User talk:Noahveil/Archive 1

March 2008

Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia. However, please do not add promotional material to articles, as you did to Lee Strasberg. Advertising and using Wikipedia as a "soapbox" is strongly discouraged. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about Wikipedia. Thank you. Please stop adding links to your personal website. See WP:EL. Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 15:45, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Noahveil (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

Request reason:

Promotional material? What are you talking about? I'm not promoting anything. I actually studied with Lee Strasberg. If you don't find my description of my personal experience of working with him to be interesting or you don't like my writing, fine, say so, but don't say I'm advertising anything. And why exactly is this an excuse for taking down dozens of other links that have been up for years?

Decline reason:

Block has already expired. Stwalkerster [ talk ] 09:37, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

Noahveil (talk) 05:40, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can you explain this edit and edit summary?

You made an edit to Sweeney Todd, where the edit summary states it is an undo of an earlier edit by 71.102.70.171 (talk · contribs). It is not. In fact, you have re-added the same link that 71.102.70.171 (talk · contribs) added here, which is to a blog (www.dareland.com) that you have repeatedly added to WP. Can you please explain this? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:11, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You have been temporarily blocked from editing in accordance with Wikipedia's blocking policy for continuing to add spam links. If you wish to make useful contributions, you are welcome to come back after the block expires. Persistent spammers will have their websites blacklisted from Wikipedia. If you believe this block is unjustified, you may contest the block by adding the text {{unblock|your reason here}} below.

_GB^T/C 16:27, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Noahveil (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

Request reason:

Every link on wikipedia to my site at dareland.com has been removed and I've been banned as an editor. The claim is that I am a spammer because I've only posted links to my site, links that have been up for years, often to other sites. I believe this ban makes no sense. Thanks for this opportunity to defend myself.

I wrote the liner notes for several movies on the Criterion Label that are now out of print, including Midnight Cowboy, Five Easy Pieces, and sex, lies, and videotape. You haven't taken down the link to my liner notes to The Harder they Come, not because they're any more valid than the rest of my writing, but because the link is to the Criterion site instead of the exact same article on MY site, which you would have taken down. How are my liner notes to The Harder they Come any less valid than my liner notes to Midnight Cowboy, Five Easy Pieces, and sex, lies, and videotape, which you DID take down, simply because the link was to my site instead of Criterion (they're out of print so they no longer have them up).

I've written thousands of articles in more than 25 years of professional journalism, instead of rewriting the articles on wikipedia I simply provided links to my interviews, and now you're punishing me simply because I gathered them all in one place. To blanketly condemn everything on my site is unfair to me and your readers. You're not removing the links because of any problem with the actual content, no readers have ever complained, but simply because I'm the one who provided the link. If Joe Shlabotnik posts a link to my interview with James Cameron on the LA Weekly site, that's cool, but if I provide a link to the exact same article on my site, that's spam?

Yeah, it's self interest to a certain extent. All writers want readers. But that's not all it is. It's an interview with the director of a movie that someone has gone to all the bother of looking up in wikipedia. Why deny them what could be the actual information they're looking for? Similarly, you've removed links to my interviews with Tracey Ullman, Jonathan Demme, Neil Jordan, John Waters, Godfrey Reggio, Dean Stockwell, Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson, Russ Meyer, Michael Nesmith, and numerous others. People didn't click on those links because of ME but because of the information in the article about the person whose page they were visiting.

My site is completely non-commercial. I'm not selling anything. If the links were to the place they were originally published, the LA Weekly or Movieline or Billboard or Daily Variety, they'd still be up, but because I gathered all my material in one place, the links are taken down. This makes absolutely no sense and is actually insulting. You're saying my work is somehow now invalid for no other reason than I'm the one who told you about it.

Believe me, I understand the policy of discouraging people linking to themselves, but it seems to me you've got to take it on a case by case basis and actually look at the material to determine whether the link provides information of value to the reader. In my case, I say it does, and respectfully request reevaluation.

Decline reason:

All this account has done is to repeatedly, and against prior warnings, add links to a website of questionable utility and reliability. That you were clearly warned to stop and did not shows that you have no desire to stop adding these links. The above two unblock requests also shows that you have no desire to stop adding these links. I see no reason to unblock. — Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:05, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Noahveil (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

Request reason:

I received no prior warnings so this is my first chance to respond to these charges. Where was I "clearly warned to stop"? Most of the links you took down have been up for more than five years. Please explain why pieces that were originally printed in the LA Times, the LA Weekly, the LA Free Press, Billboard, Movieline, Daily Variety, New Times, and Interview magazines are suddenly "of questionable utility and reliability." In many cases, since I've been able to update them, the postings to my site are actually MORE reliable than the original published articles. In one case, an article by me that's online at the LA Times left out all the graphics from the print edition, graphics that are in the article at my site, graphics that are integral to the piece, yet you would accept the link to the inferior version at the Times instead of the one to me? Why? If the Times believes me, why don't you?

This policy makes no sense. I don't believe you've actually looked at the articles. My liner notes to the laserdisc of Five Easy Pieces are just as valid now as the day Criterion printed them, full of information about the film you can't find anywhere else. The link has been up at Wikipedia for almost 10 years. For you to drop the link to the article now just because Criterion dropped Five Easy Pieces from their catalogue, making the article only available on my site instead of theirs, makes no sense at all.

Would you prefer it if I just edited the articles themselves instead of providing links to my site? I haven't done that because in many cases the only authority I can quote is myself, including things Timothy Leary and Steven Spielberg and Robert Altman and Ted Turner personally told me face to face, things that weren't in the published versions of my articles about them. Rather than open up that kettle of worms, I've deliberately NOT inserted myself into the actual articles on Wikipedia, preferring to just put links at the bottom. On my site are pictures of the interview subjects taken by me which you may accept as proof I actually met them. You left up my photo of Godfrey Reggio but took down the link to the interview that accompanied it, an interview that's been reproduced all over the internet, probably the definitive interview with him. The version on my site is the only one with all the photos but you took it down.

Okay if I post links to the exact same article posted somewhere else?

Decline reason:

block has already expired. Black Kite 08:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

Copyright issues

I hope you are aware that we have to be extra-vigilant here about copyright violations, including links to copyright-violating sites? If you're like most freelancers (myself included) you may not have retained the copyright to the articles archived at the dareland site, and may not be legally allowed to reproduce them. (I hate it, but it's a fact.) The usual solution in a situation where the lawfully-accessible site has shrunk or deleted your material, is simply to cite to the original publication place and date. There is no rule on Wikipedia that citations have to have an Internet link in order to be verifiable or accepted as reliable sources! --Orange Mike | Talk 14:56, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for bringing that up. I do, in fact, have the rights to re-publish my old material from every publisher I've worked with, and some I've actually sold to multiple publications. In other cases, I self-published the material on my website before a print publication paid me to re-print it, and they never asked me to take down the original.

For me, the key phrase is on the "Wikipedia: No original research" page, which states "Any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by a reliable source." Nobody has challenged any of the facts in the material I linked to nor is it likely to be challenged. In my case, the issue isn't the actual content of the articles at all. The older links weren't taken down because someone complained they were inappropriate or challenged their authenticity, they were taken down by an overzealous editor who presumed that because two links were bad, the rest must be bad too.

This whole thing started with the removal of two links, one to an article about Sweeney Todd, the other to an article about Lee Strasberg. Since those articles were self-published, I now realize they were inappropriate and have no quarrel with their removal.

The problem is you threw out the baby with the bathwater, removing every single link to my site, links that weren't self-published, that have been there for many years, that nobody has challenged or is likely to challenge. Isn't there a mechanism whereby they can be put back legitimately? I don't want to ruffle any feathers by reposting them.

Noahveil (talk) 21:26, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cite the original appearance of the article, in the standard format for a cite to a non-web publication. There is no, I repeat no, requirement that a citation be to an Internet-available source. If the article isn't on a website that looks less spammy than your own, then just cite it as text. We have a continuous problem with people who create links on Wikipedia to their own websites in hopes of building up traffic; so any perceived pattern of driving traffic to your own website will be looked upon with a jaundiced eye. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:30, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

spam

Re: Your proposal on John Waters link. No. It's a fan article with a couple "quotations", a trivia contest replete with errors, and spam. Mike P (talk) 20:16, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Image:Arquettelewis1.jpg

hi did you take this pic?Genisock2 (talk) 10:40, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

thankyou for letting me know.Genisock2 (talk) 15:35, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whole bunch of pictures

Wikipedia has not problems with people uploading their own pics (heh we have people with 100s of uploads of their own pics).Genisock2 (talk) 16:28, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Spam - April 2008

Hi,
You've already been blocked for adding tons of links to your site. Please stop!
/ Raven in Orbit (talk) 16:54, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply from Quiddity

Hi. I spent a while yesterday looking through the history of your interactions here, and through your website. I am dismayed by the reception you've been given here (but not surprised, because I've seen it elsewhere, all too often). We do have a known problem, of driving away eager contributors by getting mad at them for violating the various rules. There are thousands of volunteers here, all with their own interpretations of the Conflicting Wikipedia philosophies, and opinions on how to interpret the spirit of our assorted policies and guidelines. A few, have more enthusiasm than etiquette ;)

The advice you should have been given, is how to cite your articles properly.

What the extreme exclusionists would prefer you to do, and the best way to ensure retention of material, is probably the following:

Go slow. The fastest way to irritate an exclusionist, is to be really efficient at adding external links (no matter how useful they may be). Adding 1 or 2 a day, at most, would be good.
On the talkpage of each article, create a new section that states you have a conflict of interest as the author, and then suggest the link. Keep it really short - see this edit for example (which I was obliged to do because of the "Everyone's going to die!" warning in the external links section. That's what happens at articles with persistent commercial-link-addition problems ;)
Give them the link as a citation of the original publication location. Example below, using one of the Wikipedia:Citation templates with the blanks filled in:

Dare, Michael (2001). "How to Write Like Tom Robbins". The Spirit of Writing. Tarcher. ISBN 1585421278. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); External link in |chapter= (help)

Alternatively, you might try a link to your own copy as a suffix:

Dare, Michael (2001). "How to Write Like Tom Robbins". The Spirit of Writing. Tarcher. ISBN 1585421278. (author's online copy)

That should be sufficient, for a basic link, from one of the endmatter sections.

Even better though, would be to suggest a sentence for inclusion within the article's body, that your citation would be the ref link for. (In this case, something short about his writing habits should be easy enough :)

Anyway, that's more than enough from me for now. I'm going to go do some more reading, and checking, and poking at grumpy editors, and might add an addendum later. I'll try to go through your previous additions sometime tomorrow, and will see what I can easily re-add. Let me know if you have any other specific questions (but give me 24 hours to check my own advice first, and see what angles I haven't addressed ;)

And again, I'm sorry about the unwarranted negativity that has been directed here for the last 2 weeks. Thanks for your good intentions and contributions! -- Quiddity (talk) 01:00, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of addendum notes:

Please see my discussion with the original blocking admin, at User talk:Gb#Blocking after 1 warning and User talk:Quiddity#User:Noahveil. (Please don't get involved, just read it for context).

Re: your discussion with Raven in Orbit, I will point out that User:Irishguy is an admin, and appears to have retired from activity here purely because someone else was trying to unmask his real-life identity. We take the right-to-anonymity very seriously here, so I will emphasize that he was in no way discredited for his editing or admin actions. (I understand how you could feel victimized by all this, and desire to find a culprit. Rest assured that Irishguy was almost certainly acting in good faith, from his own perspective).

[Almost all the problems I encounter here at Wikipedia, are a result of the conflict between m:immediatism and m:eventualism. Wikipedia was started and is grown by eventualists, but is cleaned and checked and maintained mostly by eager immediatists. Currently. I think.]

Some of the links you added very early on were non-helpful (eg), and the edits in February 2007 were all labeled minor (m) but weren't minor changes. That explains a small part of the hostility from other editors, if they had only glanced at your contributions.

I'm incredibly sore from too much badminton yesterday, so I'll be waiting another day or two, before I do anything more ;)

Thanks again for your patience. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:26, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking of possible reasons for hostility from other editors, is this a good time to bring up the unanswered question I raised above about a misleading edit summary? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:22, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is not a good time to quiz a new editor about his earlier attempts to understand how we work here, no. That is pointlessly hostile. Please read my discussion with the admin Gb at User talk:Gb#Blocking after 1 warning. Your AIV report labeled Noahveil as a "vandalism only account" which was unnecessarily hyperbolic and quite misleading - "Blog linkspammer" is a bit more accurate, but still not very helpful. This is biting the newcomers - he may have been editing here for years, but until you warned him, noone had interacted with him since 2005. Please, try to set a better example of friendliness. Thank you. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:44, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I reported the user using Twinkle, and ticked what seemed like the appropriate box at the time. Other editors and admins seemed to have formed a similar impression of his activities, so I think I can be forgiven if it was a mistaken impression based on the limited knowledge I had at the time. I think you and I may differ on whether civility implies friendliness, and on what constitutes "an attempt to understand", but that's a different discussion. Please carry on doing what you were doing before I rudely interrupted. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 01:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Images

Image:Hotelhollywood.jpg missing description details

Dear uploader: The media file you uploaded as Image:Hotelhollywood.jpg is missing a description and/or other details on its image description page. If possible, please add this information. This will help other editors to make better use of the image, and it will be more informative for readers. If you have any questions please see Help:Image page. Thank you. Geniac (talk) 15:33, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unspecified source for Image:Hotelhollywood.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Hotelhollywood.jpg. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, then you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, then a link to the website from which it was taken, together with a restatement of that website's terms of use of its content, is usually sufficient information. However, if the copyright holder is different from the website's publisher, then their copyright should also be acknowledged. As well as adding the source, please add a proper copyright licensing tag if the file doesn't have one already. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then the {{GFDL-self}} tag can be used to release it under the GFDL. If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Fair use, use a tag such as {{non-free fair use in|article name}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:Image copyright tags#Fair use. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their source and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If the image is copyrighted under a non-free license (per Wikipedia:Fair use) then the image will be deleted 48 hours after 16:01, 15 April 2008 (UTC). If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. MECU≈talk 16:01, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Advice from Quiddity

Hi. I'm not familiar with our byzantine image requirements, so I can't help much here. However, I do know that Commons: is the best place to upload images, if you're using a free licence (public domain or Creative Commons). Also, images at Commons can automatically be used in any of the other languages/projects (eg the German Wikipedia, English Wikiversity, etc etc). Also, at Wikipedia we delete images if they aren't being used in any articles, but Commons is happy to accept large collections even if they aren't immediately utilized somewhere. This looks like the best helppage there: Commons:Contributing your own work

Watermarks are indeed discouraged, see Commons:Watermarks#Signatures and photographer names. Your images are unlikely to be used if they contain them.

Hope that helps. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:25, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lewis Arquette image

I've reverted your addition of an image to Lewis Arquette because it included the superimposed text "Polaroid by Michael Dare". Perhaps you can upload a version without the branding and use that instead? Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 15:51, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Re: this edit by you, and your queries at User talk:Delicious carbuncle, it would appear that you have enabled "Twinkle", which is why all those (rollback) (vandalism) links have been added after every diff in your contributions list. To disable it (which I strongly recommend, it's only meant for "power-users" who are doing rapid vandalism-reversion) go to Special:Preferences and the "Gadgets" tab, and unselect Twinkle. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:59, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]