly hasn't been years and years) I'm taking that as a good indication that many editors feel there is a compelling reason to remove unneeded spacing as part of broader edits. (My argument above for the use of nonbreaking space doesn't relate at all to what you're talking about here and so I'll simply ignore that part of your note.) As for the edit you mentioned, comparing the source of the two revisions side by side, I'm having trouble seeing what your complaint is. Aside from the GM-related edit I mentioned in response to someone else (above), the major difference between my edit and your previous edit is that my edit has a single space after periods while yours has two. This makes it harder to read and edit? You commented about using a space after bullets. If this is important to you, why did your edit of the article you cited not have spaces after the asterisks in any of the sections of neighborhoods, external links, etc.? And for that matter, I did not remove any spacing in this fashion, so I'm not sure why you feel it necessary to lecture me on this point.

And as for the AWB rules, yes, I'm familiar with them and no, I'm not doing spurious edits simply to remove space. In my current run, I'm avoiding redirects as described above.

With all due respect, I'm just not seeing the egregious edit I made that compelled you to issue a virtual cease-and-desist order on my use of an integrated feature of AWB. I hope you aren't similarly addressing everyone who ticks that box in AWB before making their edits and that you've simply singled me out raandomly. ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 13:56, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

LeMans page edits

Noticed the changes to some of my results pages for the 24 Hours of LeMans, but also noticed some errors. Although changes from '&' to 'and' are right and all, these changes in turn removed the links to existing pages that use &, specifically Riley & Scott and Cooper Tire & Rubber Company. I'm not sure if this was the fault of the program you happened to be using, but a quick view of the article afterwords would have shown the error. The359 18:18, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about that! I tried to catch those cases where links were broken and have since changed my matching rules (as of last night) to avoid that situation. Sorry again for any inconvenience! ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 20:08, 22 March 2006 (UTC)