User talk:Iridescent/Archive 4

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ANI

Sorry to disturb you Iris, could you please take a look at a report I filed at ANI 21 hours ago that has gone unanswered by any admin, see here. This is getting a little urgent now, the IP involved has changed to a slighlty different IP (despite using the same one for weeks) and is trying to get editors to agree with him in a dispute. — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 20:44, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

That image is hosted on Commons; probably the best person to speak to is Giggy, who's an admin and crat there. Because en-wiki has opted out of the global admin part of SUL, I have no powers at all over what's hosted on Commons. (Although it's not spelt out anywhere that I know of, there's a presumption on Wikipedia that it's always permitted to use any image hosted on Commons unless it's on the blacklist.) Regarding the validity of the content, I know nothing at all about LMP so can't comment on which of you is right; off the top of my head, the person I'd suggest contacting is LaraLove, who as the (co)author of Elvis Presley should hopefully know about her to judge what is and isn't appropriate. (If you've not dealt with Lara before, don't let the mob of loons who hang round her talkpage put you off – she's generally one of my favourite people here.) – iridescent 20:49, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I will do, cheer. — Realist² (Come Speak To Me) 23:32, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Huggle Version

Hello, i was wondering whether i can ask you a question since i have seen you regularly on the feedback page and the config. page plus your an administrator. Why is it necessary from now on that we use the latest released version? Is there a particular reason for this, i know of course as each new version comes out bugs are fixed and its meant to be better etc.

Its just that i saw on your config. page its states your version is 7.10 and you used it after the config. page was changed disabling that particular version. Is this immune to administrators? Hopefully you can help. Thanks Monster Under Your Bed ^(talk) 14:24, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I have nothing to do with Huggle other than taking it away from people who misuse it, and occasionally trying to replicate bugs. I'd imagine the version number on the huggle.css page would just be the last version used.

I can say for certain that the reason versions earlier than 0.7.10 are disabled is that that's the point at which approval at RFR was required to use Huggle. To find out the reasons for more recent versions, you'd need to ask Gurch or Fritzpoll, if there's nothing to explain at Wikipedia:Huggle/Changes. I know that 0.7.10 was very buggy so I imagine the change was to force people to upgrade; the "you are held responsible" warning means that "it was a bug in Huggle" is no excuse when a Huggler is appealing having his toy taken away from him, so forcing people to upgrade from buggy to non-buggy versions seems sensible to me. – iridescent 14:44, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Huggle/Users

[1] [2]

Currently Huggle updates this list when starting up. Is this a problem? -- Gurch (talk) 11:34, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

No, not at all - I've been deliberately trying to avoid the whole Huggle arena (for I hope obvious reasons), and people were coming to me to ask questions about it, when I'm not really the best person to ask, so I removed myself from the list. I used it this morning to test how it handled speedy deletions, so it's probably re-added me and I've no problem at all with that. (Now you're back, they'll presumably go back to just asking you.)

BTW, while you were away I blocked User:HuggleCategory as either an unauthorised bot or an undeclared SPA and have nominated Category:Wikipedians who use Huggle for deletion as a pointless replication of this list; if you think there's a good reason to keep the category as well as the list, consider this express consent to withdraw and speedy-close the CfD. – ırıdescent 11:41, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't have any objection to deleting that; it does seem redundant and wasn't anything to do with me. Thanks -- Gurch (talk) 11:57, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Reply

I replied on my page. :-) — Realist² (Come Speak To Me) 13:31, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Re: WTF?

Sorry, I didn't realise it was you who had left the warning. Please feel free to remove it again. Although why you are warning yourself and placing block notices on your own page will remain a mystery for me. Regards, bodnotbod (talk) 17:03, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not - I warned a user, then realised he'd already been given a final warning so removed the warning to replace it with his block notice. – ırıdescent 17:05, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Regarding [3]

Okay, I just noticed the barnstar edit to Keeper76's page, so I figured a friendly action deserved a friendly response.  :) --Happy Independence Day! Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 19:43, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh no problem - I had it tagged but then deleted the page when I decided I was going to stick with Heavenly41 as my "public access" account. I've restored the tag as otherwise the joke of using the three sockpuppet accounts will look very confusing. – ırıdescent 20:32, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm....? —Giggy 06:41, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

That's the one... there used to be a link-back from WR to me but I took it down as too many loons were following me across. Having the twin-accounts means someone who really wants to can make the connection but it keeps the dingbats away. – ırıdescent 14:58, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

red link

Sorry to annoy you- there is a user Onorem who has pointed me to what a redlink is and isn't used for. In my web class we learn that a dead link is a bad link and I didn't realise it was other on here! I have read it now and won't be doing that again except when it appeals to common sense! Danpatterson89 15:04, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Already replied on your talkpage. – iridescent 15:11, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

General note to my Talk Page Stalkers; if anyone knows anything about dancing, then get over to Grinding chain and try to clean it up. A gaggle of particularly obsessive deletionists are targeting it, with "unusual" comments like "testimony from some article is not a reliable source". – iridescent 16:00, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

adding a pic to the grinding chain

hi there! thanks for helping my article not get deleted - I think it's a valid article. I was wondering if you knew whether it's ok to use one of the pictures from http://www.wikihow.com/Grind to illustrate the grinding chain article (and maybe the grinding (dance) article) ... is wikihow part of wikipedia? any tips you have would be greatly appreciated! Danpatterson89 (talk) 10:53, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

The only pictures you can (usually) use are pictures that are explicitly free use (the author has released them into the public domain), or pictures that are explicitly licensed under GFDL. Be aware that image policy on Wikipedia is very confusing, and I'd advise against uploading pictures unless/until you're sure you understand the policy. User:Giggy is probably the best person to ask about whether a particular image can or can't be used on Wikipedia. – iridescent 14:51, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

They all have a CC-BY-2.5 license, which I'm almost certain is fine for Wikipedia. Use the Cc-by-2.5 template. --Tombomp (talk/contribs) 16:37, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Your edit summary on "the mini village pump"

Who's MW? Dammit I wish I had email. Give me a really really subtle direction to look, I'll find it. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 19:41, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind. I figured it out...egads. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 19:45, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

"Unique", isn't it? – iridescent 15:55, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

My fave - No murderer has eternal life! So perhaps you can begin to understand why I have decided to personally 'weigh-in' on the subject of murder, especially with these young girls: Imette St. Guillen, Jennifer Moore, Ramona Moore, Chanel Petro-Nixon, and soon, Boitumelo (Tumi) McCallum. What exactly is meant by "and soon, B(T) McC"? Soon, I'll write the article, or soon there'll be a murder? Creepy stuff. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 16:13, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

McCallum's father even weighed in to ask him to stop at one point. MW is probably the most peculiar editor I've ever come across, and I include Neutral777 (the one who wrote "Why Christ is like Unix") in that. This in particular was way over the line that separates "controversial" from "batshit insane". – iridescent 16:31, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

How did that last diff not get him blocked indef?. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 20:46, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

IG gave him a Dire Warning and he toned it down, until it all went totally insane following the AFD of B McC a month later. If you haven't seen it already (or even if you have), MW's original version of that article could serve as a star exhibit in a museum of "articles written by the batshit insane". Eternal credit to IG for trying to clean it up at a point when even DGG was arguing to delete it. – iridescent 20:59, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

You know, it's really irritating not to be able to see what you big boys can see. Still, I'd probably go mad if I was allowed to see deleted content. So I suppose I'm being protected against myself, for which I must remember to try and be grateful. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:11, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

You should be able to see it, and I'm not just trying to stroke your ego or anything else. I'm still pissed (american) about your rfa2. I'm going offline, if I'm feeling as indignant in the morning, I'll copy paste the contents on a shortlived subpage somewhere for you. Keep in mind though, that you are missing nothing. The article was tripe/trash/trivial/travesty, and rightfully deleted. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 22:15, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I've seen enough of other material to have no doubts that you're right, so no worries. I'm not quite sure why, but I'm just in a very frisky mood right now. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:22, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Emailed you the text of MW1's version. (Malleus, that is.) While you can't see the history, IG did such a spectacular job of cleaning up such a patently unsalvageable article that it almost survived AFD. Incidentally, seeing TonyTheTiger's post a couple above this reminds me that he was an even greater RFA travesty; this is someone who wrote over 1% of all the Quality Articles on Wikipedia but still failed an RFA that made Malleus's and H2O's look like cosy fireside chats.

If you're feeling frisky, get yourself over to my new favourite wiki. (You can thank Lara of all people for finding that one...) Don't you go leaving stains on my nice clean talkpage. – iridescent 22:27, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Unbelievable! I'll try not to drool while I'm checking out TonyTheTiger's RfA, promise. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:40, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, true to my word I didn't mess your carpet; but looking through Tony's RfAs does confirm my suspicion that the longer you've been here, and the more you've contributed, the less likely you are to able to get through an RfA. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:55, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

83-1-0... – iridescent 23:01, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Alright, rub my nose in it if you must. But I did find this comment quite interesting: "Oppose Candidate is an advocate for newspeak. Kinda freaky being opposed by someone who can see the future. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:09, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

The really weird thing about my RFA was that despite the fact I had people lining up on my talkpage to tell me they'd oppose the moment it went live, not a single one actually did. Whereas BHG, who's possibly the least argumentative person among the active users and has mainspace articles coming out of her ears (130,000+ edits last time I looked) just scraped in with 19 opposes. There really is no logic to RFA. – iridescent 23:16, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, she's past 140,000 including deleted. You aren't kidding about RFAs making no sense. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 23:23, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Take BHG's stats with a pinch of salt, though; like me, they're inflated by the dullest process on WP that can't be done by a bot, category splitting. I once made 13,000 edits in a month splitting Disused railway stations in the United Kingdom; the problem is, once you've started splitting a category, you have to finish otherwise things get hopelessly confusing, and it's a process that can't be automated. As BHG did (and does) maintain Political office-holders in the United Kingdom and Political office-holders in Ireland, I can't imagine how much sorting the two entail. Users like BHG are the reason WP:WBE is meaningless. (BHG has three times as many edits as TTT, who as mentioned is responsible for over 2% of all the WP:GAs on Wikipedia.) – iridescent 23:35, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

arbitrary break

←True, but if you look at my stats, I made almost 40,000 edits in 3 months primarily by using Huggle. Either way, whether they are automated/mudane/whatever, 140000 edits is a lot. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 00:00, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Once you get over the 1000 or so "prove you're serious" edits, editcounts are meaningless. The main uses of WBE seem to be as a scoreboard for the MMORPGers, and as a handy cut-out-and-keep guide to unauthorised bots. – iridescent 00:06, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Holy crap! I just read the part about TTT. He has almost a hundred GAs and he's not an admin??! J.delanoy^gabs_adds 00:03, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

TTT's one of the all round most interesting characters on Wikipedia, too. Personally I think he warrants a mainspace article far more than certain other WP writers who do have them (not mentioning any names, like). – iridescent 00:09, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and Giano has had 16 articles on the main page as well as written more FAs than most of us have written stubs, and has less chance of passing an RFA than Mr Oompapa. The best writers generally do badly at RFA as they tread on so many sensitive toes at FAC and GAR. – iridescent 00:15, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Yeah. I saw the whole DHMO RFA debacle. Regarding your first comment, certainly think that someone who singlehandedly contributed to almost 100 GAs is notable enough for an article in the mainspace :) (not to mention an admin who managed to take more than 8 months to block 75 people. I wish I had known about you in early May: "Did you know... That administrator Iridescent, who passed an RFA nearly ³/₄ of a year ago, finally performed their 75th block?") If I had done that, your 75th block would have been on me for trolling :P J.delanoy^gabs_adds 00:26, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Most of us don't actually block that many users. As I've never (count it, never) posted to AIV or taken the slightest interest in it, my blocks are almost all sockpuppets and Defenders of the Truth, and those don't tend to come along that often. (Still reading this, Deadly?) BHG, who's been an admin for more than a year longer than me, still only has 115 blocks, and I suspect most of those are Vintagekits. – iridescent 00:33, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Point taken. As my area par excellance is vandal-fighting, I tend to view everything through vandal-colored glasses. That is why I have your talk page on my watchlist. If I don't ever see any part of the "real" Wikipedia, (i.e. writing articles) I tend to lose focus. Actually, I just did a random search on the list of admins, and most don't have huge block logs. (although this did give me a turn...) J.delanoy^gabs_adds 00:43, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Alison's a checkuser; she has over 3000 blocks. It's the CHU's job to block the sockpuppets as they arise so they all have logs like that. Most of those accounts won't actually have any edits; they'll be the dozen other accounts created from the same IP at the same time as a Grawp or WoW account. – iridescent 00:47, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

The person I linked to was User:AlisonW, not User:Alison. I only pointed out AlisonW's log because she made so many blocks in just a few days, and then almost none for two years. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 00:56, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah, in that case it's even easier to explain; User:AlisonW is Alison Wheeler, Executive Director of Wikimedia UK who worked under an alternate username when she wasn't editing in her "official capacity", to avoid people assuming any kind of "official" status to edits. – iridescent 01:04, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

←Nice, I try to make myself think I discovered something profound and I get it shot down not once, but twice. Oh, well. Anyways, I appreciate you doing the SOCIAL NETOWRKING!!!!1!! thing with me for so long, but I'll stop bugging you now. Cheers! J.delanoy^gabs_adds 01:09, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh dear, not trying to shoot you down... After a while, you come to recognise "the regulars" even if you don't work with them regularly, and AlisonW is fairly active in the {{UK-rail-stub}}s where I often lurk.

BTW, that "going away suddenly without warning" edit pattern isn't that unusual – it applies just as much to me. Wikipedia is dominated by five social groups, being those groups who have large blocks of time on their hands and the mentality for spending long periods of time staring at screens. The "nerdy kids" group tends to dominate userspace, and the "arrogant student" group dominates Wikipedia space; with "grumpy retired people" dominating article-space at the higher levels. That leaves "high(ish) level IT professionals" and "military and intelligence types", both of whom have a very disproportionate impact on Wikipedia, and both of the latter two groups are professions where people are called away suddenly at short-to-no notice, and unwilling to give explanations for where they've been. (If you want this thesis expanded on further, head on over to any attack site, all of which will regale you with endless conspiracy theories about exactly who is in the pay of which government and/or corporation.) – iridescent 01:22, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the note

I hope I haven't misrepresented my actual opinion. I fully understand that there are administrators who wade into the "deep waters" of conflict resolution. Others choose not to. When I cite Jimbo's statement on adminship, I'm not disregarding the need to retain a cool head in hot situations. My point is that if an editor has good contribs, and isn't a blatant hothead, there's no reason for them not to have the extra buttons. I'm not nearly so experienced as you are, so I'm not trying to dissuade you from your views, I'm just trying to flesh out my own views in a clearer way, so that you won't think I'm simply disregarding, ignoring, or unaware of the more volatile side of being an administrator. S. Dean Jameson 17:57, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I think you're missing the point – the moment you click any one of those buttons, you're already in the "deep waters of conflict resolution", since whoever you block/delete/protect will generally argue with you about it. Someone who wasn't willing and able to discuss their actions would, in my view, instantly disqualify themselves from editing Wikipedia, let alone adminship. – ırıdescent 18:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Are you saying that you don't see any uncontroversial areas that administrators frequent? Sure, there will always be editors who might take issue with an uncontroversial block of a persistent vandal. Yet, if an editor has demonstrated the ability to work with others and compromise as a regular editor, doesn't that also demonstrate the ability to deal with those who might be angry at an uncontroversial admin action? S. Dean Jameson 18:07, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

The uncontroversial admin actions I can see are:

1. Blocking indisputable vandal-only accounts (not IPs) without a single valid contribution;
2. Viewing (but not restoring) uncontroversial deleted pages;
3. Deleting obvious vandalism pages and undoubted copyright violations;
4. Excluding bulk-rollbacks from Special:RecentChanges;
5. Edit through range-blocks.

While I may have missed some, I find it hard to think of anything else that doesn't at least have the potential to end in an argument. – ırıdescent 18:14, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

• I would agree with those five. To them, I would add semi-protecting pages that are under persistent IP vandalism. And while there's certainly the potential for conflict in other admin actions, most of the time, administrator's actions are not controversial, and pass without debate. Am I incorrect in that assessment? S. Dean Jameson 18:18, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

• Nononononoooo – semiprotection probably generates more complaints than every other admin action combined. – ırıdescent 18:23, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

• Is there not a difference between complaints from an anon IP and actual controversy? Just because someone complains doesn't mean there's true controversy. Also, do you disagree with the second part of my claim about most admin actions passing without controversy? S. Dean Jameson 18:27, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

On "is there not a difference between complaints from an anon IP and actual controversy", definitely not. While it's a policy I disagree with, the longstanding consensus is that IP editors have exactly the same rights as logged-on users, and any admin who dismissed their complaints as somehow invalid would likely find themselves hauled before Arbcom fairly quickly. Also remember, that IPs can be (and are) often used by multiple users; an IP block can often affect thousands of other users. (The most notable example of this is the single IP address used by every computer in the entire nation of Qatar, but even without going to this extreme, an account that's posted "poop" to an article four times will quite likely turn out to be a school account and blocking it will affect hundreds of students.)

On "most pass without controversy", yes and no. I don't disagree that most pass without controversy, but I don't believe for one instant that it's possible to avoid controversy. Even if only one in ten people you block/protect/delete complain about it, that's still a sizable number, and just one incorrectly blocked user is one productive user potentially driven from the project, which is one too many. Also, from experience blocked users, particularly if they feel they're unfairly blocked, often generate significant negative publicity. I'm one of the least active admins when it comes the the "usual" admin actions – I've only blocked 300 users and deleted 1100 articles in my entire time – but just look at the volume of abuse and argument in my talk archives. – ırıdescent 18:38, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not talking about blocking the persistant vandal IPs, I'm talking about semi-protecting a page that's currently under heavy IP vandalism. Certainly, care should be taken when blocking an IP address for any length of time, and there should be ample evidence of its necessity. What I was talking about was when the IPs then complain that they can't "edit" (read: "vandalize") the page that's been semi-protected. I wouldn't necessarily call that controversy.

On a related note, I appreciate all the time you've taken in discussing these issues with me. As a new(ish) editor, it helps me flesh out my thoughts with regards to the administration of the project. Thanks for taking the time. S. Dean Jameson 18:44, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

My personal opinion (and I emphasise that it's personal) is that while semiprotection should be given to user pages as a matter of course, it should only be used for articles in extreme circumstances, such as when Israel was on the main page and being repeatedly vandalised or when Sharon Stone was attracting a lot of negative publicity which people kept trying to reinsert. "Anyone can edit" is one of the Five pillars and I think semiprotection is dished out much too liberally - if you look at my protection log you'll see that aside from userpages, there are virtually no semiprotects in there, and in my opinion that's the only correct way to interpret the current policy (even though I disagree with it). See the Rough guide to semi-protection for more on the matter.

If I were in charge of Wikipedia policy, I would personally semiprotect all BLPs as the default setting; however, I'm not and they aren't. – ırıdescent 18:51, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I think we have very much agreement about how things should be. And as you're much more familiar with the protection policies, I'll definitely defer to your interpretations on that matter. S. Dean Jameson 18:54, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

←No, don't (necessarily) think like that – the one bit of WP:DEAL which I do think is accurate is that admin's opinions shouldn't carry any more weight when it comes to discussion. Giano, SandyGeorgia, Giggy, TonyTheTiger and Malleus Fatuorum are between them probably responsible for at least 5% of all the GAs and FAs on Wikipedia, and none of them are admins. As I said somewhere else, the only thing that matters on Wikipedia is the articles, without which we're just Facebook for ugly people, and adminship has little to do with actual article quality. – ırıdescent 19:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you see no place for the "writing admin", then? I view User:Risker as one of these, and I think (from what I saw in my brief perusal of her contributions) that she's a fine administrator. I also think Giggy could have been (and perhaps should have been a fine administrator. What's your view on "writing admins" who use the tools infrequently, but well? S. Dean Jameson 19:05, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

*Blushes* Thanks, S. Dean. Eight weeks into adminship and I still haven't broken the wiki. Oh yeah, and brought my co-nom article to FA. I think all admins should be active in the creation or improvement of content of the encyclopedia, even those who don't write well. There are at least half a dozen jobs I can think of that a non-writer can do to make weak articles better. Risker (talk) 02:12, 6 July 2008 (UTC) Steps off soapbox

No problem. I noticed (and researched a bit) your RfA during a discussion at WT:RFA, and you really seem like one of the good ones. Keep up the good work! S. Dean Jameson 02:59, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

You really haven't been following me at RFA... that is generally the only kind of candidate I'll support! BTW, please don't use RFA/DHMO5 as an example for these things; there was a good reason I didn't name it or link to it. Quite apart from it not being fair on him or those involved to keep dragging them up, that was not a typical RFA. There were issues there which I'm not going to re-hash, but with which you're almost certainly not familiar, and while I supported on the most recent occasion, you abusing the opposers there, who included a number of Wikipedia's most respected contributors, isn't going to do anyone any good, least of all him. – ırıdescent 19:14, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

As I'm pretty new to RfA, I don't "follow" anyone. And I didn't mean to "abuse" any of the opposers there. Where do you feel I have done so? In looking throught that RfA, I just felt that a significant number (though certainly not all) of the opposes were a bit specious. You are certainly right when you say that I'm unfamiliar with the underlying issues, though. I apologize if this unfamiliarity led me to a seeming abuse of those opposers. It was certainly unintended. S. Dean Jameson 19:20, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

No worries and I'm not accusing you of making personal attacks, by any means; but calling the opposers on the RFA with probably the most densely argued "oppose" arguments ever "weak" does a disservice to the project that it doesn't deserve.

BTW (and don't take this the wrong way), you might want to "lurk" at WT:RFA for a while rather than posting there. That's an incredibly high-traffic page, and chances are anything you say has already been said by someone else; it also tends to attract more than its fair share of nutcases and malcontents. If you want to learn about the process of RFA (which frankly, is one of the dullest on Wikipedia for everyone except the candidate), you're far better off reading the RFA's themselves, and looking at recent successful and unsuccessful RFAs to see where the candidates went right/wrong. Reslistically, there is no chance the RFA process will significantly change, since none of the people opposed to it ever come up with any sensible suggestion to replace it. – ırıdescent 19:30, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

• I'm sorry for rehashing previous discussions at WT:RFA. I was simply trying to address what I viewed as a problem. I'll do more lurking and less posting there from this point forward. S. Dean Jameson 19:35, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Not a problem at all and don't feel obliged to take my advice – it's just that WT:RFA (like User talk:Jimbo Wales) has an extremely low talk/action ratio and has a nasty tendency to flare up into arguments, and there's no point getting caught up in someone else's flamewar. – ırıdescent 19:44, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm beginning to sense that, in just my brief foray there. I think your advice about "lurking" is well-given. S. Dean Jameson 19:51, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Basic rule for Wikipedia: assume that visiting any page with a capital A in its name (RFA, ANI, FAC, ARB, AFD etc) will probably end with someone shouting at you. – ırıdescent 20:10, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

• LOL, I'll definitely remember that rule of thumb! S. Dean Jameson 20:13, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I forgot the most important "A" page, WP:WANK... – ırıdescent 22:35, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Umm... okay? I don't get it, I guess. S. Dean Jameson 01:16, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

There's also WP:AN/K. Don't worry if you don't get it. Just imagine if you were a newbie and came across that page, though! —Giggy 01:58, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

International/alternative album covers

Hi Irid, I'm not up to scratch regarding picture policy so I wanted to run this by you. Recently a lot of fan boys have been adding extra album covers to articles. They are usually international or special edition covers that look almost identical to the US/original version. My understanding of the fair use rational is that the album cover is needed to identify the product etc etc. It seems odd to me that the same fair use rational can be repeated for an alternative cover that is almost identical in appearance. Take for example the Loose (album) where an editor recently added two extra alternative covers. The only differences was that the original and the two alternative covers all had a different background color. A few months ago there were 3 alternative covers on it. I'm sure Giggy is hawking this page ready to respond if you are away. :-) — Realist² (Come Speak To Me) 06:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

This editor is the latest culprit. I always find it bizarre how someone who has made less than 20 edits can pick up fair use rational so quickly yet I still get confused. He must be a very fast learner. Hmm. — Realist² (Come Speak To Me) 06:47, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Hey there! Yeah, I agree with you, and am now going through that user's contribs and cleaning up some of the more obvious near-identical covers. —Giggy 07:17, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I thought it was all a bit off, is there a specific policy on it though. I have been reverting these edits but if someone starts demanding policy off me I won't know where to look, unless of course I redirect them to one of you two's talk pages, I'm sure you'll both love that (not). :-) — Realist² (Come Speak To Me) 07:47, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:NFCC - it would fall under a few issues there, eg. significance (what's significant about a near-identical image?). —Giggy 07:59, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Merci. — Realist² (Come Speak To Me) 08:08, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, our Beloved Leader has been offering his thoughts on exactly this subject. – ırıdescent 13:10, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, great minds think alike. — Realist² (Come Speak To Me) 13:33, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

So you've joined his hitlist?

This and this must be nice to be able to do. Very, very nice.... J.delanoy^gabs_adds 14:10, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Rangeblocked so should stop popping up (until 0021 UTC, anyway). – ırıdescent 14:13, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Your Messge redarding vandalism

I have vvery strong reasons for editing the page. As I have created it I believe you must "assume good faith". (see I am starting to learn). Actually Iam waiting for the page to be deleted. meanwhile, please do not undo my edits without contacting me. Melkart1 (talk) 20:47, 6 July 2008 (UTC)Melkart1

Stop this now. As per the warnings you keep deleting from your talk page, you do not own articles, and you're coming very close to being blocked if you continue edit-warring. – ırıdescent 20:49, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

IRC

What is IRC, I have a ruff idea and why is it so bad? Is it something I should continue to avoid? — Realist² (Come Speak To Me) 18:33, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

IRC = "Internet Relay Chat" – see Wikipedia:IRC channels. Different people have different opinions on it; my personal opinion is that (aside from a very few exceptions, such as discussing an urgent problem or discussing a matter so sensitive that discussing in on-wiki would cause unnecessary distress), anyone using it (or email) to discuss Wikipedia is inherently untrustworthy as they're missing the point of an open wiki. While (as you know) I will occasionally use email (not IRC) to discuss a particular issue that it's not appropriate to discuss on-wiki, I won't ever support at RFA someone who I know habitually discusses policy changes, voting etc off-Wiki. – ırıdescent 18:41, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I thought it was a communication thing, I can see your concerns about openness. Thanx for that, I was curious. — Realist² (Come Speak To Me) 18:44, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

No problem and like I say, it's my personal opinion; if you revisit this page in a few hours, one of my talk page stalkers will likely have added an explanation of the benefits of IRC. I just have a knee-jerk opposition to its secrecy, and the way in which IRC-ers tend to chat amongst themselves about something, then all descend to vote en masse about whatever it is. – ırıdescent 18:54, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Realist, if you're curious why it's so controversial, you might want to see this horribly botched ArbCom case. Nousernamesleft (talk) 19:48, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Having myself been the subject of an IRC discussion on how best to deal with me—completely unknown to me until afterwards—I am not well-disposed to IRC or to those who dwell there. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 19:51, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I honestly can't think of a single legitimate use for IRC in the Wikipedia context. On the rare occasion there's a question that needs to be asked confidentially, we have a perfectly good email function. If you read the IRC logs, at least 90% of conversations seem to consist of young children whining about how User:Insert name here was somehow "mean" to them. I've refused to even request a password for the admin IRC channel. This is one thing I wholeheartedly agree with the attack sites about. Incidentally, you might want to have a read of User:Geogre/IRC considered, which sums up the case for and against IRC better than I could. – ırıdescent 19:57, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I was going to make a new headline but I wanted to add something to this discussion too so... Firstly thank you for the revert and block of the trolandal on my talk page, most appreciated. Secondly, in my opinion the only good thing IRC can do for the wiki, are the counter vandalism channels. KnowledgeOfSelf | talk 23:16, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

They got mine as well five times before I put an "enough is enough" semiprotect on it; the pattern seems to be, they attack a page, then attack whoever reverts it, and so on. If 4chan isn't behind it I'll be very surprised.

The antivandalism and recentchanges IRC feeds I don't include in my blanket condemnation, as they serve a technical need and don't serve as unofficial star chambers for the Kiddy Kabal to organise their block-votes. FWIW, in the current discussion on an RFA (I won't name it as it wouldn't be fair), opinion seems to be dividing about 2:1 against my "IRC = not trusted" position. – ırıdescent 23:23, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

(further comment) Although I note that the RFA in question has now acquired a "support per IRC". If I weren't already, that would be insta-oppose right there. – ırıdescent 23:27, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

... as it is for me too. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:27, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

This piqued my curiousity, as I am adamantly (and vocally) opposed to IRC anything for on-wiki things (and a step further even, I'm one of the few admins that does not have email enabled). I went searching for the RFA in question in your contribs, found it I'm pretty sure, and had it still been open, would have changed my support. I didn't watchlist it and never knew its outcome until it was removed as unsuccessful. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 19:45, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I must admit, I was surprised to see you supporting on that one, but each to their own. There have been active IRC-ers who I've supported – RFA/DHMO5 is the obvious one – but only when I've thought there were enough strong positives to outweigh the IRC issue, and I really couldn't see any here. – iridescent 19:54, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

It's a goog thing I don't have email, or you would have most certainly canvassed me to change my vote. :-) Honestly I just missed it is all. I supported one minute before you added your neutral, only later did you stir up the IRC stuff. I was long gone by then. Honestly I didn't do a very thorough research as I usually do, I clicked on RFA#1, saw that I supported then (and why), and added my support back again. I generally watchlist for exactly reasons like these, in this case I didn't, not sure why. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 20:00, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

"anyone using it (or email) to discuss Wikipedia is inherently untrustworthy" (emphasis mine) :D —Giggy 01:53, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

There are legit reasons to keep conversations to email – for example, a couple of threads up when I emailed Malleus a defamatory deleted revision to avoid recreating defamation in the mainspace, or if you're discussing a problematic new user and you don't want to cause them problems further down the line by leaving references to their problems scattered through mainspace (for example, leaving this discussion on-wiki has probably now torpedoed any RFanything by the user in question for the foreseeable future). Aside from the recent-changes IRC feed that drives Huggle, I can't think of anything else so time-sensitive that the extra few seconds it would take to send an email would make a difference. (Given what that email to you was about, do you really think it should have been posted on your talkpage for Majorly & co to offer their comments?) – ırıdescent 13:06, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Of course not - not questioning your motives, just kidding around. —Giggy 02:15, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

New user award

		Home-Made Barnstar
		I thought you would appreciate this for all your hard work. Whenever I see you, you always seem to be doing good stuff. Keep it up. John (talk) 06:18, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, although I'm not sure everyone would agree about the "good stuff" bit... – iridescent 19:04, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Alright, I'm itchy

I think I'm gonna try huggle. At the risk of completely humiliating myself, I'll try it. I hafta know how it works. Give me some advice, and then also, give me a link for where I load the damn thing. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 01:08, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Go to WP:HG and follow the instructions to download. While I'd very strongly recommend reading the instructions thoroughly before you try to do anything other than straight revert-warn-block with it, you can cheat if you're only going to be reverting. Open it up and you see the diffs as they appear (it works better if you allow it to use the IRC feed); when a diff is showing, press the spacebar to move on to the next diff; press Q to revert the diff that's showing and issue the appropriate 1-2-3-4 warning. If it's not a straightforward vandal edit you're reverting, press R to revert the page without warning, then W to bring up a drop-down menu of all the "standard" warnings (blanking, spamming, etc).

The default setting is to automatically bring up the block form if a user's already on a level 4 warning. I close this without blocking and check the user talk page in question before blocking. Unlike Twinkle, Huggle doesn't display talkpages it edits, so it may be that the user has posted a perfectly good explanation as to why the edits weren't vandalism.

Usual warning and you'll find it's easy to forget this - Huggle works far faster than any other tool and doesn't have any preview function. It's very easy to accidentally revert a legitimate edit (particularly if something looks at first glance like page blanking but is actually removing a duplicate section or a copyvio). Gurch has a "whitelist" of long-standing editors and it will warn you if you try to revert any of them, but not everyone's on it (certain users - ahem - have been intentionally removed from it). Also, the current version is Addshore's "improvement", not Gurch's original, and is very buggy; expect it to periodically crash and/or freeze your system.

Admin-only warning; Huggle has a "tag for speedy" button but if you have admin status this will delete, rather than tag. I don't touch this one at all unless something's really blatant, as one of my pet hates is pages being deleted 30 seconds after they're created.

Good luck with it; while I think it's as boring as watching paint dry and can't understand how anyone enjoys using it, it's certainly a lot easier than manual reverting. – iridescent 01:25, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

You've sufficiently terrified me, I'll load it in the morning when I'm more awake and give it a go. If I add a level 1 warning to your talkpage, please don't block me. Please though, feel free to remove my huggle, you're good at that... :-) Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 01:28, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I've just discovered that MediaWiki lets me access the "rollback" checkbox, even for you. Not sure what would happen if I checked it.

Seriously, as long as you stick to blatant vandalism Huggle is fine; spacebar, Q and R-W are the only keystrokes you need. It's only the more complicated things where it gets tricky. (I do feel the need to point out that I've only ever removed rollback from two users, and I don't think anyone would argue with either of those. – iridescent 01:33, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I can think of two users that would argue with those....Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 01:36, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

And a third, apparently. (Seriously, Peter, what? On your own head be it...) – iridescent 01:38, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Hasn't that particular "grantor" come up before on your talk? Someone that got rollback after being autoconfirmed for like a week? Hmmm..Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 01:40, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes... Although I think Peter may have something else on his mind right now. I confidently predict the contents of tomorrow's ANI. – iridescent 01:44, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Woo! One minute later! Maybe my psychic powers aren't so bad. – iridescent 01:46, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

heh. I'm willing to bet that that particular thread gets prematurely archived at least twice. And leads to an RFC. And two other ANI threads. And of course, several threads on WR....Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 01:55, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

No bet. WR may have more than its share of trolls, loons and stalkers, but some of them do have a real knack for summarising problems. Has anyone ever actually read DYK as far as the bottom? – iridescent 01:58, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Rollback

Hello, I haven't been active in nearly 4 months, and am requesting my rollback rights back, I know I did have it removed for speed editing, but since that time, I have slowed down my editing to reading every word over thoroughly, and hereby abide by all WP rules, is this a possibility? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 32bit (talk • contribs) 05:53, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Looks like someone's already done it. – iridescent 12:16, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I now use Huggle, very wisely, as I thoroughly read over my edits before submission. But thanks anyways :) - Tyler Puetz (talk) 13:38, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

No problem... As long as you stick to that "carefully", you should be fine. Just make sure you only use it to undo edits that are blatantly nonproductive, such as vandalism. This includes edits that are obscenities, gibberish, extremely poorly worded content, smart-aleck editorial comments, and other useless remarks that have nothing to do with the subject. (e.g. follow the instructions that so many Hugglers seem incapable of reading) and you'll do fine. – iridescent 13:41, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Huh?

From your edit summary, what the hell is ATW? Going home until tomorrow... Keeper | 76 | what's in a name? 22:27, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Around the World. Don't really have any idea what it will involve but no doubt all will become clear. – iridescent 22:32, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Your note at my talk

You're right, of course. I've left a note at AN/I that I'm stepping back from this. It does appear to me that BC's interpretation of NFCC policy is rather draconian, and that there is significant debate about whether he's right or not, though. However, I'll defer to you--especially regarding the pile of shit I was dipping my toe in--and step away from that discussion. S. Dean Jameson 15:17, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. If you're going to get in discussions like this, make sure you read and understand every word of Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria. The controversy about Betacommand revolves round a technical point of whether the image description needs to include a link to the page in which it's used or just an explanation of why it's necessary. However, on the question of, for example, the "Saw" images you restored, there is no doubt at all that he's right & you're wrong. – ırıdescent 15:21, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• He's been unblocked, and immediately resumed edit warring to enforce his interpretation of policy (citing WP:FUEXPLAIN, an essay). I'm glad to step back from this mess, as my only point was to revert the edits he was apparently blocked for making. S. Dean Jameson 15:26, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Although WP:FUEXPLAIN and WP:NFC are technically essays, the parts he's citing are purely simple-english rewrites of WP:NFCC, which (as mentioned above) is a non-negotiable core policy. Betacommand has many, many problems but you're not going to make a valid case for him being in the wrong on this particular occasion. (If you really want to lose an hour of your life reading arcane policy decisions, the Arbcom decision on this issue is at Requests for arbitration/Betacommand 2. – ırıdescent 15:36, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• I'm thinking that, in addition to WT:RFA, I'll add WP:ANI to my list of "lurk, don't talk" pages. Thanks for being something of a "guide" for me in my stumbling forays into WP-space. S. Dean Jameson 17:08, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

No problem, and everyone has to start somewhere. The two things I'd say everyone should always bear in mind are:

1. Wikipedia is a free use encyclopedia and everything else is secondary to that - the discussion boards should only be used for discussion on how the article space can be improved;
2. Wikipedia is now seven years old (eight if you include Nupedia) and whatever suggestions anyone has have very likely been made countless times before. In particular, while there's no area that's "off limits", as I said before I'd strongly advise you to stay clear of commentary on anything with "administrators" or "arbitration" in the title until you understand what it is admins and arbs do here; Wikipedia has a unique structure and Wikipedia admins aren't the equivalent of moderators on other sites. – ırıdescent 17:14, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• I know it sounds presumptious, but I really did feel like I'd reached a decent understanding of admin duties per my reading on the matter. As for my failed efforts at AN/I, I tried to make it clear that I wasn't talking about whether Rodhull should have made the block, but whether the block itself was proper. My reversions of Betacommand were in support of the fact that I viewed those edits (correct or not) as violations of the terms of his early unblock from Pilotguy, and as the prima facie evidence that Arthur had used to block him again. In a way, I was misapplying the "revert on sight" provision about banned users, which Betacommand was not. It was a mistake I won't repeat. S. Dean Jameson 17:28, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Ignore this if you already know the difference, but "banned user" has a very specific meaning here and isn't the same thing as a blocked user. The "revert on sight" proviso is to allow people to remove edits by MyWikiBiz (who I personally don't think should be banned, but that's another matter...) and similar serial misusers, without worrying about getting in trouble for edit-warring. (General rule which really does bear repeating - try to stick to article space and talk pages to start with; any "procedural" changes can almost always be done better by someone else, in this instance the admin bulk-rollback power.) – ırıdescent 17:39, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I know the difference between blocked and banned users. Unfortunately, I thought the proviso would apply to blocked users who were unblocked early based upon a promise that was then broken. I was clearly wrong about that. Thanks again for all your help, and it's back off to article space (and userspace, where I'm trying to work up an article on child labor law) for me. Regards, S. Dean Jameson 17:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Query

Who are you refering to in this edit? Just wondering, 'cause if per chance you're refering to me, I've never had any image I've uploaded tagged by BCB for deletion, with the exception of one due to a bug with BCB... _TalkIslander 15:27, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

No, not you - User:Baseball Bugs, who's had a grudge against BC since BCBot deleted a huge batch of images of his under rather dubious circumstances. (Having had a long, long history of run-ins with that wretched and rightly blocked bot myself, none of which were ever valid deletion reasons, I have very little sympathy for Betacommand – however he is in the right on this particular occasion, and Rodhull should never have been the one to block him under the circumstances.) – ırıdescent 15:32, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. I agree that Rodhullandemu should never have blocked. As to whether Betacommand is in the right... we must agree to disagree - I don't wish to argue with an editor who I've had very pleasent dealings with in the past :). _TalkIslander 15:35, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify - the particular reverts I'm talking with SDJ about aren't the "usual" Betacommand discussions of album covers etc – they were edits like this (picked at random, not cherry-picked for effect) which in this particular instance added seventeen images with dubious fair-use rationales to an article. As Jimbo said yesterday on the issue, there are sometimes perfectly good reasons for fair use iconic images which can't be replicated, but I can't imagine any instance when seventeen fair use images "would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic". – ırıdescent 15:41, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Question for you

Neil is accusing of having edit-warred yesterday, for my reverts of BC's removal of images. I made one revert to each of several articles, and when it was pointed out that I was most likely wrong in doing so, I stopped and didn't touch them again. Is it proper and acceptable for Neil to drop "warnings" citing "edit-warring" on my page hours and hours later, in my view, besmirching my reputation here? S. Dean Jameson 16:17, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I think this pair of posts (which I assume you're referring to) by Neil are legitimate, even if you don't agree with his interpretation of events. As per this discussion between the pair of you, he's clearly explained why he thinks your behaviour is wrong; even if you don't think you were edit-warring on behalf of Betacommand, there's at the very least a reasonable appearance that you were.

I really cannot emphasise enough how much of a minefield you're wandering into here, not helped by a Wikipedia Review troll posting wildly biased opinions into assorted discussions on the matter, trying to encourage the "ultra" pro fair-use crowd into posting blatant copyvios that the WR "anti's" can then point to as proof of Wikipedia's illegal activity. Please, take the advice Neil and I are giving you and don't get involved in discussions like this until you're sure you understand the issues involved. User:Giggy can probably explain the differences between legitimate and non-legitimate fair-use and the issues involved better than I could. – ırıdescent 19:19, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Even if I stipulate that he had reason to think I was edit-warring, is it appropriate to warn many hours after the fact, when I've clearly stated that I won't reinstate the edit I made to each of the articles? In fact, he's stated pretty clearly that one of the main reasons he "warned" me was so that BC couldn't "complain" that he hadn't warned both sides. That strikes me as wrong, but if you support it, then I'll defer to you, as you're much more "in the know" about the entire situation. It's a minefield that (until Neil's "warning") I had completely backed away from. I think that's why his messages took me so completely off-guard. I was simply going about my business, plugging away at "Requested articles" when my message light popped on, and I was "warned" about an issue I'd left behind many hours before. S. Dean Jameson 21:11, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Seriously, please let this go! It really is not a matter of who's right and who's wrong at this stage; it's a fight between two groups of users who are fundamentally and morally opposed to each other's stances and getting involved in it isn't going to help. Wikipedia's Hive mind¹ has sometimes been referred to as the "wikicult", and it does share some of the fanaticism of a religious movement in that there are a lot of people who will not be persuaded that their version of The Truth is wrong. In picking WP:NFCC and WP:RFA as your first forays into the "high level" policy boards, you've inadvertently wandered into Wikipedia's equivalent's of Bosnia and Ulster. Who supports what really doesn't matter; the whole shambles around Betacommand is in the hands of Arbcom. You might not like that – I personally think the whole Admin/Crat/Arbcom power structure is totally broken – but it's like that, and that's the way it is. Even Giano, with a substantial bandwagon of support, has barely made a dent in the Wikipedia structure; 48,247,461 users, 852 admins and seven years of accumulated policies and guidelines make for a hell of a lot of social inertia. – iridescent 21:29, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

¹ To everybody who's seen that link and flipped, don't panic; it's not what you think.

Consider it Y Done. I had already let the matter drop when Neil warned me, but as you say, that's beside the point. At least he didn't block me, and mark up my actual block log to placate BC. Again, I appreciate your time the last couple of days, as I try to wade back out of this minefield I stepped into. S. Dean Jameson 21:38, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Iridescent, if you got something to say to me, say it to my face. But since you insinuated it, no I am not trying to get Wikipedia in trouble and I'm certainly not trolling on behalf of WR. If you want to discuss this more, my talk page awaits. --Dragon695 (talk) 01:11, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Social structure

Some nice comments above. I particularly liked: "7,435,256 users, 1,571 admins and seven years of accumulated policies and guidelines make for a hell of a lot of social inertia." - I may frame that and put it on a wall round here somewhere! :-) Carcharoth (talk) 22:04, 7 July 2008 (UTC) Though the numbers probably need tweaking to reflect active accounts and admins.

Just for the record, there were slightly over 9000 English Wikipedians who were qualified to vote in the WMF elections, of which approximately 1200 were administrators. If we were to include regularly active IP users and active editors who missed the voting cutoff, I'd say there were about 10,000 of us. That means that roughly 12% of active Wikipedians are administrators. The social inertia is right on the money, though! Risker (talk) 22:13, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

That's kinda scarey don't you think? One administrator controlling eight dogs regular editors. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:23, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Besides being slightly jaded Mal, why would you assume that the admins are "controlling" the others? I know this does happen, but I don't feel like I "control" anyone, I would surmise that Irid doesn't either. So maybe 1:9 ratio? Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 22:51, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I guess that "slightly jaded" probably explains it better than I could by reminding anyone about the time I was blocked by a ... no, I won't be drawn down that path. :-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:56, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Keep in mind that that "event" had exponentially more editors/admins gnashing their teeth on your behalf than the one that took the misstep. For every admin drama-fest mistake, there are literally thousands of vandals blocked and thousands of disgusting/inappropriate/unencyclopedic/vanity pages deleted into that good night, with nary a thank you or notice. We ain't all bad. Shit, I sound like I just joined the DarkSide with that. I mean it sincerely, but still, probably not helpful. All that said, you should be an admin. Why? Because I nominated you. Seriously why? Because "deleted" simply means "only the elite can see it now instead of the public and other good editors". I vividly recall that being a point of frustration for me when something was deleted and I didn't know why. I'll offer again, if there's ever anything you need to do another read through that has "disappeared", let me know, it will be in your subpages for you to read it again if you need it, unless of course its copyvio. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 23:04, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I know that there are loads of good admins like you and iridescent; if there weren't, I obviously wouldn't still be here. But there is a hypocritical asymmetry in the relationship—in general I mean. Abusive behavior, cussing and swearing, breaking promises, violation of wikipedia policies, are met with barely a murmur when done by an administrator. But when done by of the dogs ... I have a block on my log now. What record does the admin who made that block have on his record to show that he fucked-up? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:22, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I cannot argue that point. At least not cogently. You're absolutely right, and it is absolutely undeniably and obviously unfair. I've screwed up other editors' blocklogs too (I blocked someone indef for being making an anti-semitic slur, and said so in his blocklog, only to find out that he was actually reverting the antisemitism, to give you just one example). We fuck up. We are largely invincible however (at least sans drama). I can't change that and at the same time, I can't disagree with your frustration over it either. The most frustrating thing to me is when an admin says one thing, oh, I don't know, on the campaign trail, and then goes back on their word. And still garners "supporters" and "not a big deals". Tiring, to say the least. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 23:33, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm on your side too here, Malleus; the closest thing to a campaign promise I would have made (had I been asked the question) was that editors who have a solid record of contribution to the encyclopedia should be treated differently than the random editors who show up for a few days and think they own the place, and should be accorded roughly the same respect as any administrator. Not everyone should be an admin; I can think of several great editors who would be lousy admins. But the buttons shouldn't be considered the badges of privilege. So yes, I'll put up with a bit more shouting from people who've demonstrated they actually care about this project. Risker (talk) 23:43, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Risker just said what I've been trying to say for hours, if not weeks. Yeah, what she said. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 23:48, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I would have respected that kind of campaign promise. What I cannot respect is outright lying, or to be now subject to the vindictive whims of a proven liar. I realise that I have probably now gone beyond the bounds of what is considered to be acceptable in wikiDreamWorld. I won't apologise for that, but I will understand why the next passing admin may want to block me again. All I will say to any such passing admin is this: please don't bother to warn me, as my response may melt your screen. Just get on with it. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:29, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Keep in mind that I'll melt the screen of any (other) admin that blocks you for ridiculous reasons. Any other admin. That doesn't give you license to be a total arse, just license to be a semi-arse. As I said on RFA#2, consider my adminship/desysopping right along side you Malleus. I'm utterly convinced that you mean only the best for Wikipedia, and I'll give up my "arbitrarily earned tools" if you prove to be somehow harmful to the encyclopedia. You have done more for Wikipedia than my slight little brain could ever do, because while I solve trifly little disputes on ANI, you are making bad articles into good articles and beyond. You need to be nicer on User:talk and at RFA, I'm sure you agree, but I'll still defend you there if you are unrightfully (I know that's not a word) attacked. Do what you do best. I'll jump on the first rational proposal for "unbundling" the admin-tools with you (and others) in mind. Until then, Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 01:36, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah well, I suppose I could be nicer, but then it wouldn't be me, it would be someone pretending to be me. All I ask for is a level playing field. As for RfA, well it's (IMO) broken anyway, so it's already off my watch list. Let the children promote as many other children as they like. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:52, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I (heart) Malleus too. He helped me with my FA. All interesting reading, but one point - probably 90% of all the "dealing with people" administrators do is taken up by about 2% of active users. Neıl 龱 08:00, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Now I know how Keeper feels...

Well, this is something "different" to come home to... Replies in order:

1. Risker and the 12% figure:

   I think that figure's artificially high. I assume you're using the figure of 993 active admins in your calculations, but that's anyone with admin status who has made 30 edits in the past 3 months, and hence includes people who occasionally pop up once a month to clean up the two or three articles they watchlist (I would have passed that criterion in this period despite only making two mainspace edits). It also includes people like Lara who are still active as editors but hardly ever use the buttons. The "qualified to vote in the WMF elections" criterion also produces an artificially low number of "regular users", as it leaves out users like Giano who do huge rewrites off-wiki and upload the final result as a single edit, as well as being a very high bar for editors working in images. I have shedloads of Commons contributions but didn't qualify for the WMF elections via Commons as editing 650 images in a year is an insanely high figure;

2. Malleus and the trigger happy brigade:

   If anything, the problem on Wikipedia is that there's not enough control, not that admins exercise too much. Yes, there are some kiddy admins on power trips and block-hungry MMORPG-ers trying to raise the block-count, but the glaring problem with Wikipedia at the moment is more that AGF means blatant troll accounts are tolerated for months on end because if they get blocked the blocking admin comes in for a barrage of criticism. There are certainly a few rotten apples, but (whatever Kohs and his cronies may say) they've not yet polluted the barrel;

3. Malleus (again) and "Abusive behavior, cussing and swearing, breaking promises, violation of wikipedia policies, are met with barely a murmur when done by an administrator":

   Depends where you look. There are plenty of bad admin actions that get overlooked or forgiven (as Realist can testify, I've done my share of unfair mudslinging on occasion). There are also literally thousands of bad non-admin actions that get overlooked or forgiven (the Kiddy Kabal are still free to do their Myspacing, for the moment). There are many, many, many bad admin actions – or just possibly unfair admin actions – that are not overlooked; look at Vintagekits, look at Rootology, look at Sarah777; above all, look at probably the highest profile alleged Wikipedia miscarriages of justice, Poetlister and Giano. Admins are human; they get bad tempered, they hold grudges, they make mistakes. As long as someone (admin or not) is trying to help and understands when to admit they're wrong, then in my opinion that's all anyone can ask;

4. Risker on giving consistent contributors the benefit of the doubt:

   What she said. WBFAN reads like the Wikipedia Review's deathlist, but the reason those editors (no not all of you...) get away with acting like assholes is because, although they have negatives, they're undoubted net positives to the project. Which, lest we forget, is to make the mainspace a site that people aren't embarrassed to be associated with, and what happens on the "glorified chatroom" side that Google doesn't see really doesn't matter to that. And that's why the Kiddy Klub members are heading for indefblocks while the WBFAN Club aren't;

5. Neil on 2% of users making 90% of the work:

   My thoughts on the vandalism issue and the WMF's head-in-the-sand attitude are on the record. To save me posting them again, anyone wanting to read my sub-Brandt rantings & ramblings about IP editing, Jimbo, abuse of process (and abusive processes), rampant deletionism and BLP, can read them where I deposited them on an unsuspecting user's talkpage.

Threads like this are the reason my talk archive for last month is the same length as my talk archive for January 2006 to October 2007 (really, look for yourself). Someone want to mention Huggle now, to really give the bot something to do? Incidentally, those who watch RFA for the entertainment value of the lame flamewars may want to keep it watchlisted a bit longer. While it wouldn't be fair to name names, a much-watched redlink has recently turned blue; I confidently predict that once it's transcluded it'll make H₂O⁵ and TTT³ look like polite chit-chats. Although my RFA "confident predictions" have occasionally turned out to be slightly inaccurate – iridescent 20:25, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I didn't read most of this, (Ok, I did), but I will say that your last cliffhanger got me searching new pages...ah well, I'll hafta wait and find out. And, your talkpage isn't even close the the ridiculousness that is mine. Mizcabot created two new archive subpages this morning, I have it set to file everything over 48hours with a max limit per page of 250K. do the math. Created two this morning. Must be those 20 barnstars I got over the weekend...nope, not those, those are still on my talk...Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 20:47, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

You'll know it if you see it. I suspect that by the end of day one support and oppose will both reach WP:100 and by the time it closes it will be larger than ANI. Although I'm not one of them, I believe people are trying to dissuade the candidate from running via off-wiki means (in my view, a legitimate use of email in this case), so with luck it will never happen. – iridescent 21:30, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

If it helps in any way Keeper, you didn't participate in his last RfA. And I nominated. Have fun searching through my contribs ;-) —Giggy 06:03, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Spammer!

Mwahahaha :-) Húsönd 13:58, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

In my defence, reverted three seconds later. (To all my Talk Page Stalkers, this is what I'm warning you about when you're using automated tools... – iridescent 14:00, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Which one? Getting Huggle conflicts or not fixing them afterwards? J.delanoy^gabs_adds 14:58, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Anyone can get Huggle conflicts and they're not held against anyone. What is held against you are a) not realising what you've done and reverting it, b) leaving an unjustified warning in place, and c) not auto-watchlisting the talkpage of everyone you warn so you can check if they're trying to explain why whatever you reverted wasn't vandalism – it's not that unusual for there to be a perfectly good explanation for what looks like blatant vandalism, and one legitimate editor driven off the project in disgust at an unfair block is one too many. (Personally, I don't think Gurch should even have given the option of disabling that.) – iridescent 15:05, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I never even thought of that. (nor did I know that Huggle even let you watchlist pages as you edit.) J.delanoy^gabs_adds 15:32, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Oooh I have a Huggle story on my talk page now too...not having a good week at all. First I get a 3RR warning for a single revert that was supported at AN (refusing to let a non-policy be tagged as a disputed policy), and now I get a warning that I'm making attack pages. Hmmm. I didn't think Rouge was supposed to work quite this way. I still hold that my userpage statement ("I have never received a legitimate warning") remains correct. Risker (talk) 04:44, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Remember when some troublemaker made a comment on some RFA about how once she was an admin she'd end up getting sucked into drama after drama? Welcome to the dark side. Trust me, it doesn't get better than this. – iridescent 15:51, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Delete

Hi Irid, could you delete this page please, I have no need for it,User:Realist2/King of Pop Extras. Cheers. — Realist² (Come Speak To Me) 15:04, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

✓ Done – iridescent 15:06, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Cheers, it seems odd really, editors should be able to delete anything they make in their space at free will, unless we can and I'm missing something. — Realist² (Come Speak To Me) 15:10, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

For articles where you're the only significant editor, put {{db-g7}} or {{db-author}} at the top of the page; for any page in your own userspace (e.g., pages starting User:Realist2/) whether or not you're the only editor, put {{db-u1}} or {{db-userreq}} at the top of the page. This will put them into the appropriate sections of Candidates for speedy deletion and they'll usually disappear within minutes. (The reason you can't do them yourself is because on rare occasions things need to be kept even against your wishes. It doesn't happen very often.) – iridescent 15:26, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Could you take a look at this (non-joke) essay I wrote in my userspace?

I was wondering if you and Keeper might take a look at this essay that I've created in my userspace regarding my criteria for adminship. I respect both of you, and would value any input you might have. I have cross-posted this to Keeper's talkpage as well. Thanks, S. Dean Jameson 14:13, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that if that's all it's going to be, it's unnecessary; "good faith editor with a reasonable amount of experience and no issues" is surely the default position. When users have the "RFA criteria" essays, it's usually because they have a specific issue which not everybody will agree on – for example, must have x mainspace edits, must not be a self-nom, must demonstrate participation in XfD, no participation on attack sites, at least one GA...

In my opinion, the only questions you should be asking yourself at RFA are:

1. Do I trust this editor with the power to block others?
2. Do I trust this editor with the power to delete articles?
3. Do I trust this editor to be prepared to explain everything they do?
4. Do I trust this editor to act fairly?

None of those are really things that can be quantified. Editcount criteria are meaningless; quite aside from the fact that with automated tools, it's perfectly possible to rack up 10,000 edits in a week, some of Wikipedia's most disruptive editors are also among its most active.

Setting yourself "set in stone" RFA criteria is, I think, unproductive, as you'll find that good editors come along who don't meet them, or bad editors come along who do. An editor working mainly in creating images (which can easily take a full day or longer to draw, but only count as a single edit) may well have a very low editcount – likewise, someone like Giano who writes huge articles off-wiki and only uploads them when they're finished. Even people who generally always oppose on one particular issue will sometimes find exceptions; there have been self-nominations that Kurt has supported, WR users whom MONGO has supported, people active on IRC whom I've supported... and a lot of obvious good-faith editors who easily meet the criteria in your essay, whom I've opposed, because no matter how good faith they are I don't trust their decision-making. The only criterion that I'll generally always stick to is not to support anyone I know to be under the age of 13; for anything else, there are always at least occasional exceptions.

My opinion on RFA (note the words my opinion) is that the default position in any Wikipedia process is the status quo, and that it's down to anyone proposing the change to justify it. Thus, on XfD it's down to the deletionist to persuade me that the page needs to be deleted; on policy pages it's down to the proposer to persuade me that the current policy needs changing... and on RFA it's down to the candidate and nominator to persuade me that promoting the candidate will make a positive difference. While plenty of people I respect fine do have specific RFA criteria, I don't think "do I trust you" can be quantified and written down, otherwise we could replace the RFA process with an automated checklist. – iridescent 14:41, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I think we feel similarly about RfA, but with different "default" positions. It seems you default to not promoting the candidate, unless convinced otherwise, while I default to promote the candidate, unless convinced otherwise. In setting down my criteria, I hope it does not seem that I would always (or never, for that matter) support a certain type of candidate. It's just that I was called on the carpet a bit for supporting candidates per adminship not being a big deal, so I really started thinking about why I really felt that most candidates should receive the tools. That's what this essay was meant to elucidate. Thanks again for replying so quickly. S. Dean Jameson 14:49, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Expanding a bit, I certainly appreciate your points about editors who work with images, and especially regarding Giano, and other editors like him. I've lurked around the discussions that surround him, and admire his work very much. This is why I don't have hard-and-fast edit count rules. S. Dean Jameson 14:51, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

For god's sake, don't take Giano as your role model! He may be a fantastic editor, but this is for a reason. He has the support accumulated over four years of positive contributions to fall back on – the vast majority of RFA candidates (let alone editors in general) don't have that. – iridescent 14:59, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I mentioned Giano only because you did. I admire his mainspace contributions, which I think is most likely a widely-held view. S. Dean Jameson 15:06, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I second that - and say it even though Giano and I get along very well. Use him as a writing role model, but certainly not as a behavioural one. Risker (talk) 15:04, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Accountcreator tool?

Hi Iri,

May I have this? For my help at the account creation place!

BG7even 15:04, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Nvm someone did it for me! BG7even 15:08, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Favour, please

I've had to cause to block User Talk:Makeida indefinitely for adding spam and promotional material relating to itv.com and ITV programmes - the most recent effort to turn an article, Harley Street into puff for an eponymous TV show. Since the action is quite extreme, I'd would appreciate your opinion as to whether it over the top. Thanks in advance. Kbthompson (talk) 18:18, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Looks a perfectly valid block to me. It would probably have been acceptable to add a mention of the TV show to Harley Street, but – given that they'd already had a final warning for spamming ITV – this was unacceptable. – iridescent 23:03, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that confirmation. They'd certainly exhausted my patience, nice to know it wasn't just me. Thanks again Kbthompson (talk) 23:35, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

*%&($&* Huggle users

There really ought to be some kind of a driving test for all these new Huggle users. I was in the middle of merging three articles when I happened to notice that some ... had reverted me! Bar steward. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:52, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

It's because when you changed your username you dropped off Gurch's "list of users never to revert" list. Won't happen again. – iridescent 23:55, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I didn't even know there was such a list. And I'm on it eh? So I can do whatever I like and I won't get reverted eh? Get thee behind me Satan. :lol:

It automatically adds users with a string of 500 non-vandalism mainspace edits. I remember discussing with Gurch a while back, periodically wiping it and letting it regenerate itself, as it's starting to accumulate some rather dubious characters; the trouble is, doing that would mean more situations like this while the new list generated itself. – iridescent 00:02, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I suppose a list that like is always going to degrade over time. But regardless of who'd made the edit that I did, I really can't see the logic in reverting a claim from a reliable source that a particular restaurant was voted the best in the UK by the readers of a national newspaper. My fear is that with the increasing numbers of Huggle users it's becoming a race between them, and nobody is spending much time thinking about what they're doing. Ah well, at least I'm immune to that kind of knee-jerk reversion for now at least. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:10, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

While I'm a great admirer of Huggle in theory (I assume you were watching this talkpage during the Great Huggle Debate last month), a lot of its users leave much to be desired with their editcount-racing. For every person who uses it as a tool for checking diffs without opening repeated tabs, there are ten people who use it to try to rack up a high-score on WBE (the sooner that wretched page is deleted the better). Because Huggle only shows the diff, I assume the editor saw this and thought "spammer", without bothering to read the context. Blanchardb is a legit user, not a Huggle-racer as far as I'm aware, but as someone who only works on Canada articles probably didn't either understand the context or recognise your name. When you only see the diff without the context, it is very easy to mistake legitimate edits for vandalism.

And here was I, thinking someone else's talkpage had become the new Huggle Complaints Department... – iridescent 00:22, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

You honestly thought you could get away from that??! <thunderous evil laughter/> *ducks* J.delanoy^gabs_adds 01:00, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

One click is all it would take... – iridescent 01:04, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

"One click is all it would take"... Hmmmm........ Well, I have to admit, if you did that, this page would cease to be the "Huggle Complaint Department"... J.delanoy^gabs_adds 01:11, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It might not be a bad idea to have a genuine Rollback Complaint Department, with a clear set of criteria for exactly when users should be barred from Huggle and/or stripped of rollback. Currently, the sole criterion seems to be "right, this is starting to annoy me", and the criterion for getting it back is "Asked politely". (And as I say above, I seriously think that if WBE were deleted a lot of the problems would stop.) – iridescent 01:15, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

←Sounds like a good idea. I also really liked Malleus' idea of a "road test" for Huggle. To use an analogy, anyone is allowed drive a lawn mower, just like anyone can use Twinkle. But a lawn mower has a maximum speed of maybe 20 KM/hr, if you're lucky. Before they let you drive on the highway, at 120 KM/hr, they make you take a test. We should do the same with Huggle. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 01:22, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

(if my speeds seem weird, keep in mind that I am used to MPH with stuff like that, so I did my best. When I do uses the metric system for speeds, it is usually meters per second. (I actually typed KM/s more than once before I realized what I was doing...) J.delanoy^gabs_adds 01:25, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

You know me and Malleus are both in England and wouldn't know a kilometer from a killifish, right? – iridescent 01:28, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I was kinda confused. Is 120 KM/hr fast? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:31, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

(e/c)Shows how much I know about England :S Anywho, 120 KM/hr is around 65-70 MPH, so not too too fast, but faster than you'd want someone who has never driven before to be going. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 01:35, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

<--Imagine that, another thread about huggle on Iridescent's page...who-da thunk? Irid, as long as your thinking huggle, a user that joined Wikipedia on June 27th, named User:II MusLiM HyBRiD II of all things, got approved today. Haven't looked at contribs, but seems to be a bit soon, worth watching...Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 01:34, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Self-declares as 13 years old, joined less than two weeks ago – what could possibly go wrong? – iridescent 01:37, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

With 40 mainspace edits in their entire history. WTF is going on here? – iridescent 01:39, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

(e/c) WTH is going on here? Does no one read ANI? posted anyways because I liked how I said practically the same thing you did... J.delanoy^gabs_adds 01:41, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

(e/c re to irid)I'm pretty sure Rudget approved rollback, he's usually rather conservative in granting (unlike some others). Best to "wait and see" at this point I suppose, I have no evidence event that IIMHII even loaded huggle...Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 01:42, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I've posted a (hopefully not too bitey) note to Rudget; I agree that he's usually fairly sensible (he was not the name I expected to see when I checked the log), so it may be that he's aware of something we're not. – iridescent 01:45, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Not too bitey at all, in fact I welcome the review. I've left a note on the talk page. Rudget (logs) 10:30, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Rollback has been disabled on that account. As before, thank you again for bringing this to my attention. Rudget (logs) 15:10, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

anon 99. ... at Paul Wolfowitz

Could you check out the edit [[4]]? This guy seems dead set to start a lame edit war on the question of whether Paul Wolfowitz is a Republican or Democrat. I think he followed me from George Soros where he was making controversial POV edits that you corrected him on.

There's an extensive discussion on Wolfowitz's party affiliation on the PW talk page, but the basics are: at the start of his career PW was a Democrat, and a couple of years ago the Times of London wrote that his is still a registered Democrat. For 30 years he has been working for Republican administrations and is the "theoretician" for its right wing. He is as responsible as anybody for the invasion of Iraq. No Democrat would ever have anything to do with him. The BBC and other sources state the obvious - he is a Republican. Saying that Wolfowitz is a Democrat is like saying that Tony Blair is a Conservative. even the Times can make a mistake...

Smallbones (talk) 15:20, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

A tough one, as, while the Times makes mistakes, it's usually quite good about retracting them when challenged, particularly for a major figure like this. His official biography doesn't mention political affiliation one way or another. The Washington Post, who I assume would be the news source most familiar with him, says "After serving at the Pentagon during the Carter administration, Wolfowitz remained a registered Democrat until he joined the Reagan administration as head of policy planning at the State Department"[5], which I suspect is the correct position; however, I don't know enough about either the Bush Administration or the World Bank to say for sure which source is correct. (There are no other reputable sources besides the Times to go with the "still a registered Democrat" line that I can see – the others that a Google search throws up are all blogs or Wikipedia mirrors.) I'd suggest asking User:Happyme22, who's our resident expert on the Reagan administration and will hopefully know what the definitive answer is. – iridescent 15:59, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Admin to admin question

So there I was earlier this month trying to help a newbie, User:Sloanbella to learn the ropes as she was creating what was obviously an autobiographical article. When other editors started cleaning Sloan Bella up, she and what appears to be a cavalcade of socks (User:Kristysixt, User:Margaret wendt) kept returning the questionable, poorlysourced information. User:Brilliant Pebbles managed to check all the various "references" out and found errors and omissions, including some on SB's own website. At that point, it went to AfD - SB isn't notable, the references are junk, and the AfD was closed delete. A new sock, User:Flygirl14, showed up yesterday (just after the delete) and recreated the article, with few variations. I deleted as a CSD recreation, but she has now recreated again (after a major edit to the AfD, since fixed by someone else). Should I AfD it again, delete and salt it, or get someone else to do the dirty work? Your thoughts? Risker (talk) 22:34, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I think there's enough history here to salt it – they can always appeal. If it were me, I think there's enough here to warrant an RFCU to flush out any other socks; it would probably be worth asking Alison as I never understand when you can and can't perform RFCU. – iridescent 22:40, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. As it turns out, on closer reading of her post on the AfD, she has made legal threats aimed at me, so I am washing my hands of it. I had done a review of the reference sources on the version I deleted, and I'll pass that on to another editor who can post it on the talk page of the article. Luna Santin and GRBerry seem to have taken an interest as well. Risker (talk) 22:55, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't really say much for her psychic powers if she needs to beg you to provide her with your real name, does it? – iridescent 23:10, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

*wipes away tears of laughter* I am going to go back and re-read the lovely "RFA congratulations" message left for me by Killer Chihuahua. It seems I've gotten to use all of her steps to being a good admin this week. As my granny used to say "I shoulda stood in bed." Risker (talk) 23:12, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

You can't call yourself a real admin until you have at least one thread like this gracing your talkpage (I make that one 50k). – iridescent 23:15, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Every time you cascading-protect-salt a page, a server kitty dies.

(For the record) Please don't salt; it makes the kitties in the server cry -->
Oh... I just clicked WP:SALT and realised it's pointing somewhere different to before. Anyways... just use the protect tab at the top of a nonexistant page to "salt". Rant over. —Giggy 09:52, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

While I don't even bother to keep track of the changes to protection policy, I think cascade-protection has disappeared. At least, the "cascade protect" option has disappeared from the WP:TW toolset. – iridescent 00:54, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure cascade protection is still an option. (I seem to remember seeing a recent argument in some page's protection log about whether or not you are allowed to apply cascading semi-protection) It's just that, other than the Main Page, there really isn't anything that ever needs to be cascade protected, so Azatoth must have removed it from Twinkle so that overzealous admins (not you) don't use it. Don't quote me on that, though. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 04:01, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

There certainly are potential grounds where cascading protection is necessary; if an article is under attack from /b/ or ED, they generally attack all the templates transcluded as well. (Which is why our main page these days generally looks like this). – iridescent 16:10, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

What is this "/b/" and "ED" anyways? I keep seeing it mentioned, but I cannot make heads or tails of it. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 19:34, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

/b/ and ED are the two main marshalling-yards for Wikipedia's trolls and vandals. (The third main attack site, WR, tends to offer more intelligent comment, even though it does attract its share of nutcases). Be aware that adding an external link to ED anywhere in Wikipedia – even on talkpages – may get you instantly blocked without warning. – iridescent 19:40, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Holy. Crap. Well, I must say I'm glad I asked you first rather than searching for ED and asking you what was so bad about that website. (I know I would have posted an external link to it. *shudder*) J.delanoy^gabs_adds 19:46, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

General Warning: Don't believe everything you read at ED's "Portal:Wikipedia". While some of it is true, a lot more of it is either fabrications or genuine diffs taken wildly out of context. – iridescent 19:48, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

And avoid either site if you are disturbed by pictures of naked babies and penises in random places. —Giggy 02:04, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Neverwinter

irid, I just had another look at the Neverwinter Nights thing because Prom3th3an is questioning the validity of the block and in looking at the edit Xp reverted what you might not of noticed (neither did I originally) was that it also removed all the bottom page stuff (reflist, templates, cats, and iw links). Thus, when done without an edit summary would certainly look like a typical "chop off the bottom half of the page" vandalism at quick glance. –xenocidic (talk) 16:35, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Replied there to keep the conversation together, although I suspect you won't agree with what I say. – iridescent 16:41, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I don't, but I'm not sure if you looked over my review of the block in detail. Check the timeline. We'll keep it over at my talk. –xenocidic (talk) 16:48, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Ani

See it Iri.I'm caught up in one big mess.See "emergency"--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 19:15, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Hang on, I'll have a look now – iridescent 19:19, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Replied there. (Keep the conversation on ANI, so anyone else involved can see it.) – iridescent 19:22, 13 July 2008 (UTC) I forward you the emails of Bg confessing? Cheers, Kodster ^{(heLLo) (Me did that)} 19:59, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I would appreciate it if you could answer. This is a serious issue. Cheers, Kodster ^{(heLLo) (Me did that)} 20:03, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

No. As per my post on ANI, given my history with Xp54321 and the fact that I've worked with BG7 in the past, it's not appropriate for me to be the one judging this. Wait until an uninvolved admin or 'crat joins in the conversation (you can find out if someone's an admin by entering their username here). – iridescent 20:05, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay. Conflict of interest would be a problem. I don't think Xp put out the facts as clearly as possible, but he was in a rush. Cheers, Kodster ^{(heLLo) (Me did that)} 20:07, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm so glad I went and read a book for a few hours, I don't know the answer but it definitely is messy. Whatever the outcome, it's probably not going to be good for someone. I wait and see. On a lighter note, bling bling, what you think of my new name sig? — Realist² (Speak) 23:25, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Re the sig, I think it's fine, but I know there have been issues in the past with that shade of green showing up as invisible in some browsers (or maybe it was invisible to the colourblind - if J.delanoy's still watching this page he can probably explain as I think someone pointed it out to him back when his sig was that colour). Re the ANI business, I doubt very much anything will come of it other than a very annoyed BG7; anything that happened, happened off-wiki, and knowing BG7 I really can't see him pulling a stunt like this. (In fact, knowing BG7's history and the fact that he had a rather foul-tempered dispute with a known and very disruptive sockpuppeteer last month, I'd lay pretty good money on exactly who is impersonating him.) – iridescent 23:30, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Here is the thread, but I think the main issue with my prior signature was the clash between the yellowish color and the florescent green. If you think it may be a problem, you could ask some of the people who said they are colorblind in that thread. (sorry for the yellow bar, Iridescent) J.delanoy^gabs_adds 23:45, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

What happened while I was gone?:(--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 00:04, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Not a lot. But so far nobody has demonstrated how anything under discussion has any relevance to Wikipedia. (An email where someone simultaneously complains about their poor programming skills, and threatens Wikipedia with a "page move bot" – something, incidentally, which even Grawp, Oompapa and WoW never managed – is not a credible threat). Seriously, if you can explain how this affects Wikipedia then by all means do so – but people are perfectly free to troll and disrupt other sites as much as they like. Wikipedia is the eighth most powerful website in the world and we're more than capable of fending off an attack if anyone were stupid enough to try. – iridescent 00:12, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I understand your point. I'm letting this thing drop.I don't know if the thread should be marked resolved though. --Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 00:14, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Not yet; leave it open (albeit collapsed) at least until BG7's had a chance to comment. If he doesn't comment within 48 hours it will be auto-archived, anyway. – iridescent 00:15, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

You declined to comment at ANI but what is your (honest) opinion?--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 00:27, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Read my post above at 23:30. I don't for one minute believe BG7 is responsible, and given that he's spent the last six weeks being flamed and stalked by a known troll & "reformed" sockpuppeteer, I'd hazard a good guess as to who it was. – iridescent 00:30, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

It's possible. In fact I remember only having one "Jack" on my contacts. Someone probably impersonated him. But we wait for now. I have no idea what to believe. The "troll" mocked me while the ani thread was active. I don't think it was Bluegoblin7. He wouldn't call me an "arsehole" or threaten "chaos" upon Wikipedia. Will this just go to the "unsolved" archives?--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 00:53, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

As it stands, unless anything else happens it will go into the "not relevant" archives; although there was plenty of alleged misconduct, there was no allegation of anyone doing anything wrong on en-wikipedia. As I said before, Wikipedia is the eighth most powerful website in the world, and is more than capable of fending off the kind of attack alleged if anyone were stupid enough to try. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iridescent (talk • contribs) 11:29, July 14, 2008

Arbitary break: new and highly dubious activity on ANI

Since you've been wading through this irid, maybe you could take a look at User talk:Bluegoblin7 who is requesting an unblock and east's evidence that I've linked from that page. –xenocidic (talk) 15:39, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not going to get involved in that ANI discussion as I'll just get angry. As far as I'm concerned anyone coming out with shit like "indefblocked per IRC discussion" has some serious explaining to do. This whole thing reeks. – iridescent 16:38, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm no fan of IRC either. I've used it once, just to poke some AWB devs into reading an on wiki thread about a bug. –xenocidic (talk) 16:43, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

(e/c)I've crossposted that particular ANI to Pedro and Nancy as, between the three of us adminators, have attempted to reform admitted socker ChemGeek/Chris19910 over the last month or so, hopefully not in vain. He was already on his last last last last last (one more!) last chance before this block. If the RFCU comes back (I think Jehochman was going to submit one as part of the BG block?) that CG=BG, he (as Chris) has already said "ban me if I do it again". And have I mentioned before how much I detest IRC? Keeper | 76 | what's in a name? 16:46, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

My thoughts on IRC are here; this is one issue I'm 100% in agreement with Giano and Bish on. In fact, the more I read of this, the more ridiculous the whole thing seems to be – even if Checkuser comes back positive, this seems to me to be another Poetlister situation where Checkuser's wrong. BG7 is in the middle of trying to get Blackpool tramway up to FA status and on tidying up assorted railway articles – why the hell would he suddenly contemplate a vandalism spree (which nobody is alleging actually happened) in the middle of that?

Incidentally, I suspect WP:RAIL isn't high up either of your watchlists, but (as the Master of the Boring Disused Railway Article) I can certainly vouch for the twin facts that BG7 has consistently worked on articles on the railways and tram networks of central England, and that ChemGeek/Chris19910 never showed the slightest interest in either area. (It's a small enough field that even if he hadn't signed up to the project, I'd have noticed him on the articles). – iridescent 16:51, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I really really hope they are not the same person, and I support the unblock (innocent until proven guilty + IRC involvement = unblock). ChemGeek had gone quiet in the last few weeks (or I got too busy to notice him, one or the other), but BG doesn't seem at first glance to have any of CG's trademarks (he had many). Keeper | 76 | what's in a name? 16:53, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

If I were assuming bad faith, I'd point out that BG7 was recently involved in a fairly foul-tempered argument with a repeated abusive sockpuppeteer on this MfD. – iridescent 16:56, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Shee-it... BG7's supporters acting like this is not helping. – iridescent 17:00, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Schnikey's. this and this are equally refreshing. And usually, when an "uninvolved" makes "Garuntees", they're usually not as uninvolved as they claim. I'm so ABF-ing today. Simsfan is StewieGriffin BTW, did you know that? I think SF=CG=BG=Prom, with BG being the goodhand. We've all been made fools for letting the kids play in the library instead of the playground (read the first sentence in that last link)....Keeper | 76 | what's in a name? 17:18, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I doubt SG is BG but if he is then he does a great job arguing with himself. –xenocidic (talk) 17:24, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure you've seen this, but I thought you might like the sentence added at 16:30 today...Keeper | 76 | what's in a name? 17:25, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I know Sims/Simpsonsfan is StewieGriffin (I was one of the many who blocked him). Running Prom's and BG7's contribs through SQL's tool, there's no crossover in their interests. (BG7 is definitely in Derbyshire, England; quite aside from the IP, he's uploaded a number of photos recently taken in the area.) I still think there's a good chance this is another Taxwoman situation. (As Deskana says, checkuser evidence from England is always dubious as most IP's geolocate to London wherever they're actually based, and many IPs are dynamic). I still thing BG7 is uninvolved and everything else is SG/CG stirring the pot after the spat on WP:SIMS. – iridescent 17:30, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

One of CG's trademarks was "inviting" others to join his other wiki's. BG, in Xeno's link above, invited SG to join his outside "test wiki". Hmmm...so SG isn't BG, that's clear, SG isn't CG either. I'm not 100% convinced (despite BG's good contribs) that BG isn't CG. Another of CG's trademarks was asking for rollback the same day as he created a new account, after making a handful of arbitrary (and good) vandal reverts. Today, I just declined Ajh16 (talk · contribs) for rollback. Could be unrelated. Keeper | 76 | what's in a name? 17:35, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

That wiki's changes log for the last couple of days certainly makes for interesting reading, doesn't it? Something very fishy is going on here, and I wonder what else is wriggling in the net?

 – iridescent 17:46, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Another section break so we don't need to scroll through 10k of coding

Am I under suspicion? Kodster left so I removed all rights,blocked,deleted,protected so if his account were compromised nothing could happen.--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 17:53, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Prom shouldn't have unblocked those proxies.Those were the ones Chemistrygeek(Or BG7 if the emails I got were true) socked from....--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 17:55, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

You're certainly not under suspicion of being BG7. Your SSP case would have flushed out a connection; plus, your IP traces to CA while BG's traces to England, and (I don't mean to be rude here) I don't think you have the skills to spoof an IP. – iridescent 17:59, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Well good.I live in Southern California(Great weather). Also what does "spoof an IP" mean? --Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 18:04, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

It's hax0r speak. –xenocidic (talk) 18:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Spoofing means to make your IP appear to be something different. For example, your IP a couple of months ago was 71.104.200.248 (that's not me outing you, it's taken from your SSP case), which geolocates to Southern CA; if you could fool the MediaWiki software into displaying "8" instead of "7" as the first digit of it, for example, then a check would show you as in Cambridge, England. It's a lot harder to do than it sounds and frankly, I don't believe you, BG7, SG or CG could do it. – iridescent 18:12, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

IP spoofing is really easy to do. But I won't say how, in case it gives anyone who doesn't know how to do it ideas. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 18:39, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Interesting....Anyways I reblocked all the proxies for 6 months each, twice the original block time.BTw the ips were:

• 84.13.185.183
• 78.150.52.191
• 84.13.134.205
• 84.13.149.149
• 212.219.59.241

Also my IP changes all the time... --Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 18:16, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

For the information of all concerned

Checkuser negative on the real BG7 being related, although god only knows what is going on here. I've invited BG7 to comment here if he wants – frankly, I wouldn't blame him one bit if he doesn't want to join the insane mess on ANI and his talkpage. – iridescent 18:31, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Did Chris19910 attempt to frame BG7? Or something else? I'm very confused.--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 18:35, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

That settles it I guess. And also serves as a great example of why "Wikipedia" and "IRC" never the twain should meet. (not even sure if I'm using that pedantic phrase properly). –xenocidic (talk) 18:37, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Um...question unanswered?--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 18:39, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

A question I'm sure irid is better equipped to answer. I tried to wade through the first AN/I thread and just came out crosseyed. –xenocidic (talk) 18:40, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

This whole topic makes me so glad my that my RfA failed. I'm much happier bumbling through Samuel Johnson than I would be chasing down socks. :lol: --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 18:41, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Are you trying to get Samuel Johnson to GA status?--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 18:44, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

FA. But there's not just me, a lot of others are working on it as well. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 19:12, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

. Not wanting to add to any further drama, I thought I'd mention this here. The only reason I had any interest in this from the beginning was because of the supposed block evidence taken from off wikipedia and other issues with the block (no initial explanation, East718 not participating in original ANI discussion). Would it be totally crazy to ask East718 to never make such a block again with such evidence? I'm still concerned with that aspect of this. Gwynand | Talk•Contribs 18:43, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Eh...not a bad idea... I feel like deleting all those emails....I still have no idea who really sent them.--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 18:46, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

East718 acted in good faith but with faulty information. Until the situation became more clear, nobody knew what was going on and there was a suggestion that keeping the user unblocked would be a threat. It turned out this suggestion was in fact malicious, and East718 has now apologised to the user and annotated the block log. I think part of the problem here is we started accepting information from non-WM wikis which we could not verify, and it snowballed, and IRC got involved, and all sorts of non-fun happened. Orderinchaos 19:01, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

In conclusion

Someone, somewhere, has done something wrong, and either:

1. A sockpuppet has been caught and although nothing proved, will be scared off from doing it again;
2. A sockpuppet has been caught, will lash out on the rampage, and be indefblocked;
3. A weird collaboration between multiple users has been uncovered and will now stop;
4. Someone has impersonated someone else, everyone's massively over-reacted, and a good-faith user has now been driven off the project in disgust.

Whichever it is, you can bet the cabal admins will be the ones blamed for it. Situations like this are why RFA is such a vicious process, and why so many perfectly competent people fail because of a lack of policy-discussion experience; a monkey with a typewriter can do the protect/delete/block side of it, but when the real people affected come to complain, situations get very messy very quickly.

Incidentally, boys and girls, I hope this whole wretched episode has illustrated why IRC is A Bad Thing. Every single wrong-turn here – as well as the incident itself – would have been avoided without it.

Line under the matter. – iridescent 18:48, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Who were the collaborating users?--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 19:05, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Xp, see above where it says "line under the matter"? Means what it says. – iridescent 19:08, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Um...I have no idea what that means...:|--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 19:11, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Draw the line. "To bring a matter to an end, or to change the subject." – iridescent 19:13, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I CBA to respond fully to everything as I have more important things to do. However, to respond to the conclusions:

• The only one that is true on my side is Number 4 - I have been impersonated.

Thanks, BG7even 09:22, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

New welcome

Okay my last welcome didnt work out. What about this one? If I can use that one, can you please make it so that instead of my sig being at the bottom, that I only has the four tides so that anyone can use it? Thanks. King Rock (Gears of War) 20:06, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't like that at all - it reeks of bad faith (and the Wikipedia logo is not supposed to be used on userpages without the consent of the WMF, although that's not generally enforced). Seriously, what's wrong with {{Welcome}}, which is the product of seven years of discussion? – iridescent 20:10, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay my bad. First, I have been using the Template:Welcome for a long time and so I just wanted something cooler. And then I found that cool image. How is my welcome bad faith? King Rock (Gears of War) 20:12, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

"We are not here to make friends. We are not here to joke with Wikifriends. We are (mainly) here to fight vandalism. And when it comes to vandalism, there are many questions. But the most important one is: "Whose side are you on?" seems to me to assume bad faith on the part of whoever you post it to; certainly if I had that as the first post on my talkpage, I'd feel I was being accused of something.

Seriously, you're probably certainly better off discussing this at WT:WC. The people there are far better qualified to pass comment than I am. – iridescent 20:20, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

And on top of that, we're not here to fight vandals. We're here to create an encyclopedia. Metros (talk) 01:10, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Have I seen it? This is bugging the hell out of me. Damn "no email" stance....

Is it the one I asked a question on? Keeper | 76 | what's in a name? 14:38, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Closed under extremely dubious circumstances (a WP:SNOW close with 14 supports?) early this morning. – iridescent 14:41, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Oy vey. Am I seeing an edit war? Yes, yes I am....Keeper | 76 | what's in a name? 15:19, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

It makes unusual reading, that one. In some ways it's a shame it didn't stay up for longer as it could have turned into a genuine debate. I'm surprised a) that he didn't get more supports, b) at who didn't turn up to oppose (although it wasn't up for long), and c) just how many of the people opposing per me totally misunderstood what I thought I'd put one hell of a lot of effort into making clear. – iridescent 15:24, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I tried to read the whole thing. Honest. Considering the "merits" as compared to the frequent "single bad diff 8 months ago = mass trivial opposition today" RFAs that I've seen lately, that one really had no chance at all, and should be removed. "It could have turned into a genuine debate"? You really think so? I'm much more jaded than that, and have learned (already) that there is no such thing as a good debate at RfA...only vengeance, villification, vitriol, validation (for wikifriends), and voting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Keeper76 (talk • contribs) 11:28, July 14, 2008

Perhaps you could make that into a verbose treatise of vivacious v words, villifying the verification of the vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. –xenocidic (talk) 15:34, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Very vivid, veno. Keeper | 76 | what's in a name? 15:36, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec re to Keeper) It wouldn't have passed – 30 opposes on the first day → at least 70 opposes by the end → "no consensus" no matter how many supports (plus, the fact that at some point he's managed to insult pretty much every 'crat here wouldn't have helped), but yes, it could have been a proper debate, on how much store should be set on past behaviour, how to quantify "trust", the relevance of off-wiki behaviour to on-wiki status (see the arbcom from hell for more on that issue), where the dividing line between boldness and disruption should be drawn. There are genuinely rehabilitated problem editors and the vandalism business was two years ago – if you read my oppose (which some of the "oppose per"s don't seem to have done) I specifically clarify that I was only judging him on his behaviour after that incident. In a way, I shouldn't have been the first to oppose, as it gave the appearance of a "case for" by Giggy and SI and a "case against" by me and Majorly, which turned the whole thing into a de facto RFC. – iridescent 15:40, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

...which means that it by definition (mine, admittedly) wouldn't be a proper RFA debate, because it would quickly (if it hadn't already) become more meta-related than SY-related. The debate, in your words, on how much store should be set on past behaviour, how to quantify "trust", etc, is a meta-discussion of which SY is a case study. Perhaps an even worse forum would be WT:RFA though, but I don't think a person's RFA should be the place for what would basically be a "precedence v policy" discussion. A key indicator of when an RFA is immediately "out of bounds" in my opinion is when it is getting compared to someone else's. (not sure if that had happened yet at SY, didn't read the whole thing, but I'm willing to bet it would have soon)...My two cents pence. Keeper | 76 | what's in a name? 15:50, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Can You Please disipline this Vandaliser

65.96.67.105 is his username/IP. he keeps editing pages and is vandalising them by posting RUMORS written on craigslist and youtube. I keep telling him. CRAIGSLIST and YOUTUBE are NOT reliable sources. He keeps vandalising the Luka Magnotta page as well as the Karla Homolka page and others. He had his IP blocked and I warned him not to edit pages and write down craigslist rumors on these pages. HE WONT LISTEN and he is hell bent on getting his own way and he wont stop this BS. Please consider blocking him from editing for a week. Thanks for your help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Anisalarson (talk • contribs) 21:23, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Semiprotected the article for three days; I agree the content added was inappropriate (and probably a BLP violation). Given the disruption, if I see any further disruption I'll reblock the IP. – iridescent 21:31, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Cleaned out the rumours from the Homolka article. Risker (talk) 21:47, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

And cleaned out the Homolka rumours from the Magnotta article, but that one is in terrible shape regardless and it has a genuine "eww" factor going for it. Will leave the rest to someone who cares. Risker (talk) 21:51, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

We still have people who care?  – iridescent 21:57, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, not about Magnotta, at least not me. I will probably list him at AfD for lack of notability later on tonight, being a minor porn star and male model who's had cosmetic surgery really doesn't make him notable by any standard I can see. I'm laying odds the only reason he gets any press coverage is his surname, which he shares with an extremely wealthy business family in the Toronto region. Homolka is another matter. Sadly. Risker (talk) 22:06, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

If you want no original research on that article, then there are some more things that need to be removed since they have no 'reliable sources' to back them up; and for the record, I did not do anything to the Karla Homolka page except remove the vandalism by another person who erroneously added Luka as her husband - If you are going to make an accusation against someone, at least make them accurate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.96.67.105 (talk) 22:08, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

From my position, there is no reason to keep the Magnotta article, and no reliable sources that identify Homolka's partner anywhere so it didn't matter what name was being included as her husband - all were unsourced. I'm not personally accusing anyone of vandalising, including you. All I care about is the quality and reliability of the content. Risker (talk) 22:14, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Risker, my comment was not to you, it was to Anisalarson who was acting irrationally towards me and what I was posting. Personally, I think the whole Luka Article should be removed completely from Wiki, there is virtually no information about this person, other than the stories on Orato.com which may or may not be written by him. Honestly, there is not a single thing in the entire article which can truely be verified or stand up to normal Wiki standards.--65.96.67.105 (talk) 22:19, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Hate to be a pain about this, but there is another person who is vandalising the same 2 articles again putting innappropriate/non-constructive links to porn and putting fake/false information into the ads [6] --65.96.67.105 (talk) 23:45, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I've been watching that. I'm going to semiprotect The Wrong Version as this is getting silly; apologies for the fact that it means you'll be unable to edit it (unless you log on). – iridescent 23:48, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Any chance you can make an edit to a page which is locked? [7] on the right side in the section with her photo, etc at the bottom it says she has 1 son with Magnotta - they have never met and certainly do not have a son together. This is the original edit they did[8] and they have continued to make the vandalistic change but it appears like this little piece was missed when other people fixed it before. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.96.67.105 (talk) 00:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll check out the Homolka article shortly and remove any BLP violations and unsourced info. In the meantime: trigger pulled on the Magnotta article. Risker (talk) 00:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

---

Crossposted from the AfD for the benefit of anyone watching this:
The page was semi-protected due to a recent IP editwar. As those doing the most work on this article are IPs/SPAs (not that unusual with porn articles as users don't necessarily want their "main" account associated with it, and a recognised legitimate use of a sock account), I've removed the semiprotection from the article to give the IPs a chance to improve and/or source it. – iridescent 14:14, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

---

Probably nothing

and probably not a big deal, just need more eyes. I mentioned yesterday that I declined rollback for a user that has been here essentially for one day right? (made 3 edits on 10Jul, about a half dozen more on 14Jul, then a post to WP:RFR. Well, that user's talkpage is, um, interesting. See the third thread called "Question"... (Sorry, I would have posted this up there, but you drew a line, hafta start a new thread. :-) Keeper | 76 | what's in a name? 19:13, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmmmmm... Give me a minute to go through those contributions. If you feel it necessary... – iridescent 19:22, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The contribs aren't bad, really though its besides the point. I posted to Acalamari's talkpage as well to see what standard he is using. Anyone that's been a Wikipedian for 5 days, in my opinion, and knows to go to RFR straight away....smells funny is all. Keeper | 76 | what's in a name? 19:24, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Well that account was a Wikipedian for less than 24 hours when he granted rollback. I've removed Huggle access (although not rollback; it seems unfair to leave a permanent record in his log).

I have no doubt whatsoever that this is a sockpuppet and suspect we'll be hearing more from it. I cannot imagine any genuine new user requesting rollback while their edit count was still in single figures. – iridescent 19:29, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I can name a whole drawer full that did exactly that.... Could be a coincidence that this user showed up right when the latest sock was blocked. Sigh. GDammit, I hope I'm wrong. Keeper | 76 | what's in a name? 19:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Requesting Reconsideration of Huggle Block

I am requesting a reconsideration of the Huggle block. The edit referenced was one of my initial edits and it was a mistake with the Huggle interface. I attempted to revert my own edit, but apparently it did not go through. If you review the rest of my edit history with Huggle, I believe you will find that I have been making good use of the tool. In fact, you will also see that I did learn to use the revert own edit for one other mistake I did make when looking at a family guy article. If you could reply on my page I would appreciate it since it will notify me of the response.

Ajh16 (talk) 20:20, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I won't reconsider; in my opinion there's no legitimate reason an editor with less than 50 edits would be using Huggle. Assuming you're a good-faith new editor, you need to demonstrate you can use the rollback feature correctly before using something this powerful; the analogy would be, I wouldn't let you drive a semi-trailer truck until you'd passed the test to drive a car. You may be able to persuade someone else to re-enable it in which case I won't stand in their way. (In the event that you're not a good-faith new editor then there are obvious reasons not to allow you access to a powerful high-speed editing tool.) – iridescent 20:24, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok, just noticed this section and would like to share a little about myself to try and alliviate concern. I am an IRCop with Dorksnet as well as the IT Director of Wiicafe.com. I have a history of working with trying to police things on IRC, forums and in my WoW guild. Upon encountering my first vandalism that I saw in Wikipedia, I started looking at how to fix it and stumbled across the Recent Changes. From there I started noticing how much vandalism there is and started trying to help deal with it. I noticed that I was consistantly having edits fixed before I could complete them by people using Huggle and started trying to build my reputation enough to get access to this tool. This is also how I learned about rollback. If providing further verification of my identity and creditials would help relieve fears, I will gladly provide proof of my identity and affiliations. Hope that helps, feel free to leave me a note on my user page if you have further concerns.

Ajh16 (talk) 20:30, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

As I say, I won't reconsider this one at this time – Wikipedia is not like other websites or even other Wikis, and Huggle makes it very easy to accidentally drive good faith users off the project if it's not used correctly. There's nothing you can do with Huggle that you can't do in MediaWiki; Huggle gains its speed by bypassing all the safeguards Twinkle includes (viewing the page being edited rather than just the diff, forcing you to view the talkpage of anyone you warn before you leave a warning in case the matter's already under discussion, auto-watchlisting the talkpage of anyone you issue a warning to in case they try to explain their actions). No offence, but until I've seen you in action I can't know whether you can be trusted to bypass those safeguards. – iridescent 20:36, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

You can install Twinkle by going here: WP:TW. It should help you increase your vandal-fighting speed and it's also a great way to prove that you can be trusted with Huggle. –xeno (talk) 20:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

This is just kind of a general request since this is where the topic seems to being discussed. Could someone review my log when they have a chance and let me know if they see anything that seems to be off base. I have been trying to follow policies the best possible and have managed a decently large number of edits in a short time, including a fairly lengthy list while using Huggle. It would be nice to know for sure if there is something I am missing or if it is just simply my timing and my being new that is the cause for concern (which I can honestly understand as I have had to deal with banned users trying to sneak back in to things before as well.) Also, on good faith, I would like to indicate that it for some reason appears that I am still able to use Huggle, or atleast it starts fine. I havn't tried pushing an edit through due to this though. Also, while I havn't tried, it appears that I would still be able to re-enable it on my own. This may not be the case, but I did not want to try it as I believe that would be in bad faith to the community. Ajh16 (talk) 20:51, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Well yes, I guess that's because irid never protected your huggle.css which is how one would usually block someone from using huggle. The reason that we're so suspicious is because we've had some fairly insidious sockpuppetry of late and one of the biggest warning signs is applying for rollback early in one's career. but I suppose huggle's adverts might allow someone to find the trail of breadcrumbs to WP:RFR. –xeno (talk) 20:54, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

(To Xeno) Feel free to protect (or delete) it if you think it's warranted – it seems a little extreme to me given he's been warned. IMO protecting huggle.css is for certain users who don't take the hint when they've been told to stop using it (not mentioning any names, like). – iridescent 21:01, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so just to be entirely clear here, you guys want me to just utilize the normal interface or Twinkle for a while. How will things go as far as starting to use Huggle again? Should I just wait until someone says something or wait a particular amount of time or should I ask again in a little while? Just trying to figure out what the final outcome here is. Ajh16 (talk) 22:02, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd say, when you think you're ready. But be aware that those warnings that WP:HG and the Huggle loading screen are plastered with aren't for decoration; many people take a very dim view of Huggle and mistakes you make with it that would probably have resulted in a slap on the wrist when made with MediaWiki can – and do – get Huggle users blocked. Use of automated tools is not an excuse, and it's very easy to revert a good faith edit as vandalism and/or issue an inappropriate warning with Huggle. As long as you only use it for blatant vandalism you shouldn't have any problems. – iridescent 22:25, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

RfA thank you

		Thank you!
		Iridescent, it is with deep awareness of the responsibility conferred by your trust that I am honored to report that in part to your support, my request for adminship passed (87/14/6). I deeply value the trust you and the Wikipedia community have in me, and I will embark on a new segment of my Wikipedia career by putting my new tools to work to benefit the entire community. My best to you, Happyme22 (talk) 03:10, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Millennium Items

An article that you have been involved in editing, Millennium Items, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Millennium Items. Thank you. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice? ZeroGiga (talk) 04:14, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Good god, one of the suckiest articles I've ever seen has been edited by myself, David Gerard, Tony Sidaway, Stifle, Sceptre and John, among many others, and is more than four years old. Congratulations, you have found the Cabal's secret page! Award yourself a barnstar. – iridescent 19:01, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Edit summary

How did you get the odd figure in this edit summary? It's neat. Acalamari 20:37, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Playing about with unicode – just cut-and-paste ๏̯͡๏ or ಠ_ಠ. I think that particular one started on 4chan of all places. – iridescent 20:42, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah yes, there's a similar thing on Ryulong's talk page I think. Acalamari 20:56, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

This is a tough one. She doesn't seem to be in Contemporary Authors, which is extremely comprehensive. [9] Here's one, and I shall look further. [10]--Poetlister 10:32, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks... This is a weird case, as I know from experience that she is genuinely influential on the current American scene, with multiple publications etc, but every mention I can find of her is either reviews, or passing mentions ("this work by XXX is obviously inspired by Hot Teen Sluts by CO'KA"). An odd one. – iridescent 15:46, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

General note to TPS's – I suspect that if me and Poetlister between us can't dig up the sources, the sources aren't there, but if anyone can dig out some reliable sources on her, please point me towards them. I'm aware of the links here, but there don't seem to be enough biographical sources, as opposed to reviews, to build an unbiased article around. – iridescent 00:51, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Whoever the SPA was who created this, thanks! (Cmon, who was it?) – iridescent 13:46, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Shalom Yechiel

Please respond to an RFC I have filed about my conduct. Please evaluate my responses to false statements about me during my recent RFA. Yechiel (Shalom) 20:54, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I will reply to this idiocy properly when I have the opportunity to do it on something other than an iPhone. However any reply will be on-wiki; I have no intention of replying to your (IMO frankly loopy) email. – iridescent 13:44, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, here goes

I think others have already said most of what I'd have said, and probably more politely, so I'll keep this short. I don't retract a single word of what I said. As far as I'm concerned, your attacks on me on and off wiki have voided the usual limitations of WP:CIV, so I'll respond exactly as I see it.

Your juvenile Wiki-lawyering ('How dare you say I called Wikipedia a pseudo-religious cult, I actually compared it to a pseudo-religious cult', 'I did not say "I have not actually read the article but I think it might be autobiographical", I said "I have not actually read the article in full, but given the valid COI concerns it needs to be determined whether Wikipedia should have this article" etc etc etc) is precisely why this site - or any other - should never be trusting you with admin powers; your obsessive fascination with "the letter of the law" over common sense and your apparent determination that anyone disagreeing with you must be part of some kind of conspiracy are both the hallmarks of our worst admins and we certainly don't need another like it. (I love the fact that your reaction to being accused of posting to WR every time anyone upsets you was to, er, post at WR about how the accusation had upset you...)

You seem to have got it into your head that Finalnight & myself between us derailed your RFA. Do you think that, just perhaps, the fact that your RFA closed with 14 supports (three of which were moral supports) and 32 opposes means it just might have failed anyway?

Regarding your demand for me to be desysopped, my admin logs are open information (the links are in the header of this page). Feel free to browse them; if you can find a single abusive admin action, then by all means raise it. If you can't, then shut up and stop whining.

And I just love the insinuation of collusion between myself and Majorly, given that we famously have diametrically opposed views of the purpose of Wikipedia, and your RFA is possibly the first time we've ever agreed on anything. – iridescent 13:08, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Award yourself a barnstar

LOL! —Giggy 10:13, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I still can't believe that page survived. The Cabal is obviously more powerful than I thought. – iridescent 12:16, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Great to see you back! Just in time for great praise... —Giggy 12:42, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

For some reason, the WR crowd all seem to like me. I'm even on a list of "the good guys" somewhere there. – iridescent 12:47, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Yep, while I'm the newest induction to the ED crew. —Giggy 12:52, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Your ED article is second only to PPG's in terms of sheer lameness. It baffles me why someone would bother creating an attack page when they can't actually find anything bitchy to say. (I think the poster above might have something to say on that matter, too...) – iridescent 00:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

...

Where did you go? Holiday? If you've retired, I fully expect a massive flame from you to land somewhere "on your way out." Hope you're well. Keeper ǀ 76 20:12, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Just a comment, in some unrelated thread here a few weeks ago, Iridescent mentioned that s/he sometimes goes off for weeks or months at a time with little or no notice. I would assume this is one of those times. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 00:07, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it's part of her job if I recall. —Giggy 01:18, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Just a question:Is Iridescent a man or a woman? I never found out...--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 01:23, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

That's for me to know and you to work out. Hint; she likes pink. —Giggy 01:25, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Note to self; that really would have worked better if you previewed. —Giggy 01:26, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

LOL, tough girl. I always thought so Iridescent did sound girly(And her symbol of a flower....) but somehow other users referred to "her" as "him" so i thought "she was a "he". Guess I won't make that mistake again.:)--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 01:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

"Symbol of a flower"? – iridescent 13:26, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

So what are you Iri? Boy/girl?;)--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 03:14, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Does it matter? And I'd like to know what symbol of a flower too, out of interest. Tombomp (talk/contribs) 13:47, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I think he means the image at the top left with the girl handing the other girl a flower. –xeno (talk) 13:54, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Er... Dude, that's not "a girl handing another girl a flower", that's one of the cornerstones of Christianity & Islam... – iridescent 15:26, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Heh. Good laugh, that. And I think it's a daisy. Keeper ǀ 76 15:29, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

←Nope, it's a lily; whenever you see Mary with a flower it's always a lily of some kind, as the traditional symbol of virginity. (Should you really care.) Incidentally, the model for the Virgin on this one is a very young Christina Rossetti. – iridescent 15:33, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I didn't say it was a daisy. I said I think it's a daisy. Still do. Even though it's a lily. How frustrating is that? Sounds a lot like wikipedia. And to answer the previous question, basically the "who is Iridescent?" one, I found a quote from last year that was mistakenly attributed as a description of SandyGeorgia. It is so obviously a description of Iridescent...

SandyIridenscent is a complicated person in real life. She passes her time in simple surroundings, trying to deflect the worship of those who know her and use her gifts to help others. She has been hunted as a fugitive, cursed as a tomb-robber, and is renowned as a lover and duelist. She is a worshiped as a God in Honduras, but is an outlaw in Peru. No living man knows her real name, as she only whispers it into the ears of those she is about to kill. All love her and hate her, she is SandyGeorgia Iridescent. (first uttered by TimVickers, righteously stolen and reattributed to Keeper ǀ 76 15:36, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, no disrespect was meant of course. I just call it as I see it. =) –xeno (talk) 15:37, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Sudden divergence into a discussion of controversial RFAs

Oh, feel free to show disrespect; the fact my userpage and talkpage have offensively captioned images of Mohammed & the Virgin Mary, respectively, should illustrate exactly how seriously I take religious arguments on Wikipedia. (Anyone who wants to see me really ranting about the inappropriateness of a religious approach to Wikipedia, mosey on over to this festival of Assuming Bad Faith.) – iridescent 00:35, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

What an extraordinary RfA! What on earth was Giggy thinking of that day? As an aside, I think you'd be hard pressed to demonstrate more distaste for religious arguments than I would. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:55, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, the RFA itself is the least of it; read the fallout from it above. I can see what Giggy was thinking, but (and I did warn Giggy beforehand) I could have told anyone concerned that that particular one had no chance whatsoever of passing – and if it somehow had, it would have truly devalued RFAs like yours & Giggy's that failed for far more tenuous reasons. To be honest, even if he'd had the cleanest history imaginable, the moment he started quoting the bible as Wikipedia policy he lost me instantly. – iridescent 01:02, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps future historians will look back on RfAs like mine and Giggys and wonder: "What on earth was that about?" Giggy's made some mistakes, but hell, who hasn't? He's just about the most knowledgeable wikipedian anyone's ever likely to come across, and now he's worked through that GA issue he'd be very unlikely to be any worse than many of the current crop of administrators. For myself, I'm resigned to the fact that if I think you're an idiot, then I'll tell you I think you're an idiot, makes me entirely unsuitable for the job. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:35, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Giggy's earlier RFAs failed because he had an impressive knack for doing Very Stupid Things while they were live, and The Big One failed because he'd managed to get himself sucked into some very nasty arguments that weren't his fault at all. Yours, I (obviously) think should have passed, but I can see why people opposed. An ironic thing is that probably no current admin (with the possible exception of Phaedriel) would pass an RFA if they had to re-sit them, since the post involves stepping on so many toes. I would almost certainly fail thanks to block-votes from the Kiddy Kabal and the IRC crew, and some of our most significant contributors would go down in spectacular fireballs, thanks to the "you dared to express an opinion"="you are evil" mentality. You made the mistake of expressing opinions before your RFA. (A glance over my early talkpage archive shows a remarkable degree of blandness. And I can't help but notice that a pre-RFA archive covers almost 300 posts over a period of 22 months, and the most recent post-RFA archive, of exactly the same size, contains a third of the number of posts over a period of one month.) – iridescent 01:58, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

The Kiddy Kabal would not oppose!(Or are you referring to a different cabal?)--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 02:03, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

You're obviously quite right, and in fact Marskell (a long-standing admin?) even pointed that out to me with the usual "you can't expect to pass an RfA within three months of having disagreed with me", or words to that effect. Diffs available on request.

The RfA process is plainly corrupt, but what is far worse, corrupting. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 02:17, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

(e/c)I'll say again what I've said all along. There is no way in hell that I'd pass an RfA in today's environment. It was a fluke that I passed, coupled with a January climate, that I passed at all, with 5 months "experience" to boot. No article writing. Heck, no vandal fighting either. No AIV reports, no RFPP reports, no GA,FA,DYK. Still none. Because I now realize how ridiculously easy my own rfa was back in January, it has become my onus to make sure that the real wikipedianss (namely, article writers) are protected from trolls, pov-pushers, etc. Regardless of perceived "civility" issues, I'll go down with whatever article-writing ship is being sunk. Keeper ǀ 76 02:08, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay...if this "no expressing opinions before RfA" is really true, how do you explain my passing? I rather doubt it was the copy editing, that only explains a handful of "supports". Risker (talk) 02:36, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Before I tell you how I explain it, perhaps you'd like to tell me how you explain it? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 02:56, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Seriouly? Umm...a couple of good supports, and the fact that so many people were shocked..yes shocked!...to find out I am a woman - a woman who knows about hockey, at that. That, plus my immense charm and natural beauty...oh wait, nobody here knows about my natural beauty. I was actually quite stunned with the level of support. Risker (talk) 03:02, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

My take is that Risker has a talent for writing really blunt observations in a very kind way. People don't realize they've just been told off ... ;) S. Dean Jameson 03:04, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I am of course pleased that your RfA was successful, but I'd also like to think that the "stun" you felt with your support might be measured with some sympathy for those who were equally "stunned" by their opposition. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 04:29, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry Mall, I have to ask myself what I'm thinking most days. —Giggy 06:00, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I think everyone is stunned by RFA, however it goes; friends & enemies you didn't know you had suddenly appear, and friends & enemies you know you have mysteriously vanish. When Walton & Giggy suggested nominating me (oh, the irony...) way back when, I was seriously considering declining due to the volume of opposes I expected. (In the event, the only oppose who actually turned up was just plain weird. OK, this was back in the days when RFA was a kinder, gentler process, but I had people lining up on my talkpage to tell me they were going to oppose, who never actually did.)

On the subject of Risker, I think the reasons she went from this to this in four days were:

1. She responded to the legitimate concerns that were raised with replies that demonstrated that she understood the issues & how she'd react;
2. She pointed out why the just-plain-odd opposes shouldn't be taken seriously, without getting too bitchy about it;
3. She had a very impressive collection of supporters from across the various cliques (how often do you see SlimVirgin, Giano, SandyGeorgia, Shalom, Giggy, SWATJester and Cla68 agree on something?);
4. There were so many flat-out nutty opposes that they devalued the legitimate opposes (notably Ryan's);
5. The fanaticism of some of the crankier opposers, and the way she stood up to them without sinking to their level, was such an impressive display of how an admin ought to act when faced with some of Wikipedia's fruitloop elements, that it drove people who weren't planning to support (most obviously myself) into the support section.

Yes, I know most of the above ought to go for Malleus's RFA too (DHMO5, as I said at the time, had so many opposes that it could never realistically have been closed as anything other than "no consensus"). The way these things go doesn't make sense. – iridescent 14:04, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

The one that really clinches it for me is my own RFA. The week before I started mine, Keeper76 nominated either two or three people (I can't remember) that were far more qualified than I was (or am). They had plenty of experience in many areas of the project, no civility issues, etc. But they all went down in spectacular fireballs. As a result, one left the project and Keeper swore off RFA for life. Then I come along, with nothing behind me but a lot of Huggle reverts, and pass with little trouble. What the heck?!! J.delanoy^gabs_adds 16:05, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

You were lucky enough to run in the immediate aftermath of this trainwreck, and its foul-tempered aftermath, when most of the usual opposers were abstaining from RFA (or driven off Wikipedia altogether) in disgust at the barrage of whiny abuse anyone daring to raise any problems regarding an "established contributor" is subjected to. The exact same thing happened in the week following DHMO5. – iridescent 16:14, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

(e/c) re to J.d) Heh. It was two, and I think Iridescent was silently opposed (or missed) the first, and was vocally neutral on the second. Both of my candidates had the "fatal flaw of the week". I vividly remember the week when "over-huggle" was the fatal flaw, had you run then, it would've tanked. All in the timing, all proof of RfA's ridiculousness. I haven't "sworn off RFAs for life", though, just nominating. I'll still participate (usually support) there, but I will not be dragging anyone else through it myself. Keeper ǀ 76 16:16, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh dear, are you blaming me for derailing that one? I very deliberately waited until it had what (I thought was) an unassailable lead before I commented, and did my best to explain exactly why I was posting and why I wasn't opposing. – iridescent 16:22, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Heaven's no. Gnand, in my opinion, should've passed, and will eventually if he wants adminship. I even think that RFA#1 would've passed, he withdrew it with around 75% support "on principal" of not wanting to "sneak through on a technical percentage". He wanted consensus and didn't feel 3 outta 4 was consensus-y enough. I just thought it was ironical [sic] that J.d posted here citing me as his evidence :-) Keeper ǀ 76 16:38, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Another arbitrary break

In my defence on the "fatal flaw of the week" thing, the piece of boilerplate text that most of my RFA opposes are built around (While I don't subscribe to the "must have 10 FAs" school at RFA (I've never once worked on one), I don't think editors who haven't had the experience of putting large amounts of work into an article, and/or defending their work against well-intentioned but wrong "improvements" or especially AFD, are in a position to empathise with quite why editors get so angry when their work's deleted and/or The Wrong Version gets protected, and I don't support users who don't add content to the mainspace being given powers to overrule those who do.) hasn't changed for at least a year. I do actually support more RFAs than I oppose – it's just that my people seem to remember my opposes for some reason. – iridescent 16:48, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I think it's the diffs :-). Your opposes use lots of diffs. Nobody reads them, but there are so many, they must be accurate :-). Don't get me started about the "no more non-content writing admins" oppose. One of these days, I'm gonna write an essay to rebut it. Ironically, it will be my largest bit of writing on wikipedia that ain't on a talkpage :-) Keeper ǀ 76 16:54, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

It might heal over one of WP's longest-running festering flamewars, as arguing on that one is possibly the only thing that would unite Giano and Durova... Before anyone does; don't bother – I'm well aware of the arguments in favour of the "admins should stick to admin tasks and keep their noses out of the mainspace" arguments, but you're not going to convince me. I don't hold to any kind of minimum number of contributions; I do think someone needs to have done enough work to have had something they've contributed "improved" by someone else, so they can see for themselves just how irritating people who AfD patently valid content or "improve" studiously NPOV articles into spammy advertorial can be. – iridescent 17:04, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and do I really use a lot of diffs? I never thought I did. – iridescent 17:13, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Washington State Route 531

Washington State Route 531 has recently passed its GA and is up for A-Class review. According to the article history of the article, you are a contributor to this article. Please leave comments at this link. --CG was here. (T - C - S - E) 18:43, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I have never understood A-class - to me, the four grades are FA/GA/adequate/bad - so won't even try to join in this one. If any of the usual cleaner-uppers (Malleus, you listening?) are watching, go have a look... – iridescent 13:22, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, come now. You know the four classes of articles as well as any. Using the same order as yours above: "Written by Admin/Written by Admin-Wannabe to Have at Least One Blue Link for Future RfA Question #2/Deletable/Deleted" Keeper ǀ 76 15:40, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I was being diplomatic; the actually four grades are Boring Article With At Least One Illustration, Boring Article With Em-dashes, Waste of Space, Interesting Article. – iridescent 15:47, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

The number of GAs with dash problems is astounding. Just sayin'. —Giggy 15:52, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

{{sofixit}}...;-) Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 15:57, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

So don't fix it. As far as I am concerned a spaced em-dash looks considerably better than an unspaced em-dash or a spaced en-dash. Like most of the MOS, it's the irrational prejudice of whoever happened to write that paragraph, which has somehow come to be treated as Holy Writ by the Defenders of the Wiki. The most irritating one is, and always will be, those who insist that footnotes come after punctuation, despite it not being any kind of policy, and the Chicago Manual of Style being totally irrelevant to articles written in British, Australian, Irish, Kiwi, Canadian etc etc etc English. – iridescent 15:59, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

"Interestingly", the MoS is quite agnostic about whether footnotes are put before or after the punctuation; they just have to be consistently in one place or the other throughout the whole article. Perhape the real problem is that so few editors actually bother to read the MoS? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 16:02, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

What do you guys mean by "MoS"? Is there a bluelink for that? (omg, I'm joking...) Keeper ǀ 76 16:05, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Slightly more complicated that that - SlimVirgin's original version did prescribe that footnotes always come after punctuation; the problem is, people who read that when it was written didn't notice that she responded to (legitimate) complaints that it was inconsistent with the traditional formatting of British articles, and changed it from a policy to a suggestion. – iridescent 16:08, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

You're a walking encyclopaedia of WikiHistory. :-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 16:10, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Nope, I just remember having an insanely long argument with Elonka (is there any other kind?) about it back when it was a policy. – iridescent 16:12, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

WP AH

This user wants you to join WikiProject Alternate History.

Zombie Hunter Smurf (talk) 14:32, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

• Moral support. I don't think this will be a viable project - fiction articles are notoriously difficult to keep clean, and most of the books in question (with a couple of exceptions like Fatherland) have very little press coverage - but I'll keep an eye on your doings. – iridescent 13:24, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

In fact, looking more closely has brought me to Timeline-191 which is one of the most obvious pieces of original research I've ever seen. Any TPSs in a position to have a closer look at that one? – iridescent 14:26, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The NBC Collection

Apologies for my "double prod" on the above. I made a mistake. You might try being more civil with your edit comments. Cheers! --Stormbay (talk) 03:06, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Just to let you know

That guy that you just blocked is a sock of User:Kotla Mohsin Khan, you can read up on his trolling. Would be a wise idea to protect his talk page. Thanks Monster Under Your Bed ^(talk) 11:06, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

If he wants to burn up his store of SPAs at Jimbo's talkpage, he's more than welcome to. Hell, the main purpose of User talk:Jimbo Wales is to act as a honeytrap for Wikipedia's malcontents. Think of it as the blue light at Krispy Kreme that attracts the flies before they have a chance to land on the doughnuts. – iridescent 11:14, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Page

Thank you; obviously there aren't great sources on Cambodian cuisine items in the English language, which is why we need to take time and consult with Cambodian Wikipedians about this. I would like to see the discussion that led to the deletion of this page; please provide that, thanks. Badagnani (talk) 21:10, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

As I said, it was deleted by the WP:PROD (PROposed Deletion) process, which means that since no-one raise any objections to deleting in the 5 days after User:Dara tagged it for deletion, it was automatically deleted without discussion.

If you (or anyone else reading this page) can add references to it – which do not have to be in English – feel free to recreate it. There may be someone at WikiProject Cambodia in a position to help. – iridescent 21:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you kindly, but I had actually asked about the discussion that led to this page's deletion. Where is it? And who were the contributors, so that we may ask them? At least a modicum of discussion in addition to adding a tag, really is helpful to preserving our community. Badagnani (talk) 21:28, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

As I've already said, this was deleted via {{prod}} – there was no discussion. The Wikipedia deletion process is (usually): someone proposes an article for deletion; if nobody raises any objection to the deletion, the article is deleted automatically (as happened here). Only if someone objects to the deletion within five days does it go to Articles for Deletion for discussion. If you want a discussion on it, I'm more than happy to undelete the article and set up a deletion debate (which I personally think would result in the article being kept). – iridescent 21:33, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

RE: Vandalism on my usertalk

Thanks so much for reverting that, regards, Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs)☺ 12:14, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Take it as a compliment that you've got a high enough profile that you've attracted your very own /b/ troll... – iridescent 14:21, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Its good to have my computer back, when I sent you the message above I was using the public ones in my local library. My parents sent it to a geezer who has helped us out before, seems to know what he's on about anyway, turned out something in a bit of the hardrive went up the wall, and he replaced it, also he come and set it back up, costing us £100, which I thought was a lot. Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs)☺ 20:24, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Not unreasonable. Think £50 for a replacement hard drive, £50 labour – sounds about right. Assuming you're using a PC, they've virtually reached the point of disposability now (eg, it's cheaper to buy a new one than to repair and upgrade an existing one). – iridescent 20:28, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I suppose so, and thats exactly what he said, our hardrive completely died - well most of it anyway, and if it wasnt for us having a "top of the range" motherboard (in his words) he said he would have urged us to buy a new one. Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs)☺ 20:34, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Also, I had all family pictures of days out, pictures I had taken in London of when it was Chinese new year and all police motorbikes were on the pavement all sorts. A real shame.

Take it as a signal to renounce the crowd and follow the One True Path. Twice the speed, none of the viruses, lasts three times longer before it's obsolete. Incidentally, you can generally recover the data even from a totally wrecked hard drive if need be; Google "data recovery". – iridescent 20:37, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Theres a Apple/Mac shop near me, they have all the ranges that you can play around on and I've tried quite a few times and was impressed with them. I'll have to think about data recovery, might be worth a punt. Plus my dad was annoyed because he used his long service award money to buy it for me, and he got one of the more capable on the computer chart we got something like the 3rd from the best on the chart, so he wasnt pleased about spending the luca on getting it fixed. Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs)☺ 20:51, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Vandal at large: kindly take action

After I performed an Undo on this character's nonsense edit to the Crutch page (see History there), I saw that you're the one who gave the "last warning". Not being an Admin myself, I'm alerting you... and am documenting my action there for the record. And please note: this sort of "nonsense" content was just plausible enough that I figured perhaps it was a term I didn't know, and went on a wild goose chase to several other pages and three dictionaries (two online, and the Random House Unabridged in the library next to my office) till I was convinced this was garbage. So I'm highly annoyed by this point. Go get 'em, Iridescent, with my blessing! -- Thanks, Deborahjay (talk) 16:20, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

It's been a month since the vandalism, and almost four weeks since they made any edit of any kind, so a block would be meaningless. IP addresses change, and after this period of time there's no reason to think the same editor will be using it. If there's a batch of new vandalism from the account I'll certainly consider it, but at present there would be no point. – iridescent 18:57, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Rollback history

Hi Irid, is there a way for me to access my use of rollback history? — Realist² (Speak) 23:39, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Realist2 :-) —Giggy 23:45, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I was hoping there was maybe a page for just my rollback edits. — Realist² (Speak) 23:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Nope. You'll have to manaully memorize which times (and what pages) you click "rollback" on. It's what I do (of course, I've only clicked "rollback" like 4 times...) Keeper ǀ 76 23:58, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Bum. Although I haven't used it that much, the "undo" button usually works well enough. — Realist² (Speak) 00:01, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I've probably clicked it 4 times just today – oops, I probably ought not to have said that, I'll have the rollback police on my case now. :lol: --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Malleus has rollback rights? What daft admin granted those?!?!?!? Kidding of course. Malleus deserves way way many more "rights" than that of the myspacers....Keeper ǀ 76 00:48, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I've been advised that if I keep out of trouble for three months, don't get into any arguments with long-standing wikipedians (even when they're clearly talking bollocks), and never even think of answering back when some dickhead starts mouthing off on my talk page unless prefixed by "with respect", that I may even be allowed to keep my rollback rights. I've just checked the weather forecast for hell though. Not looking too promising, so I'll be putting my ice skates back in the cupboard for now. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:32, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

• Perhaps you could begin your reply with something like, "With respect, you clueless git" or some other charming witticism. Just spitballin' here... and I wanted to use the word "git", which I've always loved... S. Dean Jameson 03:14, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Do you remember Luka?

There was a change war going on between IPs, and then the article for Luka Magnotta was nominated for deletion, and then it was deleted. Well someone has put the article back up, with the same unreferenced information and broken links as before. I am pretty sure I added the Speedy deletion information correctly but if you have the chance to double check that for me I would appreciate it.

thanks

65.96.67.105 (talk) 13:05, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

✓ Done. – iridescent 13:11, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

A nice voice to be found?

Irid, do you know any female editors who have good real life voices? I wanted to recruit someone to do a spoken audio of the Michael Jackson article, much like the Obama one. I think it should be a female voice (I just don't think a male voice works on the MJ article) and obviously the person would need to know how to make the recording and upload it. Does Laralove have a good voice? Hmm, odd questions I know... — Realist² (Speak) 21:44, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't know; I've never heard any of them IRL. I'm assuming Lara has a deep-south accent, which somehow seems inappropriate to me for MJ (Don't ask why.) You might want to listen to the WikipediaWeekly podcasts and see if there's anyone whose voice jumps out at you. (Durova supposedly has quite a good speaking voice.) Other than that, handing this one over to the TPSs – iridescent 21:51, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Further thought; head on over to Wikipedia:Spoken articles and listen to some of them until you find a voice you like the sound of, then try to pester whoever it is into doing it. Persian Poet Gal appears to have a fairly neutral American accent and could probably be pestered into doing it. – iridescent 21:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Oww, I will take a listen, hehe, this will be fun. Cheers. — Realist² (Speak) 22:01, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I've been told I have a good speaking voice, but, sorry, can't help you. I'm male. Useight (talk) 22:02, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

If you want, I can volunteer to kick you, ahem, somewhere, to make you sound a bit more feminine. You know, if your volunteering and all....Keeper ǀ 76 22:03, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

WP:TOV!!!! –xeno (talk) 22:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I'll think I'll have to pass. Offering was a nice gesture, though. Or something. Useight (talk) 22:06, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, yes, Poet Gal has the voice I kind of wanted, she might decline the offer, but there is no harm asking. :-) — Realist² (Speak) 22:06, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

This is the first time I've ever looked at Spoken Wikipedia and it's like an exercise in wikigroaning. (Under "Politics", we have Coat of Arms of Aruba but no "George W. Bush", for example; under "War" we have Battle of Aljubarrota.ogg but no "World War II"). – iridescent 22:08, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Well apparently the MJ article is the 90th most viewed on wikipedia. So hopefully it will be a worthwhile venture. Your point above is interesting, audio is an area we should develop. — Realist² (Speak) 22:15, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

This is pure guesswork, but I would guess that blind users (who Spoken Wikipedia is presumably aimed at) will all have text-to-speech enabled on their computers, and will be so used to the "robotic" sound of it that the quirks that make it virtually unlistenable to occasional users won't irritate them. (Think of it as listening to someone with a very strong accent; initially it's very distracting, but once you know them you don't even notice.) Just a guess though, this is an area I know nothing about. (Incidentally, if you want to hear Spoken Wikipedia at its worst, dig out this). – iridescent 22:22, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

←BTW, while I'm sure MJ is one of our most-read articles, take anything stats.grok.se has to say with an extremely large pinch of salt, as it's notoriously inaccurate. Unless you think that 2 Girls 1 Cup, Canine reproduction, Cloverfield and Edison Chen photo scandal are really all in our top-20 articles. – iridescent 22:26, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Lol, maybe that list isn't the most accurate. I left a message for Poet Gal, she hasn't been on wiki in a few weeks so prob won't get a reply soon. Fingers crossed, otherwise Useight has to do it :-) — Realist² (Speak) 22:30, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The sound files are ultimately a part of Commons rather than Wikipedia; next time Giggy does his weekly stalk of this page, he might be able to suggest someone. How about Laura S (sample)? – iridescent 22:38, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Another nice voice, I will wait for a response from Poet Gal first tho, there is no rush on my part. Cheers Irid. — Realist² (Speak) 22:52, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

PPG is away until September/October apparently. Just a thought, but you might want to post on WP:CHICAGO (or ask TonyTheTiger, who runs it virtually single-handed) if they have anyone who'd want to have a go; Chicago or northern Indiana would presumably be the accent that would sound most natural on an article about MJ. – iridescent 22:56, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Possible BLP vio in the article

While we're on the subject, I don't want to post this on the article talkpage and start a revert-war, but this section looks like a potentially nasty BLP violation; AFAIK Joseph Jackson has never been found guilty of (or confessed to) to child abuse, and Michael & LaToya Jackson are, with all due respect to them, possibly not the most reliable of sources (didn't Rebbie, and I think Jermaine, say the allegations weren't true?) You know more about the subject than me, so I won't do anything myself about it – it may well be that there are reliable sources for it. – iridescent 23:02, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, bummer, Laura S hasn't been on wiki in a while either. I'll take a look at this chicago thing. No the child abuse is unfortunately true, the most reliable book written on Jackson gives detailed accounts of it. However, I agree it is wise to add that Joseph at least denies it. — Realist² (Speak) 23:06, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, this is funny. I have no idea why its sticking on the outside though. . — Realist² (Speak) 23:25, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Someone really needs to animate that. – iridescent 23:31, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

He, I think it's good, I just wish people in the MJ wikiproject would actually write article instead of arguing over darn track listings, sales figures and images! Talking of which, I'm going to go through the 150+ articles in the project and nominate some for deletion. Some really lack notability. — Realist² (Speak) 23:39, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Without looking very hard, I'd say the top priority should be getting some decent images – the current selection is wretched for someone this famous. What Jimbo says here about Elvis applies just as much to MJ – this is one of the most photographed people in history, and we only have three photographs of him, all over 20 years old? There must be thousands of people on Wikipedia who've taken a photo of him at some point. – iridescent 23:47, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I personally searched 18,000 pictured tagged under Michael Jackson on Flickr, this is all we got (there were some others but they were crap). I like the new 2008 pic of MJ and the white house pic. The vitiligo picture is also a rare gem. We really need more picture from the 1990's and pictures of live performances. Unfortunately the article does suffer from 80's nostalgia/USA talking points, something I worked hard to eliminate when I started editing it. — Realist² (Speak) 00:02, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

There must be someone who can dig something up (cue Giggy) – iridescent 00:10, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

It would be nice to show a clip of him dancing, but of course we can't. — Realist² (Speak) 00:13, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

If you can dig someone out who owns the right to some footage (I refuse to believe that in his career, noone has ever taken a camcorder along), then "do you want to be credited on one of the most read pages on the 7th most popular site in the world" can be a very persuasive argument. – iridescent 00:23, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe one day we will find something. — Realist² (Speak) 00:35, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm keeping my sig like this for a while, I hated that green and was too fussy about a third color. — Realist² 00:46, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

One universal trend on Wikipedia (since custom sigs became popular in mid 2007) seems to be; among serious editors, they start garish and become steadily less garish over time. (My evolution was Iridescenti →  - Iridescenti →  - Iridescenti (talk to me!) →  — iridescenti (talk to me!) →  — iridescent (talk to me!) →  — iridescent →  – ırıdescent →  – iridescent, and if it weren't for the fact that those colours have become my "brand", would probably be scaled back further. If I were designing your sig, I'd actually unbold the name; I think it would actually be more eyecatching, not less. – iridescent 01:52, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

That's one trend I don't intend on taking part of; I'm one of the few "serious editors" who haven't used a custom sig. I don't know if that makes me blend into the background or stand out because the sig is normal, either way, I've just never been interested in changing it. If I did, though, it'd be black and red. Useight (talk) 15:55, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I do think the custom sigs make sense; I can scroll down a long talkpage at high speed and instantly pick out my contributions, for example. If I were redesigning the MediaWiki interface – which I have no intention of doing – I'd make the max length far lower than the current 255 characters, though. – iridescent 15:59, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

That's also a valid point. I'm often the only one without a semi-flashy sig so I can find my contribs that way, but I do end up using CTRL-F sometimes to find my name. Useight (talk) 16:08, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Although, whether by coincidence or design, my sig does seem to have a secret admirer. – iridescent 16:17, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Medicine for wiki stress

If you get wiki stress listen to this. — Realist² 02:22, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

That's an odd one – I never liked the song on Dangerous, which sounds like a poor-quality rewrite of "Ben", but it somehow works live. Although a very odd choice for a presidential inauguration, which is (after all) supposed to be all about the beginning. – iridescent 02:27, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

It's one of my favorites, his voice is good, and it works to his advantage live. But "In The Closet" or "Will you be there" are his best from Dangerous. Do we have a secret MJ fan here Irid? — Realist² 02:35, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

My Soundtrack of Wikipedians entry (also listed near the bottom of my userpage, should you be on a slow connection & not want to wait for one of Wikipedia's longest pages to load) reflects my tastes fairly accurately; an eclectic mix of 80s indie, hardcore London mod and early-2000s power-psychedelia, with a smattering of (generally obscurer) tracks from the superstars. My attitude towards MJ is pretty much the reverse of the typical fan profile; I think Ben was a superb album and Got To Be There had it highlights, and thought Off the Wall was superb in places and awful in others. I remember being horribly disappointed by Thriller when it came out, after all the hype, and still think it's horribly bland and overproduced now, and possibly the weakest of his albums aside from HIStory. Bad I think is adequate; Dangerous I think is superb; HIStory and Invincible I think consist of two adequate singles each, padded out with poor-quality filler. I think musically, everything he does could be done better by someone else; however, I'm not sure there's anyone who can put on a performance as well as he can. In some ways, I think the "he's so original" arguments are wrong; rather than the "fusing dance, acting and music for the first time" claims that are always made about him, I think he's a revival of the old pre-television spirit of vaudeville & music hall, and I'd be fascinated to see the result were he ever to appear in a stage musical or even a true opera.

(Thesis ends) – iridescent 02:55, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not a typical fan either, although MJ only started becoming popular in the late 1980's to early 1990's where I originate. Thus this "Off the Wall" & "Thriller" hype that the US media harper on about was never my thing. Mainland Europe, South America and Asia aren't quite as obsessed with the early 80's stuff. I don't listen to Off the Wall much but when I do I enjoy it. Thriller is a very good record, as is Bad. Dangerous was his best album (a lot of his fans agree with that).

History, "only" had 5 singles, in my opinion they are some of the best singles of his career, but the album tracks were very poor, thus HIStory is a mixed bag for me. I kind of wish he had just released those 5 singles on an LP. None the less, "Scream", "You Are Not Alone", "They Don't Care About Us", "EarthSong" and "Stranger In Moscow" are very impressive songs.

Invincible was a 50/50 album, 3/4 of those songs should have been kept off the record. There were a lot of good songs though. I might argue that Invincible was a better album than HIStory as a whole. Still I can't name my favorite song, probably one of the singles from HIStory. Also, slightly off topic but, hell, his plastic surgery has improved since Invincible, he might even show his face in his next music vid. — Realist² 03:19, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Just so long as he resists the temptation to surround himself with current stars; I have a horrible vision of what a collaboration between MJ and Justin Timberlake, for example, would be like, and it's not a nice thought. – iridescent 15:42, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

He will definitely be working with current stars. Akon, will.i.am, Kanye West, and Fergie all worked on Thriller 25. Most of these people have said they are working on his new studio album (Fergie hasn't mentioned her involvement though). Chris Brown said that he sent samples and tracks to MJ recently. So there should be a lot of youngsters in the mix. He won't be working will Usher, Justin Timberlake or Timbaland though. — Realist² 16:28, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh dear... that sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. "Generation to generation" collaborations almost never work, and a 50 year old man trying to sound "hip" is just going to be embarrassing. – iridescent 16:08, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Sockpuppets :-)

All I'm going to say is holy crap. Should I just block myself, or wait for someone else to do it for me? ;-) J.delanoy^gabs_adds 22:13, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Even better. Apparently, "our" evil plot has been exposed. Curses! J.delanoy^gabs_adds 22:16, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Some of our more enthusiastic sock-hunters would happily consider that as real evidence... – iridescent 15:24, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I know. I saw your conversation with Moonriddengirl, and I wondered what would happen if a serial vandal-fighter (me) was compared with, well, anyone. So far, my sockpuppet ring includes nearly every admin, bureaucrat, checkuser, and oversighter on the site, as well as thousands of "normal" users. *shakes head* I never thought I could possibly be found out... J.delanoy^gabs_adds 16:02, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

My Entry

Hello my friend,

My wikipedia entry was posted a couple of months ago and has been etched in permanently to my great pleasure! All the hard work I put into my pro wrestling training with Hall of Fame contacts and so many superstars will never be forgotten! I know I have said it before but thank you so much for all your help! With that being said.....I noticed on my talk page there is that stubborn little entry that was placed on there one of the 1st days the entry was posted that requested speedy deletion........yeah, I was very insulted by this, especially since I am Brutus "The Barber" Beefcakes boy and all! With that being said I would really like to see the "request for speedy deletion" entry that somebody placed on my talk page a couple of months ago deleted........that is old news and not going to happen now. If you could help me with this small issue I would be very thankful Iridescent.....as you already know I am of you! Thanks again my friend and God Bless You!!!!!

Jaderocker (talk) 03:31, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment: for the benefit of anyone else reading this and trying to work out what it refers to, it's John Quinlan (bodybuilder) – iridescent

Notability of Cats That Look Like Hitler

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Cats That Look Like Hitler, by another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Cats That Look Like Hitler is an article about a certain website, blog, forum, or other web content that does not assert the importance or significance of that web location. Please read our criteria for speedy deletion, particularly item 7 under Articles, as well as notability guidelines for websites. Please note that articles must be on notable subjects and should provide references to reliable sources which verify their content.

To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Cats That Look Like Hitler, please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. To see the user who deleted the page, click here CSDWarnBot (talk) 07:10, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

For the benefit of newcomers to Wikipedia reading this, apparently references to features (all of which have the article subject as their primary topic) in one of the world's leading newspapers, a major television station and a major entertainment website (not to mention the 20,000 Google hits) no longer beat WP:IDONTLIKEIT as a deletion argument. – iridescent 14:01, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

OMG, that will be a great article. We so need free pictures of these cats. :-) — Realist² 14:48, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

At the moment, it's just a stubby shell with enough references to (I thought) keep the deletionists at bay. If anyone wants to expand it, consider this an open invitation. A hundred bonus points in the Wikipedia MMORPG to anyone who manages to get it onto the main page (hint; it's still within the five-day limit since creation to qualify for DYK). – iridescent 14:54, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Lol, I've never done a DYK and I probably never will. — Realist² 15:14, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

No more have I; with all due respect to those who work on it, I think DYK is one of the most pointless things on Wikipedia, and having it on the main page makes us all look like idiots. Trying to fight off "the place is run by a pack of obsessive nerds" allegations is not helped by this being one of the first things any newcomer to the site sees. – iridescent 15:19, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

A lot of good friends work on it so I'm watching what I say :-), but when I see that an editor has done 15 DYK's I wish they had done 3 GA's instead. — Realist² 15:41, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Can I delete it...........

Can I delete the "request for speedy deletion" on my talk page............it was placed there by somebody a couple of months ago and it never at any time impacted the status of the entry.

Thank You

Jaderocker (talk) 17:15, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

You can remove whatever you want (mostly) from your own talk page. Tombomp (talk/contribs) 17:44, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Title 15 of the United States Code

You wrote that it was "silly" to nominate that page for speedy deletion. Although you are, of course, entitled to the opinion, you provided no basis for it. The criteria for speedy deletion includes item A3: "No content. Any article (other than disambiguation pages and redirects, including soft redirects) consisting only of external links." That page does indeed consist only of external links. The article includes no expansion of the topic, no discussion (from RS's or otherwise) on the topic, nor any other information other than the external links that include the text of the regulations. Although you can have an opinion, it is at variance with the WP policy. Where is my interpretation of the criterion incorrect?
— James Cantor (talk) (formerly, MarionTheLibrarian) 17:43, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

No it doesn't. The version you tagged clearly said what the article was about ("Title 15 of the United States Code outlines the role of the commerce and trade in the United States Code"). If you want to play wikilawyer and quote the exact wording of CSDA3 at me, you might want to read the line you've thoughtfully left out of your cut-and-paste above, "a very short article may be a valid stub if it has context, in which case it is not eligible for deletion under this criterion". Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. – iridescent 17:48, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I caught you on a bad day, but I meant the tag and my question about it in good faith. I left out the portion of the sentence refering to short articles because I did not think the article was short, making that portion of the policy moot. I remain at a loss to see what the "context" you refer to is; the entire content of that page is a verbatim re-printing of the U.S. gov't page to which it links, http://www.access.gpo.gov/uscode/title15/title15.html. The page contains no discussions of, for example, how the law came to be, who its supporters were, what major changes to it have been, nor any of ther other kinds of information that would make the page encyclopedic and informative rather than a list of the links given on the pages that it already links to.
— James Cantor (talk) (formerly, MarionTheLibrarian) 18:04, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

WP:SOFIXIT. "This article doesn't contain everything it should" is not a deletion reason. Wikipedia is a work in progress and most of our articles will never be comprehensive – we currently have 6,909,081 articles of which 7735 are good or featured articles. The speedy deletion criteria are for very specific types of problem pages which are unsalvageable and serve no encyclopedic purpose, neither of which are the case here. – iridescent 18:12, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I am not saying that some topics are merely missing from those given on the page; the page has no topics. I am saying that the page violates WP:NOTLINK. Nonetheless, you disagree, and that is sufficient. I have instead put the article out at AfD. I indicated there that you disagreed with me, but you may want to express your opinion there directly or expand upon it.
— James Cantor (talk) (formerly, MarionTheLibrarian) 20:06, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Title 15 of the United States Code

An article that you have been involved in editing, Title 15 of the United States Code, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Title 15 of the United States Code. Thank you. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice? — James Cantor (talk) (formerly, MarionTheLibrarian) 20:20, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Michaela Angela Davis

Hello!!!!

I really appreciate your view on my talk page regarding this article. But I would like to know that on what basis did you say that " it was well over the line that separates "good-faith misuse" from "outright abuse"".
Before placing the tag I did research on the subject (like I always do), on various search engines, to dig out the notability. I didn't find, it could be my failure or my mistake but I am certain, it was no "outright abuse".
Regards

Hitrohit2001 (talk) 18:10, 9 August 2008 (UTC)Hitrohit2001

Read the thread above this one... As I said on your talkpage, if you're going to tag pages for speedy deletion, make sure you read the criteria and never speedy tag pages that don't meet these criteria, or you can expect your talkpage to fill fairly rapidly with far less civil posts than mine. {{db-a7}} is only for articles about people, organizations, or web content that do not indicate why their subject is important or significant – and nothing else. The version of this article which you tagged contained clear, multiple assertions of notability ("Michaela Angela Davis is an expert critic and writer", "She has been the Associate Fashion, Culture and the Executive Fashion and Beauty Editor for ESSENCE magazine", "She was the founding Fashion Director for VIBE magazine", "She was the last editor-in-chief of Honey, the premiere magazine for 18-34 year old urban women", "She was also [stylist to], Oprah Winfrey, Beyonce, Prince, Diana Ross, Donald Trump, Mary J. Blige and LL Cool J"...). There was no possible way this was an "honest mistake" where the assertion of notability was buried in the article; this was a clear abuse of deletion tags. The Search engine test has no relevance to the speedy deletion process – even if the article is an outright hoax and the subject never existed, it is still not appropriate to tag it for speedy deletion. – iridescent 18:21, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Not withstanding the tone above, you may be right. I am ending the conversation here but your tone suggests that you are trying to dominate over other users.
Everyone has an answer for incivility, so do not think that you or anyone can fill talk pages with messages which are less civil in nature.
Parameter for discussion should be a strong view and good conception, not a set of rude idioms or words. Regards Hitrohit2001 18:50, 9 August 2008 (UTC)Hitrohit2001

I am not "trying to dominate other users", I'm trying to stop other users disrupting our website. Let me say it once more as it doesn't seem to have sunk in: "I don't like it" is not a valid deletion reason. Point out a single way in which this article meets A7 and I'll happily offer a grovelling apology. If you can't, than don't go round accusing people who are trying to help of "incivility"; abusive (there, I said it) tagging wastes your time, wastes the time of the admin who has to reverse your actions, and – most importantly – drives valid contributors away from the site. This is a collaborative site, and WP:IAR does not mean "make up the rules as you go along". – iridescent 19:27, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I already said that I agree with your say On A7, And I will definitely keep your view in my mind now and hereafter, I did appreciated your view in my first message.
But About incivility, your not so civil messages are present on my talk page, in this discussion and I did see in some other user's talk pages too. You should know, impolite messages do drive valid contributor away from site faster. I know which action is abusive and which one is innocuous. So, dont invest your time teaching me what wastes whose time. This is first time I received such a message and I know that I have done many constructive edition to Wikipedia.
I again say, the thing what you wanted to say was right but the words you used was discourteous and cheap.
A quality expression is expected, at least, from sysops.
Regards Hitrohit2001 20:04, 9 August 2008 (UTC)Hitrohit2001

Nii Tackie Tawiah III

You are right - the speedy deletion request for this article might have been too much. But please believe me that this was no abuse. Upon my first read it did not make any sense to me - nowhere does it state anything about him actually governing a country. There are other persons just calling themselves kings for many reasons, so just the word "King" in front of the name does not make it an obviously notable person. Only in the last line you find the statement that a Dr. Jo Blankson - a name that does not appear in the article before - has been installed King.

After googling him, I see that he is an actual king. But that raises another problem - the bio is the one from the Kings's very own homepage. So I am afraid I will have to speedy the article again - for obvious reasons.

Regards, Gunnar Hendrich (talk) 19:29, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Not obvious to me. To you, and to the posters in the two threads above – please read WP:CSD#A7 before you start throwing {{db-bio}} tags around, as they are only for use in very specific circumstances. – iridescent 19:32, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah yes - now that's a more obvious reason. Deleted. – iridescent 19:36, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

And, apologies for the snarkiness of the comment above; as your post followed immediately after two posts from people patently abusing speedy templates whining at my daring to tell them off for it, I (unfairly) assumed this was more of the same. "Cut and paste copyvio" is most definitely a legitimate deletion criterion! – iridescent 19:41, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Funeral?

I was looking at the protection log on your user page and was curious. If it's something personal, I 100% understand. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Momo Hemo (talk • contribs) 20:16, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

User talk:Jeffpw – iridescent 20:18, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

As you're around ...

As you're around, and I'm not sure Pedro is, could you take a look at this please? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 20:48, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Have replied there; I'd certainly happily go out-of-process and delete/protect under the circumstances. Alison is certainly watching the page, so the section may suddenly never have existed if she feels there's a need; uniquely amongst the Inner Cabal of checkusers and oversighters, she still has that rare element called "common sense". – iridescent 20:56, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

RE: PACITA ABAD PAGE ON WIKIPEDIA

We manage Pacita Abad Art and Pacita's estate, as well as her website. We found out that a page on Pacita Abad on Wikipedia was recently deleted based on a request by Irisdescent. We also noticed that the biodata on her page that we edited for accuracy reasons kept being changed.

We would like to re-create a new page on Pacita Abad, but would like to know your reasons for deleting the page in the first place.

Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely, Jack Garrity (Email: pabadart@yahoo.com) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pacitaabadart (talk • contribs) 22:01, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Because it's a word-for-word copyright violation from this website, Wikipedia can't accept it; please stop recreating the article as it will continue to be deleted. If you're the owner of the copyright and want to release it into the public domain, go to Wikipedia:CONSENT and follow the instructions to release the material. Be aware that if you do so, you irrevocably agree to release your contributions under the terms of the GFDL. – iridescent 22:14, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your prompt response.

Please find below the Consent:

I hereby assert that I am the creator and/or sole owner of the exclusive copyright of Pacita Abad's website (www.pacitaabad.com). I agree to publish that work under the free license GFDL. I acknowledge that I grant anyone the right to use the work in a commercial product and to modify it according to their needs, provided that they abide by the terms of the license and any other applicable laws. I am aware that I always retain copyright of my work, and retain the right to be attributed in accordance with the license chosen. Modifications others make to the work will not be attributed to me. I acknowledge that I cannot withdraw this agreement, and that the content may or may not be kept permanently on a Wikimedia project.

August 9, 2008,

Jack Garrity

Please let us know if we can re-create the Pacita Abad page on Wikipedia using the same text that we created before, based on her website's "About Pacita".

Thanks and we look forward to hearing from you.

Jack Garrity Pacita Abad Art —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pacitaabadart (talk • contribs) 22:58, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Please email the above to permissions-en@wikimedia.org, and they'll reply with permission. Apologies for the bureaucracy, but it's necessary to stop people using content they've stolen from other websites without permission. – iridescent 23:05, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for removal of Speedy Deletion tag!

Dear Iridescent,

A few days ago I found a gap in Wikipedia that I was in a unique position to fill. I had never even attempted to submit an article to Wikipedia before, and I do not expect to be able to do so again any time soon, but I tried to seize the day: I reviewed the submission guidelines, composed my Wikipedia article in my sandbox, and eventually posted what I had composed.

As a rookie to this business, I was not terribly surprised when someone tagged it for speedy deletion within the hour. I remained confident that I could change anyone's mind on the issue given enough time and a willing ear, and I revised my article and added several references. And I waited for someone to notice...

Which, it seems, you did! I do not know what the process is from here with regard to the retention or eventual deletion of a Wikipedia entry, but I feel like I have jumped a significant hurdle by having someone with more experience than me give me (rather, give my article, which took me a loooong time to compose!) a fighting chance. Even if it ends up on the cutting room floor, at least I won't feel I have utterly wasted my time. You have my gratitude. KDS4444 00:40, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

You're very welcome. I'm not sure if the page will survive a deletion debate – you might want to familiarise yourself with WP:PORNBIO, which is our policy on who does and doesn't get an article, but he certainly sounds significant enough not to delete it without at least a discussion. (For the benefit of anyone reading this, the article in question is Sebastian Cole). – iridescent 00:44, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

True Loan

As I am new to Wikipedia, I must confess that while reading about how to submit an article, I may have missed something critical as to how to properly write an article. Today you deleted something I spent a week putting together saying it was "was blatant advertising, used only to promote someone or something" which is absolutely incorrect, and strictly your opinion. The True Loan lending model is something akin to finding a new way to do something such as a car that runs on air or a new method of fighting cancer. It is a type of lending structure that until recently did not exist and it can be used by anyone at anytime if properly educated on its dual convexity model. I will rewrite the article to try and keep it more in line with Wikipedia standards, and will provide more references as several federal organization are reviewing the platform and have indicated willingness to speak publicly about its viability based on its level of compliancy which is almost unheard of. But I repeat, it was not intended to promote someone or something for personal gain, and if it appeared that way, then it was my fault, and in my opinion still deserves a reference venue where people learn more about it. OsirisB (talk) 02:56, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

As you've obviously put a lot of work into this, I'm going to take an unusual step, and undelete the article, then set up a procedural discussion (you can contribute to it here) to get a wider consensus as to whether this is or isn't a valid article. – iridescent 03:03, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I look forward to participating in the discussion and will be happy to make edits based on suggestions so that the article can stay and hopefully grow more comprehensive over time. OsirisB (talk) 03:12, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Speedy

Just ot point out, the Freemasons in general aren't unremarkable, but this one grand lodge, which has no information about it and does not belong to the Freemasonic branch with which most people are familiar (and therefore is much smaller), is indeed unremarkable. MSJapan (talk) 14:36, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, but I think it at the very least warrants an AfD. WikiProject Freemasonry is active enough that there's a reasonable chance someone will be able to clean it up; by their nature, any national masonic lodge (even the splinter groups) will likely be significant enough that {{db-club}} (which is intended for articles on "two kids in their shed playing GTA who think it would be cool to have a Wikipedia page to list their high scores" type clubs) is unlikely to be appropriate. – iridescent 14:42, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

No they aren't, unfortunately. There are Grand Lodges that have no more than one documented member. We don't have anyone involved with that branch, and those groups generally don't have information aside from in French, not to mention no sources besides their own pages. They're just simply not all equal. MSJapan (talk) 17:11, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not arguing – note that I'm not arguing to keep in the AfD – but I actually agree with JASpencer (possibly for the first time on anything); WP:CSD A7 is not about notability, it's about an assertion of notability, and the very nature of the title "Grand Lodge" is, IMO, enough of an assertion of notability to make speedy-deletion inappropriate; as I say above, {{db-club}} is intended to be used for vanity pages by kids social-networking, not organisations like this. – iridescent 17:17, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

G3 = Hoax

Don't you think a hoax falls under "blatant misinformation"? I sure do. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 15:24, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

No. Hoax only equals CSD G3 when it's "blatant and obvious misinformation", such as kids claiming their band is the most successful of all time, or claims that Michael Jackson was the first man on the moon. "If even remotely plausible, a suspected hoax article should be subjected to further scrutiny in a wider forum".

As you know (since it's been raised repeatedly) speedy-tagging articles whilst they're at AfD is inherently disruptive; if I let that speedy tag stand and delete the article, when the creator reposts it we have to go through yet another AfD and waste everyone's time. If you leave the AfD to run its course until an admin snow-closes it as delete, then we can G4 any future reincarnations of the article with a minimum of fuss and drahmaz. Campton massacre isn't an attack page or a disclosure of personal info, where time actually is an issue, and your overeagerness to save a few hours by slapping a speedy tag on it wastes a lot more time further down the line than letting the AfD run.

Speedy and/or snow closing an AfD less than two hours after it's posted is very poor form in any event; except in serious cases, they should always be allowed to run for 24 hours at a minimum to allow Wikipedians in all time zones to comment. In the case of this article, it's currently early morning in Alberta, where any editor likely to have access to information to show that this isn't a hoax will be.

Whilst (as the flurry of complaints above show) I tend towards the deletionist side when it comes to notability, I still think you're far too keen to pull the trigger in borderline cases when it's not appropriate. You do do a lot of good at XfD, but please take on board what the opposers at your RFA are telling you, whether or not it passes. – iridescent 15:39, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

• But if it's a clear hoax, clear-cut A7, or otherwise a no-brainer speedy, why bother with slogging through afd? Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 16:40, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

• Are you even reading this? As I said above and on the AfD, and Keeper says on your RFA, it's because if you speedy it rather than let the AfD stack up enough "delete"s to snow-close it, it can't be G4'd if it gets reposted. We have that "blatant and obvious misinformation" clause for a good reason; plenty of people (and you're one of the worst offenders here) are far too keen to slap {{db-vandalism}} tags on things you haven't heard of. – iridescent 16:46, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

• Almost nothing that I've successfully speedied has been reposted. I see that I've made mistakes a few times, yes... (Also, is it just me or is your userpage just a big black box?) Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 17:31, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes; I'm keeping my userpage blank until after Jeff's funeral. – iridescent 17:33, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Sorry about getting you worked up, seems I just have a different (mis)understanding of CSD. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 18:53, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

No problem at all – if you're not already aware, that's the reason for the generally foul atmosphere on WP these last couple of days. – iridescent 18:56, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Luke Heron

AfD nomination of Luke Heron

An article that you have been involved in editing, Luke Heron, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Luke Heron. Thank you. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice?

I noticed you removed the speedy deletion tag. This is a very clear case of violation of notability as per WP:BIO and also the author is likely also the subject prompting WP:COI issues. Please add your opinion on the AFD debate.

|► ϋrbanяenewaℓ • TALK ◄| 16:01, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I have done, and I agree it should be deleted; but please be aware for future reference that, despite what "everyone knows", Wikipedia has no policy against writing articles about yourself, and COI isn't a deletion criterion, let alone a speedy deletion criterion. – iridescent 16:04, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Fair use

Yes I do. Perhaps rather than complaining about the tagging , you could expand the rationale so it's clearer?

Reviewing last batch .

Sfan00 IMG (talk) 21:00, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

If you're talking about my declining to delete Image:Blue Öyster Cult - (Don't Fear) The Reaper.ogg and Image:Buddy Holly - That'll Be the Day.ogg, these were a clear misuse of deletion tags. I don't see how much more of a fair use rationale than:

1. The sample is being used for commentary on the recording in question.
2. It contributes significantly to the encyclopedia articles it is used in in a way that cannot be duplicated by other forms of media.
3. The sample is short in relation to the duration of the recorded track and is of an inferior quality to the original recording.
4. No other samples from the same track are used in Wikipedia.
5. There is no adequate free alternative available.

you need. I think you can reasonably assume that Gurch is perfectly aware of Wikipedia policy, given that he wrote a fair proportion of it; siccing what appears to be an unapproved deletion-bot onto his upload history whilst he's temporarily away does not seem to serve any valid purpose. From your talkpage, I'm hardly the first user with concerns about what is either an inappropriate mass-tagging or an unauthorised and malfunctioning bot. – iridescent 21:35, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

John Muir College

How is it advertising? Does that mean all colleges are "advertising" with their pages? Please explain Thanks. Lajolla2009 (talk) 22:27, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

For heaven's sake, you even refer to the college as "us" in the article... Two of our core policies are that Wikipedia must maintain a neutral point of view, and that Wikipedia is not a how-to guide. Your edits failed on both counts; we neither need to know about the college's exact course structure and application requirements, no do we need to know about the deep fried grill goods and tasty Mexican food. Wikipedia is not a web host, and the appropriate place for this stuff is on the college's website.

As you've already posted on this topic at ANI, I'd suggest continuing the conversation there. – iridescent 22:33, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Why don't you consider improving the article? Lajolla2009 (talk) 22:37, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Because I know nothing whatsoever about the topic, am 6000 miles away so am in no position to check sources, and there is a large group of experts in exactly this topic who are in a position to improve it? – iridescent 22:50, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I much prefer my talk page to yours Iridescent. ;-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:40, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

When your talkpage contains Nazi cats, links to 2 Girls 1 Cup and Canine reproduction, a video clip of Michael Jackson at Bill Clinton's inauguration, a sound file of one of our leading administrators reciting our policy on Original Research in a monotone, a lengthy discussion on the definition of "hoax" and Australian gay pornography – all posted within a 72-hour period – you'll have a feeling of what life is like in my world. Bet you're regretting that RFA failed now, eh? – iridescent 22:50, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Not even for a millisecond; I consider it a great stroke of luck that it failed. Besides I'm far too busy working working on masterpieces like this to be bothered about cats that might or might look like Hitler, or bad-tempered wrangles about the kind of food served in college cafeterias. I have enough bad tempered wrangles of my own, without worrying about anyone else's. :-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:18, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I got to leave this trail of destruction today; 84 deletions in a single day, interspersed between the insane discussions of freemasonry and cats with a faint resemblance to German leaders (would the Italian version be Meeowsolini?). I look forward to waking to 80 posts from angry schoolchildren and their sockpuppets, explaining how I just don't understand that deleting their band's article has stifled the career of the next Beatles. (When I logged on today, I was intending to rewrite The Aislers Set and fill in the Hellingly Hospital redlink. I don't know quite how I got sidetracked into being the day's Aunt Sally at CSD). – iridescent 23:29, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Meeowsolini is rather good. At least you haven't lost your sense of humour (yet). --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:37, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

The pun potential is endless on this one – anyone with "Fur" in his title is just setting himself up for bad cat puns. And that's without violating all the rules of taste and decency with a "Meeowschwitz" gag (cue angry sockpuppets). The Mewremburg Rally? The Furred Reich? Whatever, I assume they called them Tiger Tanks for a reason. (The Maus and Ratte were obviously a cruel joke). – iridescent 23:45, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Reply

Please see my reply here [11]. Thanks! --mboverload@ 02:21, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Pappi Ndelu

Hi. You declined this speedy "'signed to Sony and now owner of his own label' sounds enough to me"; but I dug a bit more and have taken it to AfD here because Sony was in 1997 and only produced a single, and his "own label" seems entirely non-notable. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 19:01, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Please read WP:CSD before you start arguing with admins when your inappropriate taggings are declined (and that goes for at least five other posts on this page, too). The {{db-a7}} tag is only for articles about people, organizations, or web content that do not indicate why their subject is important or significant – and nothing else. Whether they are notable – and whether the article is true or not – has nothing to do with it; possible notability = inappropriately speedy tagged. – iridescent 19:07, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I know CSD#A7 quite well, and it didn't seem to me that a single 11 years ago and a string of obviously self-set-up companies did "indicate importance or significance". But I agree, it's arguable, and my message here wasn't intended as disagreement or complaint, just to keep you informed. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 19:29, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Patriotic Nigras

Hey Iridescent, I was wondering if you would consider withdrawing your AFD nomination on Patriotic Nigras. It resulting in delete seems extremely unlikely and I was hoping to submit the article to DYK. - Icewedge (talk) 19:44, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Done. – iridescent 19:46, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of Shura Taft

Sorry, but how is this person of any less importance than other television personalities? Im confused as to why it would need to be deleted. Sure, it needs some editing and refining, but c'mon, thats what Wikipedia's about. Cheers, TumblerMcDrop54 (talk) 06:52, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

No, that's not "what Wikipedia's about". I appreciate that it can look confusing, but Wikipedia is not a "directory of everything" or a webhost; we are – specifically and explicitly – a tertiary source. We only include information that has been published elsewhere in multiple, non-trivial sources that are independent of the subject, and only include articles that meet specific guidelines on notability. While Shura Taft may meet our guidelines on biographical notability, you need to include sources independent of him or his employer that indicate why he's significant. While the "Search Engine Test" isn't always reliable, I see no independent, non-trivial press coverage on a quick skim. – iridescent 12:51, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Sylhet TV

Hi, Regarding this edit, did you actually go to the webpage it links to? This is nothing but a pirate video sharing site, which takes content from other websites (e.g. NTV (Bangladesh), and broadcasts it. This is not a TV channel at all (note the hosting at the free.cc domain), rather a personal site used to host pirated copyrighted videos. Therefore, this qualifies as an NN-spam page. Please reconsider. --Ragib (talk) 03:48, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

This does not qualify as spam. Feel free to put a {{prod}} on it, but an article that currently reads in full "Sylhet TV is an online based Sylheti music television channel. The channel broadcasts music videos from Bangladesh." is not an advertisement. You could possibly get it deleted under {{db-web}} if you really can't wait the five days a prod would take, but don't be surprised if the closing admin declines that deletion as well. – iridescent 03:51, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

The Malleus Block

I was rather saddened to see the comment you left on Malleus' page that CKatz had done a bad block. Calling out an admin on their own page is one thing, but calling out an admin elsewhere is rather bad, IMHO. Also, IMHO (as an outsider) it was obviously a well-deserved incivility block that the editor is not at all apologetic for. My 2 cents ... take it as you wish. BMW(drive) 15:21, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Was this block to protect the rights, property or safety of the Wikimedia Foundation, its users or the public? Was this block to prevent a user severely disrupting the project? If the answer's no, than this was a cool-down block and completely out-of-process. If you seriously believe that the net benefit to the project of preventing someone using the word "idiot" outweighs the net loss to the project of hounding one of our most productive editors off the project, well, you're perfectly entitled to your opinion. – iridescent 15:30, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, from the links I saw in the block (and in AN/I Witiquette), it was far more than "idiot". Oh well. BMW(drive) 15:35, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

In the diffs that were given as evidence of "incivility so bad that it warranted an immediate block", I see one "dick" and three "idiots". If someone really thinks that that constitutes "persistent harassment or gross incivility", then quite frankly they should probably get out more. – iridescent 15:52, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Nevertheless, we can agree to disagree on whether the block was "deserved" or not. Fact still stands that posting on that Talk page that you, an admin, didn't like the actions of another admin truly undermines the other admin. If you do that on the admin's talk page, they at least have the authority to delete as they wish. I hate to see admins call-out other admins...it's a bit of a backstab IMHO. You guys are part of a "team", and you should support their actions in public, deal with it in other fora when you disagree. Again, my opinion. ~shrug~ BMW(drive) 16:06, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Huh. Usually editors encourage "us admins" to not act like a cabal. This is refreshing! Iridescent, I support your posts, as one admin to another. Keeper ǀ 76 16:08, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

BMW, this is not meant to sound patronising (although it will) but if you think "admins are part of a team and should support each other", you have a serious misunderstanding of the way Wikipedia operates. "Admin" on Wikipedia isn't the equivalent of a moderator on other websites; admins on Wikipedia have no special status whatsoever. Telling us we have to agree with each other is meaningless; you may as well say that all 48,247,461 Wikipedia editors should agree with each other through being part of Wikipedia. Quite frankly, if "three idiots and a dickhead" were really enough to warrant a block, we'd have no users left. – iridescent 16:17, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) "Three Idiots and a Dickhead"? I think I saw that movie, although I preferred "Look Who's Grawping" :P I never said you had to agree, just don't backstab one's fellow admin on a page they can't "fix". If I wrote "So and so writes CRAPPY newscopy, signed BWilkins" on the bathroom wall in my office, they'd fire me for trashing my colleagues so publicly. Now, if I'm in the pub after work and I quietly say it to 2 or 3 of my colleagues, they'll buy me a pint! Doing it wasn't the issue ... where to do it was, at least in my mind. BMW(drive) 16:34, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

No - sorry, but that's just plain wrong. There is no such thing as "my fellow admin" - we do not, nor are we expected to, act as a team, and my disagreeing with CKatz is no more "inappropriate" than your disagreeing with me. Head on over to WP:ANI or WP:AN and you can watch admins arguing with each other to your hearts content. – iridescent 16:42, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Yep, I watch AN/I ... it's a great place for Admin arguments (and popcorn), and probably where they should happen - not on the talk page of the blocked user themself. Again, we can agree to disagree. I hear "Look Who's Grawping 2" is on HBO :) BMW(drive) 16:56, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, Malleus's talkpage is small potatoes when it comes to arguments – aside from Epbr's usual trolling the discussion is fairly polite, even though people passionately disagree. Have a look over at User talk:Elonka or User talk:Abd for a more accurate picture of the typical level of "civilised debate" this kind of situation results in. – iridescent 17:05, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I know after alllll this time :) Adb's got more text (and reasonably intelligent) than a 7-day serial! Elonka's is ... well ... (trailing off into the sunset with that one). Malleus' becomes more and more interesting as the day goes on. BMW(drive) 17:43, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for being a voice of common sense throughout this fiasco. I'm still angry at various aspects of the block, but I'll get over it. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 20:13, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

It's not what you want to hear – but let it be a lesson to you, even if not in the way it was intended. Wikipedia's "elite" has disproportionate representation by children and the elderly, both of whose standards are different to the 20-30-something Californians who drew up the original Wikipedia policies. Giano made a very sensible comment somewhere (buried somewhere in this essay) to write everything on Wikipedia as if you were addressing a bright 14-year-old, and that generally does work fairly well. – iridescent 20:21, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll try to bear that advice in mind. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 20:42, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Abd

My feelings are probably clear enough not to have to be stated, but in fairness, you might want to drop a note on his talkpage telling him that he's been blocked. Thanks. Fritzpoll (talk) 22:11, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Was in the process of writing it; as this isn't your typical block, I didn't want to just throw a template on the talkpage. – iridescent 22:14, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Cool, I just noticed he was still tapping out messages without realising, and making sure it wasn't an oversight on your part. Apologies. Fritzpoll (talk) 22:16, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I dare say that talkpage will have doubled in size by tomorrow, unless someone unblocks him, in which case mine or Gwen's will. AGF and all that, but if ever I saw another Awbrey waiting to happen this is it. – iridescent 22:20, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

• I hope this doesn't violate Keeper's request of me, but I wanted to say thanks as well. He also made my wikilife quite miserable for several days. This definitely needed to be done. ^S._D.Jameson 22:27, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

No worries, SDJ. And, Irid, who is "awbrey". I'm at a loss. Keeper ǀ 76 22:42, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

He's the reason the state of Michigan is rangeblocked. This is a very basic primer into that can of worms. For the full "In the mouth of madness" version, take a deep breath and head over here and here – iridescent 22:52, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah. That's some nasty shit. 2006, eh? I became a wikipedian exactly one year ago, last Saturday. Aug. 9th. But thanks for the read, glad I wasn't around....Keeper ǀ 76 23:01, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Happy belated first edit day, keeps. irid, i'm sure you've seen, but Abd is asking for diffs. I'd suggest just giving him this link. –xeno (talk) 23:04, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd suggest thanking him for his request and stating that you'll respond sometime within the next few days once you've had the chance to review all the available material :) Gazimoff 23:07, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Be nice y'all. No need to give him any more diffs than necessary to "prove his case" of whatever he decides to prove. Although, Xeno's diff, the "special:contribs" one, is exactly the same diff that I posted in my very first post to Abd regarding this latest issue. Ironic. Keeper ǀ 76 23:16, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Have posted a bunch of assorted diffs (I have better things to do than wade through his history digging up every single attack he's made today).

Something tells me that this time tomorrow I'm going to be reading about my evil campaign to suppress the truth and/or that I'm a sockpuppet of Slim/FT2/Ryan (delete as appropriate) on a certain attack site. – iridescent 23:28, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Meh. You are so quite obviously Fredrick Day. Keeper ǀ 76 23:29, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

No, you're Frederick Day. I'm Fritzpoll. Do try to keep up. – iridescent 23:30, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I knew it!!!!! I could tell by your irritating British accent. (I'm convinced there are actually several million American editors, maybe 2 or 3 Aussies, and 1 british. Named Malleus, of course. Keeper ǀ 76 23:32, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

No, Malleus is actually a sockpuppet of Lara. Had you not worked that out by now? – iridescent 23:37, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Can't be true. Jenna/Love is way too cute, and Malleus' words way to ugly, for them to be the same person. Can't be true, I don't care what "toolserver" says...Keeper ǀ 76 23:39, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Yep, can't argue with that. :-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:06, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

... actually on reviewing Iridescent's evidence, I'm forced to admit that (s)he does make a good case. :-( --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Of course, I am my own sockpuppet Fritzpoll (talk) 23:40, 11 August 2008 (UTC)— Fritzpoll (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

My sympathies are entirely with the long suffering MiszaBot. Between Abd (269k) and User talk:Elonka (200k and rising by the minute) the poor thing will have a nervous breakdown when it comes time to archive them. – iridescent 00:19, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Psychic powers vindicated again

22:20 UTC: "I dare say that talkpage will have doubled in size by tomorrow, unless someone unblocks him, in which case mine or Gwen's will"
17:16 UTC: 360kb and still 5 hours to go For someone who's having his right to free speech stifled, he surely does have plenty to say. Or at least, plenty of words. – iridescent 16:47, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Would it be wrong of me to unblock with the reasoning: "To spare his talk page from being tormented with further TL;DR threads" ? –xeno (talk) 15:31, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Do as I've done and unwatchlist that talkpage. While technically I really should feel obliged to follow that "discussion", it's the Wikipedia equivalent of being stuck on a long-haul flight with someone who insists on telling you about their dreams. In my comment to Malleus here I was referring to myself, but it applies just as much to you. – iridescent 19:22, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

It's like a grotesque car crash - hard to look away. –xeno (talk) 22:49, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, now you made me look at it... zOMG TEH DRAMAZ. When Elonka is telling you your talkpage is too full of rambling arguments, something is seriously wrong somewhere.

This is not meant as an attack but as a serious comment; am I the only one who thinks this guy would be far happier at WR than here? They'd be far more forgiving of someone posting rambling screeds on "xxxxx idea is the only thing that can save Wikipedia despite my position being outnumbered 48,247,461 to one". – iridescent 22:59, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

(adding) FWIW, skimming over the latest section (life's too short to read the whole thing) I think it's probably time to unblock, as leaving him blocked makes a martyr. Either the block's served its purpose and he'll stop being disruptive and/or throwing accusations and "there's a task for me, write about it on the policy pages, which is, of course, exactly what some admins, explicitly, are trying to prevent" conspiracy theories about, or he'll carry on being disruptive and someone will "for real" indefblock him. (I wasn't aware of all the previous history that's been brought up; I didn't realise just how disruptive this guy's been). All that said, Shell Kinney is probably the fairest person here, given the experience in mediation et al, and is very good at judging when unblocks will make a situation better/worse. – iridescent 23:10, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

• I've unblocked per the talk page consensus that the block has served its purpose. –xeno (talk) 23:28, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Appropriate tone?

Not sure what people are writing above is the appropriate tone to be taking here. In fact I'm sure it is not. When you block someone indefinitely, even if they do respond in the way Abd has, joking around about it (and I do see the humour, and how it can relieve the tension) isn't really appropriate. Sorry to come over all serious, but I felt the point needed to be made. The point really comes home when the person you are talking about cannot respond here. Try and put yourself in their shoes. If you were blocked, would you want to see people joking around about it on another page? I make it a rule of thumb to try not to talk in this manner about someone who is blocked when they can't respond - it either makes them even more the centre of attention, or it should be a conversation with them, rather than other people. Carcharoth (talk) 23:12, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Yea, solid point. My apologies irid, for bringing the situation up here. –xeno (talk) 23:18, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Yes and no. The closest things I can see to a personal attack in any of my posts on this page are "rambling screeds" and "conspiracy theories", and I don't think anyone, including Abd himself, would disagree with either of those – he may believe that the conspiracies exist and I don't, but I think all concerned would agree that the conspiracy theory exists. Other than that, in all honesty I have little sympathy. Myself and Fritzpoll (who are, after all, the two users this started as a discussion between) have just spent three days (including prior to the block) under a barrage of sustained abuse, baseless accusations of abusive sockpuppetry (in the case of Fritzpoll) and threats of everything from RFAR to demanding a desysopping (in the case of me). This is not a case of "but he started it so I can be as rude as him"; I can't see anything particularly uncivil in the above thread. I do not consider Abd as an editor like Giano, Vintagekits etc who has "earned" the right to the occasional piece of possible disruption/controversy without being blocked through a string of valid edits – having now been shown diffs of his earlier history, the evidence seems stronger than before that he appears to be a disruptive SPA whose mainspace history consists almost entirely of edits to pages in which he has a direct COI. As I have said, here and elsewhere, I am thoroughly fed up with this whole saga and the way it has stretched out, and if it hasn't already happened, I think if Fritzpoll has no objection he should probably be unblocked, unless something else has come to light. I see that what I ec'd with was the notification of the unblock... I stand 100% by what I say to Xeno above; while I won't block him again (unless I see him doing something incontrovertibly wrong), whatever he may claim this was not an abusive block, and I've no doubt that if his behaviour continues as it did before someone else will find themselves having this same conversation in a couple of months. – iridescent 23:34, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully not exactly the same conversation (think of the poor electrons!), but yes, hopefully everyone can move on now. Hmm, looking at my "electrons" comment, I see I can be as flippant as everyone else! Carcharoth (talk) 23:55, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

A Note

note - this thread merged from a separate thread to keep the discussions on this topic together – iridescent
Keeper76, Jehochman, myself and others have given advice to Abd on how to change his actions, move on, and overcome the block. If you have any insights, or would like to discuss the matter, please feel free to provide whatever you can. I do not think I can continue looking into this situation too much longer, as its giving me far too much stress to really keep up with it all. I'm not sure what else to say, but thank you for your time. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:22, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I am sick to death with this whole saga and have unwatchlisted his talkpage, as I have long since ceased to find anything interesting in "There are others who understand my agenda, my plans, and they'll do it when the time is right, it does not depend on me, and those who think that blocking me would hinder it are mistaken" style ramblings. I've made my position clear; I won't support or oppose any decision, whether it's to unblock or block, but I'm not wasting time I could profitably spend doing something useful, reading 20kb rants from an SPA. – iridescent21:43, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

It is unfortunate that you are put into such a position. I understand exactlyhow you feel right now. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:52, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Re: please stop

Can you please explain in what way they fail to meet criteria? Also please see another admin's request for the user who have created the articles in question to stop creating them here. Sorry, but I honestly believed they were OK to speedy because of the lack of context (CSD-A1, and failure to asses the notability of the subject (CSD-A7)). I should probably only have nominated a few first. Sorry again. --aktsu ^(t / c) 14:07, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Just noticed the box on top of this page. We can take it on my userpage. I'll copy my response there. --aktsu ^(t / c) 14:13, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

User:21st Century Fox

Hi Irid, I was a bit reluctant to disturb the editor if I was barking up the wrong tree, is this user name appropriate? — Realist² 21:03, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd say yes, as it's not the name of the studio, and I think it's a play on "foxy" rather than a spammer. Whether it's an indefblocked sockpuppeteer (see talk page) is another issue entirely. Keep an eye on the contribs. – iridescent 21:09, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Changing my mind looking at the user's contrib history as they're editing nothing but News International related articles. Yes, send it to UAA. – iridescent 21:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, will do, I've never done it before so it's good practice for me. — Realist² 21:14, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, done, should I notify the editor of my report? — Realist² 21:20, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Do you know, I'm not sure... I'd say no; if it's decided that it's a valid name, it saves upsetting the user by telling them they might have done something wrong. – iridescent 21:23, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, will leave it. Cheers for help. — Realist² 21:25, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pappi Ndelu

Since this article was AfD'd an IP, presumably the author, has been working very hard on it (over 50 edits) and there is more content and a string of references. I have been through all his references and still don't think he has demonstrated notability, but it's certainly nearer: I have commented at the AfD and thought it only fair to invite those who have !voted to take another look. JohnCD (talk) 15:20, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Deletion tag

The guy who created the article was apparently blocked indef by the way, not sure your going to see much improvement. — Realist² 22:26, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

No – but as he was one of the driving forces behind the entirely necessary and not in the least spammy trivia-farm that is WikiProject Seduction, I don't want to be accused of yet another vendetta so am giving it every possible chance. (See User talk:Abd for exactly why I am fed up with being ranted at at this moment). – iridescent 22:31, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Chin up Iridescent, it's only a web site. ;-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:35, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

See the thread above this. There comes a time to unwatch any talkpage and that came for me some time ago. I somehow suspect that I'll find out about any RFC, RFAR, WQA or any other ALLCAPS he cares to file soon enough. – iridescent 22:40, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Template

I have just created a more extensive template called Template:Jackson family. Could you delete Template:Jackson siblings and I will go around and replace it with the improved version? — Realist² 22:17, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes but can I please ask you to fix these articles first and get back to me when they're done; otherwise, they'll temporarily have a redlink at the bottom which someone will then try to fix in good faith... – iridescent 22:20, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Gone. – iridescent 22:39, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Cheers irid. — Realist² 22:43, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

No problem... FWIW I think the new one makes far more sense. Anyone interested on one of the family (with the possible exception of Michael & Janet) is likely interested in the others. – iridescent 22:44, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Agree, besides the parents are more famous than some of their children, it just seems odd to only have a template for those 9 kids. — Realist² 22:47, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Made another template Template:The Jackson 5 singles. About time too! — Realist² 08:04, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

You might be interested in a little situation that is occurring at Off the Wall (album) and might escalate. An editor ,"Dan56", has started working on the album, for the most part making improvement to it. Unfortunately he's a silent editor, never leaves edit summaries and blanks his talk page without reply, civility issues (he can communicate in English). Although he is making improvements he is also making a lot of mistakes, using unreliable sources, talking about unnecessary info, making huge changes to the article in a single edit (without describing it) etc etc. As I would like to get the article to GA, he is a bit of a mixed blessing and ignores advise. There isn't really much you can do, but just watch listing the article or something with be a great reassurance to me, I don't want to lose my cool. — Realist² 14:10, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

←I'll watch it but you're undoubtedly better place than me to judge what is and isn't valid. If he's adding unsourced and inaccurate information, add {{uw-unsor1}} (2, 3) templates to his talkpage and if it still carries on after three warnings, he can be advised that anything more will be considered vandalism, given a final warning,and if necessary blocked. – iridescent 14:15, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Cheers, I would rather work with him than see him blocked as he is generally a net gain. — Realist² 14:22, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, he reverted all the clean up work and fact tagging I did, going back to his badly sourced version, again no edit summaries. I sent him a tag warning. — Realist² 00:30, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I will assume this was meant in good faith and wasn't meant as a retaliation. — Realist² 01:05, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

You might want to get some of the WP:WPMU regulars to have a look at this and offer outside views. MJ is a high profile enough subject that inaccuracies on it are potentially serious; I don't know the sources or the history well enough to know who's right. – iridescent 13:43, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity

Did I accidentally recreate Walker griffin by tagging it for speedy? Somehow I was warned for it by... myself. -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 00:44, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this happens when it is deleted between the time you clicked delete and the software/script leaves the template. –xeno (talk) 00:49, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

The moral of this story is: Huggle Is Buggy (it is still a beta version). If Gurch is still watching this page you may find the problem mysteriously solved. – iridescent 00:50, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joe Andrew (footballer)

In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joe Andrew (footballer) you commented that "WP:ATHLETE doesn't apply to football & cricket, per very very lengthy discussions". I'm not familiar with such discussions, and in similiar AfDs, such articles are invariably deleted, despite my protestations. Can you expand on your thoughts? Nfitz (talk) 03:59, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

The normal WP:ATHLETE provisions (and it sometimes has to be hammered home to assorted Defenders of the Wiki that WP:ATHLETE is a style guideline, not a set-in-stone policy) were written with America in mind, and aren't particularly relevant to Europe where sports have an entirely different structure. W. G. Grace only just scrapes past WP:ATHLETE thanks to the 24 Test appearances, and there are numerous significant football internationals who've never played in a fully professional league, but are themselves pros so don't qualify under the "highest level of amateur sports" proviso.

The cricket guidelines are "has appeared in at least one major cricket match since 1697 as a player or umpire, or has appeared in at least one ICC Trophy match since 2005, or in an ICC Trophy final prior to 2005, as a player or umpire" (the full definition is here). The discussions will be buried in the talkpages of WikiProject Cricket somewhere. Football's slightly different as nobody's ever managed to get a full consensus. WP:FOOTYN is an essay, not a policy, but has reasonably strong support; the full long-rambling-discussion is here. The general consensus for a long time has been "played in a cup tie between two professional clubs, in a professional league or as an international" for players, and "has at some point been in the top 10 tiers of the pyramid" for English teams. If you post at WT:WPF someone will explain it better than I can. – iridescent 13:27, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for reverting the vandalism on my page today (one of two vandalous edits to it today - I've protected it in the hope it'll discourage any more). Grutness...wha? 04:11, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

AN/I thread on User:The High Commander

Since you have had some interactions with this user, perhaps you would care to comment in this thread Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:The High Commander. Nsk92 (talk) 14:15, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll excuse myself from this one. My comment on his inappropriate remarks about Jeff was already mentioned, and I haven't time to got through the rest of his contribs today. – iridescent 15:38, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

August Metro

Simply south (talk) 19:26, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I took that photo! I'm, like, famous and stuff. Have I really written more than 50% of the GAs on London Transport? I'm not sure whether that's flattering or depressing. – iridescent 19:34, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Erm, the August Image hasn't been chosen yet. Simply south (talk) 20:04, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

This is the one I'm currently seeing. (The next one had better be those statues, or David will never let you hear the end of it!) – iridescent 20:10, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I've no objections for the statues, which may go up at this very very very very very very very very very very very very very maybe i overdid that very late stage, hopefully nothing will occur like that image implies. Simply south (talk) 20:57, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism of Tropical Storm Fay (2008)?

I don't understand this edit. The user's edits appear to be in good faith and I am struggling to understand why you have accused him of vandalism. Plasticup ^T/C 22:35, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

See your talkpage. – iridescent 22:37, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Wipipedia template

? It appears to be a template to advertise another wiki, and was nominated as such by User:UnitedStatesian. Do we actually import articles from there? --Orange Mike | Talk 21:14, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes - in large numbers, which I'm now busy rolling back User:UnitedStatesian's overenthusiastic template-removals from. – iridescent 21:15, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

North State Symphony

Could you restore this article for the reasons given at:User_talk:Collectonian#North_State_Symphony? I had nominated that article for DYK, and I am a little frustrated about its hasty deletion. Thank you. Be well, Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 16:50, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid not. That article was a blatant copyright violation; having checked the deleted version against the site from which it was taken it's virtually a verbatim copyvio; the only differences are trivial, such as replacing "The musicians of the orchestra include professionals from a wide geographic area, and community members as well as students and faculty members of California State University, Chico" with "The musicians include professionals from a wide geographic area, members of the local community as well as students and faculty members of California State University, Chico." If you can write a valid version of the article, feel free to upload it – it wasn't deleted on grounds of notability – but we can't accept copyright violations. In all honesty, the article as it stood would likely have been {{prod}} deleted on grounds of notability, even were I to undelete it. – iridescent 17:02, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much, as I noticed that you moderated your phraseology. Could you please also reconsider the phrase "blatant copyright violation" as it was not. The law protects verbatim phraseology. The copyright does not protect the idea, or any other formulation with the same truth value. Minor changes suffice to completely eliminate the copyright protection. If that was not the case, no one would report any facts any more. This is an objective standard. We can all see and agree unanimously as to the facts of a case of plagiarism because it is objective. There are an infinite number of formulations of the original text which express the same idea. The formulation I supplied was a different formulation from the original. When you in your belief and action deleted the article, you are inserting a subjective standard. Furthermore, the text was accompanied by a citation of the source. Please be careful with people's reputations. Be well, Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 18:52, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

No. That was not a matter of rephrasing; that was, aside from perhaps half a dozen words, a blatant and verbatim copyright violation. Plenty of other people with the ability to view deleted revisions are watching this page; they're more than welcome to compare the version I deleted and the source and let me know if they think I'm being unfair here. – iridescent 18:57, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me as long as one of them is a copyright attorney who can say so authoritatively. I'm done with the whole affair. Perhaps you could do some research on the North State Symphony yourself. Be well, Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 19:02, 20 August 2008 (UTC)