User talk:CliffC/Archive 1

Welcome!

Hello, CliffC, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! --Guinnog 13:40, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reply (editor changing categories such as 'duFresne' to 'DuFresne')

You mean like this? [1] I think they are just tightening up category listings, so that the category will display its contents in alphabetical order. Let me know if you have any specific concerns. --Guinnog 12:22, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Spam

Thank you for sharing your concerns with me, I will have a look. For future reference, you may add {{subst:spam}} --~~~~ to the user talk page of someone editing in this way, as I have just done with the user in question. Don't hesitate to ask if there is anything else I can help you with. Best wishes, --Guinnog 14:14, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've manually removed all the links this user added to that site. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. --Guinnog 15:06, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Google robots crawl the User pages? !!

Oh yes, everything we post here is googleable, if that's a word! --Guinnog 01:18, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Durer

Yes I meant to lose that one - 1903! I think I had deleted most of the things it referenced. My stuff mainly cojmes from Bartrum, but I have just put her in as a book , not 97 refs. I'm done for tonight (nosing around Goya now) so please do your worst. I'm very much learning Wiki style Johnbod 04:55, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cliff, as basicly a writer not an editor by temprament, though i try to be good, I would LOVE a compulsive whatever-you-called-yourself following me around, so do please look at my page where I list & link all my contributions - mostly art especially printmaking pre 1830 Johnbod 05:00, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Jeanine Pirro

I'll do better than that, I will watch it for the next few hours at least as I will be in doing some work on the computer anyway. THanks for the heads-up! --Guinnog 13:52, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:64.59.200.43

Thanks. Let me know if this user vandalises again today and I will block. --Guinnog 18:12, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Video art editing

Hey--just saw your revert on video art. I was confused by that as deletion well, but actually the original edit had removed some repeated text (which may have been my fault initially--I did some reworking of that paragraph and may have left a couple of sentences after the paragraph). I'm going to revert it to the one before your edit since that's actually correct.Freshacconci 15:11, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

Thanks a lot for your messages. I cleaned up the non-notable book refs and left the user a message, and warned the other one. Another time there would be no harm at all in just being bold and doing what I have done, then perhaps checking with me. Very best wishes anyway. --Guinnog 02:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rejected Contributions

Hi Cliff,

First of all, i would like to thank you for your contribution on WikiPedia. I do want this website to maintain its excellent reputation.

However i do disagree with your withdrawal of my contributions. I think i made a valid point about "Third-party corroboration" on the Click Fraud page...

"Some Third-party corroboration solutions can display a custom pop-up message after a set amount of fraudulent clicks within a set period of time. This can be a good way to overcome unwanted clicks from Advertising Competitors. Nervous competitors may be concerned that Google can track their clicks."

This is discussed in more detail with other methods of preventing click fraud on my website. I has spent a large amount of effort creating a non-commercial resources section to my website. This information is available for free to web browser, hence why I believe why my link should be valid. At the very least, I believe my comments above are valid.

I don’t think it’s fair to presume everyone is "Link Spamming". Believe me, I could think of far easier ways to do so.

Please don't take this as an insult or as a personal attack.

Thanks --nPresence 12th Dec 2006

Hi nPresence - as far as the text in Click fraud is concerned, it was not rejected, but simply reverted along with the link you added. I am not an expert on click fraud, so I personally have no issue with the text (but of course like everything else on Wikipedia somebody else might); I just happen to have Click fraud on my Watch list because it attracts a lot of commercial links. I sympathize with you because I know how hard it is to get a business name or product "out there" at the beginning. As far as adding the link to either article, Wikipedia rules are clear on this, "Adding external links to an article for the purpose of promoting a website or a product is not allowed". However, take a look at item 6 in Wikipedia:Spam#How not to be a spammer and the guidelines in template {{welcomespam}}. Best regards. --CliffC 02:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

CliffC, Thank you again for spending your time explaining this to me. I am not a Commercial Click Fraud site. I am not an affiliate nor do I promote any Click Fraud software. I do however have articles on how to combat click fraud. Some of the information on my articles are "opinionated" and not confirmed, hence why I didn’t add it to the Wiki Page. I was certainly not trying to get a business name or product "out there" --nPresence 09:49, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Vikasramachandran

Cliff

Thank you very much for bringing this to my attention. I have deleted the information and indefinitely blocked the account. Best wishes, --Guinnog 19:38, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Spreading a long link or other string across multiple lines in the editor

For example, the LA Times citation links in article Thomas Kinkade are so long they make any diff they apperar in ridiculously wide, and when pasted into an article they make the article 'jump' inside the edit window. Is there some way to break these up across multiple lines so that they get recombined in the article without inserting spaces? My HTML was never that great and I don't see a wiki construct for this. Something like the following would be nice

<allonestring>|url=hhttp://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/1112584561.html?dids=1112584561:
1112584561&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Aug+29%2C+2006&author=Kim+Christensen&pub=Los+Angeles+
Times&edition=&startpage=C.1&desc=Painter+Said+to+Be+Focus+of+FBI+Probe</allonestring>

If there's something really obvious, it's OK to embarrass me.<g> Thank you. --CliffC 01:59, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You can name the link, i.e. [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/1112584561.html?dids=11125845611112584561&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Aug+29%2C+2006&author=Kim+Christensen&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&edition=&startpage=C.1&desc=Painter+Said+to+Be+Focus+of+FBI+Probe LA Times], producing LA Times—WAvegetarian•(talk) 02:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you should rarely put the URL straight into the article anyway. Another option would be to put the url in a pair of square bracket after a punctuation mark, like this.[2] Xiner (talk, email) 02:08, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I guess my question wasn't clear; I'm really only concerned with how the link looks and acts in the editor or in a diff; this particular long line is part of a citation and there's no problem as the article is presented to the reader - that line is not seen by the reader. I just don't want to manage these super-long lines inside the edit box when I am editing the article. --CliffC 02:22, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it hurts readability if you set up several text strings and add them up at the end. I also don't think it's worth the trouble for the editor. At least right now a reader can simply skip through that long URL b/c they can see what it is. As for the problem while you're editing it, leave out the long URL until u're reading to submit the post, then paste it in. Xiner (talk, email) 02:31, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, but I'll try taking this over to WP:VPT after the New Year when (presumably) more people will be around to answer it. Super-wide diffs are a problem to any editor with a watchlist of articles with long links. --CliffC 20:55, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bonjour (Howdy)

Re Crane (machine): there is nothing really in Trolley (disambiguation) to describe the trolley on the Overhead crane. This needs to be fixed somehow. And indeed, the system got things sorted out. By the way, keep up your compulsive proof reading as there are plenty of typos to be found, especially in translations from other tongues.

Cheerio, Peter Horn 03:08, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Peculiar happening

I couldn't reproduce the fault. It did make me realise however that I have never edited the sandbox! --Guinnog 02:09, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My reverting the Spyware IP editor

Yes, a mistake on my part ... I was in a kind of, well, maximum alert mode then - vandalbots running and lots of sockpuppets with multiple IPs, so I reverted on sight. So yes, I'll remove my warning and welcome the user instead. Cheers! Yuser31415 05:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Blatant vandal

Hi Cliff. In a case like that, I think we can justify using a {{subst:bv}} warning. Well spotted, thanks for your good work. --Guinnog 02:32, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

All is now well in Kearny NJ

I'm certainly glad to hear that. Keep up your good work. --Guinnog 02:46, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Snowman

Oh, it's no problem at all, you can leave the link on. :) I'm still looking for information on the history of snowmen...which seems to be a pretty impossible thing to find. If you have any sources that could help, do tell. → Icez {talk | contrib} 06:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Better Business Bureau

The Better Business Bureau was founded in part by Al Capone. If you follow the link within the existing article (http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff1343.htm), it says that. It also says it on this link. http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v257/__show_article/_a000257-000013.htm Shuim 15:54, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted this partly because Al Capone was only 13 years old in 1912, that was the first tipoff. I suggest taking a look at WP:Reliable sources. I like reading Ripoff Report too, but a side observation in some anonymous victim's complaint isn't a reliable source; nor is the anonymous item in your second citation, apparently someone's blog. My edit summary said "revert unsourced statement" to be polite; I hope the next reverter is as nice. --CliffC 16:20, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Thanks for fixing my user page

Haha that sounds like a good plan. Oh, and thanks for the thanks (or something!). Will (aka Wimt) 16:37, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Medal of Honor - awarded or received?

You make a valid point. If you change it back to "awarded", I won't change it back. I guess, the more I think about it, I don't mind "awarded" so much. I just hate it when people say someone "won the Medal of Honor". The two MOH recipients that I've met made it very clear that it wasn't a contest. Betaeleven 02:18, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Joseph Smith, Jr.

I guess I should RTFA before I make a change, eh? The phrase "Tarred and feathered" sounded odd to me, so I changed it without reading. Nice catch on my error. Flibbert 01:51, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I had an eighth-grade teacher who would threaten to do that (except for the leaving-for-dead part, of course) on a regular basis. I must admit you had me stumped with "RTFA" for a minute... "Oh, arrrrticle!". --CliffC 03:18, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Citation (Disambiguation)

Re your partial reversion - per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) and Wikipedia:Disambiguation, dab pages are only to be used to help readers navigate to wikipedia articles, they are not dictionary entries, so redlinks are not appropriate. Unless you can come up with a guideline reference or another really compelling reason, I'm going to remove the redlink again. As for the Cessna line, it's not at all promotional, it's that the "Citation" name was used on a bunch of different aircraft. Because of the complexity of the line, there are currently 5 different articles (with a 6th on its way), so this method is being used as one means to help the reader navigate to the particular Citation article he/she might be looking for. Akradecki 05:32, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry you felt I was wikilawyering. As for the Citation, to use your Ford analogy, if Ford called every one of their models "Taurus", then there would be massive confusion, and it would be appropriate to list the various Taurus articles on the DAB page. Such is the case with Citation. Why they decided to name very different aircraft the same name I've not idea, but they did. Remember the function of DAB pages: to enable our readers to navigate as easily as possible. That has been accomplished. Akradecki 01:53, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I did not vandalize the page pal

The Queen of England was shown in the South Park episode. She was clearly Elizabeth you fucking dumbass. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.94.120.34 (talk • contribs)

Zango Dtodd 04:48, 8 April 2007 (UTC)4/7/2007 dtodd

Cliff,

Numerous parties have a vested interest in keeping information about Zango inaccurate. While I am not concerned about positive/negative information if it is accurate, it is concerning to me that if I remove inaccurate and misleading information that others can simply replace it. Can you please let me know how you determine the accuracy of some information and how best to proceed if my desire is an honest and accurate representation of the history of Zango?

Thanks. dtodd

Moved to Talk:Zango and responded to there. --CliffC

Re. your edits to Brandon Hein

I stumbled onto the Brandon Hein article, and popped over to the talk page to see if there was anything interesting going on. Anyway, saw your comments re. the young kid who overwrote the article with his personal biography, and I gotta say: you handled that incident fantastically - your comments were tactful, gentle & professional, yet got their point across. Nicely done! -Rhrad 15:45, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Appearance on Category:Anatomy

Hey Cliff! I'm working on cleaning up the anatomy section, and I was wondering why your user page appeared right below underarm hair and above vagina:) Rather than edit your page, I was wondering if you could take yourself off the list of human anatomy. Thanks! Kludger 18:11, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

All in all, that sounds like a pretty good place to be! :) :) I mention and display the "human anatomical features" template on my user page; that's why it appears in the category I presume. I also display the {{hip-hop}}

template; recently someone contributed the "class=NA" parameter to my page with the note "Hope you don't mind - the template shows up in the unassessed article category". Let's try a "class=NA" experiment here, since I have had difficulty finding template how-to information in the past... nope, that didn't work, how about "class=template" (I peeked)... that didn't work either. Looking around I found random article Wikipedia:WikiProject Cheshire/Assessment; under its text "pages that are not articles" it seems to suggest NA should do here what it did for the hip-hop template. But it doesn't. ~~now try adding "Wikiproject"...no that yields a redlink~~...

Anyway, if you can get someone to look at the "human anatomical features" template and tell me how best to code it on my user page, I'll do so (and clean up this section correspondingly as well). Cheers. --CliffC 19:47, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Four months later) Hi Ryan, I recently started teaching myself template coding and remembered the loose end we had with template {{Human anatomical features}} where I and other users had their user pages listed in Category:Human anatomy. As a first project I added an optional nocat parameter to that template, so if you're still interested in cleaning up the category, you can ask anyone whose page doesn't belong there to code the template thusly: {{Human anatomical features|nocat}}. Best regards, CliffC 04:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Appalachian School of Law shooting

Many thanks for your kind comments. You might want to check out the article's talk page. An editor appears to be questioning the defensive use of the guns by the students. Of course, I may be misinterpreting the situation. Always good to have another editor's opinion, so please join in. Best, --Alabamaboy 01:39, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hah!

Love your userpage observations, very funny and true, without venom. Cheers. Dina 19:01, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Any time! :)

Any time, dear Cliff! ;) And let me know if I can help you somehow with that London-Arkansas axis! While I'm visiting you, can I ask you why, of all cards, you picked the Hermit? Sheer curiosity on my part - please ignore this if you don't feel like telling me. Cheers! Phaedriel - 19:41, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Had to think about that... good question. When I was working on and off on the AARP article a while back, someone posted a "Picture requested" tag and I was rather goofily looking for something totally inappproriate to put on the Talk page to illustrate the possibilities, and a search for "Death" took me to the Tarot deck, something I don't know much about. I'm not very hermit-like myself (well, maybe just a little), but it seemed like a cool picture of an old guy - perhaps a proofreader? - looking for something amiss. Regards, CliffC 20:07, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Restoring old shared IP warnings

Hi Cliff, there's no need to restore warnings over 6 months old to talk pages of Shared IPs because it only unnecessarily clutters talk pages and the vandal the older warnings were issued to would have been long gone by now. Administrators such as myself regularly remove old warnings from IP talk pages in order to lessen the bandwidth burden on our servers (an editor issuing a new warning does not need to unncessarily burden our servers by downloading warnings issued back in 2005, and an administrator generally only refers to editing patterns of an IP over the last 3-6 months in determining the length of a new block. Anyway, older warnings will always be permanently accessible via page histories. Thanks. -- Netsnipe ► 14:26, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that was kind of a knee-jerk reaction on my part, sorry. I'd seen a particularly annoying non-shared IP blank his warnings earlier. I've now gotten to the point where if I see an IP is shared I won't even bother with a warning unless it's totally outrageous. --CliffC 19:37, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

PPB song of praise

Hi Alan, I removed the song from Point Pleasant Beach because it looked bogus and I could find no reference to it, or to Manukyan's alleged authorship of it, anywhere else. It was inserted 13 January 2006 by IP user 71.130.84.192 in LA who never contributed anything to Wikipedia before or since. Regards, CliffC 13:05, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the explanation. I agree that it should be left out until we have a source showing Manukyan's connection to PBB and authorship of the ditty. Alansohn 14:02, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- [Later that same day] I'll be damned. You're a better searcher than I am, Alansohn. --CliffC 23:17, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - It establishes a connection, and the song was written in the year described. I would never have added it on its own, but with this source, I think it's justified. Without a link to the lyrics I don't think they should stay, so I trimmed it down to match what was available. Alansohn 23:19, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Info for So You Think You Can Dance

Hi CliffC; I was able to verify with members of production of this show that the only officially credited permanent judge was Nigel Lythgoe for Seasons 1 and 2. All other judges and choreographers were/are considered guests; none had contracts and they worked week-to-week. Brian F. was never demoted (and was never permanent, despite the number of appearances). For season 3, Mary Murphy attained the official credit of permanent judge (and contract), as referenced by the TV Guide interviews with Mary and Nigel. You can hit me back if you want further information. Porfitron (talk • contribs) 16:42, 1 May 2007 (UTC).[reply]

René Magritte image rearrangement

Thank you for your compliments on my editing job! Justin Foote 00:23, 20 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Brandon Hein

Thank you for maintaining the accuracy on Brandon Hein's page. Nicely done and we appreciate it. Justice4bh 17:02, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for fixing my user page (a note I left on Grimey109's talk page)

I didn't know I had a "friend" in Alanta. An odd vandalism style, I can't imagine who it is. --CliffC 04:33, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cliff, don't mention it. I'm glad to have helped out. I've read your list of "Observations and criticisms", and it's absolutely fabulous. The article at The Onion is a classic! Also, I'm not sure "teenagery" is a word, but its use in that context is striking, fitting, and oh, so hilarious! I look forward to reading more observations as you develop them. Grimey109 19:16, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the good review, I have copied it to my talk page since I happen to agree. :) Cheers, CliffC 22:33, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Alleged" crimes once perpetrator is convicted, what is the official policy

Just edited Megan Kanka and took out a bunch of 'allegedly's. Her killer was convicted in a court of law, but there remains an editor who seems to be claiming it's POV to say "he killed..." without sticking in an 'allegedly'. Please point me to the "official" policy on this so I can cite it. Thank you, CliffC 10:47, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See: Words to avoid — So-called, soi-disant, supposed, alleged, purported

I hope this helps. — Dorvaq (talk) 13:09, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I forgot to mention to be careful when citing the link I provided as it is not considered policy, but rather guidelines. — Dorvaq (talk) 13:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

While words like "allegedly" should be avoided, it is even worse to word a proposition by "it is". Instead, you should write like "Who-and-who suggested that...". --Der yck C. 14:46, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dorvaq, thank you for the pointer, where I see "Newspapers, for instance, almost universally refer to any indicted but unconvicted criminal as an alleged criminal." Agreed; I use 'alleged' whenever writing about someone where crimes have been charged but not yet proven in a court of law. Perhaps what I'm trying to ask is more of a common-sense question to which the answer is so obvious that no one has thought to incorporate it in a policy or guideline here. Trying again, "Once an accused criminal is convicted in a court of law, is it not both inappropriate and biased to insist on using the word 'alleged' when writing about the charges of which he's been convicted?" Maybe someone has a pointer to an old discussion or arbitration about this? It seems that it must have come up in the past. --CliffC 17:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure there is no discussion involving the generic use of "allege" (or any derivative thereof) specific to before-and-after trials. However, there has been many discussions of this sort on individual article pages involving criminals. But, most of these discussions have been initiated by either anonymous users or users who contribute very little to Wikipedia besides the article in question. Perhaps your best bet would be to start there unless someone else can provide you with something more informative.

Anyhow, I don't believe this needs to be incorporated into policy/guideline beyond how the word has already been treated. In terms of law, to allege is to present without proof or without first proving. Therefore, to state the convicted crime of an offender as an allegation is inherently contradictory. Wikipedia is dedicated to quality and integrity — anything contradictory fails on those two points, but that's my opinion. — Dorvaq (talk) 20:32, 31 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, that last paragraph hits the nail on the head, thanks. Nothing like logic to prove a point. I came upon the Megan Kanka article by chance and I remember the case quite well. It really irked me, after removing all the 'allegeds' and cleaning up the article, to find an old entry on the Talk page stating "He argues that he was wrongfully convicted; if he admitted to the allegations, they wouldn't be alleged, but he hasn't, so therefore they're 'alleged,' and he's the 'alleged killer.'" Arrgh! Thanks again. --CliffC 02:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Once a criminal has been convicted in court, they are legally guilty of the crime, and it is acceptable to say "they did it", even if they continue to deny doing so. If they have been charged or indicted, but not convicted, they are indeed the "alleged" perpetrator, but once convicted, it's entirely appropriate to state that they are indeed the perpetrator. If they are suspected of involvement but have not yet been charged or indicted, the proper reference is generally "suspect". Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 02:18, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've been thinking about this one off and on all day. I think an absolute "convicted" means "they did it" policy is wrong. We know that, even in the U.S., there are at least a few wrongful convictions, and in some countries at some times, a conviction might have nothing to do with facts. The flipside is also that "acquittal" does not automatically equate to "they didn't do it". Consider John Gotti; we know he bribed at least one juror during one of his murder trials. Or consider O. J. Simpson... I think the key to the issue is, is there are a genuine controversy over what happened? Then WP:NPOV applies. All the other policies come into play in deciding if there's really a controversy, in particular WP:V, WP:BLP and WP:SENSE. If someone claims a controversy to dispute what most of us think a conviction means, they need to produce sources, and we get to evaluate how reliable those sources are, applying all we know about the context of the situation. We need not take the self-serving statement of a convict as seriously as some neutral person's; we consider the source. For example, despite some weak claims of accident in the Yolanda Saldívar article, the Selena article is right to say Saldivar murdered Selena. On the other hand, there's some sort of heated controversy about whether Mumia Abu-Jamal actually committed the crime of which he was convicted, and the regular editors of that article try to apply NPOV.

We have much the same problem with other types of "facts" about people. We say that the two Roosevelt presidents, FDR and Teddy Roosevelt were 5th cousins, even though no one's ever done genetic testing or otherwise "proved" it; there's just no controversy there, so we don't need to condition the statement. On the other hand, in sports there are various non-legal controversies about infringement of the rules with performance enhancing substances; articles should usually reflect well sourced notable allegations, but err on the side of caution and use forms like "X claimed that ..." or "Y suspended Z after a positive test for...".

Also, a lot of the questions can be avoided with careful language; "X was convicted of doing Y to Z" is usually a verifiable NPOV statement, that lets the reader apply their own biases. Studerby 05:56, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Private Message

Hello Cliff,

I hope you are well. I am hoping to send you a private message. How can I do that? I can be reached at sstratz@gmail.com

Sstratz 22:46, 5 June 2007 (UTC)Sstratz[reply]

I'm not very keen on private messages. I assume, based on your email address, that you are the Steve Stratz who is director of public relations for Zango and according to this OMMA article seeking to have candid conversations with Wikipedia editors. On my part, I would prefer that any conversation took place over at Talk:Zango, where I will move your note. --CliffC 23:59, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My Post was speedily deleted, please help

I posted an entry about On Top of the World Communities, Ocala, Florida. It was tagged for speedy deletion. Why? Whoever marked it for speedy deletion did not specify any reasons. I wrote it to be 100% informative about the community to the best of my abilities. Is it possible to get a second opinion on this "speedy deletion" or possibly get a critique of the article to inform me as to what is so inappropriate about it? I also want to point out that there are numerous other retirment communities listed on wikipedia written in a similar format. Thank you for your help. (username: otow)

(moved your question down here to the bottom) I am the editor who nominated your article for speedy deletion. Yesterday I noticed the account User:Otow had spammed Ocala, Florida, an article on my watch list, with a link to www.csculturalcenter.com. I removed that link and looked for other edits by the same account. As you may be aware, spam and linkspam is a big problem here at Wikipedia, and most of us volunteer editors work hard to root it out. Quoting the message someone else left on your user page November 15 2006, "Wikipedia is not a mere directory of links, nor should it be used for advertising or promotion. Inappropriate links include (but are not limited to) links to personal web sites, links to web sites with which you are affiliated, and links that exist to attract visitors to a web site or promote a product." When I saw On Top of the World Communities, Ocala, Florida I recognized it as simply an advertisement and tagged it for speedy deletion by placing {{db-advert}} at the top, with edit summary "blatant advertising". I also left a message on your talk page at User talk:Otow. Probably an administrator here reviewed and deleted the article before you noticed the message, tag or edit summary. My message on your talk page, and the links it contains, will give you more information. Finally, it's never a spam defense to point out similar articles or links that may also be spam or an obvious conflict of interest. We try to catch them all but inevitably some are overlooked. --CliffC 14:34, 8 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

it really was not commercial content

Hi Cliff,

You undid some of my recent additions, indicating that they were of commercial nature. (One citation to www.securitycartoon.com and one image.) I am sorry if the post was poorly phrased. I would like to ask that you reconsider its removal, whether of both entries or only the reference.

Please do not let the ".com" fool you. This is not a commercial offering, and it was not an attempt to sell a product. SecurityCartoon is an effort out of the stop-phishing.com group at Indiana University, and we aim to educate typical Internet users about security threats. Our approach is guided by academic research insights, and we make absolutely no profit. Please take a look at our material at www.securitycartoon.com and you will agree.

Our effort is closely related in spirit to the one already referenced in connection (reference: Ponnurangam Kumaraguru, Yong Woo Rhee, Alessandro Acquisti, Lorrie Cranor, Jason Hong and Elizabeth Nunge.) Neither is a commercial endeavour, both have the same goal, but different techniques.

I hope you will be willing to undo your removal.

Yours, Markus Jakobsson

Markus, I reverted the citation and cartoon you dropped into the middle of a sentence in the existing text in part because the cartoon, of a keylogger creature and its master, had absolutely nothing to do with Phishing, the subject of the article. I now notice that neither of the two ids used to add the cartoon has contributed to Wikipedia before except to add links to documents of which you are an author, and that a few hours after you posted the above note to me you added to Phishing a link to another document of which you are an author. There is no rule against this that I am aware of, but editors will always wonder about such additions. I suggest you review the guidelines at WP:Conflict of interest and before making edits where you would cite yourself or the group which which you are affiliated, first propose your changes on the article's Talk page. --CliffC 02:57, 9 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Cliff, People define phishing in different ways. Sometimes crimeware is included, othertimes not. A common definition involves some social engineering component (which the installation of a keylogger often has) and some theft of information (which the keylogger certainly has.) The point was not to talk about keylogging, though, but rather, about educational efforts. I can pick an example more directly related to phishing. While I agree with you that self-promotion should be kept out from the wikipedia, we must also recognize that sometimes it is the author of some document who is the expert, and therefore, the most appropriate contributor. I do not perceive a conflict of interest in this case, but see how you might have felt that there was, specially given the '.com' extension of the material. Please consider reverting your changes; I'd be happy to upload another cartoon strip, if you and others find that more appropriate. Cheers, Markus

--above unsigned message from Markus-jakobsson 20:00, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to turn this thread of discussion over to Talk:Phishing for comment by other interested editors. --CliffC 00:55, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

I assume you were leaving a message on my talk page in regards to this edit? If so, all I did was switch the category from Category:Psychological tests to Category:Intelligence tests. I did this after recently creating the Intelligence tests category. An intelligence test is a standardized psychological test. All I wanted to do was make the article more specific. I don't know if you noticed this but the intelligence test category is actually a subcategory of "psychological tests". So now the category list is more specific.

Another example of this would be Bono. Rather than listing him in the general "U2" category, he is listed in the "U2 members" category. The U2 members category is then, in turn ,a subcategory of "U2". Does that make sense? If so, the same principle is at work here.

I'm not quite sure what you meant by the "links and/or templates" "don't seem to lead anywhere or do anything". All I did was make a category listing more specific. Did I miss something, or do you disagree with making that categorization more specific? Chupper 23:14, 11 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies, I was referring to THIS, a very different edit made about six hours before yours by User:194.176.105.39 . my error. I'll move my comments to his page and delete them from yours. There is absolutely nothing questionable about your edit and I am certainly sorry for putting you through all that. --CliffC 23:47, 11 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Message from User:Navigator1972

Thanks for your message, but I can't see where you get to decide what is appropriate and what is inappropriate when it comes to external links to medical information. Do you have any medical training or knowledge to make you an authority in this topic areaNavigator1972 15:48, 12 June 2007 (UTC)? If it's on topic and it's helpful to users why would the link be inappropriate? I know that copying the information from the original source without GFDL permission would be wrong, so the only thing I can do is add the link.[reply]

It's then up to users to decide whether to follow the link. If it took them to a violent, abusive or pornographic website or a site that was totally unrelated then I think it could be termed inappropriate. If it takes them to information that could help them get over their medical problem, then it's very appropriate. By removing these links you prevent injured individuals getting free information that would help them recover.

Finally if my contributions are going to be arbitrarily rubbed out by someone who thinks they can make decisions for the rest of us, then what is the point of me contributing to this community?

Message to both User:Navigator1972 and User:87.113.21.133

I was preparing a response to this message on my user page, but I see that it has been removed, I'm not sure why. I have restored it from the history file. My response would have pointed out that these links to www.physioroom.com are spam, by any Wikipedia definition, not "contributions" to the encyclopedia. If someone wants to add "information that could help them get over their medical problem" they should do so by adding it directly to the article, that's what a contributor does. Material where copyright is claimed can be recast and rewritten before it's added. I'll be requesting action on these links by an administrator, since admins have the ability to remove all links to a site with a single mouse click, rather than one-by-one as I must. The following paragraph is a template, but one you should read, and consider following its links.

Welcome to Wikipedia. We invite everyone to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia. However, the external links you added do not comply with our guidelines for external links. Wikipedia is not a mere directory of links; nor should it be used for advertising or promotion. Since Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links do not alter search engine rankings. If you feel the link should be added to the article, then please discuss it on the article's talk page before reinserting it. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. --CliffC 02:58, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I still feel that people will benefit from reading the information that is linked to, but I respect your knowledge of wikipedia policies, so I would be very grateful if you could remove those links that you think are not valid. I'd be even more grateful if you could contact your friends in admin and arrange the closure and removal of my account; and expunge the history of my contributions (including this talk) and all data related to my account including the user name and IP address. Thank you very much. Navigator1972 13:02, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry to hear this as I do think you had something to contribute in the subject area, promotional links aside. I looked into your request and it is not possible to delete an account or remove its history of past contributions; please see the explanation here. That link contains a link to a further discussion of deleting user pages. If you are certain you never want the Navigator1972 account to be used again, I have seen the suggestion made to simply change the password to a string that cannot be remembered. --CliffC 00:41, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FYI:

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#sportsinjuryclinic.net spam -- again (Permanent link)
meta:Talk:Spam blacklist#sportsinjuryclinic.net spam (Permanent link)

Thanks for your diligence on this.

The global Wikimedia Foundation blacklist covers all projects in all languages (Turkish Wikipedia, Chinese Wikisource, etc.). It's also used by 1000 to 2000 unrelated wikis that use our blacklist in compiling their own. There are rumours that Google and others consult it when evaluating whether to penalize domain search rankings for spamming. I think these guys made a poor business decision in persisting after your exchanges with them. --A. B. ^(talk) 19:42, 24 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User warnings

Hi. Please take a look at Wikipedia:User_page#Removal_of_warnings. This comes up because a newbie user has complained about "harassment" by another editor, for repeated restorations of warnings that the user wants removed. Since you had also restored warnings (once) for that user, I thought I'd point you at policy, as just FYI. Studerby 19:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I saw the notice on his (newly-cleaned-up) talk page and tracked it down to see if it was legit. I won't do that any more, and thank you for the heads-up. BTW, this is the guy that puts the icing on my annoyance cake by signing his messages "FOUR TILDES". --CliffC 00:44, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism

Your vandalism of many pages needs to stop. please assume good faith when making revisions in accordance with wiki policy.4.158.204.93 00:39, 16 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above message is from 4.158.204.93, co-author with 4.158.204.147 of these nonsense vandalisms today. I reverted these and warned 4.158.204.147 with {{uw-test3}}. Now 4.158.204.93 has undone two of the reversions and restored his friend's/brother's/own nonsense edits. Based on his/their edit summaries, these are not new kids on the block (block, get it? heh heh). Will warn both with {{uw-vandalism4}} and revert again. --CliffC 02:05, 16 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Today, same nonsense vandalisms posted by 4.158.204.198, will warn. Next step is to request a block of this range. --CliffC 14:02, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Later today, these three similar vandalisms by 4.159.11.60. I have not issued a level 4 warning because I know it's all the same person or group and others in the range have received level 4 warnings. Note that the vandalism to Joe DiMaggio uses a false edit summary, as do many other vandalisms by these pests. --CliffC 02:37, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Latest vandalisms by 68.117.58.43, false edit summaries again and no original thought. Warned with {{uw-vandal4}} since these are group vandalisms. --CliffC 12:48, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Today's vandalisms by 75.72.167.8, false edit summaries and same text. Warned with {{uw-vandal4}} since these are group vandalisms. --CliffC 16:18, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The earliest vandalism of this style that I have found was made 21 March 2007 to article 690 by 193.146.59.41, who uses similar text and similar false edit summaries on later dates. Warned with {{uw-vandal4}} since these are group vandalisms. --CliffC 17:07, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

--CliffC 12:20, 22 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

690 vandalized again by 68.117.58.43. A past contributor of the same text, 146.57.92.37, was asked by another editor to "quit making all stoners look stupid." --CliffC 00:52, 25 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
4.158.204.138 --CliffC 12:30, 25 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
4.159.11.169

And again just this evening, 4.159.17.205 - Studerby 00:14, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I wrote this all up and posted it at WP:AIV a few hours ago, keeping my fingers crossed. --CliffC 00:58, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is a complaint online somewhere? I'd be happy to verify the pattern, particularly with regard to the Outsider Art article. BTfromLA 04:44, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'm unfamiliar with that WP:AIV page--I take it that complaints are logged and immediately removed for administrator action, yes? Anyway, seems like you're on top of the case... if you need support, drop me a note. BTfromLA 05:12, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, posted here. I tried to make it as complete as possible. --CliffC 05:03, 26 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

After three quiet days, 68.117.58.43 is back. --CliffC 23:17, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

207.69.137.39 restored the "greaser" bit to Outsider Art today, and has a considerable history of vandalism. I didn't look into this deeply enough to determine whether is the identical vandal, or is just someone reposting the obnoxious material opportunistically as a means of disruption, but either way, this seems like an IP that should be blocked. BTfromLA 16:54, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Back again, as 4.232.150.226. Was there any action on that 4.158... IP?BTfromLA 20:46, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I just posted this. If you want to see if any action was taken, you can go to a talk page and look at the block log, but I have seen no blocks in the few I looked at. Right now I'm pretty disgusted. --CliffC 21:04, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Multilple external links to one site

Hi Natalie, I saw your comment in Talk:Mumia Abu-Jamal that "our external links policy does suggest limiting external links to one per website". Actually this seems reasonable, and I must confess I wasn't thinking of external links when I made my comments to the user who removed the link he saw as a duplicate; I just saw it as an arbitrary removal of information (and perhaps could have been more civil). Can you point me to that policy? I took a quick look at WP:EL but didn't see it, and it sounds like something I might like to quote to some argumentative spammer one day. Regards, CliffC 20:04, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you; I've been offline since Friday. It's point #2 of important points to remember. It's more of a guideline than a hard and fast rule, but a very logical one. Natalie 06:21, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Thanks for digging this out. --CliffC 12:48, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments on a reversion, and I suck as an editor

(Following message was moved here from my user page)

The information I provided to the Thomas Benton page provided unknown information regarding his friendship with an important southwestern artist. I assure you it is not promotional or a conflict of interest. And you suck as an editor!!!!!
--unsigned message from 68.107.128.207 02:00, 20 June 2007

The edit I reverted, with summary "rv promotion, suggest you review WP:COI", is here. In the context of the host paragraph, your addition "Benton was close friend of and often visited Arizona artist Ettore DeGrazia" is a non sequitur - it has nothing to do with what precedes it. (I did review the article looking for a spot where that statement might fit in and was unable to find one.)

I notice that your edits combined with these similar ones have resulted in Tucson, Arizona having two separate mentions of the DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun. I think it would help the article if you were to delete one. --CliffC 01:16, 22 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to bed now - am sure tomorrow will be a better day

Unblocked the relevant IP address; it's not showing up as a Tor exit node at this time. Apologies for any inconvenience. – Luna Santin (talk) 06:27, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your EAR

Hello,

Thanks for checking in on your request for editor assistance (subject: "Request for long-term IP vandal blocks, protection of target articles") which you posted recently.

Given your response to the feedback provided, do I have your permission to mark this request as resolved? Feel free to reply at my talk page, or better yet, append a remark to the request directly. Cheers, --Aarktica 23:58, 6 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WP:PM

I have written on that page that Assisted living and Retirement home should remian seperate, in opposition to your nom. Bearian 19:54, 9 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, this is like opening a time capsule... that was 10 months ago, and it was a suggestion, not a "nom". I see that the forces against have won the day, and I yield the field. Try not to take this stuff too seriously. :) --CliffC 23:15, 9 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]