User talk:Omegatron/Archive/August, 2007

Reverting my revert of a Tor exit node

In this change here you reverted my revert. The revert I did was done because the change was made by a known Tor exit node IP. You may not be aware but any edits by known Tor exit nodes are not allowed on Wikipedia and can be reverted without breaking WP:3RR. In future you may find this list of Tor exit node IPs helpful. Also based on previous experience I suspect the IP is another one of Sarenne's anonymous edits, you may be aware that Sarenne is banned from editing, hence any anonymous edits by Sarenne are also allowed to be reverted without breaking WP:3RR. Lastly, your change does not have broad consensus, as demonstrated by the three different editors who have reverted the text. Fnagaton 18:17, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

• I'm well aware that Sarenne is blocked. I tried to block him myself.
• Just because an edit is from a Tor node doesn't mean it should automatically be reverted, though. Only if it is a bad edit. If there is a policy that demands that all such edits be reverted, please show it to me.

WP:NOP "Users are prohibited from editing Wikimedia projects through open or anonymous proxies." and "Open proxies are banned from editing Wikimedia projects." Note the word ban, this is important because here it says "Any edits made in defiance of a ban may be reverted to enforce the ban, regardless of the merits of the edits themselves. As the banned user is not authorized to make those edits, there is no need to discuss them prior to reversion. Users are generally expected to refrain from reinstating any edits made by banned users." Those two policies therefore mean that I am correct in reverting those edits and that you are not correct to reinstate the edit by the known Tor exit node. Fnagaton 10:43, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

• You're probably right that these are his edits, so I've semi-protected the page.
• Your edits to the page are disruptive, however. Please revert to the version that represents consensus. — Omegatron 00:08, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Again you are wrong on two counts. My edits are made to revert the bad edits made by the open proxy (Sarenne's efits) and the bad edits by you that do not have consensus. I did actually revert to the version that has consensus, the fact is you don't agree but you are in the minority. Your edits are disruptive, not mine, the proof of that is not only me telling you that you are wrong but the majority of everybody else on the talk page. Do not push your point of view by repeating those disruptive edits on the project page. Your edits are disruptive because you made a change here without consultation and rightly so it was reverted. Then the Tor exit node reverts the edit. I then revert the banned user here. You then revert my revert of the Tor exit node to place back the text that you added in the first place, that is revert warring and is disruptive. All of my edits are made to revert the open proxy edits. You still owe me an apology for your misrepresentation, here and on WT:MOSNUM. I also think your actions demonstrate you should stop making changes related to binary prefixes on all project pages for at least a week until you cool down. This is because your changes are meeting with a lot of editors who disagree with them and you should step back to actually think about your actions. Fnagaton 10:43, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

So you could make an edit you didn't like from a Tor exit node and then revert it from your regular account, and I would automatically be in the wrong for reverting you, no matter what the merits of the edit?

Sorry, but that's not how it works, even if it says so in some policy.

You're wrong because you seem to have missed the bit where it says anonymous proxy users are banned so that is how it works. You were adding back your text that was already previously reverted, you are edit warring. Fnagaton 16:58, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Please show me some edits of mine on articles related to binary prefixes that were wrong or biased, so that I may consider taking a break from them. — Omegatron 15:57, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I already have done in the links above. Fnagaton 16:58, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

You're wrong because you seem to have missed the bit where it says anonymous proxy users are banned so that is how it works.

Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. If it was, you could make good edits from a Tor node yourself, revert them with your user account, and claim that the rules prevent anyone else from changing back to the good version. But the most important rules are WP:ENC and WP:IAR. If it hurts the encyclopedia, it's bad. If it helps, it's good. All the other rules are just clarifications of this principle.

You were adding back your text that was already previously reverted, you are edit warring.

Yes, I reverted to my version of the previous consensus once. You created a new version without consensus and then reverted to it how many times?

Again you are missing the point. The point is you were edit warring to replace your text you knew had already been reverted and you reverted an edit of a Tor exit node. Fnagaton 17:25, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

You created a new version without consensus and then reverted to it how many times? — Omegatron 17:31, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

That is not true, I demand you retract your lie immediately. Fnagaton 17:34, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I already have done in the links above.

Please show me, in a list, below this comment, some edits of mine on articles related to binary prefixes that were wrong, disruptive, or biased, so that I may consider taking a break from them. — Omegatron 17:11, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

• Binary prefix
• Binary prefix
• Binary prefix
• WP:MOSNUM
• WP:MOSNUM

The fact is your edits have been consistently reverted in whoe or in part and you keep on trying to put them back. Fnagaton 17:37, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Looks like pretty normal editing to me. If you think I'm being disruptive, please file a Requests for comment about me. — Omegatron 18:11, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

You would say that, but the fact is the majority of others have disagreed with your actions and I have already shown this in the links provided above. Fnagaton 19:27, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

If you think I'm being disruptive or acting inappropriately, please file a Requests for comment about me. — Omegatron 20:05, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I will do if you continue to make those disruptive edits in WP:MOSNUM or continue to misrepresent what I write on other people's talk pages. That's why I gave you the chace of not editing for a while and to consider your actions. Fnagaton 20:43, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposed list of aims for the Microformats Project

Please see this discussion of a proposed list of aims for the Microformats Project. Andy Mabbett 22:03, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Bit rates

If you wish to merge them in a different fashion than I did, please proceed. >Radiant< 15:26, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

POV in HDD Capacity Section

On 3 Jun u undid, thereby adding POV, to the Hard Disk Drive#Capacity measurements section. This section appears factual and unbiased to me, and based upon yr previous statements I would have expected u to agree. So would u mind saying why u think it is POV (or at least point me to yr discussion about this section - please, not the overly long an way too many discussions about binary prefixes)? Tom94022 16:24, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I discussed it here:

• Talk:Hard_disk_drive#Bias_in_measurements
• User_talk:Centrx#Hard_drives

There's no reason to even mention IEC prefixes, is there? — Omegatron 23:30, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Posting styles

Are you going to comment on Posting styles or shall I re-revert you revertion?

I can understand that you might be busy, I just want to know if you are going to answer my questions. -- Felipec 19:52, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Not from being too busy; I saw your comments and stopped caring. Go ahead and fill our encyclopedia up with dumb newsgroup sigs. It'll fit in perfectly with our "Trivia" and "In popular culture" sections. — Omegatron 23:28, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I understand your concern, but that's the way things are: you cannot talk about posting styles without hearing about this "popular" argument. I share that concern with the TOFU joke. To me it's funny, but I wonder if it is notable enough to be included. -- Felipec 12:53, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I would say neither belong. — Omegatron 23:40, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

re: Brown's Gas

I apologize if my comments might have seemed a little contradictory, let me try and clarify. I do believe that there is a high possibility of a neutral article documenting the (largely pseudoscientific) phenomenon, as it has appeared in the news and clearly is notable. However the article as presented in the AfD was not acceptable. I double checked some of the changes you have since made, and it is quite an improvement, and I may have to reconsider my recommendation. But again, to clarify, my comments were to be taken as recommending deletion of the article as shown, while supporting the notion that a proper article could likely be written. Arkyan &#149; ^(talk) 17:37, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

• I know that. Please see my updated comments on the deletion discussion. Arkyan &#149; ^(talk) 17:44, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

The article has been disputed between promoters and debunkers, but the promoters seem to be winning, in the editing wars. As I said in the AFD, NPOV in an article about pseudoscience does not mean 50% pseudoscience claims and spamlinks about patents and TV news programs promoting the claims, then 50% some basic science refuting it. The net result is too much of a promotion. I have not been an active editor of the article, because my chemistry is way weaker than my electrical background, but those editing the article do not seem to have been able to effectively enough knock down the use of the article to promote dubious claims. It is left up in the air, as Mr X says he has developed a wonderful new product with miraculous properties which cannot be explained by the accepted rules of science and then a balancng section which says "Some scientists disagree with Mr X." The reader could reasonably conclude, "Well, it surely looks like there may be something to Mr X's new invention. I'd better go buy some stock in the company." I would like to see nothing more than a paragraph in the Oxyhydrogen article which mentions the claim and debunks it. The article does not adequately discuss the loss of energy in using electricity to break down water into the two gases, although it is in a reference. I pulled out an old high school chemistry book to review the process of electrolysis of water. In "Modern Chemistry'"by Dull et all (appropropriately named) 1962 p 129-130 they note that Langmuier found hydrogen molecules can be broken into atoms by an electric arc, breaking down the strongest covalent bond, so that when the monatomic hydrogen is burned with oxygen a 4000C flame can be achieved. On p 130 is the "atomic hydrogen torch." The claims of HHO and Brown's gas sound like some claims are being made for such forms, but reliable published articles seem to be lacking. Articles by the promoters of the claims are less convincing than would be independent article in refereed journals. Edison 17:46, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the main promoter has been driven off. The only people contributing to the article right now are skeptics and one pseudoskeptic who keeps adding crap like "Some scientists disagree with Mr X."

Neutrality means leaving it up in the air until reliable facts can be added. But we need real, reliable refutations, not weasel words. We'll get it done if he stops interfering and nominating it for deletion.

If you agree that the article needs work, but is about a notable subject, then you shouldn't be trying to delete it. It will just be resurrected again by the crackpots someday and we'll have to start all over again from scratch.

"Repeated re-creation of an article by previously unassociated editors may be evidence of a need for an article, but repeated nominations for deletion are not necessarily evidence that an article should be deleted" — Omegatron 17:58, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Then make the article state it is a hoax and use reputable sources. Unfortunately there are no non-promotional sources therefore any article will fail WP:RS, WP:NOR and WP:SPAM.Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 18:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

By what logic? You're the one adding empty, factually incorrect criticism with absolutely no sources whatsoever.

Again, if you're not going to contribute constructively, go find another article to work on. We'll do fine without you. — Omegatron 22:56, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi - problem is that, every time an article is created, it's vandalised to claim that it's a legitimate scientific theory. There's only two answers to this (1) don't have an article (2) create an NPOV article and protect it. To be honest, (1) looks like a better bet to me. The alternative, that I'd go for, is to salt HHO gas, and have an article called something like HHO gas controversy ... what do you think? EliminatorJR ^Talk 18:08, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

When articles are repeatedly recreated by different people, it means that there is a need for an article. That the article is currently in a bad state does not mean that it should be deleted. Deletion is not the answer, and protection is not the answer. HHO gas controversy is also a bad idea.

Just keep the article and fix it up, like any other controversial article (and there are a lot worse and more insanely disputed articles than this). Do we delete Palestine just because people constantly try to bias it? — Omegatron 18:13, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

• hey, just responding to your inquiry. I didn't mean anybody specific; there was an earlier comment that stated that someone was commenting on the discussion who had also edited the article heavily. i can't remember now whether that was you or somebody else, but regardless, if an editor of the article, and the nominator are the principle people engaged in the discussion about deletion, i don't see a consensus being reached because other people aren't weighing in. personally, i'd vote to keep the article, but i'm just going to stay out of it because the discussion just seems very heated and i'm not sure who to believe. i meant no disrespect to anybody, including you. i'm sorry if you felt otherwise. Respectfully, Barsportsunlimited 00:10, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

someone was commenting on the discussion who had also edited the article heavily

Isn't that what's supposed to happen? :-)

I just wanted to know why you thought I had a conflict of interest, if you did think that. — Omegatron 00:21, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

ISO codes for music, audio visual, etc.

Please see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Music#ISO_codes and comment there if you have any views, or expertise, to share. Thank you. Andy Mabbett 16:01, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Brown's gas / HHO gas

There seems to be no consensus to keep these articles, and much of the content you have added in Brown's gas describes oxyhydrogen welding and would better belong in oxyhydrogen or one of the articles I proposed merging with it. In addition, as you know, the pseudoscientific claims for the two gases are very similar. How about merging both to an article called Claims for anomalous properties in oxyhydrogen or some similar title? The way, the truth, and the light 01:55, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

??? "If there is no consensus, the page is kept and is again subject to normal editing, merging or redirecting as appropriate."

If I had to choose between deleting the article and creating a merged "controversy" article, I'd obviously choose not to delete, but, obviously, both of those options are inappropriate. The people fighting for this to be deleted are only doing so because it's pseudoscience, which is not even close to a criteria for deletion. — Omegatron 02:44, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Not even pseudoscience; more like 'very far-out proposals never studied in mainstream labs.' It's closer to scientific limbo, since the proponents of the mystical theories seem to have no interest in getting their stuff reviewed by real experts. So it's hard to find any peer-reviewed debunking. (e.g. HHO Gas has no mainstream critics of Santilli's work listed among the references.). EdJohnston 03:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Why does a critic have to be "mainstream", and why don't you think that James Randi fits this criteria? — Omegatron 03:16, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Added two more "mainstream" critics, though they're only criticizing the water-fuelled car concept, even though this isn't really one of HTA's claims in the first place, and is already covered in its own article. — Omegatron 04:30, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

• The article has already changed to reflect the subject of that sentence. What I meant was that a citation that claims to be something by omission is not a citation, and therefore unverified. I can claim that something was published in the Wall Street Journal, citing you section and page number. If I fail to mention that it's a paid advertisement, that fundamentally changes the nature of the reference. If I claim that something has worldwide attention, yet fail to mention that the attention is centered only in Ajo, Arizona and Henley Harbor, Newfoundland, you have every right to wonder just how worldwide it is. If a subject is cited as having been on "Fox and NBC," and going to the sources shows minor reports from NBC and Fox local station affiliates (which I read as being more about the person than the science,) why should I give any credit that it has garnered national-press level attention? What meets "extraordinary" documentation to back an "extraordinary" claim? I'm not implying that the subject is untrue, or assuming that the sources are deliberately misleading, just that they (the references) were false to fact and therefore I wonder about the article's veracity.

And, especially in an article that's been deleted more than once, I wonder if I should bother investigating any further. However, I do see that apparently great steps have been made in trying to edit the article, and I understand why G4 doesn't apply in this case. My apologies for suggesting it does. But (trying to be honest,) that still doesn't mean that I think this is something that should be in WP. LaughingVulcan 05:20, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean. Where is the paid advertisement?

I was using that as an example where a reference omission creates a citation problem. Another example: Say I link to a newspaper's blog, and then represent that as a newspaper article. Do I credit a reporter's blog with the same veracity as the paper? Has it been through the same editorial review process before it's been posted? An opposite example - I notice that the Snopes reference in the article says that it comes from the Snopes forum. OK, so now I know that it's a forum thread, and not the Mikkelsons writing that information. Good. I can check out the reference, but I already know that it's a forum source.

This has been covered by news organizations in Florida, Texas, Illinois, Kentucky, and California, at least, but I don't know why the geography of the attention is at all relevant.

Because there's a big difference, to me, if it's been covered by national-level news sources. CNN, Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, NPR, and to some degree Reuters and AP have far stricter standards about what is published, how it's documented, and receive far more public scrutiny is given to what it reports. It also avoids (mostly) the "lazy reporter sees something in another local paper, and writes his own story on it, yet neither get questioned about it" syndrome.

What extraordinary claims? We're not saying "HHO gas disproves conventional laws of physics" and attributing it to Tampa Tribune. We're saying "Some guy claims to have invented a process that, if true, would defy conventional laws of physics". This is not an extraordinary claim at all, and is covered quite well by the numerous news sources.

Then the article is about the person making the claims, and should be titled as such. If it's about the subject (the gas,) then the the subject needs to back its extraordinary claims in an extraordinary fashion.

Parts of it are perfectly legit, and parts of it are clearly bogus.

OK, but the article still reads in format like it's legitimate. But you're obviously working fast to address concerns, and the disputed parts are becoming more clear.

I doubt the news sources are deliberately misleading, especially since they contain both promotion and criticism. The wild claims are just your standard journalists-writing-about-things-they-don't-understand. Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

I like that; and as I said I don't think the sources are deliberately misleading (while allowing for the fact that this has happened in journalism.)

As for HTA themselves, though, I don't see how they could not be deliberately misleading.

Dunno, it might be people who simply don't understand what they're proposing flies in the face of what's known about physics and thermodynamics.

What references were false to what facts? I don't understand what you think is wrong with these references.

The prior problems above with sourcing and misrepresentation of a national source by omission.

And, especially in an article that's been deleted more than once

How is that relevant? When an article is repeatedly recreated by different people you should reconsider whether the original deletions were in fact appropriate.

Hmm.... I think it's upon the recreator to justify how the article is different now (which has been done.) Otherwise it's the same old and warrants a speedy (not true in this case.) And I'm very comfortable with endorsing prior deletion opinions if the concerns of those prior deletions remain the same - anything else does not respect prior consensus. Which, I do understand, is modifiable over time. (I have no way to look back at the prior history of the article, and Talk pages can be hard to understand as justification for changes. But it's only that and prior AfDs I have to evaluate on.)

By what logic? What do you think WP is for?

It's for being an encyclopedia.  :) So, obviously, I've had problems with this being a subject for an encyclopedia and the entry being encyclopedic. LaughingVulcan 12:29, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

• New Reponse:

We did that before. We had an article on Denny Klein, but it was rightfully moved to HHO gas because the topic is the gas itself, Denny isn't notable for any other reason, and there's no accessible biographical information about him. This isn't a biography, it's an article about a hoax.

I'd suggest, then, that the article topic reflect that it's a hoax. (But I can already see that this won't get past it's proponents, and having two articles would be a POV fork...) So nevermind - I can see that this is a reasonable compromise. I think I'm expecting that a WP article's title should truthfully reflect the subject (and if the subject is a hoax, the title should say so...) But WP is about verified fact, not Truth... ;)

No it doesn't. It needs to explain what extraordinary claims are being made, attribute the extraordinary claims to the people who are making them, and then attribute criticism of those claims to the people who are criticizing them. It can also explain how these extraordinary claims violate known laws of physics.

Presuming that the claims are labeled as such, which they are currently. I think I've misunderstood something fundamental in your perspective. The back and forth between you and Nescio led me to believe (initially) that you were in a "belief in HHO" POV. Am I correct in believing that you're just looking for how to document this accurately (which includes the 'hoax' aspects,) and Nescio is in the 'This is a hoax and nothing more' camp? Not that this affects the AfD per se, but it does help me to see that we're not talking at cross purposes here.

Where?? Why do people keep saying this? You're talking about HHO gas, right?

Yes. With the (I presume) edit warring going on, it's a very hard article to keep following. Tags go up, tags go down, phrasing changes back and forth. It's just normal editing practice, but when it changes so radically during AfD, it's hard to recognize what was there yesterday and what wasn't. (This version I'm pretty sure is the first one I came to during the AfD and started writing my opinion off it. You reverted it like 4 minutes later, but it's the version that stuck with me as "the" version of the article... even though I know many have contributed and revised it since then. I usually take quite awhile writing and editing my opinions before posting... usually. ;) At first this seemed like a pretty straightforward it's been deleted - the same concerns are raised, standard G4. Which is now obviously untrue to me.

It also makes me think that there are those who would be more than happy letting this be presented as "real".) And I don't know how many of us editors keep following an AfD, instead of just voicing an opinion and moving on.... The other concern I'd have (even though this is outside the scope of an AfD) is how long you (and others) will keep fighting on the accuracy side? If it falls off the radar, there's little to keep an editor of the other camp to come in and "factualize doublespeak" the article. But I shouldn't worry about that.

I'm sure they're just deliberately misleading the public to sell more welding equipment. We need to explain this and explain why their claims are invalid.

OK. I'm going to change my opinion over to something like "Keep, protect, keep cleaning up." Not that I'm god of WP. And I'm sorry that my comments may have been part of the sudden (reversed) speedy close, even though I already backed off that opinion before it was done.

Why would you have problems with this being a subject for an encyclopedia article? Do you think we should also delete Apollo Moon Landing hoax accusations, Cloudbuster, The Turk, Dean drive, and Hydrino? Wikipedia is meant to cover everything that is notable, in a neutral, verifiable way. That includes bad science, hoaxes, disputed theories, and cons. See User:Omegatron#Memory holes and Wikipedia:Replies to common_objections#Cranks.

If they can be covered correctly (whatever that means as it's unpacked,) I see your point. I'm still, I'm afraid, more used to thinking of encyclopedia's in "World Book" terms (which AFAIK doesn't treat hoaxes as appropriate encyclopedia topics, just from my own experience in using paper encyclopedias.) I haven't clicked your userpage links yet, but I shall.

You might as well say we should delete the article about the 9/11 attacks because some people on the Internet make conspiracy theory claims about them.

No, what I'm suggesting is that if an article goes through a long edit war ultimately says that CNN and the BBC said the 9/11 attacks occurred because George Bush commanded the little green Martians (channeling Lee Harvey Oswald,) to persuade Saddam Hussein to hire out Osama as a patsy, presented as documented fact - such an article should be cleaned up as you suggest or deleted. (And sorry for my hyperbole - I know my example would be WP:NONSENSE and WP:BOLLOCKS.)

And, let me say, it's a good piece of editing you're doing. I wish I were more familiar with the subjects concerned to help in the editing. It sounds like you've got your hands full. LaughingVulcan 01:02, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

HHO gas

Your undeletion of an article to which you had made significant contributions, during a deletion review, and accusing others of repeated "disruptive" deletion nominations when all three previous debates closed as delete, is a matter of sone concern to me, and I have raised this on the administrators' noticeboard. Guy (Help!) 08:31, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

It was speedy deleted for inapplicable reasons, despite the fact that a large AfD was in progress with no consensus for deletion.

The "recreation of a deleted article" aspect is irrelevant and not a criteria for speedy deletion; the previous deletion was reviewed and closed specifically stating that a new article could be created with proper sourcing. Nominator is fully aware of this, and is only repeatedly nominating the article to be disruptive.

You'll also see complaints about Nescio's improper nomination in the past ("the the last AfD skipped my attention because it wasnt delsorted and User:Nescio didnt notify anyone involved about the Afd"), and similar complaints in the current AfD for slipping Brown's gas into the discussion without most voters being aware of it. (You'll see several votes for deletion of "the article", as if there's only one article being considered, the box at the top right of the page only shows previous AfDs for HHO gas, but doesn't show the previous AfDs for Brown's gas.) One of the votes for deletion was apparently a mistake, etc. etc. — Omegatron 12:09, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Comment on my talk page

You asked me a couple questions on my talk page concerning HHO Gas] and Brown's Gas. I checked the edit histories of both, and have yet to find an instance in which I edited, nor even suggested deleting them. May I ask how I came into the conversation? Please reply on my talk page. Jmlk17 07:33, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I do not wish to remove my vote, as well as I believe they should be deleted. Jmlk17 09:52, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

;)

:)

;-) — Omegatron 23:39, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

AfD nomination of HHO gas

An article that you have been involved in editing, HHO gas, has been listed by me for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/HHO gas (4th nomination). Thank you.Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 07:53, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

That's great. Thanks for helping us write a neutral, scientific article. — Omegatron 13:41, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I doubt that your sarcasm was recognised for what it was by Nescio who should read his own motto, in my opinion ("know thyself"). But he/she/it won't; it is more fun telling other people to do that than to do it yourself. It is almost incomprehensible to me that those articles have been deleted except that I think there are people out there who get a power-trip out of deleting content and don't stop to think of the broader issue of what is useful to people who read Wikipedia instead of editing it. And far too many of those are administrators. Even if your article had been poor, which it wasn't, it would have been worth keeping for the day it got better. Rather a lot of articles lack references while having usable content and it is precisely because this subject is notable that it got noticed and deleted. Your good work has been wantonly vandalised by Wikicontrolfreaks. Better luck next time Man with two legs 21:55, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Wait what? There was no consensus for deletion. — Omegatron 23:03, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

So you were able to bring them back just like that. Good. Man with two legs 23:28, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

But I am getting a stern talking-to about that.  :-/ — Omegatron 23:29, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Tricky one: I suppose because your action as a not-dispassionate party might be a precedent for someone in a similar position who turns out to be a loony. As I see it, the deletion was demonstrably premature and at least some people agree with me, so you will probably not be hung, drawn and quartered this time. Good luck though! Man with two legs 00:03, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks.  :-) — Omegatron 00:07, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Have you noticed how your desire to publicise the scammy nature of this sort of thing is being interpreted as a sign that you are promoting it? Please do not bang your head on too many walls because you might damage them. And don't go into politics. Man with two legs 21:31, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I've noticed that Nomen has made me out to be a promoter, though I said the same about him for trying to censor the articles until I looked through his other contributions. I don't know what you're referring to with the other two sentences. — Omegatron 21:37, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

They were not entirely serious:

1. perhaps you don't bang your head on walls when frustrated. It may be just we Europeans who do that.
2. politics would need some skill in not being portrayed as precisely the opposite of what you would wish

Man with two legs 21:59, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see. No, I am definitely not good at the politics.

Wall-banging, eh? Perhaps that's a hobby I should take up. Does it numb the Wikipain? — Omegatron 22:03, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

So the scientists lost came second on that one. Roughly quoting Life of Brian:

1. one complete and utter disaster is only the beginning!
2. always look on the bright side of life...

Man with two legs 17:57, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

table namespace/table editor

I read this section on you main page. I find the idea appealing. What is the status, how can I help ? -- Shmget 08:49, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

There's not really any "status" since I'm not a developer and am therefore powerless to get anything done. I made a road map of steps that could be taken, and someone implemented the first half of the first step by adding a Table: namespace to the English Wikipedia, but without the special functionality that is also specified in step 1, it's pretty pointless. Apparently it has since been removed. — Omegatron 15:02, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Do you know about this extention ? -- Shmget 05:31, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I did not. That looks very cool. Maybe it could be folded into the Table: namespace idea somehow? — Omegatron 23:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

According to what is said here :"The content is controlled by an external mysql database, but the tables are saved back to the wiki in normal wikitext surrounded by HTML comments with the id number of the table in the database.", looks to me that the folding in the Table: namespace would be pretty natural. the Table: namespace page would contain the native representation of the extention. It should be possible to hook at parseBeforeStrip to substitute [Table:xxx] with the appropriate wikitext (that means that the table name itself would not be parametrized, so [[Table:{{MyNameGeneratingTemplate|foo}}]] would not work (well, there may be a way, I'm just to that familiar with the code yet).

Then you'd need to hook on EditPage::showEditForm:initial to show the list of Table used in the page edited, the same way you have the list of template used (so that you can click to go edit them)... and last but not least, you need to intercept completely edit on Table::xxx pages to present a nice gui-based editor inpired by the one presented in the above mentioned extension, for example. (Note: I still have a very superficial understanding of the code, so I may be significantly off base.) -- Shmget 14:40, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know anything about this.  :-) You should discuss it on Bugzilla:2194 and Wikipedia_talk:Table:_namespace_and_editor. If the table namespace has since been removed, the bug should be reopened. — Omegatron 23:31, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

floating quickbar

I just installed the Help:User style/floating quickbar into my monobook.css and .js files and it works just fine. My problem is that I would like the personal links (user page, talk page, prefs etc.) in the ordinary place on top of any page. Can that be done and if so, how? I played around a bit, but to no positive effect. —AldeBaer 04:03, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind, I must have been too tired yesterday. It works just as I imagined now. —AldeBaer 13:12, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Excellent! Can you add your changes to the page so others can use it without changing the personal links? — Omegatron 13:57, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

See the talk page at meta. —AldeBaer 03:31, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

As you can see, I didn't actually edit the code, I just included the original main.css p-personal code. That's why I didn't make a new section on the main page, but only a see also link pointing to the talk page section. Please feel free to edit my explanation. —AldeBaer 15:14, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks. It would be better if it were on the main page, though. Show people who to do it either way, in other words. — Omegatron 23:55, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Take a look. I also refactored the sections for clarity. —AldeBaer 16:40, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Good. See also Bugzilla:287. — Omegatron 23:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

While we're at it: Do you know of a way to include other links in the sidebar? I gather it'd include defining a section like "p-navigation" and filling it with links, is that possible? —AldeBaer 23:15, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

User Nomen Nescio

User:Nescio has on his talk page "Medicine on the Web my medical site" with a link to a website dealing with medical information. Given that the details to the link contain the word "my" leads the viewer to believe that this website is his website. This may constitute a breach of conflict of interest on the part of this user pertaining to his direct authoring of Medical_literature article. Noah Seidman 14:30, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

And your point is? Anyway stop posting this everywhere. You have already been warned.Nomen Nescio^{Gnothi seauton} 14:35, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Asking for third party involvement is the proper procedure to make a determination on the degree of your COI. To be warned about making a legitimate policy inquiry is an abuse of Sysop powers attempting to inducee fear and cause me to recuse the proposed Wikipedia policy violation. Noah Seidman 14:49, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

1. Nescio's not a sysop. What abuse of sysop powers are you talking about?
2. I don't care about the Medical literature article or his involvement on it. I'm not going to follow him around and harass him on other articles just because we disagree about the oxhydrogen articles. Bring it up somewhere besides my talk page.
3. At a cursory glance, I don't see a COI anyway. There's no prohibition against editing articles you're interested in. The prohibition is against "contributing to Wikipedia in order to promote yourself or the interests of other individuals, companies, or groups". A good example of an unacceptable COI edit would be adding links to your own Water Fuel business in articles about water as a fuel, for instance...

If you have a more detailed description of why his edits are a conflict of interest, by all means mention it. But not here. — Omegatron 22:16, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry

You were acting in good faith and I was not. Anyhow, I wasn't making a delete argument, just expressing my belief the AfD was correct. -N 01:50, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Replied on your talk. — Omegatron 13:51, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Thoughts on WP Policy

Skeptics utilize opinion to say claims of proponents are BS. The same standard of WP:RS should be required to both support/discredit claims. Lack of reliable sources to discredit a claim cannot by default allow for opinions to be used to substantiate a position. The default should be, in good faith, that people have honorable intentions; not that people have malicious/devious intent. Noah Seidman 17:54, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Huh? — Omegatron 18:56, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe to too much opinion is flying around, including allegation of malicious/devious intent. Is this typical for AfDs and deletion reviews? Noah Seidman 20:05, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, it's certainly typical.

DRV is supposed to be explicitly about the AfD process itself. ("Admin x closed the AfD as delete despite a consensus to keep".) But this is just the same stupid arguments that were made in the AfD being repeated over again, completely ignoring the previous discussion. — Omegatron 20:08, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

DRV

If you are frustrated with the DRV process, you might want to chime in here, where another user has complained about alleged DRV process violations... ATren 16:05, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The DRV process is fine. I'm frustrated with the users who are abusing it. — Omegatron 13:51, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

But that's precisely one of the arguments being brought up in that case - the alleged abuse of DRV process (mainly quick closures that may not reflect consensus). I'm not involved at all, I just happened to pass by the HHO debate and thought you might like to know about that case. BTW, I would have voted keep on HHO if it were allowed to proceed - I think many misunderstood your role in that dispute and voted based on that misconception. ATren 02:08, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Yep. They also just had knee-jerk reactions without actually reading the article or talk page. The deletion review was re-opened, thankfully. — Omegatron 02:12, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

HHO/Brown's Gas

User:Kurykh has recently deleted the Brown's Gas and HHO Gas articles stating it was the general consensus of the deletion debate. I would argue that there was many votes for and against deletion, which isn't a reasonable general consensus; if anything is was an ongoing debate in need of additional participants! Noah Seidman 03:09, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I am aware. It was not at all the general consensus to delete. Without a consensus for deletion, the default action is to keep the article, so this deletion was out of process. (Just like the others.)

As for your return... how do I say this? Please be very careful what you edit and try very hard to stay within Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. We all know that you have a commercial interest in these gases, though you also certainly seem to be a rational person who will not cling to bogosity when evidence to the contrary is presented.  ;-)

You would stay out of trouble if you made only trivial edits to these articles, and kept the bulk of your contributions to the talk page, where we could all discuss them and find proper references before adding them to the articles.

In other words, getting these articles kept on Wikipedia is enough trouble without proponents involved. I'm afraid your presence will make it much much more difficult. — Omegatron 00:07, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The most recent version of the Brown's Gas and HHO articles utilized WP:RS and WP:CITE. If such practice continues there can be no contention for the existence of the articles. Most edits that lacked WP:RS and WP:CITE appeared to be WP:OR such as the claim that Brown's Gas and HHO are the same as Oxyhydrogen; There was not a single source referenced that made such a specific allegation. Independent of personal opinions, which are obviously not WP:RS, it is not appropriate for any statement to exist that cannot be directly sourced, or indirectly construed from a credible third party. It seems to be that many editors have STRONG OPINIONS, but these articles must be generated in strict accordance with the parameters of an encyclopedic work; meaning all direct statements must have WP:CITE, and all indirect statements must be reasonable in consideration of the cited WP:RS. Noah Seidman 18:23, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Weasel words are opinions tacked on to a direct statement attempting to provide an antithesis or shadow of a doubt without utilizing proper citation; therefore weasel words can be considered a form of WP:OR. Frankly it is disconcerting that when, in the past, I was making opinionated edits they were reverted or deleted by opinionated editors, and now that editors are adding weasel words and making opinionated statements they feel its appropriate and attempt substantiation of their position. If an non-editor, such as myself, has come around to appreciate a true encyclopedic work that properly utilizes WP:RS and WP:CITE, it is also possible for other stubborn editors, independent of their opinions, to come together to achieve Wikipedias intent. Noah Seidman 18:35, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Brown's gas and HHO gas are the same as oxyhydrogen. Even Brown's patents and Santilli's papers agree. — Omegatron 00:55, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Common ducted oxyhydrogen!!! Noah Seidman 01:40, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi Omegatron,

Nothwithstanding my personal opinion that the articles should better be deleted, I must say that the whold AfD/DR/AfD mess was rather unfortunate with unsubstantiated accusations against you (and others) making this a messy (but at least virtiual) bloodshed. Not that I think many people noticed it, but I tried to clarify that you don't sell HHO-stuff and are one of the good guys. IMHO EMS is also one of the good guys, despite the impression this AfD may have given, he is tireless arguing and reverting cranks of all sorts at the Theory of Relativity related articles.

On German Wikipedia, with its limited geographical base, there would have been an easy solution (or at least attempt of it) by selecting one of the several Wikipedia meetups and discuss this over some food and drink. But I assume that wouldn't be practical in our case.

Back the articles, I only want to emphasize the point of my last post on the AfD: Some investigative journalism would be great. But who will do it? I've asked Peter Woit, if he would like to pick up the case of Santilli (who still amazingly has posting rights at arXiv) on his widely read Blog, but he wasn't interested (making the argument that it would give Santilli only free publicity).

Pjacobi 19:39, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

1. Oh, what a mess.
2. I saw that you thought the articles should be deleted, and didn't really get a change to read your reasoning, but I had hoped to convince you to change your mind.  :-) But I guess getting them undeleted is now the first priority. We should talk about your opinions on pseudoscience articles when other things are not as urgent, though.
3. Meeting in person would be sooooooooooooooooooo much better than all of this incivility and nonsense. People are much more rational and agreeable in face-to-face discussions. (Although when they're not, I guess RfCs are better than fistfights...)
4. I've found quite a few references and leads to more references on the talk pages of the two articles. It's a lot of work, and it's infuriating that people keep getting the articles deleted for dubious reasons and forcing us to start all over from scratch. I'm glad we were smart enough to move the references to the talk page where they aren't deleted by every other revert. There's a lot we can say on this subject while keeping entirely within WP:CITE and WP:NOR. — Omegatron 00:07, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Though I voted 'Keep' in the AfD, I perceive that those two articles have the problem that, to an editor unfamiliar with those topics, they sound like they might be commercial spam. I helped out with another pseudoscience-related article called Retrocausality, which turned out well and was not deleted. The difference might be the apparent spamminess to someone who hasn't yet carefully read the article. You must be frustrated that people seemed to misjudge the article content, or the motives in writing them. Clearly, adding this same material to Oxyhydrogen welding might escape all criticism, or even detection :-). After all, people know there is such a thing as welding. EdJohnston 02:29, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

A thing called welding? I don't believe you. You're obviously using Wikipedia to promote this "welding" fraud and I won't stand for it. Unless you provide 234,854 peer-reviewed references in the next five minutes, I'm putting this article up for deletion, deleting it despite a consensus to keep, and violating as many policies as I want to prevent a legitimate deletion review. — Omegatron 00:55, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I saw your note on my talk page regarding this. I certainly don't want to overstate Brown's gas, and the HHO stuff is bunk. It's discussed some in welding, and a bit in chemistry here and there (which is where I first heard it). I don't want to allow spammage, but complete deletion seemed like a mistake as well. Georgewilliamherbert 04:16, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Writing a neutral article about a hoax is not "spammage" or "advertisement" or any of the other ridiculous accusations made about this topic. — Omegatron 01:02, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

To clarify, Brown's gas and HHO gas are equally nonsense; Brown's gas is simply more known. They are both very similar claims of anomalous behavior observed in oxyhydrogen. The way, the truth, and the light 04:18, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

To clarify, Brown's gas and HHO gas are equal mixtures of legitimate welding device, pseudoscience/hoax nonsense, and unverified but notable fringe claims. — Omegatron 01:02, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I've moved the Brown's gas talk page into my userspace to not lose the references presented there:

• User talk:Pjacobi/Hydrogen quackery

User:Pjacobi/Hydrogen quackery is a brainstorming page for getting an overview, it is not intended as a draft for new Brown's gas article. --Pjacobi 16:07, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Hydrogen quackery sounds like the right general approach, though someone is sure to ask for that title to be toned down. Take a look at WP:FRINGE#Examples for four pseudoscience or hoax topics that have been judged sufficiently notable to deserve articles. I think next time around a closer look at notability is needed. Not all hoaxes are notable enough for an article, even those mentioned in the press. EdJohnston 20:53, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

There are a hell of a lot more than four pseudoscience or hoax topics sufficiently notable to deserve articles. See Category:Hoaxes, Category:Fringe_science, Category:Pseudoscience, Category:Protoscience, and so on.

If you think these are non-notable, you've got a long road of deletion ahead of you... — Omegatron 01:02, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

@Ed: I'm with the not notable enough approach here. The guys who can and should debunk these things haven't been seen to publish about this. And we can't debunk it ourselves due to WP:NOR. I'm just trying to cover all bases and save some references already found, in case a new article gets created. So that not everything must be re-researched from scratch. --Pjacobi 22:01, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Your interpretation of WP:CITE and WP:NOR is way too narrow, and there are many many articles worse off than these ones that survive AfD every day. That an article is not yet finished is not a criteria for deletion. — Omegatron 01:02, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

For the record, I'm not totally opposed to merging the two articles together, as many of the same claims and properties are attributed to both. The claims made in Santilli's paper, though, are unrelated to Brown's gas, and the transmutation claims are unrelated to HHO gas. And I really don't think this stuff belongs in oxyhydrogen (anymore than I think Bigfoot should be merged into Great apes, anyway...) — Omegatron 00:51, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Outrage

For the record, this is the most infuriating thing I have encountered in my 4 years of editing Wikipedia. Kurykh's deletion in spite of consensus and Radiant's attempts to undermine deletion review are outrageous. — Omegatron 00:46, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The consensus was to delete. Radiant did not attempt what you accuse him of. Why are you misrepresenting these two admins on your talk page? Fnagaton 12:24, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

It should be clear enough by now that there was disagreement about consensus. (By definition, no consensus.) I for one am largely uninvolved with the whole topic. I've participated in the previous review, and far as I remember haven't even edited any of these pages. But yes, I do have an opinion about these articles, and about this AfD.

I don't have to like Kurykh's action, but can understand that administrators make errors. That's what the review system is for. (I can also understand that many people now will endorse deletion just to make this whole thing stop.) I believe that due process was violated, and I took it to the appropriate forum. Radiant unilaterally discarded these concerns and closed my deletion review on grounds that the topic exhausted the community's patience.

No fellow Wikipedian shall have such powers over me.

I believe this so strongly that I would hinge my further contributions to this community on it. If these events are considered to have been in accordance with Wikipedia's policies, dammit, then the whole process is broken beyond repair. Even when later undone by another admin (now accused of acting inappropriately himself), something like this simply must not happen.

This is outrageous. Femto 15:15, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Query

Considering I have made nor unmade any blocks, deletions or protections with respect to the HHO issue, I fail to see any wheel warring here. Do you really expect the fourteenth debate to have a different outcome than the previous thirteen? I am not familiar with the controversy surrounding this alleged gas, yet it is my opinion that after everybody has stated their opinion several times, there is no use in asking everybody to repeat themselves once more; this only results in polarization, further inflamed tempers, and does not resolve anything. After a certain threshold, people should simply agree to disagree. >Radiant< 16:15, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

It does not need a sysop-action to abuse authority. And it's not as if you didn't make any references to your status when you announced the early closing of the review.

Are you saying that once people agree to disagree there never can and will be any progress? All that matters is that the 13th debate has a different outcome than the 12th. I maintain it does. (Debates are not cardinal numbers, how do you add those up anyway?).

You didn't see any wheel warring because I am not a rogue admin and have enough decency not to intervene in procedures where I'm directly involved. Nevertheless, you did notice that a third admin stepped in?

This action of yours is threatening to the integrity of Wikipedia's process, more than any faulty AfD, and more than any 'true' rogue admin could ever be. If you cannot understand this as an administrator, maybe you should resign. Femto 19:49, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

No, I'm saying that asking the same question over and over again because of a dislike of the previous answers, is not a productive approach. Other than that you appear to be unfamiliar with WP:ROUGE, because calling myself rouge is hardly an attempt to "pull rank". Also, by the generally accepted definition, it's not wheel warring unless admin powers are involved. I fully disagree with the unsubstantiated assertion that my action threatens the integrity of process, and I suspect we would also disagree with respect to the importance of said process. >Radiant< 07:47, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

It wasn't the same question, and it wasn't the same answer. The previous answer was that re-creation was allowed. The current answer was that there is no consensus to delete the pages that have since developed.

It remains my conviction that the closure of this AfD disrespected the wishes of the community. I know you don't agree. I also know that others do agree. I don't go open a review just for the fun of it, without believing there's a realistic chance that enough people agree to overturn. If they don't, fine with me, but at least I could try.

You compromised my ability to settle this, in a neutral environment, at the most basic level. Honestly, you flat out refuse to see the threat here?

Is it also your definition that an administrative action, such as when you assume authority to early close a deletion review, can not be considered plainly inacceptable until wheel warring and sysop powers got involved?

The importance of said process is that I will not let you decide for me what is important. Femto 16:23, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Considering I have made nor unmade any blocks, deletions or protections with respect to the HHO issue, I fail to see any wheel warring here.

Seems pretty clear to me. Closing a DRV is an administrative action. You closed one, another admin re-opened it, and you re-closed it. "Do not repeat an administrative action when you know that another administrator opposes it."

You, of all users, should know better.

Do you really expect the fourteenth debate to have a different outcome than the previous thirteen?

What thirteen? You really think the AfD for magnecular bond is applicable to the HHO gas article? The article on Denny Klein was appropriately deleted because he isn't notable outside of these claims and there isn't enough information about him out there to write a biography. How does that argument apply to this article?

I am not familiar with the controversy surrounding this alleged gas, yet it is my opinion that after everybody has stated their opinion several times, there is no use in asking everybody to repeat themselves once more; this only results in polarization, further inflamed tempers, and does not resolve anything.

1. A new version of an article is created, then edited with a strong intent to fix the problems that resulted in the deletion of the last one.
2. The article is put up for deletion after an editorial dispute.
3. A majority of competent editors agrees that the new article solves the problems with the old one, and should be kept.
4. An admin decides to overrule the majority opinion and close according to their own personal viewpoint, ignoring the discussion on the AfD.

You really don't think this constitutes an abuse of process? This isn't a case for deletion review? "Deletion Review is the process to be used to challenge the outcome of a deletion debate or a speedy deletion. ... Deletion Review is to be used if the closer interpreted the debate incorrectly." — Omegatron 14:11, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

See also my rant at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Administrative decision-making. Femto 12:47, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Responded there. (My absence from the 12th to the 16th was also a sanity-sparing mini wikibreak, by the way. First time I've been this stressed by Wikipedia in four years.)  :-)

I'm glad that a sane admin finally closed this. Let's take a break, gather up more sources, and figure out the structure of the article before restoring the content, to avoid more stupid trouble. And if Nescio continues crapping up the article with POV and weasel words, we can file an RfC.

If there's one thing I've learned from this, it's to assume that people aren't going to judge you based on your contributions, or an article based on its merits; they're going to make their decisions based purely on hearsay and knee-jerk reactions. If someone claims that you're the exact opposite of what you actually are, you'd better spell it out immediately or everyone who disagrees with you will be parroting it within the hour. — Omegatron 00:17, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

HHO

I'm not going to get into a finger-pointing exercise, because I'm sure you're aware yourself of what was happening with that article. There is one very particular POV-pusher - I'm sure you know who I mean - with what amounts to a low-level edit war going on above that. You only have to look at the article, though - on 31 March it looked like this [1] - hardly any reference to the controversy, and many dubious statements given as fact. By 23 April it looked like this [2] - far too much weight given to Santilli's claims, a state it stayed in for a month, then by 4 June we had this version [3] with even the parts casting doubt on the claims given {fact} tags. Given that, I'm sure you can see why I made that statement in DRV. EliminatorJR ^Talk 00:17, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Of course I agree that the recreated version was biased. But almost all of the edits since that point (besides the persistent insertion of unsourced weasel word criticism) were debunking and improving the neutrality of the article. Each of the links you mentioned show an improvement from the previous, don't they?

I don't really see any evidence that the article is owned by promoters, so I don't understand why people keep insinuating that it is. We were working on it. It was not finished yet, but it had been improved enough to not qualify for deletion. — Omegatron 00:39, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Redirects

Can I ask why you have restored the redirects from Aquygen & Denny Klein? Unless I've missed something, there was certainly no consensus to restore those. Denny Klein was even protected. EliminatorJR ^Talk 13:12, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Is there something wrong with redirects? — Omegatron 00:28, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

There certainly is, when they're deleted, protected in one case, and there is no consensus for recreation. I suggest it might be a good idea to return those to their original state. EliminatorJR ^Talk 00:34, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Saying that they were deleted in the past doesn't explain why they're bad to have now, though. The circumstances of their deletion are pretty unrelated to the current status of the content. How does having these redirects harm the encyclopedia? I protected them so they can't be recreated as articles, if that's what you're worried about. — Omegatron 00:38, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not worried about their re-creation as articles, as they'd be deleted as G4 on the spot, but Denny Klein was salted (and it appears that Aquygen should've been) - you can't overturn that without consensus. EliminatorJR ^Talk 00:46, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok... I'm not sure about that, but assuming that you need consensus to create a redirect, why wouldn't there be consensus for this? Why would anyone think that redirects shouldn't exist? How does having these redirects harm the encyclopedia? — Omegatron 00:50, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

We're not talking about consensus to create a redirect (obviously you don't need that), we're talking about consensus to recreate a deleted and salted redirect. Surely you must understand the difference?? EliminatorJR ^Talk 00:56, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

It's certainly different. But why would anyone not want these redirects? How does having these redirects harm the encyclopedia? — Omegatron 00:58, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

OK - we're going round in circles here, and it's late, so I'll stop there. EliminatorJR ^Talk 01:01, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok.  :-/ — Omegatron 01:03, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

User:EliminatorJR is correct. This page was improperly recreated and redirected as an advertisement contrary to the results of the AfD. Protecting it was a further improper action. Please undo these actions immediately. --Tbeatty 05:44, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah. Yeah, advertisement might be an actual reason for these links not to exist, but I fail to see that in this case.

I assure you I'm not recreating them to advertise anything. It's pretty obvious from my contributions that I'm not affiliated with the company.

The AfD and DRV specified that the articles are to be kept, but merged into one. Creating redirects for other names for the same concept is normal practice for a merge, and seems perfectly reasonable to me. See reasons to create a redirect. If you still disagree, please ask for a third-party opinion. — Omegatron 06:09, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

denny klein has no contribution to oxyhydrogen and Aquygen is a product. No need for a redirect. Your prior argument for keeping all of these articles should have led you to disqualify yourself from admin action on these articles. Denny Klein and Aquygen are not the same as HHO and Brown's gas and the discussion was not to merge these other non-notable/spam articles to Oxyhydrogen. Consensus was to delete and salt these articles. You can certainly put it up for comment, but your unilateral action was improper considering it undid the actions of other admin and you were directly involved in the debate for keeping the articles. This is equivalent to you taking it upon yourself to close a deletion debate in which you participated. --Tbeatty 06:23, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Denny Klein runs the company that makes HHO gas, which is also called Aquygen. That's about as related as you can get. My involvement and your involvement in the AfD is quite irrelevant to the creation of related redirects. Creating redirects from related titles is perfectly normal behavior, and doesn't violate any policies that I'm aware of, even if the old versions of the articles were deleted. — Omegatron 06:41, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

There are already 2 opinions on your talk page telling you this was improper. --Tbeatty 06:26, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if I'm no longer assuming good faith, but this would be pretty uncontroversial anywhere else, and I suspect it's just being mentioned to harass me. Please bring this up on the Village Pump or Administrator's Noticeboard if you still have a problem with it. — Omegatron 06:41, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

RFC

Please see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Omegatron. Guy (Help!) 09:00, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Should I

Should I show support on the "request for comment" page regarding you? Or should I refrain? Noah Seidman 18:07, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know. Depends what you're going to say.  :-) Everyone knows that you have a commercial interest in the stuff, so when you comment on something it tends to make everyone oppose whatever you just supported. — Omegatron 22:57, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Edits to policy mentioned on your page

• According to the #1 key policy at WP:POLICY, Wikipedia works by building consensus.
• Template:Policy says This page documents an official policy on the English Wikipedia. ... When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus.

This could help the argument on your page: Lately, however, a number of misguided users are trying to change this; to eradicate all non-free content from Wikipedia, and they're making major changes to our policies to prohibit it. Ian01 19:42, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Hehe. The non-free content policy actually has a custom tag with the "wide acceptance among editors" bit removed, since only a small number of agenda-pushing editors actually accept it. It's considered a Foundation mandate that can't be questioned. — Omegatron 22:50, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Quick question

Hi Omegatron,

I'm using your fixed sidebar script and it works great. But I was looking at the screenshot and wondering how you added more pages to the user box in the sidebar? I would like to add links to my sandbox and to-do list if possible. If you have time to just point out code I can copy from your css or js pages, that would be awesome! Thanks! Sheep81 04:40, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I have so much crap in my user js I can't keep track of it. You're probably looking for this?:

    /* Adds some links to my ''personal tools'' section ("My monobook.js", "My monobook.css", "My sandbox") */

    addLink('p-personal', '/wiki/User:Omegatron/monobook.js', 'My monobook.js', 'pt-monobookjs', 'monobook.js is used for storing user javascripts', '', 'pt-logout');
    addLink('p-personal', '/wiki/User:Omegatron/monobook.css', 'My monobook.css', 'pt-monobookcss', 'monobook.css is used for storing user CSS styles', '', 'pt-logout');
    addLink('p-personal', '/wiki/User:Omegatron/Sandbox', 'My sandbox', 'pt-sandbox', 'My sandbox is used for testing things', '', 'pt-logout');
    addLink('p-personal', '/w/index.php?title=Special%3AAllpages&from=Omegatron&namespace=2', 'My subpages', 'pt-subpages', 'Subpages of my userspace', '', 'pt-logout');

— Omegatron 22:27, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! Sheep81 05:15, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

WebCite followup

So I thought about it a little and wrote a short bot to run on the live wiki. You can find it at User:Gwern/Archive-bot.hs; it basically slowly downloads WP articles, parses out external links, and accesses a WebCite URL (which has the side effect of causing WebCite to archive the external link I embed in the URL). As I said, though, it's quite slow and a bit of a memory hog - I've been running it pretty frequently the past few days, and it is up to .TK as I write. --Gwern (contribs) 13:21 22 June 2007 (GMT)

Cool. What "live wiki" is it running on? Can you show some examples? — Omegatron 22:53, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

By live wiki I meant that it's not parsing the database dumps (I rely on a database dump to get article names, though, since I haven't figured out how to get at the Special: pages yet through Haskell.) and is downloading the HTML from the live website, en.wikipedia.org. You can see the hardwired URLs in the source code. As for showing examples, I throw away WebCite's response and it's not like there's anything for it to print to stdout. WebCite sends me emails though, like this:

--------------------------------------
SUCCESSFULLY CACHED

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Visual_Arts/ASCII_Art/

Please use the URL http://www.webcitation.org/5Pnk7OI6v to access the cached copy of this page

It's up to 10-sided_dice, now, incidentally. --Gwern (contribs) 02:55 23 June 2007 (GMT)

{{further}}

Hey, I've renominated the template for deletion. Let's push this template thru to deletion, and get as many of your like minded friends to vote.[4]199.126.28.20 03:28, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Who are you? — Omegatron 04:07, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Consensus and AfD

Your point is good, and indeed, had you looked at the rest of that thread, you would have seen that I said numbers are an important factor to consider. However, they are far from the only factor. Remember, for example, that our current policies enjoy support from far more people than have shown up to even the busiest AfD. So if it can be shown unambiguously that an article is inherently unverifiable, or cannot be written neutrally (not just "is not currently", that's a very important distinction there!), or cannot be written without the use of original research, they must go, since the real consensus is "We shouldn't have articles which violate those policies". On the other hand, other arguments such as notability are not quite as clear-cut, and we do occasionally make an exception, so it's more likely that an article's subject which does not pass the letter of the notability guidelines but which a significant number of people argue to make an exception for will be kept, or if a subject technically passes them but most agree we shouldn't have that article it will be deleted.

Consensus is a very tricky thing to determine. If it were simply as easy as counting heads, we'd still have the old votes for deletion system. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way in practice. Head count is an important factor to consider when closing an AfD (especially when the "heads" involved are clearly established editors and not sock/meatpuppets), but even then it's far from the only one. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:33, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Cultural Change on the site and what the "average" user can do about it...

Your user page is incredibly well thought out, well written, and perfectly captures a lot of the frustrations many users (myself included) are feeling about this hard lurch toward libre-absolutism that has overcome a lot of the project recently.

However, I think we may be trying to apply CPR to a corpse. The "growing Wikipedia" we knew and enthusiastically contributed to has turned in to the "We're better than all other websites, so we can demand whatever we want Wikipedia", which is filled with contributors, editors, admins, and even board members whose evangelical zeal against "God like creators" has shifted this project in a direction I'm not interested in following. Wikipedia's continued denial of reality - the expectation that multi-billion dollar corporations across the land are suddenly going to discover and use GFDL licensing, or begin to freely release previously copyrighted material - means this is destined to remain, at best, an "amateur" project. Any encyclopedia which would not only prefer but actually mandate, via policy, the illustration of an article on a band with a 20th row camera-phone shot posted to Flikr rather than a professionally distributed publicity photo meant for just this type of use is going to run in to some pretty serious credibility issues.

So if a slate of "pro-rational-fair use" candidates develops, please let me know. (Rational being how I would describe the policies as they were enforced from 2003 to about mid-2006.) Have you considered running? And are any of the candidates running on a "German" platform? (The elimination of fair use altogether, which I think is the eventual goal of many of the anti-fair use zealots...) Jenolen ^{speak it!} 17:57, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

So I should just give up and quit contributing to Wikipedia? — Omegatron 00:06, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Reading this back, it sounds a bit more defeatist than perhaps I'd intended. In terms of giving up, that's everyone's own choice. I do know that my ratio of what I would consider constructive edits to procedural wiki-wonking has gone way, way out of whack, every since Chowbok, Abu, Angr, etc. started what I guess they would consider enforcing rules that had long gone un-enforced, or at least, were poorly understood by a majority of both admins and editors. And that's sad. But when you "contributors" who serve only as agents of deletion, I suppose there has to be a balance of contributors who need to push back in the other direction. But if you're asking me what do I think, in my gut, then yeah, I think EN will be "German" when it comes to fair use within the year, and basically irrelevant on the 'net within four. Someone will build on its bones something much more like the earlier versions of Wikipedia, and all that will be left here will be those individuals who share the most strict views on libre content. Which is fine, and all, just not something I, as a "God-like creator" particularly want to be a part of.  :) Anyhow, I'll continue to plug away, until fair use is exterminated, then I'll probably stop contributing; it seems silly to continue to argue over issues like "When is a promotional photo really a promotional photo?" with people who have no experience dealing with them, and an interest only in deleting images in some odd game of "Wiki-gotcha." Jenolen ^{speak it!} 08:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

"Enforcing rules that had long gone un-enforced" is just another way of saying historical revisionism. Wikipedia's policies are decided by consensus and de facto enforcement. This claim that "non-free images violate Wikipedia's goals" is baseless. Wikipedia's use of free licenses was just one of many factors that went into the founding of the site, and were for practical rather than ideological reasons. It's not called "Freepedia" or "GNUPedia"; the wiki software was the primary distinguishing feature, not the license.

The site didn't even have the ability to add images until a year and a half later. Before this, articles just had links to images on third-party websites! Without images, licensing issues were largely moot; everything was GFDL, fair use quotations, or public domain, and there's no reason why this should have been any different. When image capabilities were added to the site, though, writing "the author has given Wikipedia permission to use this image, but third parties may not use it without permission" on the image description page was just as acceptable as GFDL or a fair use defense. No proprietary encyclopedia limits itself to only editor-produced media. Practically everything in Britannica is used with permission; I doubt they ever rely on fair use.

Jimbo: "We don't have free licenses because we are out of context maniacs, we do it because we want the encyclopedia to be redistributed and modified freely. The license serves a purpose."

Free licenses are fundamental to the fulfillment of our mission and the longterm success of the site, but we must not lose sight of our goals and limit our quality and coverage because of them. — Omegatron 20:20, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

"Discussion" Tab to "Talk" Tab (Village Pump (proposals))

Thanks for organizing the straw poll. The question has been on WP:Vp/p for over a week now. Looking at the arguments, where they exist, I see four camps:

1) don't change anything; nothing here is broken, with which I agree, thought this begs the whole raison d'etre, which was a suggestion for a change to help newcomers by having the offical page reflect the language of the pages;

2) the "ad hominem" argument of "I wasn't confused, so why would anyone else be?". As I started the proposal from my own "ad hominem", though contrary, position, looking for others who did or did not agree, I can't dismiss the rationale outright, but it does appear to be a minority view;

3) the word "Talk" is more likely to lead to "chat" than is the word "Discussion". I would think that the overwhelming use of the word "talk" or the phrase "talk" pages" is mush more likley to have that effect, though I can't dismiss entirely the additional weight of an official label. No one can argue that there isn't already a lot of chat going on, regardless of the label;

4) it will help newcomers, and helping newcomers is a good idea.

My conclusion, which may have an inappropriate, personall bias is that the "Change the tab to "Talk"" group has the most significant arguments in its support and is marginally in the majority of those who took the poll. Not being an administrator, and being the initial proposer, I can't take this any further. Where do we go from here? Bielle 17:25, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't put too much stock in this particular poll. As soon as something changes in the interface there will be a firestorm of opinion as everyone else becomes aware of the proposal.  :-) I'll probably make some kind of change in a few days, if no one else does, but then there will be lots of discussion, and the interface will settle, maybe to something else entirely. — Omegatron 23:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

That's fine. I don't have anything personal invested in this proposal. I thought it made sense, given what actually happens on en.wiki. If I should do anything, now or later, by way of bookkeeping, as it were, please let me know. Thank you for your help. Bielle 23:37, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Bookkeeping? — Omegatron 23:48, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Non-free content

I'm curious what you think of the rant on my user page. I'm trying to figure out who I want to vote for. — Omegatron 05:02, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I read your user page with interest. I have thought for some time that it was entirely inappropriate for the Foundation to make a POV document (hosted on an external server, no less) Foundation-level policy, and to use Wikipedia as a platform to attack the right of copyright. And you're right that the Foundation should not get too involved in policy-making because it circumvents the discussion process.

At the same time, I am willing to compromise. While we are fighting tooth and nail to keep acceptable non-free images in the main namespace, I am willing to sacrifice non-free images outside of the main namespace. Removing non-free images outside the main namespace does not directly harm the project, and in the case of fair use images it helps us stay on safe legal ground.

The main point I see where I diverge from your views is in the case of replaceable fair use images. It's possible to go out and snap a photo of someone or something. It may be hard, but it would be worth it, to both keep us on safe legal ground and to keep the encyclopedia as free as reasonably possible.

So, there you have my views about your user page. As far as who to vote for, I'm not sure myself, but I don't think I'm going to vote for Mindspillage because she has not been very helpful in clarifying Foundation:Resolution:Licensing policy and has not been willing to discuss the issue of the International Symbol of Access. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 03:02, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

it was entirely inappropriate for the Foundation to make a POV document (hosted on an external server, no less) Foundation-level policy, and to use Wikipedia as a platform to attack the right of copyright.

Absolutely. I am certain that this Benjamin Tucker-esque anti-copyright POV is shared only by a handful of editors, legitimate or not. It is not the view of the community as a whole, and doesn't belong in official Foundation policy.

I am willing to sacrifice non-free images outside of the main namespace

First off, everyone's operating within the "fair use" paradigm, but this is an arbitrary limitation that wasn't part of the original rules. There's no reason why we couldn't get a photographer's permission to use an image in the Wikipedia namespace, for instance, and the arguments about whether it constitutes fair use or not would be completely irrelevant.

I'm absolutely fine with keeping non-free content out of the Wikipedia: and User: spaces, for instance, though I don't think blanket rules are usually a good thing. There are probably a few legitimate reasons for their use, and this decision should be made using common sense, not arbitrary one-size-fits-all rules.

Using images in discussion about the images themselves, on the other hand, is even more obviously fair use than using them in articles. I think it's quite silly that, for instance, including an image on a talk page while talking about the image itself is prohibited.

The main point I see where I diverge from your views is in the case of replaceable fair use images. It's possible to go out and snap a photo of someone or something.

Certainly. And this should be done and encouraged whenever possible. But that doesn't mean all images should be removed from articles during the time it takes to snap the photo. What's wrong with removing the image after a replacement has been uploaded to the servers? The only legitimate rationale I've ever seen for leaving gaping holes in our articles is that it encourages the creation of free replacements. But that's quite a poor excuse for actions which bite newcomers, piss off regular editors, and prevent us from including encyclopedic information. There are many other ways to encourage free replacement. Doing this when the image could theoretically be created (but hasn't yet) is just stupid. Our first priority is to serve the reader. If there are no free images available, someone should create one. In the meantime, we should use a (legal) non-free one.

It may be hard, but it would be worth it, to both keep us on safe legal ground and to keep the encyclopedia as free as reasonably possible.

Again, "safe legal ground" would be irrelevant if we allowed images with permission, like we used to.

I don't think I'm going to vote for Mindspillage because she has not been very helpful in clarifying Foundation:Resolution:Licensing policy and has not been willing to discuss the issue of the International Symbol of Access.

She seems to be a good person and a good editor/role model, and I'll support her in any other situation, but because of her connections to this policy, I'm not recommending that anyone vote for her, either.  :-/ The other two incumbents, likewise.

I think I'm going to make a list of the candidates and their positions. Most editors are apathetic, and I'm not very optimistic about any of this, but we'll see what happens... — Omegatron 23:07, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I really like Michael Snow's statement. Kingboyk's statement isn't bad either, and DragonFire1024's is better than nothing. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 21:34, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm.... I made a list, if you didn't notice. — Omegatron 02:31, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Making an exception for one specific symbol is not the way to go about it, anyway. The ISA and all similar situations should be allowed. — Omegatron 02:34, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I didn't notice your list before, so thanks for pointing it out. I agree that there should be a general exception for non-free international symbols. I thought before, wrongly, that carving out a single exception for the ISA would be less controversial. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 02:38, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

"Non-free international symbols" is even a little too strict. You also thought wrongly that the WMF's licensing policy forbids it.  :-) We can decide to accept things like this in our own EDP. That some people choose not to acknowledge this is quite predictable... — Omegatron 02:41, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

The points you make, I think, are valid. Look at the article on Ralph Vaughan Williams, for instance - the lead image has been a statue, instead of a photograph, for as long as I can remember. Granted, that's not perhaps the best article to consider, given that there is a portrait there. But the portrait is uploaded under fair use, and to be honest even I think the rationale behind it is shaky, when there is a far superior photograph available at decent resolution, and one in which fair use can be argued more cogently (in my opinion, at least).

I can understand the reasons behind a crackdown on fair-use, most of the time. But I'd be hugely impressed if anyone can provide a free image they've taken of Vaughan Williams, given that he's been dead since 1956. I think the crackdown has gone too far, and the encyclopedia is suffering for it. --User:AlbertHerring ^{Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla!} 18:25, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Using that CD cover under a fair use defense is shaky (as are all fair use defenses, but this one especially so). It might be valid, but it would be more valid if it were in an article about the CD itself. What is the "far superior photograph"?

I can't fathom why we have a prohibition against getting the copyright holder's permission and blessing, when fair use puts us in so much legal hot water. — Omegatron 18:50, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the idea is that if the permission is Wikipedia-specific then it presents problems to third parties that wish to re-use the material. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 19:09, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

So does any other non-free content. In many cases (like the ISA or publicity photos), the license, while non-free, does allow third parties to re-use the material in certain circumstances, just like fair use. — Omegatron 19:11, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Re: which photograph? A quick Google image search, funnily, didn't actually turn up the picture I was thinking about. But I found a painting, as well as this, this, and this. All within about two pages, and all, to me, better than the CD cover.

Perhaps it's not ideal to pull images simply from Google search, but in each case a decent "fair use" argument might be made, I think. Certainly better than the CD cover.

Incidentally, I've noticed that a couple of images I've tagged as publicity photos have been removed, and I've seen it happen to other publicity shots as well. I put one back, same rationale, but it was removed again. Maybe it's just me, but I think that's going too far - otherwise why is there a publicity photo template in the first place? --User:AlbertHerring ^{Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla!} 00:33, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

{{Non-free promotional}} is there for if no freely licensed media could be created. For example, a publicity photo of a band which no longer exists would be OK. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 00:53, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I understand, which is why I used it on a couple of photographs of early twentieth-century opera singers who have been long dead. They were deleted notwithstanding - I guess because perhaps they weren't proven to be publicity shots? I don't know. --User:AlbertHerring ^{Io son l'orecchio e tu la bocca: parla!} 23:53, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Talk:HHO gas

Hey Omegatron, I wasn't involved in the AN discussion about this article, or the DRV, but I was reading up on some background today, and nothing indicates to me that the talk should stay undeleted. Since the article is now userfied, may it be better to centralise the discussion in the user talk space also? Tbeatty has told me that the talk should stay deleted, so I'm not sure how to play this one out. I await your advice. Cheers, Riana (talk) 03:09, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Use of 'Cite book' in Bibliography

May I remind you about our discussion of the use of 'Cite book' in Bibliographies? Cheers, Andy Mabbett 21:18, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm really not an expert in template conditional markup. There are plenty of other people who can help you. — Omegatron 02:01, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

CSS styling

Hi. Do you know how to create your own css modifications for the default monobook skin? I made a page in the Icelandic Wikipedia with CSS, Notandi:S.Örvarr.S/monobook.css, and I don't know how to get it to work. The help page User style says something about one having to put $wgAllowUserJs = true; and $wgAllowUserCss = true; in the LocalSettings.php but I don't know where that is. I'm asking you because I noticed your name in the history of that help page. --Stefán Örvarr Sigmundsson 20:46, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Never mind. I worked it out. --Stefán Örvarr Sigmundsson 21:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Your WP:V edit

Hi Omegatron, that article is protected. Crum375 15:17, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I didn't notice that, but so what? — Omegatron 15:20, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Talk page tabs

I have personally shortened nearly all of the tabs through js, and therefore I normally don't care what the defaults are. However this section is so large that it threatens the 800x600 resolution for users, and most likely breaks it for admins. Personally I had no trouble figuring out what that button does, and it is not really a necessity to know how to use it. Personally I like "+", but wouldn't have quite the same level of objection to a shorter title, "comment" for example. Prodego ^talk 13:26, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd disagree that the button is unimportant. I think it's more important than the standard edit button. The standard edit button should be shortened to just "edit" on talk pages, and the "+" button should be emphasized more and made to say something like "new topic". — Omegatron 13:28, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

This all assumes that this drive by editor actually makes it to the talk page. I think you are focusing on the wrong problem if your interntion is to try an get more input from readers who notice an error. The problem is to get them to the talk page in the first place. If they are savey enough to get to the talk page, I see no reason why they would have a problem using the 'edit this page' tab. A far better solution to the probelm your are trying to fix would be to have a manifestation of the '+' tab above the article possibly called 'report an error'. David D. (Talk) 16:04, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

This all assumes that this drive by editor actually makes it to the talk page.

Of course.

I think you are focusing on the wrong problem if your interntion is to try an get more input from readers who notice an error. The problem is to get them to the talk page in the first place.

That's part of the problem, but the "+" tab is also part of it. The "+" tab and section [edit] links are the links that are used most often. Ignoring newcomers, we should still increase their prominence and decrease the prominence of the "edit this page" link (not on the article side; just on the talk side).

If they are savey enough to get to the talk page, I see no reason why they would have a problem using the 'edit this page' tab.

Because our wikicode is monumentally complex and requires a significant time investment to understand even the basics? It's far better for the newcomer and drive-by editor to see an edit window that presents them with a blank slate that they can write whatever they want in, with a subject at the top. If someone sees a problem or error we want to know about that. Certainly we'd like them to become regular contributors, but they shouldn't need to learn anything in order to notify us of a problem. Someone said "they should see the wikicode on the page so they are exposed to it", which is just stupid. We should reduce complexity as much as possible anywhere we can.

A far better solution to the probelm your are trying to fix would be to have a manifestation of the '+' tab above the article possibly called 'report an error'.

I'd love to see that, too. One of my non-Wikipedian friends and I were discussing it, and they said a simple "Report a problem" link near the top of the article with an empty edit box to fill out would be much less daunting than trying to contribute to the talk page. — Omegatron 16:15, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

We could do add that link with MediaWiki:Common.js, couldn't we? — Omegatron 16:17, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not the one to ask, but I would suggest you focus your energy on the article tabs not the talk page tabs. Changes to the talk page tabs are just window dressing that do not really address the problem. I don't understand why changes need to be made that would not really serve as a solution. A new tab above the aticle, however, would solve the stated problem and I would support such a change. David D. (Talk) 16:22, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Completely ignoring the newcomers, we should still be increasing the prominence of the new section tab and decreasing the prominence of the edit tab on talk pages. — Omegatron 16:23, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not completely ignoring new comers. The 'edit this page' is completely obvious. Who are these new comers who are having a problems on the talk page? Is this really a probelm? David D. (Talk) 16:37, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Or somewhere else on the page (not a tab): "Report a problem with this article". — Omegatron 16:18, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I mean "if you ignore the newcomer problem, we should still change it for the benefit of regular editors". And since some people apparently think there is no newcomer problem, I'm going to focus on demonstrating evidence for that, first. — Omegatron 17:14, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh soory i misunderstood your point. It might be better to do one thing at a time. Each change involves different rationales and the arguments will get confused, lessening any chance for successfully moving consensus. David D. (Talk) 17:24, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, but this proposed change helps both things at once. — Omegatron 13:44, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

True, it does not have to be a tab, a;lthough I think the tab would be preferable. David D. (Talk) 16:22, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Either is fine, though tabs are required to be abbreviated and non-editors don't even notice them. — Omegatron 16:25, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I always noticed them before I started editing. I agree that there should be a tab on the article namespace inviting users to comment. "Report an error" is good, but what about something more general, like "comment about this page", only shorter? — thesublime514 • talk • 16:34, July 14, 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, anything like that would be good. — Omegatron 17:14, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Making the interface more newbie-friendly

I tried to get MediaWiki:Viewsource changed to something which helps people looking for an edit button but was ultimately unsuccessful. I hope you have better luck. Haukur 01:24, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... — Omegatron 13:47, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Board elections results

What do you think? --BrokenSphere 18:01, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't too optimistic, so it's as I expected. (Except for Frieda. She didn't answer very many of her questions. Hmm...)

Also, it looks like the votes were quite close. Only 37 votes difference between 3rd and 6th place. Other people probably could have been tipped into 3rd with some campaigning... — Omegatron 00:22, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Electronic amplifier FAR

Electronic amplifier has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

It needs work. — Omegatron 00:23, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Rane Corp.

A {{prod}} template has been added to the article Rane Corp., suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice explains why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may contest the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. If you endorse deletion of the article, and you are the only person who has made substantial edits to the page, please tag it with {{db-author}}. Garrie 05:53, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikistress

Hope things soon become better for you. Regards, Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 18:16, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Quotation templates

Hi - I saw you changed the Template:Quotation items on Steven Milloy to Template:Quote. I was wondering why - my personal preference is for the Quotation template, because I think the colored box breaks up the text more effectively, but if there's a WP:MOS preference for the other template or something, then I won't let my personal tastes stand in the way. Thanks. MastCell ^Talk 22:00, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Mostly just personal preference, honestly. I used to prefer quotation, too, but others convinced me that the quote style was more correct typographically.

I think there is a MOS guideline on just using plain blockquote tags (which the quote template uses), but I can't find it, so it may have been removed, and was certainly subject to discussion. — Omegatron 22:17, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Gotcha. Thanks for the response. MastCell ^Talk 22:18, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it might be good with a slightly different shade of background color, though, which might be a compromise that would allow merging the two. I'm not really sure what a "pull quote" is, though, (or whether they should really be used in an encyclopedia). — Omegatron 23:22, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Discuss or Talk

I notice that Kaypoh's change of "+" to "leave a comment" has been effected, and seems to be working, though it has, as you predicted, started to attract a lot of attention. You wrote that you were going to do the same with "discussion" and "talk" from the same thread. All my pages still show "discussion". Is this a technical problem? Did someone(s) override your decision? I'll watch here for any information you might be able to provide. Bielle 16:37, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

User:Andrevan changed it back, claiming there was no consensus for a change. Talk to him. — Omegatron 11:24, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Not my change! I wanted "add comment"! --Kaypoh 10:30, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I like that one, too. Anything, really. — Omegatron 22:59, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

audio template

Hi, I saw you had been involved in the creation of the audio template. My gratitude for that: I have planted it on both the Danish and the Kurdish wiktionary. There is a lot of Dutch sound files for pronunciation and I like adding them to Dutch words. On da.wikti it works fine but on the Kurdish one the little loudspeaker image does not get displayed. I tried to figure out what to do about it but it's beyonf me. Could you help? nl:wikt:Gebruiker:Jcwf 75.178.189.149 12:10, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you need to add the loudspeaker image to your site's Common.css. da.wikt has it, but ku.wikt does not. You need an administrator to copy things into the css file.

I will add instructions to the template. — Omegatron 15:20, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I have dropped a line on Ferhengvan's user page. He is the Kurdi wiktionarian. (Pretty much writes a whole dictionary on his own!) He'll probably take care of it but I'll give him your name in case he needs more info. Thanks a lot!

nl:Gebruiker:Jcwf

Infobox Journal

Hi, do you think you could kindly add COinS to {{Infobox Journal}} in the same way you did to {{cite book}}? The mark-up is beyond me. 12:48, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Well I wish someone else would learn it.  :-) I'm just reading about it as I do it. Can you just copy the code from cite journal and replace the parameter names? — Omegatron 15:43, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've had a stab at it. Please will you check it? Thank you. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 17:22, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

COinS template template

Also, FYI: {{UF-COinS}}. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 17:39, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

COinS in 'cite book' template

Please have a look at Template_talk:Cite_book#Edits and the sandbox pages linked from there. (If there's another COinS expert about, I'd be happy to pester them instead of you...) Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 19:12, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Template:quote

As noted on the talk page, the {{quote}} template stopped functioning after you changed the site's CSS. But now I realize that it doens't display correctly only within other templates. For example, in {{FGAN}} I sometimes use it to quote passages that need attention. But it won't display correctly anymore. In other situations, it still works. Since I use it often for this purpose, and after going through the other quote options I found no alternative, is there any way this can be remedied?--Esprit15d 16:36, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Ohhh yes. I actually made the change that made that possible in the first place.  :-) Template_talk:Quote#Newlines Working around the newline bug re-broke that functionality. I think the newline bug is more important to fix than the "inside other objects" bug. I don't know of a way to work around both bugs, but there might be one. You might want to try some different configurations in a sandbox, like I did on User:Omegatron/Sandbox — Omegatron 23:40, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

intermolecular forces

i m preparing 4 iit2009 ............ i have a doubt on intermolecular forces.

how can the intermolecular forces act between 2 atoms as they both contain negative charges.[as they have electrons carrying negative charges in the outermost shell].. both of the atoms would repel and not attract . so how can the attractive force act on these atoms..........explain me diagramatically —Preceding unsigned comment added by Asia123 (talk • contribs) July 13 2007