User talk:CliffC/Archive 4

Car donation page

Regarding the car donation page, the page is pretty sparse. The external link I added had more information. Did you check out the page? How would I be able to add the link and not be considered self-promoting?

Thanks, Mark Emark31 (talk) 02:37, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Mark, you ask a good question. On just about any topic, there are sites that have more information than the corresponding Wikipedia article, Car donation included. However, we try to encourage content to be added to articles while keeping external links to a minimum.

One method used to determine whether a link should stay or go is how it was added to the article. Your link was added "bare" (no additional content was added to the article). This approach almost always raises a red flag; if I had not noticed and removed the link, likely someone else would have, very soon. 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.

The best way to incorporate a link to an external web site is to contribute cited text - add some facts to the article from the site in question and then cite the source per normal guidelines. This is a happy medium. At a glance, your site seems to have good information, and I hope you will share some of it. For the future, here are some guidelines on external links:

• WP:Spam#How_not_to_be_a_spammer - information regarding adding links (in particular, see point number 2 in this guideline)
• WP:EL - External Links guidelines
• WP:CITE - Wikipedia citation guidelines

--CliffC (talk) 03:56, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Medicine/Dermatology task force

I wanted to know if you (or any friends of yours) are interested in dermatology, and would be willing to help me with the WikiProject Medicine/Dermatology task force? Kilbad (talk) 15:22, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I'll have to pass on this, but thanks. --CliffC (talk) 15:37, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Froebel Gifts

If you think the Froebel Gifts are a commercial product, then I suggest you delete this article (of which I am the author) in its entity. While I share your concern about baby classroom and their marketing of poor quality immitations of the original Froebel Gifts (probably sourced in Asia and completely misrepresented by their website) I think you are over reacting by purging Frank Lloyd Wright's endorsement of Froebel Gifts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.2.40.185 (talk) 14:40, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

No, of course Froebel Gifts, as designed by Friedrich Froebel and described in the article, are not a commercial product. However, when you describe them as the Froebel Gifts and scatter links to the educational toy site ozpod.com throughout the article, then yes, they become a commercial product. Wikipedia has strict rules about links to commercial sites, listed at WP:External links. Among them are "2. External links should not normally be used in the body of an article" and "4. In the "External links" section, try to avoid separate links to multiple pages in the same website; instead, try to find an appropriate linking page within the site". Regarding babyclassroom.com, we are not concerned at Wikipedia about any company's alleged "marketing of poor quality immitations", we are concerned about companies using Wikipedia to promote sales of their product, and that is why on 14 October I removed the external link to babyclassroom.com with this edit, as well as removing your duplicate link to ozpod.com in this edit.

As to the mention of Frank Lloyd Wright, on 14 October I added the original paragraph on Wright's "endorsement" of the Froebel blocks. (In it I called them "the Froebel geometric blocks" because it is tiresome to the reader to read Froebel Gifts, Froebel Gifts over and over.) I was careful in my wording to conform closely to a mention of the blocks in Frank Lloyd Wright--the Lost Years, 1910-1922, page 359, but did not properly cite the book, as I should have. With this edit, you substituted a quote from Wright, added some apparent synthesis of the published material ("used them as a design tool and for creative inspiration throughout his life"), defined "Froebel Gifts" as a direct link to ozpod.com, and re-added your duplicate external link tagged with "Buy original Froebel Gifts online".

I have reverted the article to its 14 October state, but expanded the Wright paragraph to also include a similar supporting quotation from Wright, without synthesis, and cited two sources. --CliffC (talk) 23:31, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

companies using Wikipedia to promote sales of their product

Given your current crusade to clean up Wikipedia, I suggest you look at these products. All have pages at Wikipedia linking to company webpages, many offering products for sale online. If we are going to be consistent then let us be consistent.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uberstix
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Logs
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meccano
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchor_Stone_Blocks

There are any other Wikipedia pages which I could list Fred20x (talk) 05:58, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

You've never edited under this id before, but I'll assume your complaint is about edits that removed promotional links to ozpod.com from Froebel Gifts and other articles. The companies you list have met the company notability requirement for inclusion in Wikipedia. Yes, their articles do contain external links to company web sites and some have links to company web pages that solicit sales, as do the Wikipedia articles for Amazon.com and General Motors. Wikipedia external links guidelines allow such links, and in practice readers expect to find a link to the company's web site in a company article. As far as I know, no employees or owners of these companies have added their links to other articles, that would be both spamming and a conflict of interest.

You might be saying that other stuff exists, but that is never a valid argument for inclusion.

Froebel Gifts is not a company, so there's no company site to discuss linking to. If ozpod.com had a Wikipedia article, an external link to the company site from that article would be acceptable and even expected. One of the companies you mention, Anchor Stone Blocks, has an external link to a non-company enthusiast site that includes offers to sell the product to visitors, but overall the site adds value to the article, as I believe does the existing link to ozpod.com in Froebel Gifts. --CliffC (talk) 17:10, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

HUI (ticker symbol)

Cliff, I had to delete the old information on the HUI (ticker symbol) page because it was outdated. So I updated it. Americanjoe1776 (talk) 16:13, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I can see after looking at your other edits that when you deleted the "old" (not "outdated") information from HUI (ticker symbol) you copied it to Amex Gold BUGS Index and it's still in the encyclopedia. That's why it's encouraged to always leave an edit summary, so that other editors' time is not wasted determining whether an edit is constructive or not. --CliffC (talk) 16:32, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

You're right, I should always leave an edit summary. But sometimes I forget or don't think it's necessary. I was considering just moving the whole HUI (ticker symbol) page to the new Amex Gold BUGS Index article that I created the other day. I am unsure if a ticker symbol is a relevant entry for a encyclopedia, especially considering that these things change from time to time. What do you think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Americanjoe1776 (talk • contribs) 19:02, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Good point, it might be better for HUI (ticker symbol) to just be a straight redirect to Amex Gold BUGS Index and move all the HUI content over there, then it's all easier to watch/keep track of. Taking a few symbols more or less at random, XAU, TMX, and BLL are redirects to dab pages; CTXS. KKD and HPQ redirect directly to the company's page. FWIW, I only see a few articles here with (ticker symbol) in their title. --CliffC (talk) 20:05, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Quick Note

To the extent that you helped me with the EWTN edits, I thank you. I became aware of the nut who keeps editing the page under a anon ID and I wanted to make clear that I am not him...or her.

SacredSpermWhale (talk) 05:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

No, I didn't think you were, and welcome aboard. I put a 'welcome' template with some useful links on your talk page. Best, CliffC (talk) 14:48, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Re: Doorway to Hell, Gates of Hell, etc.

(Message moved to Talk:Haunted Castle at Six Flags Great Adventure)

Paragraphs

Although I write to you in separate paragraphs, they all appear as one lumped together group. What am I doing wrong?
UPDATE, learned to use line breaks.
The things you learn when you look around.
--Popartpete 04:32, 2 November 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Popartpete (talk • contribs)

You can create paragraph breaks (blank lines between paragraphs) by hitting the Enter key at the end of each chunk you want to make a paragraph. If you want, you can edit your "Gateway" message above to try it out. To get your signature to appear on talk pages, use four tildes, like this ~~~~, not ````.

--CliffC (talk)

A few other things I disagree about the Haunted Castle post...

(Message moved to Talk:Haunted Castle at Six Flags Great Adventure)

My mistaken reversion and later unreversion of one of your edits

While blitzing through my witchlist with WP:Twinkle, in a knee-jerk I hit the [Rollback (Vandal)] button here when I should not have. I have manually unreverted that here. I apologize. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:40, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

No apology necessary, I fully understand that reaction. One of my pet peeves here is changing quoted material, and I went back to the original edit creating that section to see what the word was first claimed to be. (Thanks for finding the online version, that makes me more comfortable.) I thought long and hard about putting back an ugly word that a well-intentioned person had just eradicated, and hoped someone else would beat me to it. But truth won out over decency, as I guess it must in a encyclopedia. Best, CliffC (talk) 02:17, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Need your opinion

Do you mind contacting me at marcin at malwarebytes dot org. I have a few questions regarding a change and possibly require some suggestions. Appreciate it!

Malwarebytes (talk) 03:19, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

If it's about the {{advertisement}} tag on Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, there might be some answers ready-made for you above at Marked_as_Advertisement and the two sections following it. These are discussions about how to get the tag off the DriveSentry article and about several other problems the authors had with editor scrutiny here. Their article was in worse shape POV-wise than your own, but after some tough editing on their part to remove promotional language and peacock terms, along with a few other problems akin to your list of supported languages, it survived a move to have it deleted. Your user name shows that you may have conflict of interest issues to contend with as well. I'll put a welcome template with some helpful links on your talk page. Feel free to ask any questions right here. --CliffC (talk) 05:16, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Cliff thanks a lot for the feedback, I was trying to write a completely unbiased page regarding our product. I tried to follow in the foot steps of some other product sites, and I seemed to have overstepped some boundries. I had no intention of 'advertising' I was simply posting the information. What exactly was wrong with the languages supported, isn't that a fact that should be on every page regarding a product or website? Malwarebytes (talk) 05:49, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

IMO buyers expect that most languages will be supported and will check the packaging for their own language, this isn't the place to list product specs. I looked at articles for similar products and didn't see any listed. --CliffC (talk) 20:46, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Reply to Eight year old mischieviously doing stuff in my home

Well i'm not too sure how or who has been in the house, my guess is, my ISP issues us with dynamic IPs which changes over time. So, i'm sure you must be talking about the kid of some other family in the Australian continent. as for me, i'm a medical student with an anatomy exam to face tomorrow so naturally, i try to edit things to make them make sense to me. That sentence was wrong before the edit, even though after reading up i realise that i was also wrong. Since two wrongs do not make a right, i'll check and make sure, and then re-edit it again. Oh, i have created an account. So any actions i take should be reflected in my account from now on. thanks for the heads up, i know what you did was for the greater good, although you can't deny that little bit of ego stroking that comes with the power to re-edit editions. (: Deftfingers (talk) 06:07, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Aha, that would explain it, I didn't think you were the "poo" vandal. Welcome, and I've put a helpful template on your talk page. As a medical student, your contributions will be particularly helpful. When you get around to improving Vestibular system (or anything), an edit summary will give your changes extra cred. As to powers, anybody can edit or re-edit anything here, I don't have any special powers that you don't have now with your new account. Regards. --CliffC (talk) 13:40, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Weatherman/Weather Underground Biographies

CliffC: As someone who has been a helpful discussant and editor of previous biographies of Weatherpeople, you might be interested to know that a set of new or expanded entries will be posted this week for the following individuals: Scott Braley, Brian Flanagan, Linda Sue Evans, Mark Rudd, Ted Gold, Robert Roth, Robby Stern, Susan Stern, Cathy Wilkerson, Mike Spiegel, Dianne Donghi, Howard Machtinger, Diana Oughton, Eleanor Raskin, and Mark Naison. If you should have the time to give these postings the benefit of your review, I heartily invite you to do so.--Historytrain (talk) 00:09, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

A big update to Cathy Wilkerson by a brand new editor just popped up on my watchlist. Is this some sort of annual class assignment? I recall a wave of these in November of last year. --CliffC (talk) 01:24, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Just a thought

On NPOV regarding this - if the product is indeed award-winning how is that bias? It's just stating facts (even though there weren't any references, but generally...) -- Mentisock 12:42, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi, that article has suffered a recent infusion of corporate brochure-speak by apparent company flacks, some already reverted. When I corrected the lead paragraph's newly-added adspeak "...stops software exploits at the point-of-entry" claim to the (still promotional) "designed [...] to stop software exploits at the point-of-entry", I threw in the removal of "award-winning" as a bonus; it turns out that "award-winning" is listed under "Words and phrases to watch for" in WP:PEACOCK, so maybe I should have cited that as well. Regards, CliffC (talk) 14:44, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Italian American

During the 1930's and 40's, Italian American Congressman Vito Marcantonio was known for his staunchly pro-labor views and his defense of the Puerto Ricans and African Americans in his East Harlem Congressional District.

You stated this edit was "out of Place and out of balance", though it appeared in the politics section and the wording is directly from his wikipedia page. I am going to undo your edit, until you can explain exactly what is so out of place and out of balance about it. This is exactly the place where Italian American Political history fits. If you feel it is out of balance then balance it out, don't remove it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.120.231.163 (talk) 22:18, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Here is the Politics section, with the Vito Marcantonio addition bolded:

In the 1930s, Italian Americans voted heavily Democratic; since the 1960s, they have split about evenly between the Democratic (37%) and the Republican (36%) parties. During the 1930's and 40's, Italian American Congressman Vito Marcantonio was known for his staunchly pro-labor views and his defense of the Puerto Ricans and African Americans in his East Harlem Congressional District. The U.S. Congress includes Italian Americans who are regarded as leaders in both the Republican and Democratic parties. The highest ranking Italian American politician is currently Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who became the first woman and Italian American Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, and former Republican New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani was a candidate for the U.S. presidency in the 2008 election, as was Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo. Geraldine Ferraro was also a vice-presidential candidate in 1984. Two of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices--Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito--are Italian-Americans, appointed by Republican Presidents.

No disrespect to you or Congressman Marcantonio, but please think about what the original paragraph is saying. The first sentence mentions the heavily Democratic 1930s without naming any politicians of the era, then points out that the mix from the 1960s on is both Democratic and Republican. The next sentence gives two examples of highly recognizable and currently active politicians from each party. What makes the Marcantonio addition out of place, is that it doesn't contribute to the point the section is trying to make. What makes the addition out of balance (see WP:UNDUE) is that even if it did fit in, it gives too much space to the lesser-known Marcantonio compared to the nationally-known Pelosi and Giuliani. The section isn't meant to be a listing of famous Italian Americans in politics, that's done in List of Italian American politicians by state. Congressman Marcantonio is on that list, in addition to already having his own well-written article. --CliffC (talk) 03:08, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Links to site avert-cdls.com

Interesting that you are not even paying attention to what the content is that I'm actually pointing to on our site. I'm trying to educate, not advertise. So, you're just deleting everything I link to including my whitepapers and I would like an explanation as to why you think this isn inappropritate. Jgeorge60 (talk) 23:01, 6 December 2008 (UTC)jgeorge60

When the same link is added "bare" to several articles, especially if it's placed right on top of the 'External links' list, that suggests to me that the submitter is more interested in promoting a web site than in improving Wikipedia. Wikipedia needs cited content, not bare links. Please review the guidelines and policies linked to from today's messages on your talk page, also Wikipedia:Spam#How not to be a spammer, about how to add a link without setting off everyone's spam alert. One way is to contribute cited content to the articles and not just a bare link. And since you refer to the link as "my" whitepapers, I suggest you also take a look at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. --CliffC (talk) 01:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

======Present for you, one you missed===========

removed this link http://secude.com/htm/806/en/White_Paper_Section%3A_Single_Sign-On.htm from the external links on the Smart Card page.

jgeorge60 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jgeorge60 (talk • contribs)

Please add new messages at the bottom of the page, or to the appropriate section, not at the top. Don't forget to sign with four tildes (~~~~), thanks.

I'm assuming the unstated intention of your message is to point out that there are other white papers on Wikipedia, and that you have removed one to make a point. I'm not going to waste my time analysing the link you removed to show how it differs from yours, if indeed it does differ. You seem to be saying other crap exists; that is true but is never a valid argument. I suggest that you review the guideline do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, and leave edit summaries when you edit, otherwise your edits may be taken for vandalism. --CliffC (talk) 02:05, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Promotion of the Crime Museum

I recently logged into my account and saw that you deleted the updates I had made to several wikipedia pages in reference to the National Museum of Crime & Punishment.

I understand the need for people to monitor and police pages, to ensure that wikipedia is not being overly-abused. However, I am confident that all of the edits I made were in the interest of informing the public as to the location of important historical artifacts. Yes, I do work for the museum, but I see no harm in letting people know what artifacts we have in our posession and where they can be found. It would be no different if the Smithsonian made such edits, which they do, as seen in this example:

"The puffy shirt used in this [Seinfeld] episode, along with an original copy of the script is currently placed in the Smithsonian."

I was especially confused by your removal of my edit to the Jesse James page, since I had made an addition in a section specifically labelled, "Museums." Also, my edit to the America's Most Wanted page seemed rather appropriate, seeing as John Walsh is a partner in the museum and the filming studios are just outside my office door on our lower floor, which is all the edit stated.

The purpose of this message is not to argue with your reasoning for removing the edits, I would simply like to explain myself and the intentions of the museum. I would like to re-post the edits, and I hope that they can remain in cyberspace this time. Let me know if there is anything I can do that would assuage your worries about these edits. Please feel free to email me at (removed)

Bonosaveslives (talk) 19:56, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I removed your email address to keep it private; Wikipedia pages including talk pages are prowled by people looking for spam targets.

You must mean your October 27 edits, six weeks ago. You can see a list by clicking on the 'my contributions' link at the top of the page. From there click on the 'history' link for each article (or go to the article and click on the 'history' tab at the top of the page), you'll see your edits, and above them somewhere are the edits I made along with an edit summary explaining the reason for the edit. As an example, the summary for Jesse James says "rm promotion of private museum not "devoted to Jesse James" as stated in section header". Most of your edits did seem to have a place in the article, but needed to be edited and trimmed to scale - I left a note on your talk page to that effect:

Welcome, but please take a look at WP:PROMOTION and WP:WEIGHT, your edits seem a bit overenthusiastic. It will help all around if you scale your contributions in style and length to the rest of the article. Thanks.

Since you work for the National Museum of Crime & Punishment the crime museum, you have a conflict of interest when editing related articles; I'll put a template with some suggestions for that situation on your talk page in a moment. I encourage you to take the time to follow the various policy links posted on your talk page and especially to review our collective edits as outlined above to see what happened. Welcome, and I hope this answers all your questions. --CliffC (talk) 23:18, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Just to follow up, I reviewed the edit history for The Puffy Shirt and didn't see anything suggesting that the Smithsonian reference (which was in the original version of the article, written by an anonymous editor) was added by someone who worked for the Smithsonian. There's the difference – if something is truly notable, someone uninvolved with the institution or business will add it. --CliffC (talk) 23:44, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Followup #2 - your edit to America's Most Wanted was reverted by another editor, with edit summary "rv adcopy". --CliffC (talk) 01:46, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Apology: Sioux Gateway Airport article

That was my mistake on the edit I guess. I am a bit new to this. Next time I do an edit I will provide a link to the NTSB report that states the official death toll for the Flight 232 accident. Like you, I am a compulsive typo editor, especially on my favorite subject of aviation.

AlBundy429AlBundy429 (talk) 02:42, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Popping populations!

Do you have prior knowledge of this guy? When I checked their changes to Germans I caught them falsifying numbers. But I was having a hard time wading through Brazilian sites trying to verify some more. Is this just a revert on sight type of thing? Shenme (talk) 00:28, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

No prior knowledge, just reverting a vandalism spree, based mainly on my first sighting of him, this, and a couple of other samplings. Cheers, CliffC (talk) 00:34, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Iron Mountain

The article removed was a repeat

  1. ^ "Time Warner Says Data on Employees Is Lost", The New York Times (May 3, 2005).
  2. ^ "Whoops! We Seem to Have Misplaced Your Identity", The New York Times (May 8, 2005).

They were both the Time Warner Story( it is also mentioned in another article). What do you have against this company? I look through the edits and see you post only negative items? is this not for facts both positive and negative? Does each Wikipedia page need two to three story's with the same information? 71.174.90.12 (talk) 07:30, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I've replied here on your talk page. --CliffC (talk) 18:34, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Fröbel vandalism

There's a message for you here. Kelisi (talk) 04:52, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, I reverted his undoing of the redirection also. You saw both his items above, right? One from the IP and one from Fred? I watched the whole Froebel/Fröbel kerfluffle play out without ringing in because I didn't think I could be neutral. IMO, it wasn't about the umlaut at all; he has a commercial interest that shows up in Froebel Gifts and he wishes to retain the oe variant to match what's sold by the site he links to. Again, just IMO.

Since you are skilled in German, maybe you could keep Bernard Goetz on your watch list for a few days? I'll be asking for a translation of a paragraph from a citation in Stern that contains a point I think too fine to trust to the Google translator. (This is not from the paragraph in question, but "Er fiel vom Glauben ab, nachdem ihm Kirchenmitarbeiter seine Kekse weggenommen hatten" gets translated as "He fell from the faith after his church employees removed his biscuits had". Sounds painful.) Cheers, CliffC (talk) 13:42, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Stephen Barrett

Ronz seems hellbent on removing your conversation thread from the talk page. Please note that I responded to your post and you can read about it by viewing the content deleted by Ronz. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 19:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with the whole thread being removed, the only reason I posted at all was because the original message was such a blatant bunch of bullshit. Cheers, CliffC (talk) 21:02, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Citing sources and photo

(Questions moved to Talk:Eleanore Mikus since they'll be of interest to anyone watching that article) --CliffC (talk) 22:18, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi-- thank you for the recent citation -- have worked to correct them. Will work to post a photo of artist soon. Mikusart (talk) 19:00, 25 January 2009 (UTC)MikusartMikusart (talk) 19:00, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Still have a question...worked at following the citations -- are they all good now? If so ...can you remove the broom and note on citations? Thank you. Mikusart (talk) 01:50, 27 January 2009 (UTC)MikusartMikusart (talk) 01:50, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

That's an improvement, I've substituted a {{nofootnotes}} tag to encourage the connection of individual sources in the laundry list at "More References" directly to the statements they support. Don't feel bad if you can't get to this right away, some articles have tags in place for years, and your time may be better spent in improving the text. In the future, questions like this are better asked at Talk:Eleanore Mikus.

You seem to be signing your talk page comments twice...?? --CliffC (talk) 13:09, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Have another question on the photo upload...do I use the expanded templates to show a photo of the artist in her studio? With that page I hope to add the copyright information too. Also, have worked to amend the footnotes to meet the standards set. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikusart (talk • contribs)

Now you're not signing at all; four tildes, ~~~~, is all it takes to sign. Can't help on the upload, try the talk page. --CliffC (talk) 22:15, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I had signed my name twice, but it seemed to not post...I was having a problem ...will be glad to paste the signing. Thank you. (UTC)MikusartMikusart

Not a big problem, just a puzzlement, as is your latest sig. The 'Show preview' button will show you what your edits look like before you commit to making them public with 'Save page'.

Am signing this with simply four tildes, ~~~~, here: CliffC (talk) 15:08, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

One other question, where is the talk page again? I appreciate your time. Mikusart (talk) 14:57, 29 January 2009 (UTC)MikusartMikusart (talk) 14:57, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Link is on the first line in this section. CliffC (talk) 15:08, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

"Advertising"

I wasn't "advertising" anything. Thanks. --24.21.148.212 (talk) 20:15, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, fine. The link to morioncompany.com/CubicZirconia.htm you added to Tanzanite goes to a page that's little more than a price list, that's why it was removed, and I doubt that the company's sales site would qualify as a reliable source for a Wikipedia citation. --CliffC (talk) 21:28, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Old Age

Article Old Age Why did you remove the ages on the pics? Assuming they are correct, isn't it better to keep the information?

SimonTrew (talk) 17:35, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Those ages seemed to be pure uncited guesswork on the part of a user with a history of vandalism, granted they might have been close. Good work on that article, BTW. Best, CliffC (talk) 17:48, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Fair dinkum, if they are guesswork should be removed. Thanks to you too. SimonTrew (talk) 17:57, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

F Lloyd Write

Okay that is up to you to decide CliffC. More than anything else this was meant a tribute to FLW as the whole of this neighborhood architecture is based on his idea's. Thanks anyway --Petrus Patings (talk) 18:07, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Zango acquisition by Blinkx

I'm not the one responsible for the edits, but since then a blog post from a Zango co-founder (Founder/CEO's brother) mentions it clearly. Information from this blog is also the source of this ComputerWorld article. If accepted, you might want to look at re-adding Blinkx edits too. 216.162.77.172 (talk) 04:14, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, ComputerWorld says that the company "shut its doors", and I've added that to the article. So far I don't see any reliable sources commenting beyond what CW says (nor are Zango or Blinkx), so not many details on what happens next to the business and the remaining troops, I'm sure someone will add more details as they get published. Best, CliffC (talk) 14:43, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Caring about your copy edit

Who knew I would care so much about a word? You changed a word in Rosewood massacre from "instigate" to "initiate" using an edit summary that said "remove POV".

This article is almost textbook POV in that two sides have stories that oppose each other directly, so I am doing my best to make sure all points are given due weight. Can you tell me why "instigate" is inappropriate in your opinion? I appreciate your response. --Moni3 (talk) 18:09, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Sure, to me 'instigate' implies deliberately stirring up trouble where none is called for, and suggests that the assault charge was false; Answers.com says the word means

1. To urge on; goad.

2. To stir up; foment.

while Merriam-Webster says the word means to 'provoke' or 'incite'. I thought 'initiate' was more neutral and freely admit to not having an opinion on the assault charge, never having read the article or even that section closely. To me, 'instigate' sounds like editorializing instead of letting the facts, or at least the citations, speak for themselves. Race-associated articles are hard to keep on an even keel, good luck in your efforts. Best, CliffC (talk) 23:06, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

(Later) Okay, I've now read enough of the article to surmise that Taylor's claim of an assault by a black man was likely a lie. As to 'instigated', now I'll suggest replacing it with 'set off' as simply a better term; 'instigated' suggests she had the end of precipitating the massacre in mind when she made the assault claim. One other small point - in my quick take I didn't see that she accused any particular black man, maybe you'd want to change "accused a black man of assaulting her" to "said she was assaulted by a black man". So far IMO this is a fine article. --CliffC (talk) 03:19, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I can see your point. I looked up "instigate" at dictionary.com before messaging you, and it appeared to me the only question might be how large the event was that followed. I'm hoping to take this to WP:FA, where criticism is sharp about quality of writing. I don't know if "set off" will do when a better word such as "instigate" is available. User:Scartol was giving the article a copy edit and had just changed the sentence to include "instigate" 2 edits before yours. After consulting thesaurus.com and dictionary.com, however, I'm confident that "instigate" is a fair use of the word in this circumstance. Your other point is much stronger...I'll make that change. Thank you. --Moni3 (talk) 13:00, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I would say the article is well on its way to FA. I had two other points/questions that popped into my mind as I began reading (only halfway through now), one regarding the use of the IMO overly broad "throughout" regarding racial violence being common, the other that the Masonic connection could be expanded to avert reader confusion on why a white man might have sought help from a black man in this charged situation. Oh, and I didn't see in the source that both men were veterans, only Masons. Anything else I come up with I'll note on the talk page rather than disrupting the FA process. Best, CliffC (talk) 13:31, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

The article has an open peer review here, if you care to make comments. I'll take them all. Thanks. --Moni3 (talk) 13:36, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

This point about veterans is made stronger in other sources, so I can make the citing of that issue stronger. Some discussion surrounds the issues with Masons. Apparently, Aaron Carrier's nephew Arnett Doctor claims that Aaron and Sam Carter were Prince Hall Masons (I know nothing about Masons, btw, so I'm going only on what I'm reading), and considered Masons a brotherhood regardless of race. White Masons may not have had the same consideration however. If that needs to be expanded in a footnote, I can do that. I am unclear on your point regarding he use of the IMO overly broad "throughout". Can you explain that better? Thanks. --Moni3 (talk) 13:44, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

The sentence where I object to the overly broad "throughout" reads "Racial violence at the time was common throughout the nation, particularly in the South." Surely there was some tiny village in Maine or North Dakota that was immune, even if only because it was populated by a single race?? I don't agree such acts were "common" either, and "widespread" or "prevalent" would be equally incorrect. How about "Many acts of racial violence were recorded in the United States at the time, particularly in the South" - or similar?

On the Masonic angle, I suggest that we could remove a source of confusion by using the source cited to spell out the brotherhood aspects with something like "...John Bradley, who knew he was in trouble and had gone to the home of Aaron Carrier, a fellow veteran and fellow member of the Masons, an organization whose ties of fraternity and brotherhood cross racial boundaries." Cheers, CliffC (talk) 23:22, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

The intention of the "throughout" was to indicate that racial violence was common — which is supported by multiple sources — in the U.S., not just in the South. One would think that sleepy towns like Omaha and Tulsa would be far away from the racial stress of backwoods Alabama and Mississippi, but these places saw significant racial violence around 1920. One historian made a point, which I placed in a footnote, of categorizing the type of racial violence by region. As for the issue with the Masons, it is not as cut and dry as your suggestion. According to Arnett Doctor, Aaron Carrier and Sam Carter considered the Masons a brotherhood regardless of race, but white Masons probably would not have. It is not clear that all black or Prince Hall Masons had the same view as Carrier and Carter. I responded to your other issues on the talk page and the PR. We can continue discussion in one location just for simplicity. Wherever you wish. Thanks again. --Moni3 (talk) 13:32, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

FRAP

I wonder why you deleted my historical entry on the "FRAP" disambiguation page for "flat response audio pickup". It was the first of its kind, made the Emerson Lake and Palmer sound possible, and I was using this as a placeholder to write a complete article. The device has been out of production for years, appears only in a few Audio Engineering Society papers, and I was looking for information on it. It's flagged as "promotion" yet the device hasn't been made or sold for years, and the external link was to a users' group page (to which I have no relation.) Altaphon (talk) 03:38, 4 May 2009 (UTC)Altaphon (talk) 03:34, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Sure – the articles at the blue links in the edit summary, "rm promotion per WP:DAB, WP:EL" give most of the story. Red links (no supporting Wikipedia article} are not permitted on disambiguation pages, and external links mainly promoting a web site are generally regarded as spam. The best place to develop your article would be in your own namespace, at a page named something like User:Altaphon/Flat response audio pickup (click on that, then edit and save the page}, then you can move it to mainspace when you're done, or you might consider developing it as a new section for Pick up (music technology) instead. Then edit the FRAP disambiguation page to link to Flat response audio pickup or Pick up (music technology), whichever you decide. Either way, you might still have a problem with inserting a direct link to that user group 'naked', it's best to use a link to an article at the site as a citation for statements in your article or section. Best, --CliffC (talk) 12:05, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Got it. Thanks, I will do that. Altaphon (talk) 16:56, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Sears Tower

Hi CliffC. Thanks for cleaning up my addition to this topic. It looks much better now! It's good to know that people are out there who are watching out to keep things rational and sensible. Regards, Colin. Seashorewiki (talk) 20:54, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't realize the building was leased rather than bought until I saw your edit. I see someone moved it to Willis Tower (briefly) again today. Probably the next big flurry will be when Willis actually slaps the new sign up there. They could make a lot of friends in Chicago if they decided to name it the Sears-Willis Tower instead. Best, CliffC (talk) 23:38, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Please check additions to Haunted Castle at Six Flags Great Adventure

Cliff... Please review my additions to the Haunted Castle at Six Flags Great Adventure. I wrote a book, and I am publishing it on my website for free.

I just added this fact, spelled out on the page http://www.popartpete.com/hauntedcastle_main.html

I also still cannot add sources to the bottom. If I could, it would be easier to verify.

Please let me know if what is changed is okay. It's a totally free link, so it can't be spam. No one is asked or obligated to buy anything.

I just want a way for people to be directed to the free book online, so everyone can enjoy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Popartpete (talk • contribs) 03:06, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I've asked other editors here to take a look. --CliffC (talk) 00:09, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Cluecheck

Fine, you might not like the source (a chinese B2B company with a .cn domain) as evidence that the Chinese make this exact mistranslation. Didja even click it? Regardless, I can't blame ya - going to chinese websites isn't exactly the brightest of ideas, especially if you're still using MSIE. Whatever, I'll let the revert on the article slide. But dude, get a grip! A reference even, thats plenty good enough of a source for the talk page - hell, having a source at all is way beyond what passes for the talk pages. You had absolute no business reverting my insertion of the source of the mistranslation on the talk page - who do you think you are, anyways? Zaphraud (talk) 04:36, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Of course I clicked the link, and I also found several blog entries supporting your very interesting and plausible theory of what's behind the Chinese wallboard mess. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for this to show up in reliable sources so that it can be mentioned in the article. The reason I reverted your talk page edit is not because of the poor reference supporting the sulfite-for-sulfate theory, which is fine for talk page content, but because much of the edit is devoted to snarky comments about the Chinese and their language. Defamatory comments are not appropriate on talk pages. A look at the {{talkpage}} policies posted at the top of that page will explain it better than I can.

I notice that you have taken a sudden interest in several articles recently edited by me. Please don't do that. --CliffC (talk) 18:24, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Tildes test

• 1 ~
• 2 ~~
• 3 CliffC (talk)
• 4 CliffC (talk) 17:22, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
• 5 17:22, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
• 6 17:22, 15 May 2009 (UTC)~
• 7 17:22, 15 May 2009 (UTC)~~

Reverting External Links

Hi Cliff,

I understand that adding about half-a-dozen external links a day in the last two days may have red flagged all of them. But I wonder why you reverted them all without even reviewing whether they met Wikipedia's external links policies. Just to give one example, I added Michael Martin's critiques of the transcendental argument just prior to a link replying to those critiques. If the reply to Michael Martin's critiques is appropriate on that page, surely what is being replied to also ought to be there? (Or otherwise neither should be there.)

It's true that all of my additions were links to the Secular Web; but I was only adding links that weren't already there, and I was linking to generic Secular Web pages listing a number of articles only on the topic of the Wikipedia article (unlike some links I've seen where just a single article by a single author is listed). The only difference is that the Secular Web tends to provide articles with a critical POV (as a balance to the believing POV already linked to). Surely being neutral entails linking to both POVs (or neither--but then it's hard to say what the point of the external links at all is).

On the pages in question, there were already appropriate links to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, or Project Guttenberg. I suppose I could've also added links to the Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind, but I didn't want to add too much to the articles to make them too busy just to prevent my links from being reverted.

Looking back at some of the reverted links, I'd like to make a brief case for them. I realize you're probably very busy--that's one reason I chose the easy way of adding links instead of editing the articles themselves; referring to existing content is easier than creating new content.

The articles on afterlife, immortality, religious experience, moral arguments, and ontological arguments contain no links to anything critical of these ideas.

For the divine command theory article, I simply corrected an existing link. The old link that was there was most appropriate for the moral arguments article, where I moved it, but you reverted it there.

For the problem of evil, I simply added the complementary link to the one already there, which was "Evidential Arguments from Evil." The complementary link was to "Logical Arguments from Evil." (Two different kinds of argument to the same conclusion.)

The "Argument from inconsistent revelations" has a disclaimer: "This article needs additional citations for verification." The link I provided contains articles by professional philosophers which could constitute such citations--and before I added it, there were no external links at all.

Note that for the Transcendental Argument, every single reference is to a book by believers, and no critics are named in the Criticism section of the article itself. The one critical link there now has nothing to do with the Transcendental Argument itself (the Transcendental Argument is not one of the top 10 discussed in the link!). What I linked surely has a much greater "right" to be there than the first link there now.

As a practical matter, what do I have to do to prevent any additional links from being reverted in the future? Diversify what is linked to? Add content to the article in question instead of just adding links? Or should I just leave it up to someone else to decide what's appropriate and move on?

69.251.164.54 (talk) 03:08, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I took a quick look at some of the many links (783 at the moment) to www.infidels.org now in Wikipedia. I see some used as references to cite article statements, but many are simply bare external links. I haven't examined whatever content at your web site the external links point to. The argument that the links lend 'balance' to any particular article is not a good one. The way to add balance in Wikipedia is to contribute content to articles, content that's cited to a reliable source, not to add an external link that takes the reader elsewhere.

When you above compare your link to another and say "Or otherwise neither should be there", that brings up WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, never an valid argument for inclusion.

The links you recently posted appear to be simply promoting your web site. Please review the blue links left on your user talk page, especially WP:EL. The best advice I can give you to not have your links reverted is to follow the points made in how not to look like a spammer. Your last question sounds like you're on the right track.

Just so you know, I'll be listing infidels.org at Current spam reports for evaluation by someone with more available time than I have right now. --CliffC (talk) 16:52, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

For whatever its worth, I have nothing to do with any of those 783 links added, presumably by different users at different times going back who knows how many years ago (something easy enough to verify, I imagine). I certainly have no objection to cleaning up (i.e. eliminating) extraneous links to that site irrelevant to any articles where someone may have added them.

The reason I wrote on your talk page was that I thought that the dozen links (not the hundreds of them you mention) that [B]I[/B] added were not extraneous, i.e. were appropriate for the articles in question. Since you have submitted all links to that site for review, would you be willing to undo your reversions so that the ones I added could be reviewed, too? All I ask is that my links be reviewed for appropriateness to the article in question; I'll let whoever does the reviewing have the final word. I would just like them reviewed instead of tossed without even being looked at.

BTW, I wasn't arguing that the links add balance to the article; I was arguing that the links add balance to the other external links. That's why I said that if you are not going to represent more than one point of view in the external links, perhaps Wikipedia should consider doing away with external links altogether. That's all I meant by "Or otherwise neither should be there."

To repeat: Please, if you will, undo the reverts so that they can be reviewed for inclusion/removal. I don't care if Wikipedia eliminates those 783 other links I know nothing about; but I think they should include my dozen. My dozen are as appropriate as any link can be to the articles in question. I don't know about anything other people have added. If I was spamming I'd want the maximum number of links; I simply want [I]relevant[/I] links. That's why I'm willing to let sit whatever the reviewer decides about whether my links are relevant, or not.

69.251.164.54 (talk) 22:10, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I had a quick look at some of your edits. They looked ok, in isolation. I only checked a couple of target infidel.org sites, but they did look relevant. However, there are many thousands of good web sites, and each of them would like to add 1000+ links on Wikipedia, so we have to be fairly brutal in response. The main problem with your edits is the fact that you are indistinguishable from a single purpose account. The links CliffC provided above are an excellent guide. Johnuniq (talk) 03:13, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, masked stranger, well said. To 69.251.164.54, I won't be adding your links back in. I think you still don't "get it", and recommend again that you study the material at the many blue links that have been left for you, and ask yourself whether you are here to contribute to the encyclopedia or to promote something. So far I see only promotion. --CliffC (talk) 04:24, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi Johnuniq,

I understand the reasons for your policies, and your concerns are reasonable ones. I confess that had I been more conscientious and filled in the "Edit Summary" fields to make clear what I was doing instead of leaving them default, diversified the links, and so on, I could have avoided taking up your time.

Some of my edits were improvements of existing links to the same site, so it seems odd for at least those to be questioned. On the divine command theory article, for example, I changed the link from the moral arguments articles at infidels (some of which, BTW, are reprints from print journals) to the divine command theory articles, because that is more relevant to the Wikipedia article on divine command theory. A link to infidels was already there, though; I simply improved it. I did move the old moral arguments link the to most appropriate Wikipedia page for it, the moral arguments Wikipedia article.

I also understand why too many links to the same domain can be suspicious. But before I added my mere dozen, there were 700+ links to the same domain, per CliffC's find. And my dozen links (%1 of the total?) were appropriate and concise; I figured that a single link to a generic resource page for each topic would not be objectionable, as compared to multiple links to multiple articles. My links were not diversified because I was linking to a resource, not a single article; and as far as I know there is no other library of articles specifically on criticisms of arguments for God, like the argument from design, except for infidels, so I'm not sure what other domains would be appropriate. There are other sites, but they only contain single articles on these topics from a critical POV, not whole "sections" of articles on them.

Anyway, I'm weary of adding content to the articles themselves because that is so time-consuming. Since adding links got me into trouble, would going around cleaning up external links raise red flags, too? I mean, would it also be also considered "single purpose" if I removed/fixed/consolidated links that already existed, and they were links to different places (without adding any new links) on subjects of interest to me? When I was adding links I saw a lot of existing links that seemed questionable to me, but I just wasn't that interested in eliminating because I wanted to provide more information on the topic, not less. But at least it would make the pages look better to "tighten up" what is linked. And I think it would be less likely to seem to violate Wiki policies--but you know them better than me.

P.S. I see that Cliff posted his reply when I tried to post mine. Since he doesn't want to revert my links, so be it. I'm guessing that, based on Cliff's reply to the broken link comments under this one, even cleaning up too many links at once might be also be undone. Since I'd rather that not happen, is there some administrator who would not be considered single purpose account that I could simply report dead links (etc) to, so that someone else could make the actual changes, someone who's judgment you already trust? I wonder if you might even automate link checking to verify fixed links (not added or subtracted ones) before reverting them. 69.251.164.54 (talk) 05:06, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I would strongly recommend against "going around cleaning up external links", until you've built up a history of constructive edits. Toward that end, may I suggest registering an account? People here tend to be more suspicious of edits made from an anonymous IP address - it shouldn't be that way, but that's the reality. --CliffC (talk) 05:56, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. Although there's little difference between calling myself "Dr. Evil" and having a fixed IP address with an edit history, if it psychologically it means I won't be written off, I might go ahead and do that. I guess it depends on how you answer my next question.

If you might indulge me a tad more--I'll be brief--what would constitute "constructive edits" other than creating laboriously researched new content from scratch, like new articles or new sections of articles? Would fixing up grammar/spelling do, or has that sort of thing already been taken care of? Are there any other "constructive edits" I've overlooked that a novice could take care of? 69.251.164.54 (talk) 06:40, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

The benefits will become more clear if you'll read the material at registering an account. Sadly, the account id you use as an example, Dr. Evil, is not available as its previous owner has been permanently blocked.

Anyone is free to edit Wikipedia, and certainly "fixing up grammar/spelling" would be fine. I looked for an official defintion of "constructive edits" and was unable to find one, so rather than writing one, I'll just generalize about what are likely to be viewed as unconstructive edits:

• edits lacking an edit summary
• edits that merely change one comma to a semicolon or vice versa, perturbing the article
• edits that add links not part of a citation
• unsourced statements that might be challenged
• lots more – you'll see them yourself if you stay around for a while.

The biggest clue that an edit might be unconstructive is its reversion by another editor, or a message about the edit being left on your talk page.

Your response above to Johnuniq suggests to me that you may not have read the material at his link to single-purpose account. I'd also suggest a few hours with the Wikipedia tutorial to help you get started and give you some ideas on how to contribute without doing anything too time consuming. --CliffC (talk) 18:39, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. Quick, somewhat related question: I read that "a single-purpose account (SPA) is a user account that edits either a single article, a group of related articles, or performs edits to a group of unrelated articles in the same manner on Wikipedia." I think I once saw tags on Wikipedia articles, on the upper right hand side, saying something like, "This article is part of the RationalWiki project," like all articles on one kind of subject (like medicine) would be part of some subject area and I assume handled by a smaller group of editors who know that subject. Does this still exist, or am I remembering something that wasn't ever part of Wikipedia (and instead might have been a feature of a Wiki-spinoff)? 69.251.164.54 (talk) 00:48, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

High-level list of projects and how-to at WP:PROJECT. --CliffC (talk) 13:49, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Broken Links

Hi again Cliff,

I'm sorry if you're not the right person to send this to; perhaps you could forward it to an appropriate person.

There are just under 50 broken links to survivalafterdeath.org on Wikipedia. I'd like to fix them, but I don't want to do each page individually. As an administrator, you might have the power to do something I don't.

Is there any way every single link to survivalafterdeath.org could be converted to survivalafterdeath.org.uk (except the ones that already have the uk extension)? That would make all of the broken links work again. See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:LinkSearch&target=%2A.survivalafterdeath.org

69.251.164.54 (talk) 02:34, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not an administrator, just a volunteer picking up some of the janitorial work here, so I don't have any special tools at my disposal to accomplish that. I havn't looked at that site or looked at the articles the links are in, but what I'd suggest is to manually change one at a time, while leaving an edit summary saying something like 'repair broken link'. Be aware that any one of these changes may spark editor interest similar to the infidels.org links if it's a link in an external links section. --CliffC (talk) 04:24, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I noticed this when last here, and have finished fixing them (but I didn't bother with talk/user pages). Johnuniq (talk) 05:19, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

thanks for the support for the search box

Thanks for the comment [1] supporting the search box on the Stephen Barrett talk page. I appreciate it. --stmrlbs|talk 03:50, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Barnes Foundation

Thank you for your excellent improvements to the Barnes Foundation article. Perhaps you can add more about the new location on the parkway. References are not so easy to achieve, as the Inquirer doesn't allow links to remain more than a few days. I could add photos of the big signs in front of the site, along with a photo of the cleared site of the Youth Study Center to Wikimedia Commons. I have visited the Merion building and grounds several times, I am not a fan of the move to the Parkway. I do want coverage of the move.--DThomsen8 (talk) 13:42, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, but all I did was fix two malformed references - all the actual information was added by User:Munndi as his only edit; hope he stays around. I made my first visit to the Barnes this year and loved it. I don't live near Phila so am not very familiar with the politics of the move, but it seems like a big mistake. Best, CliffC (talk) 14:05, 24 May 2009 (UTC)