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De Anza case article at AfD

Hello. This is a courtesy notice that I have nominated for deletion an article you have created or edited, 2007 De Anza baseball players rape case. The deletion discussion may be found here. Thanks, Wikidemo (talk) 11:25, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

ScienceApologist

Hi Shell Kinney,

I see you banned me from Ghost light. I object to this because The only thing I was trying to do there, was to defend proper process- I was attempting to be anti-disruptive, not disruptive. I wish you'd read the talk page- I agree basically with the merge, but objections of at least three other editors, one who said proper process was not being followed, one who objects (look at the 3RR report for other editors). I only wanted the page to be left alone a couple of days so that consensus could be reached, or at least to give the other editor time to get sources. As far as the warning, ScienceApologist is an extremely disruptive editor, who has been noted as such in at least two ArbComs which I know of. He is also under restriction in the same ArbCom as I am, for being uncivil, failure of AGF, personal attacks and abusive sock puppetry [1]. This explains why I reported him for 3RR, in that he is continuing his pattern of behavior even if he counted well relative to 3RR. In short, I was only at the page to try and defend other editors from ScienceApologist's pushing and disruptive edits, and I think it very unfair that for this kindness (and I have no interest in the page so it was only kindness) I am banned from the page. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 22:39, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry, but after another review, I am not convinced that there is any reason to reverse my decision. Please review WP:POINT; you were disruptive in several manners:

• Mischaracterizing other editors' actions to make them seem unreasonable or improper
• Attempting to impose one's own view of "standards to apply" rather than those of the community
• Willfully stalling discussion or preventing it moving forward by repeating the same argument continually

and finally a specific example given on that guideline:

• If you're upset someone didn't follow process in making a change...

• do find out why they did it and attempt to convince them otherwise
• don't reverse an arguably good change for no reason other than "out of process"

In the absence of the ArbCom findings and your statements regarding paranormal subjects[2], I could have passed it off as a misunderstanding, however, you have had ample warning that your behavior is unacceptable.

In regards to your assertion that ScienceApologist's behavior somehow excuses yours, I am afraid you are mistaken. You must behave appropriately on Wikipedia regardless of what anyone else does; I do not see any evidence that ScienceApologist was directly antagonizing you, while the reverse is obvious.

You may wish to state your case on the noticeboard if after this explanation, you still believe that the ban was unwarranted. Shell ^babelfish 23:42, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, I'd really like to understand several things, and hopefully can correct next time: first, how I mis-characterized his actions: aren't page merges supposed to be done by consensus?

Also, my statement on Perfectblue's talk page applied to parapsychology- not the paranormal, and most especially not to this kind of page.

If I applied the consensus standard inappropriately, I would like you to correct me on that- other users agreed that the process was not being appropriately applied.

I felt that the request for more time for discussion was not disruption of discussion- but promotion of it. I still feel that since, if ScienceApologist had merely waited till tomorrow he would have had consensus (super-majority), that his reverting to a redirect was in fact disruptive. Thus, it was not an arguably good change.

I'd like to understand any real mistakes I made before taking this to the noticeboard, so your reply here would be most appreciated.

I have a further question, which does not relate to this case: in arbitrations which contain findings which are prescriptive in that they apply to certain edits, but no enforcement is prescribed in the ArbCom, is it still appropriate to take violations of the ArbCom to the enforcement page? I mean, is such an ArbCom enforceable? ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 00:10, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Mischaracterization occurred in both your revert summary, by calling the merge disruptive, and the 3RR report where you accused ScienceApologist of everything from disruptive sockpuppeting to edit warring, even going so far as to return and bold the sockpuppet accusation [3] for sheer effect. For the record, my block is one in his log - it was my error and you can see it was overturned, leaving only one block for 3RR, so your "considering the user's block log" attempted to imply something that is not true.

I'm sorry, I said that incorrectly -- I didn't mean that the subject of your statement was the same, simply that you have before indicated that you were pushing specific goals on Wikipedia that are likely incompatible with encyclopedia building. This isn't a constructive stance to take.

I believe you misunderstand consensus; it is not about counting votes. It doesn't matter how many people disagree with an action if they cannot come up with a reasonable argument against it. Its generally unhelpful to dispute an action purely because you believe someone violated a procedure; done multiple times, those types of objections are usually considered disruptive. An example for consensus building -- I suggest we color the Wikipedia logo blue because its a calming color and will reduce the vandalism on Wikipedia; I support my statement with sources. 60 people come along and say "But you haven't filled out the proper forms" or "No, we should make it red and that will stop vandalism, but you have to just take my word for it"; neither group would be assisting in the consensus building process. The first is ignoring whether or not the suggestion is a good one for the sake of process, the second cannot make a reliable argument against my suggestion or for their suggestion -- if either of these groups (especially the first) continue to argue the same point repeatedly, it will likely be perceived as disruptive. Now, if only one person said "No, because there is history in the current logo and it is widely used and recognized in its current form", they would be adding to the discussion and discussion could continue from there.

The discussion was open for a month with no substantive objections being made. I cannot imagine this was insufficient; if you felt the issue was not getting enough attention, a request for comment or a similar community exercise would have been prudent. You needed a good reason to request more time; you did not provide one.

As far as your ArbCom question, I would need to review the particular case you are questioning. Generally one can infer the Arbitrators' decision even if no specific enforcement is noted.

Your first edit was in 2003 and you became active in 2006; you've been through everything up to having been sanctioned in an Arbitration -- it may be time to take a step back and do a thorough review of Wikipedia policy and the goals of the project. Shell ^babelfish 00:46, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks (: Explanations:

I bolded that to avoid the error you make- you would have to go see his socks to see his very very long block log. The sock puppetry is not an "accusation," but the results of the ArbCom. My goal to have Wikipedia recognize Parapsychology was formalized by the ArbCom, which said "In addition to mainstream science which generally ignores or does not consider the paranormal worthy of investigation, there is a scientific discipline of parapsychology which studies psychic phenomena in a serious scientific way..." [4].

Thank you for your explanation of consensus. I've never heard it put like that by an admin, though I've tried to argue that myself. After all, many of the main charges against me in the past related directly to that- I had sources and reasons, but was nevertheless accused because several editors opposed. So I see your point is correct. I probably did let my history with SA color my reactions (although such history is also a legit factor, I'd guess).

Well, anyway, I'm not as concerned about being blocked from the article, since I have no real interest in it. I just don't like this on my record, because I was trying to do the right thing. I wish there was something I could say -such as a promise not to do that again- which would let it be lifted. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 01:34, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Ahha -- next time if you need to point out something like sock puppets, its better to link to the proof than bold a statement. Bold or capital letters are usually perceived as negative emphasis (and sometimes shouting) -- its a quirk of all textual discussion. A quick search didn't lead much info on ScienceApologist relating to sockpuppets and I missed it at the end of the ArbCom's findings. Now that I've seen that part of the finding, the mention of sockpuppets makes much more sense.

I understand what you mean about Parapsychology, but I think that perhaps because of your genuine interest you made some comments that were perceived badly -- it also could be that you're just more accustomed to oral conversations (most people are) -- things that are easily understood when spoken can come off very poorly in print. For instance, I tend to use humor and sarcasm when speaking, but because there is no tone of voice or body language on the internet, my normal way of speaking would appear horribly rude if I typed it. (And yes, I made that mistake many eons ago when I started using the internet)

A lot of people misunderstand consensus. Using supermajority or voting often seems easier; it requires less decision making and thought. On Wikipedia, its hit or miss depending on the particular editors you're involved with, however, its good practice to tend toward making a concise and logical presentation of your views in every case.

After lengthy disagreement with another editor, its always helped me to consciously avoid anything they're working on. Stress from a conflict often colors further collaboration without our knowledge and its unlikely that the world (or wiki) will end without my input on a particular subject.

You seem to be making a sincere effort to understand the issues and learn from them, so I'm going to go ahead and reverse the ban. Please do not re-engage in the discussion unless you have a new and compelling argument. I would also suggest that you and ScienceApologist would both benefit from a complete break with each other; I would hate to see you back in this situation again. Shell ^babelfish 02:13, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for all the time you spent explaining things, and for being so ....um, well so much like a good admin. And for unbanning (: I'd love to stay away from SA. But about the first thing he did after the ArbCom was hit the Parapsychology article, which is one of the two I'm committed to, along with only two other editors at the moment (so I couldn't back out).

It's funny about consensus- the Arbitrator Kirill seemed to say that "disruption" meant working against what others wanted to do, regardless of whether you had better reasons. I'm perpetually in the minority, but I must be doing something right also, to have even survived two ArbComs with the vast majority of editors wanting me totally banned. Oh well.

Whatever did you see that you know I tend to be sarcastic?

Actually, (in case you actually want to know this, lol) the major theme in my history is that there are a lot of people who wish to deal in SPOV, scientific POV rather than NPOV- see comments by SA in ArbCom elections votes, for example [5][6]. They would have a different slant.

Yeah, I'll try and take it to heart about bolding. I do often feel un-listened to, so I've taken to bolding. Especially in ArbComs, where I get the feeling the Arbs are too rushed to read most of it. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 06:10, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Working with people on opposite sides of the spectrum is one of the more difficult parts of editing. You're already aware that you and ScienceApologist don't always work well together, so you can try to head off problems before they start. One trick I've learned is to wait before replying -- your first response is almost always going to come off badly; jot down your thoughts about how you'd like to reply, or even type something up elsewhere (like notepad or ms word) but walk away for a bit (or browse away) and then look at it again ten minutes later. A lot of times you'll find you can see a better way to make your point that doesn't involve engaging the editor you're having difficulty with.

Another trick is to look at your edits as if you came from that other viewpoint. If someone looked at your edit, could they tell which side of the debate you fall on? If not, then you've mastered NPOV to a level that most people have difficulty with. If so, what can you do to balance things out?

Actually, I meant that I was rather sarcastic :) However, humor and sarcasm are pretty universal as reasons that someone comes across badly online, so its usually not far off the mark when you talk to someone who's had trouble with people misunderstanding them.

I understand feeling that you're in the minority and like you're not being heard in discussions. I learned way back in debate class that short, powerful sentences do the most to get your point across. See if you can write down your thoughts, strip out anything that doesn't directly go to the point and write in an active voice. I find that most often, people who can keep their points compact are more likely to be heard; other editors often skip through or quickly scan long discussions.

If you'd like, I'm generally on Wikipedia about once a day, so you're welcome to drop by any time and ask for advice or opinions if you find yourself running in to difficulty. I'd also suggest that you see what you can do to interest more editors in the Parapsychology article so that you lessen the chance of just you an ScienceApologist debating points. Best of luck. Shell ^babelfish 14:56, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks man (: I may indeed take you up on the offer of advice. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 05:39, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

lol (: ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 23:45, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Clarification about image copyright

I noticed that you deleted several Falun Gong related images, for example File:China practice 1992 big.jpg. However, this image is from another FG source with what I believe is a less acceptable copyright attribution, and has made it to Commons too. What could explain this apparent inconsistency? If anything, images on clearwisdom are "less free", as there is no explicit copyright notice on the site, whilst Minghui displays its copyright notice prominently on its photo library home page "欢迎转载传阅本网所有内容，但请注明出处", the English translation of which is "you are free to transfer (for display) and transmit all content, provided use its attributed." By the way, some other minghui images have found themselves onto Commons. Cheers! Ohconfucius (talk) 03:15, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I understand the translation and I realize that it appears they are freely releasing the image, however, they do not allow modification of the image, which is required for Wikipedia images to be "free". It may be best to ask at Wikipedia:Media and copyright questions -- if the more knowledgeable folk can point to a copyright license on Wikipedia that would fit, I'd be happy to undelete the image and retag it. Shell ^babelfish 14:36, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

deleting all the Falun Gong pics

Hello, Shell Kinney, firstly I'd like to say you are doing a great job. I see editors like you who seem to be the backbone of wikiedia, doing the day-to-day, behind the scenes tasks that are needed to administer the encyclopedia and keep everything in order. I know you are busy, but I need to ask: I have noticed you have deleted a bunch of pictures from this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_images/2007_November_4, for being improperly licensed. These pictures are free for any use, but they have not been authorised for modification. I have the words of the email I received, pasted also on that page, to show it. Can you please tell me what the correct license is? Furthermore, if to be on wiki as free images they need to be able to be modified, is there a tag I can put on the images to indicate that I have forwarded an email to OTRS from the website releasing them, while they are awaiting verification? Thanks.--Asdfg12345 09:28, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the problem is the no modification clause -- I know it may seem odd, but that's not free enough to be "free" on Wikipedia. If you forwarded an email to OTRS, I'll go take a look there for it and see if we can get these all figured out. Shell ^babelfish 12:00, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Alright, thanks mate. I hope I can contact you again in the (near?) future, if there is any new information, or what will happen with the pics. Fair use might be an option for a number of them. Or I can email the website asking them to release specific photos for modification also.--Asdfg12345 21:28, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely, I'd be happy to help. You might want to look at Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission for ideas on how to ask for permission. Shell ^babelfish 21:32, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Marking edits as minor

What is your philosophy on deciding when to mark edits as minor? I know that such philosophies vary, and it's up to the user to decide what's minor or not, to some degree, but what are your personal criteria?--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 14:22, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Generally unless I'm making major article changes, or an article edit that may be controversial, I leave them marked minor. Shell ^babelfish 14:28, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Your close of the DRV

I may be mistaken here, but is it not considered poor form to close a DRV that you have offered a distinct opinion (not just a "comment" as you claimed at AN/I) of "Endorse Deletion"? I have no opinion on the underlying facts, but the way I read the protocol here is that an uninvolved editor needs to close. Mr Which??? 14:42, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I guess we'll just have to agree that we have a different opinion of what distinct opinion means. Shell ^babelfish 15:01, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

A simple "comment" at a DRV or an AfD is usually proceded by the word "comment", while an opinion (!vote) on the matter is proceded by "endorse _____________" or "oppose _____________". It is the latter opinion that would seem to disqualify a person from closing. This is not meant as an attack on you, but simply a question of the proper protocol. Regards, Mr Which??? 16:07, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, well you'll have to excuse me then for not using the procedure that you prefer for commenting. Bit hard to check with everyone on the wiki before making a move though, eh? Shell ^babelfish 16:09, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for bothering you. I'd just never seen a person who !voted in a DRV perform the close. Mr Which??? 19:08, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if I'm being testy. I didn't really care if the article stayed deleted or not, so some of the accusations that were made probably have me a bit out of sorts at the moment. I generally don't close anything that I nominated (regardless of whether that's for deletion or good article or what not), but since so few people really get around to clearing up the back logs and dealing with some of the less enjoyable admin cleanup tasks, there have been a number of times I've later cleaned up something I commented on. If I don't feel I can look at it without bias, I don't close it -- I really didn't think that a short "yeah, I think BLP applies here" would be considered involvement, especially enough involvement to consider me biased. Shell ^babelfish 19:16, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I think it's more the appearance of bias than actual bias. I know in my previous incarnation, I worked AfD a little, and I don't think I ever closed one I expressed an opinion as to deletion on, but I think there were several uncontroversial ones that I could have closed without bias. As I said, it's more the appearance of bias than anything else. Anyways, I was just kind of curious as to your thought processes regarding the close, so it's no big deal, really. Have a great weekend! Mr Which??? 19:33, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Its pretty sad commentary on the community when briefly discussing a subject starts to be seen as possible bias. If I'd followed it at all or commented on the Afd perhaps, then maybe it wouldn't look quite like paranoia to think I had a vested interest. I guess I just didn't realize that the community had really gotten to that point, although I do seem to notice the same names coming up in these sorts of discussions, so maybe "community" isn't the best word. I'll try not to freeze under all this snow :) You have a good weekend as well. Shell ^babelfish 19:40, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

"Poor form" is an understatement, it's highly inappropriate. We trust administrators who close articles for deletion and deletion review discussions to be able to read and evaluate the community opinions stated therein neutrally, and without prejudice. Of course it's hard to do that fairly, but we are expected to try, to the best of our abilities. There is no chance of doing that if you have already formed an opinion, and even stated your opinion within the debate itself! You're really claiming you were going to evaluate your own already expressed opinion as just another one of those of everyone else in the debate? :-(. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 20:02, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and just above, you say "Generally unless I'm making major article changes, or an article edit that may be controversial, I leave them marked minor." Surely no way this was going to be controversial, right?[7] It was only a debate a hundred highly experienced users had taken sides on. :-(. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 20:04, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd have to disagree that having an opinion makes it impossible to review a discussion without prejudice; I think that's a rather tall order since having opinions is a part of human nature. As you can see if you look in to my history at all (try reading above under ScienceApologist), my opinions aren't hard and fast and a well reasoned argument may well change my mind. I actually discarded my comment completely when reviewing the DRV, especially seeing as how I had little more to say than it looked in line with the BLP policy. I could have read the debate wrongly, and you'll notice I didn't protest being reversed or the new decision; other people saw the debate differently than I did, and that's fine.

On a more personal note, I'm still not convinced by the arguments for Angela's notability; I reviewed the article sources thoroughly before closing and only saw two (the AU article and the Harvard project) that discuss her in any significant way and aren't internal to Wikimedia. Since sufficient notability was the argument used by more than 75% of the overturn "voters", I didn't feel that they met the standards of showing the article was deleted improperly. I'd surmise that a great deal of the ill taste over Mercury's closure is due more to the method than the merit.

It appears that my closure did no lasting harm and no additional drama was necessary. This is actually the first time I've had a complaint over my close of a discussion I had commented in; I expect its due to the strained feeling of the community taking sides on this issue. I'm not always going to get everything right which is why you won't see me getting bent out of shape if someone changes things later; just would have liked a note, especially when the person reversing my action brings it up on ANI with some rather rude comments. In addition, isn't it rather telling that you took me to task for closing the debate and but didn't make any comment to the other editor who closed and was much more involved, but came down on your side of the debate? Shell ^babelfish 20:42, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh - and about marking things minor - I thought that was to assist recent changes patrol? Edits marked minor can be turned off; it didn't occur to me that someone would be watching a DRV or other discussion via recent changes. Is there another reason for the minor/major edits feature? Shell ^babelfish 20:43, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

They work the same way on anyone's watchlist. I imagine it didn't occur to you that someone would have a highly controversial DRV on their watchlist either. But that ... is a minor matter :-) ... compared with the basic principle that you should not close a discussion on which you have formed an opinion beforehand. Of course you can change your mind, you're human. But especially on a highly controversial case, where there are plenty of intelligent, reasonable, experienced editors on all sides, we shouldn't have to rely on someone who has already formed an opinion, and needs to change their mind. We should be able to find someone who has not formed an opinion already. We've got 1200 administrators, surely one could have been found. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 20:53, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually I didn't realize that watchlists did that as well, I'll have to watch when working with discussions in the future because you're right, that's a serious issue if it doesn't show up for people. Anyways, that's why I didn't have a problem with someone deciding someone else should close -- I'd actually forgotten I even commented there until I got to reading each of the votes and didn't want to completely waste all the time I spent working up the matrix, reviewing the article and AfD etc. I can appreciate other other editors being worried about bias even if I don't agree. As far as the large number of admins, you do know that there are tons of backlogs where we can't find one? ;) I take your point though and I will be more careful in the future, even if it means tossing out my work. Shell ^babelfish 21:03, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that makes me feel much better. Yes, I know about the backlogs, and there are cases that tend to fall by the wayside because of lack of attention. This, however, was not really a case that lacked for attention! :-) --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 21:07, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

No doubt, my comment was more about how many of those 1200 admins seem to be inactive. Its too bad because we can certainly use more help in places. Shell ^babelfish 21:11, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Eagle Creek (Multnomah County, Oregon)

Deletion of that image was unfair and unwarranted. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 16:11, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Any explanation why? Shell ^babelfish 16:13, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I explained its purpose more than once, which was to illustrate a point of fact in the article. The image is low-res and small. My "crime", apparently, was in not writing up the FU precisely the way the deletionists demand. So they flexed their muscle, reminding me that they rule wikipedia, and zapped it. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 16:23, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Please consider that being uncivil with me is unlikely to help resolve the problem. You may wish to review the non-free content criteria, I believe you explanation, however you wrote it, failed Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding. We don't generally upload images to Wikipedia to use them as a reference; offline sources are acceptable as well. If after reviewing the policy you still believe the image was deleted unfairly, you may wish to bring it to deletion review. Shell ^babelfish 16:30, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I am not being uncivil; I have the right to raise questions; and I have the right to express frustration in a G-rated fashion, this being the United States of America. I have searched the internet for this image. It is not to be found, therefore it cannot be linked-to. It is from a poster printed ca. 1970, long out of print. There is no free equivalent. I have said that over and over, and no one cares. All they care about is deleting stuff. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 16:34, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

On Wikipedia you're expected to follow Wikipedia's behavioral guidelines, including being courteous in discussion. Its possible that you weren't aware that your attempts at sarcasm come off rather harshly in print, so my comment was just to let you know. As I said, there is no requirement that references be available online - a poster printed in 1970 and now out of print is still a viable reference for the claim that the waterfall has been used in printed material. Again, the image was not deleted because there was a free equivalent, it was deleted because it failed to meet Wikipedia's non free content criteria, however, since you disagree, you are more than welcome to open a deletion review where other Wikipedians can discuss whether or not the deletion was proper. If you'd like assistance opening a review, just let me know. Shell ^babelfish 18:10, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Banu Qurayza

Hi,

I wanted to inquire more about your role in the mediation. The last time I was part of a mediation process, basically the mediation talk page turned into a discussion not unlike that I already had at the talk before. I guess what I want to know is: how central will you be in this process? Will you take any decisions? What will you do, if the parties reach a deadlock where they can't seem to be able to agree?Bless sins (talk) 00:55, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Unlike arbitration, mediation is a voluntary process. I can propose solutions or point out if something suggested is against policy, however, any proposals or suggestions I make are not binding. I would hope that we can find a solution everyone could agree on, but participants can ultimately choose not to agree. Shell ^babelfish 04:44, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

The hell I didn't!

20:52, 14 December 2007 Shell Kinney (Talk | contribs) deleted "Image:Jamie oliver and jools.jpg" ‎ (Speedy deleted per (CSD I9), was an image that was a suspected copyright infringement, and the uploader didn't assert public domain, fair use, or a free license. using TW)

&

20:53, 14 December 2007 Shell Kinney (Talk | contribs) deleted "Image:Jamie oliver.jpg" ‎ (Speedy deleted per (CSD I9), was an image that was a suspected copyright infringement, and the uploader didn't assert public domain, fair use, or a free license. using TW)

I uploaded these under the CC 2.0 license as per the flickr creator's licensing. So I did upload under a 'free license' - your assertions to the contrary are incorrect. Exxolon (talk) 19:06, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Whoa - calm down a bit. This came across Wikipedia:PUI#December_14 not because you tagged it or uploaded it improperly, but because the flikr creator tags everything on their account CC 2.0, even when its obviously copyrighted. The concern is that this person is violating copyright, not you. Shell ^babelfish 22:11, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Would you take a look?

An image used in the article on the first Bangladeshi pornstar Jazmin, Image:WorshipThisBitch3.jpg, the cover of the DVD that made her the selling point, a first for a Bangladeshi, is up for deletion here. You may be interested to take a look. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aditya Kabir (talk • contribs) 21:44, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

More restore?

TexasAndroid directed me here. After a delete of the Jotun (company) due to copyright issues, permission was sent from my contact in the company and the page was finally restored. This seems to be handled and stored somewhere according to Talk:Jotun (company). But these two pages should also be restored for the same reason: [8] and [9]. Could you please help? Petter73 (talk) 23:04, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

The email sent to OTRS was very specific and only mentioned the article Jotun (company) and the text used therein. There was no mention of the other two articles or text being released for them. Shell ^babelfish 23:45, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

The email also stated something like this: We allow use under GFDL of content from sections under "About Jotun" and "News -> Photo gallery -> References" on our company web site www.jotun.com, in addition to supplied text and pictures. Please check www.jotun.com (click on about jotun, history and names under "Three generations"). Those pages should be compared to the deleted ones. Petter73 (talk) 20:36, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I've reviewed both articles and am declining to undelete them. While it appears you do have permission for most of the text now, both articles fail WP:BIO and would have been deleted for a lack of encyclopedic notability. If after this explanation, you still believe the deletion was improper, you may wish to open a deletion review. Shell ^babelfish 20:41, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Copy of user page

Your userpage was copied to User:202.14.85.246 by Ced101. I assume this is not something you wanted done, or you would have done it yourself. I'm going to delete. Please undelete if you actually want your userpage on that IP address. GRBerry 16:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

That was a bit odd; thanks for catching and deleting. Shell ^babelfish 20:35, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Shmuel Yanai

I found that you had removed the picture of the Haviva Reik (Aliyah Bet boat) from this page.

What is the reason for doing so?

The picture conforms to Wiki usage rights- the picture is over 50 years old and by international rules, is eligible for use on Wikipedia. In addition, the person who had the picture on his web page (Paul Silverstone) had given authoorization/and the Palyam Organization also provided the picture and permission for use.

Most important, this picture was put on the page because Samek Yanai was commander of this vessel and sailed it, and another vessel to bring immigrants to Palestine. The picture was specifically displayed to show how small and fragile most of these vessels were (except for the Pans).

Unless there is a specific misuse of this picture, I will undo the removal of the photo.

Thank you for your feedbackStevenBirnam 17:19, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I know that image uploading on Wikipedia is a confusing business; please review Wikipedia:Public_domain#Country-specific_rules. While I understand that the photograph may be in the public domain in its country of origin, this does not automatically confer public domain status in the US. Specifically, the US does not recognize the "rule of shorter term", i.e. the photograph being 50 years old.

As far as the permission for use on Wikipedia, this is unfortunately not sufficient as well since Wikipedia content needs to be free for re-use elsewhere. If the copyright holder (not just someone who put it on their webpage) wishes to release the photograph under a free license, they may do so by emailing this permission to permissions (at) wikimedia (dot) org. Please let me know if there is anything further I can do to help. Shell ^babelfish 22:58, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

PUI

Thanks for cleaning up the old "PUI" lists. However I'm not sure I understand the criteria you're using to establish ownership. I see you've removed several PUI tags with the note, "rm pui, user has shown that he owns domain where images are posted". How does setting up a website and posting disputed images prove ownership? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 04:01, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

That case is mostly WP:AGF. For at least the drawings, he was able to reproduce a similar image when questioned, so it is at least possible that he created the image in the first place. One of the photographs he claims to have rescanned at a different dpi. I recall seeing something about that editor having prior image problems, so if you believe he has not given sufficient proof that he is the owner, I wouldn't be opposed to the images being deleted since they've obviously spent their time on PUI. Shell ^babelfish 05:13, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Those simple chakra drawings, which are based on widely available outlines, aren't a problem for me (another admin tagged those). But the photos and the more complicated drawing are a problem. Without rehashing the entire story, the user has made unbelievable claims, and has changed his stories repeatedly. One picture that appears to have been taken before he was born, plus two dated images of major events that occured in distant location when he was a child. He insisted that he'd created another image until he wanted to get it deleted at which point, after trying to revoke the GFDL, he then claimed he'd been mistaken and that it wasn't really his own creation so his GFDL release was faulty. I think that at this point his credibility on image licenses is very low. As a side issue, the user has been blocked repeatedly, including once for his actions on these images. He has been discussed on WP:AN and WP:ANI, and is currently in an extended block. We should always assume good faith, but sometimes the assumption is proven incorrect. Given the history, I think that the remaining PUI images uploaded by this user should be deleted. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 07:31, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't aware the history was that convoluted. I completely agree and will take the time to look through his image contributions today to remove any I may have untagged and any other suspect images. Thanks for the heads up! Shell ^babelfish 17:22, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

In fact, looking a bit more at some of the things that this account has said and done, I can't imagine any reason to keep any image they've uploaded. The drawings can be easily replaced with images we can be sure of. I honestly wonder if an indef block wouldn't be in order -- this editor is definitely not here to benefit the project. Shell ^babelfish 17:30, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the user has a history of problematic behavior including chronic edit warring and article ownership. If he returns to those behaviors when his block is over then an indef. block is likely. Thanks again for your ehlp with images and other janitorial work. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 19:40, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Why?

Hi, Why did you delete Image:Stjamesfront.JPG, when, after a discussionwas not deleted. You have claimed to of deleted it per "Blatant Copyright Infrigment" ... how? I took the photo, and altered the desciption to say so, so why was it deleted??? Thenthornthing (talk) 23:16, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Completely my fault; I missed the change in licensing. I've undeleted the photograph and replaced it in the article. Thank you for pointing that out. Shell ^babelfish 01:47, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks alot, i did wonder :D

Cheeers Thenthornthing (talk) 07:15, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

RfA Thanks

Thank you for voting in my RfA, which closed successfully with 44 support, 4 oppose, and 3 neutral. I will work hard to improve the encyclopedia with my new editing tools (and don't worry, I'll be careful).

  jj137 ^♠ 01:42, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Astronaut

For your impressive work on clearing the backlogs at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images and Wikipedia:Copyright problems, I, Garion96, award you the Public Domain Astronaut.

Garion96 (talk) 01:16, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

....Floats....

Thanks :) Shell ^babelfish 01:25, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Philadelphia TV station articles

The articles WCAU news team, KYW-TV anchors and reporters, WPVI-TV anchors, and WPVI-TV reporters have been blanked and redirected into the main station articles. These pages were plauged by border-line copyvio issues, as most of the text was pulled from the websites of the stations. Having stand-alone pages of this non-notable material can also constitute as fancruft. The information is better served (and belonged) in the station's articles. Rollosmokes (talk) 05:36, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Just so you know, all I did was remove your copyvio notice when going through the blocklog at suspected copyright infringements. I reviewed each of the pages and only two had copied from the websites you gave. If you felt they were inappropriate, or not notable enough, it sound like you did the right thin. Shell ^babelfish 06:45, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

No offense taken, and thanks for the feedback. Rollosmokes (talk) 06:48, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

PUI

Great job! I don't think I've ever seen the backlog cleared. --B (talk) 23:41, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't have been doable if you hadn't already cleared a great deal of them yourself -- great job and thanks! Shell ^babelfish 23:44, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

voodoo pad

The image Image:Voodoopad.png was mine. There was all sorts of things on the talk page regarding copyright. I don't think speedy deletion is applicable in this case. jbolden1517^Talk 14:20, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

The image was listed at possibly unfree images since December 6th; please see the discussion there. Shell ^babelfish 01:06, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Paul Carr edit

I'm fairly new to Wikipedia, and confused regarding your warning issued to me.

The information I posted on Paul Carr's Wikipedia page is completely accurate and well-sourced. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Carr)

Essentially, what we have here is a 'posting war'. If you look at the history on said page, various IP addresses edit the page to reflect accurate information about this person. Then, someone removes it. I was under the impression that Wikipedia was supposed to include ALL information about a particular subject and/or person, not just what is pleasant.

I would appreciate not being blocked from editing. These edits were not vandalism, and should not be taken as such.

Thank you.

gtr2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Gtr2)

Sourcing the information to your blogs is not acceptable. Negative information, especially information that is likely to be challeneged or controversial absolutely must be referenced to high quality sources with a reputation for fact checking. The information you are adding does not meet those requirements at this time. Please see the biographies of living people policy for more information. In the future, please understand that simply replacing information repeatedly isn't the way to handle a question over content. Shell ^babelfish 01:09, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

RfA thanks

Great success! Thank you for supporting my RfA, which passed with a final tally of 53-3-2. Special thanks goes to Shalom for both the suggestion and the nomination. I'm honored by the trust that the community has shown in me, and will do my very best as an administrator. Thanks again! faithless (speak) 08:46, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Langbar International

According to the logs, the Langbar International article was deleted by you on 24 December 2007, but no reference was made to the author (Nigelpwsmith (talk) 04:36, 26 December 2007 (UTC)) or any discussion by Wikipedia users. Can you please contact me to discuss this - as I (and the UK press) would be interested to find out why Wikipedia has deleted all reference to a case that is as important in the UK as Enron was in the United States.

You seem to having some difficulties complying with Wikipedia's polices on using copyrighted material. You were notified on November 19th that an editor had detected that the article text was copied from another website. Policy requires only seven days before copyright infringing material can be deleted, so you were actually given considerably more time than usual. Please understand that we do this in order to protect the copyrights of authors who do not wish their work submitted to Wikipedia, and do not mean to inconvenience those who do.

On Talk:Langbar International, you were advised twice of the proper procedure for releasing copyrighted material but you don't appear to have followed those instructions. Again, in order to accept into Wikipedia content which is published on another website, we usually require a clear statement from the author of the content that the content is being licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) (see http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html, or GNU_Free_Documentation_License). This statement must come from an email address that we can clearly recognize as being from the operator of the website, or be in reply to a message sent to the operator of the website. This email should be sent to permissions@wikimedia.org. If you did send an email confirming your release of the text, please let me know what email address you sent it from and I will be happy to look up the request for you.

The article can be easily undeleted as soon as confirmation is verified. By the way, this also applies for the images you are uploading and claiming to own the copyright to -- you may use the same procedure to release them under a free license and have them undeleted as well. You may also want to take a stroll through Wikipedia's policies to avoid running afoul of any further guidelines. For instance, threatening Wikipedia/other editors with the media is poor form and further behavior along those lines may lead to your account being sanctioned. Editors here will be happy to help you learn your way around, no strings attached.

If there's anything more I can clarify, please feel free to drop me a line. Shell ^babelfish 05:26, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I've sent an email to permissions@wikimedia.org from the domain that owns the Langbar Action Group website with a GNU free license. Can you please tell me what else needs to be done to restore the article please? {Nigelpwsmith (talk) 15:31, 26 December 2007 (UTC)}

Thank you for acknowledging the GNU license and restoring the article. I am relatively new to Wikipedia and would like to make further contributions. Of course I will follow the guidelines - as much as I can understand them, given that some of them are as clear as mud! {Nigelpwsmith (talk) 16:59, 26 December 2007 (UTC)}

SD edit summary

I noticed that you deleted Image:RCMS.jpg as a copyvio, with which I entirely agree. In fact, I listed it at Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_images/2007_December_10#Image:RCMS.jpg. I am, however, concerned about the misleading edit summary you provided on deletion that "the uploader didn't assert public domain, fair use, or a free license". The uploader did in fact tag it as "released by copyright holder into public domain", at least when I examined it on 10 December. That would appear to me to make it invalid for CSD I9. Did something change? Did you not see my tag for deletion? Do you not agree with my interpretation? Did you hit the wrong button on Twinkle? I don't believe there's much doubt that this was a copyvio but I believe it's important to follow due process. Thanks DoubleBlue (Talk) 20:26, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I hit the wrong button on Twinkle -- I was using twinkle since it sorts out the backlinks in a much better fashion until I realized that I cannot get the silly thing (at least with my limited knowledge) to put in the proper deletion message. Sorry for the confusion! Shell ^babelfish 20:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks for the explanation. As long as you realised it was incorrect and are no longer using it. Cheers! DoubleBlue (Talk) 20:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Dropping a line to help out a newer user

Hello, I replied here. ~a (user • talk • contribs) 23:16, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

An Administrator is I!

KoL images are copyrighted, so I'll use this PD one instead.

Adventurer! The Council has identified a number of strange occurrences (such as "vandals" and "articles for deletion") in the surrounding wilderness. The Council would check it out, but they have important Councily-type things. But never fear: brave adventurers known as "sysops" roam the lands!

Thank you for your support in my quest to become a sysop. Although I am now wielding the keys to my very own Bitchin' Meatcar, I promise to uphold the laws of the land, martini in hand, in a way that would make Saint Sneaky Pete proud. I will do my best to be a Jack of Several Trades (although I may be a Master of Nuns). I promise to Heart Canadia. And I will make it my goal to Make War, Not ... er, Wait, Never Mind.

I am glad to serve my guild, the League of Wikipedians. If I can be of any assistance, or you have any questions, suggestions, or criticisms in the future, please let me know. And if you are at a loss for what any of the above actually means, see this website.

Thanks again.

An Encyclopedia is We! - Revolving Bugbear 22:25, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

Thanks for your assistance with St. Thomas' Episcopal School. I reported today's vandalism event to Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism earlier today, however my report was removed because the vandalism was "not current". Thanks again, Postoak (talk) 04:13, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

No problem, I've been keeping an eye out. And thank you for continuing to revert the vandalism and even improving the article! Shell ^babelfish 04:14, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! Postoak (talk) 04:22, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

RE: Image:Azathar_pic..jpg deletion

Hey, this picture that was deleted was of me, I gave permission to post it on here. I'm not a regular editor anymore (to many bloody rules makes it not worth being an active edit IMHO), but I was and am ok with my picture being on my profile. Now its gone. I wrote in the desc that I gave permission for a picture I TOOK to be displayed on my user page. Is it a crime to have a picture I uploaded on only my user page? I've seen other editors upload pictures of themselves and not get deleted. The pic has been up since May 2005, and now its all of a sudden a problem? What's up with that?

If you respond, please don't just give me a bunch of links to wikipedia policies, they read like stereo instructions, they are so confusing that they are one of the reasons I stopped editing like I used too. Please explain your actions in regular english. Thanks.

Also, please respond on my own talk page.--C.J. (talk • contribs) 06:28, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

And there explains why I don't participate anymore, too much bureaucracy for such a minor little thing. It's sad, because I used to enjoy being an editor here. Anyway, I'm not annoyed at you Shell. In fact, I appreciate your quick response. Hope you have a good New Year.--C.J. (talk • contribs) 06:37, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Deletion Pierre-Alain Clavien

Hi Shell - you deleted an article I created for "blatant copyright infringement". That´s not a reason I can easily comprehend, as I don´t see what exactly I did wrong. Is there anything I can do about it? Thanks Muhjoure (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 13:06, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

This means that someone reported that the text of the article was almost a word for word copy of another website and there was no claim of permission to use that text. Shell ^babelfish 22:44, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. As I wrote the text that is frankly impossible. Can you tell me which website that would be? Is it ok to reinstitute the article? Thanks Muhjoure (talk) 09:27, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Mediation Committee nomination

I have nominated you at Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Nominations/Shell Kinney — naturally, feel free to accept, reject or defer it as you please :) Cheers, Daniel 02:07, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Daniel Vovak

Thanks for taking a look at the Daniel Vovak page and removing the autobio tag, I wasn't sure if I was hacking and taking out too much. Thanks. Keycap (talk) 03:58, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

No problem at all; I think you did a fantastic job cleaning things up. Shell ^babelfish 04:00, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Stephan James Thliveris → Tin Foil Phoenix#Members

I have converted your PROD of Stephan James Thliveris to an RfD action, listed at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2007 December 31. Regards User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 16:26, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Summit County, Ohio

I object to your accusation that I am trying to whitewash the articles on Don Plusquellic or Summit County, Ohio. The edits I made to the Don Plusquellic article were to remove a link to the webpage of his opponent in the September 2007 primary. The statement was there for no other purpose than to direct viewers to Mayor Plusquellic's primary opponent's website. That is neither objective nor relevant to the article, which discusses the Mayor, not his primary or election opponents. Previous edits of the page shows that a link to the Akron, Ohio webpage bio of Mayor Plusquellic and a restatement of that bio within the article were removed.

With regard to the Summit County, Ohio webpage, I have corrected factual errors with my edits. My recent edit was to remove a statement that is factually inaccurate. James B. McCarthy, the second county executive, retired on 6/30/07 after over 30 years of public service. He did resign, but not due to the reasons cited in the statement. The articles are no longer accessible to viewers because the subject paper, the Akron Beacon Journal, charges for access to those articles. Moreover, the articles in question do not support the statements being made. Rather, they discuss criticism of Mr. McCarthy in 2006, a full year before he retired. The added statements are an attack on a former public official, nothing more. While the webpage is not a biography of Mr. McCarthy, if it were, you would not allow factual errors to remain on the page.

This is a link to a press release about the Council President replacing Mr. McCarthy after his retirement. http://www.co.summit.oh.us/executive/newsreleases/InterimRelease07-01.pdf

I attempted to further explain my edit in a subsequent "save" of the page, but could not get it to post. I am going to remove the statements a second time. If you object, I would ask that you remove the entire sentence unless the person(s) making the statement can support it, as I did, with a verifiable source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rohkeus (talk • contribs) 01:03, 2 January 2008 (UTC) Rohkeus (talk) 01:14, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Falun Gong photos--heads up on an email

Hello Shell Kinney. We communicated briefly not long ago. There were a series of photos of Falun Gong group practice in mainland China, and some photos of persecuted practitioners, whose copyright status was inadequate. There were some others from the Falun Gong website in question (Clearwisdom.net). I have contacted someone there, and I expect them to send an email to jareth_at_softhome_dot_net some time soon, clarifying the free status, so they can be undeleted. I hope this is the correct email. If not, please let me know ASAP. I spent over 10 minutes looking on OTRS pages for an OTRS email, but couldn't find one, to send this permission to, so in the end I just gave them that one from your page. Okay, thanks.--Asdfg12345 12:12, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah yeah, that's not my real email :) The email address you're looking for is permissions@wikimedia.org. Thanks. Shell ^babelfish 12:17, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

oh, cheers!--Asdfg12345 12:48, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Summit County, Ohio

In an attempt to conform to your comments, in addition to the above, link, the edits I have made to the page cite three Akron Beacon Journal articles supporting my rewrite of the transition between the previous and current county executive. As I have said, the articles cannot be read by viewers except by paying a fee, but other than the specific page numbers, the dates and titles were obtained using the archives search function on ohio.com, the Akron Beacon Journal's website.

Rohkeus (talk) 01:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Nice thing is, back issues of the Journal are available at the local library. I appreciate you making the changes instead of just removing the text entirely. In the past, much of your action has been to simply remove unpleasant text instead of resolving the problem and generally without any kind of edit summary; these types of actions look rather suspicious, especially on political articles. The sources the other editor provided supported half of the statement they made, which is why your removal off all the text appears as if you are trying to sweep the incident under a rug. However you were correct that neither article said that the controversy led to the retirement, they only mention that his retirement was being called for by residents upset with the issues, so that part of the statement by the other editor went a bit far and was what we call original research.

Thank you for taking the time to look up those more recent statements about Mr. McCarthy's retirement. Since the article is not a biography about him and the controversy a small footnote in the history of the Summit County government, the new prose you used seems much more appropriate to the article. Shell ^babelfish 07:29, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind comments. In any future edits I do on Wikipedia, I'll take your advice to heart. Thanks. Rohkeus (talk) 02:47, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Kurzweil OTRS

Is also applicable to Image:Raymond Kurzweil Fantastic Voyage.jpg. Thanks! --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:04, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Thought I got that one too but it must not have saved. Shell ^babelfish 17:28, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

MfD

Wow...imagine having a useful header nominated for deletion twice! Acalamari 19:04, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

hmm -- if it wasn't so pretty, people wouldn't hate it? *giggles* Shell ^babelfish 04:23, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Primal Scream

Hello. The Image Use Policy states that the rights to the photos belongs to the photographer, not the subject. In this case, I am the photographer. I do not believe that I need their permission to publish the photos and I do not believe that the lack of consent is reason enough for you to delete it.

Not to sound unsympathetic, but if those two men didn't want the public to see them naked they shouldn't have walked naked in public. It is not as if someone went peeking through their windows and took a picture of them while they were undressing. They were out in a public place, wearing funny hats, carrying signs they pulled out of the ground and smiling for the camera. I would appreciate you restoring the picture and responding, if necessary, on my talk page. Thank you. --Illuminato (talk) 22:30, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

It has been a few days now, and you have neither restored the picture nor explained why you have not. The courtesy of a reply would be greatly appreciated. --Illuminato (talk) 15:41, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about the lack of response; I missed your message among others I got around the same time ( I was probably out celebrating the New Year ;) ). In any case, the crux of the situation is that while the people in the photograph may have had little expectation of privacy in your opinion, they were apparently under the impression that the photographs were for private use and not to be published. Just as we are careful of biographies of living people, we need to be careful of images as well; as far as I can tell, these are private people who wouldn't be known outside their participation in one of the primal scream events. If you'd like to have someone else with OTRS access review the issue, you'll want to reference ticket 2007123110009273. Thanks. Shell ^babelfish 16:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Adoption

Can you Adopt me please? I'll be your very best friend if you do lol --Patrice58 (talk) 14:57, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Re Adoption

Looks like you have a new best friend me! I am interested in all things really, I have made a few edits but I would like to be more advanced as there are loads of things I don't know how to do --Patrice58 (talk) 15:04, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Mongol Rally

I don't understand why you have undone the most recent edits. I understand your point about original research, but only in so far as you deleted aspects that were original research. Your edit also deleted lots of other relevant text, including mentions of awards, prize money, and the change of name of the organisation. Furthermore, you have deleted references to the annual report of the company and the make of the company but left in the date of incorporation of the company and the company number. These items come from the same source, so I don't understand how some can be regarded as original research and the other can't be. I'd be grateful for clarification. Thanks. --Sce1313 (talk) 16:37, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

If you believe there is information that can be salvaged, such as awards or the name change, you're welcome to re-add them. However, since they were mixed in with your legal opinion on all those things, picking out which parts were real and in the source is a bit difficult. Shell ^babelfish 16:51, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

RE: WP:AN/I#User:Suedois and talk page issues with removing comments

Do you work with WP:AFD at all? If so, would it be possible for you to close the discussion in question as renominating (I don't think delete or keep applies) so I can renominate them separately? Charles 15:05, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Just move the second one to its own page and edit the AfD tag appropriately. The discussion should not be closed early. Shell ^babelfish 15:09, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem though is Suedois' comments and also the comments of others (like McFerran). If separated, Mcferran's comment doesn't apply (it only is opposed because the articles are bundled, so if they are unbundled...). If I make another page, I "can't" move Suedois' comments to clear up the matter. And also, the user who voted delete for both... Charles 15:12, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Since we're only deal with two "votes", you can notify both that you've opened a separate debate as requested and that they may wish to move their comments. You can also put a link on the first deletion to the second and vice versa indicating that they were originally opened together. Shell ^babelfish 15:15, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

There is, however, extensive interrelated discussion following those "common" votes. I don't think there is any way to separate them now without closing it and I don't think all can be counted on to separate their commentary appropriately. Charles 15:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

That doesn't mean that closing an open AfD is the correct solution either. Put the links on both like I suggested and the closing admin will be able to sort things out. If you don't believe I'm correct, you're welcome to speak with another admin and see if they have a different take on how to handle it. Shell ^babelfish 15:20, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

What personal attack?

I cannot understand why you interpret my recent comment on the Juice Plus talk page as a personal attack. I merely identified an ip user for the benefit of others on the talk page. Is that all it takes now? Please explain yourself. Happy new year! --TraceyR (talk) 16:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

As I understand it, one is bound by wikipedia rules to assume good faith unless there is evidence to the contrary. My comment on the Juice Plus talk page was made in good faith. If a known editor such as Rhode Island Red makes a comment without first logging in, there is absolutely nothing wrong in identifying him/her; bots do this all the time. I object most strongly to your insinuation that it was a personal attack on another editor, which you then compound by accusing me of "playing the innocent", before making uncalled-for references to what you call my "chequered history" with respect to this particular user.

I suggest that you take a few minutes to review the evidence. Should you then feel that an apology is called for, then I would have no problem accepting it. --TraceyR (talk) 17:44, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

In the absence of an apology from you I can only state that I am disappointed in your comments, which I consider to be an unwarranted and personal attack, which must disqualify you from any future attempted 'mediation' on this article. --TraceyR (talk) 17:57, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Archiving

[10] Hi, if you are going to archive that, would you please archive the whole thing. I closed it before and some admin reopened it. -- Cat ^chi? 16:04, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The other sections at least had a point. There's no need for this content dispute argument to be held in so many places at the same time. Could you explain what makes you feel I'm closing that section because its "inconvient"? Shell ^babelfish 16:06, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Please close the lot. It's a waste of time. It's a content dispute that should be carried on at the List of attacks by ASALA talk page. --Folantin (talk) 16:14, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Shell Kinney that comment about 'convenience' was not aimed at you. My most sincere apologies. -- Cat ^chi? 17:25, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

No problems, I was just completely confused by it :) Shell ^babelfish 17:26, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Would you mind looking into the actual dispute as an objective 3rd party? I really feel the two mentioned sources are more than usable. My peers disagree but they don't cite any contradicting sources in the process. -- Cat ^chi? 18:13, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll take a gander and see if I can make heads or tails of it. Have you guys considered trying mediation? At first glance, it looks like that might help. Shell ^babelfish 18:22, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Mediation is generally used for content disputes. No one is disputing the validity of the material. It is stated that "There's no question of POV here: none. This is a factual list." so I do not understand at all the reason of the overwhelming opposition. People are convinced I can neither use Turkish government nor Turkish media nor any Turkish source on the article. -- Cat ^chi? 11:03, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, they are disputing the validity of the material and whether or not the sources are reliable. I suggested getting more people to look at it and got called stupid among other things. Best of luck. Shell ^babelfish 11:07, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. How would you recommend I do that? I have been accused of 'forum shopping' for posting the general matter to WP:RFAR, a WP:DR process. -- Cat ^chi? 11:26, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I honestly don't know what to tell you, I've never offered an outside opinion before and been met with such hostility. It looked like a lot of people on the Arb request felt that the original restrictions from previous cases should be applied. It might be possible for you to ask for enforcement of any of the previous remedies that apply. Shell ^babelfish 11:34, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I apologize for the hostility, I didn't think they would be hostile to 3rd parties. I just want to note that I appreciate that you had taken the time to comment on the mater. On the RfAr page they seem to feel I was way out of line or something. My past encounter with Arbitration Enforcement only got me block threats and such. So I do not feel very hot with "arbitration enforcement" thing. I am quite puzzled on how to tackle this issue. Do you know anyone familiar with dealing such disputes? -- Cat ^chi? 16:47, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you can file this to arbitration enforcement or ani. -- Cat ^chi? 01:53, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

You may be interested in...

...Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Can someone double check this please?. John Reaves 11:46, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Not really, I'm a bit tired of people stomping their feet and whining because they won't follow policy. Shell ^babelfish 12:02, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Elonka 3

Thank you for your strong support in my RfA. It was definitely a dramatic debate, that landed on WP:100! I paid close attention to everything that was said, and, where possible, I will try to incorporate the (constructive) criticism towards being a better administrator. I'm taking things slowly for now, partially because of the holidays and all the off-wiki distractions. :) I'm also working my way through the Wikipedia:New admin school and double-checking the relevant policies, and will gradually phase into the use of the new tools. My main goals are to help out with various backlogs, but I also fully intend to keep on writing articles, as there are several more that I definitely want to get to WP:FA status! Thanks again, and have a great new year, --Elonka 04:19, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

A request for your consideration regarding CAT:AOTR

...My guinea pigs and the "A"s through "O"s having felt this message was OK to go forward with (or at least not complained bitterly to me about it :) ), today it's the turn of the "P"s through "S"s! I'm hoping that more of you chaps/chapettes will point to their own criteria instead of mine :)... it's flattering but a bit scary! :) Also, you may want to check back to the table periodically, someone later than you in the alphabet may have come up with a nifty new idea. ++Lar: t/c 04:18, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Countyhistorian.com

Actually as you can see Quaddell did not *explain* it, he stated it. I asked him to provide an exact quote from my site which violates BLP, I also asked him to provide an exact quote from the BLP page which states that you may not place links on talk pages that violate BLP. As you can know, neither situation is actually policy. Your threat to block me is highly aggressive. I trust you will be available to participate in an ArbCom on this very topic? Please respond as soon as possible. Thanks. Wjhonson (talk) 01:44, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Please come to add yourself here to the ArbCom. Wjhonson (talk) 01:51, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

OK well I see that all you did was cut out the actual link... So I'm OK with it sort-of, but I still dispute that you cannot link to a site which itself doesn't follow Wikipedian policy. Wjhonson (talk) 02:09, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry but a one off action on a clear policy violation is hardly a reason to join in an ArbCom case which I can offer little input on. There is no question that you are violating the spirit, if not the specific letter, of the BLP policy by creating an off-site page and linking to it. The page you created would never be allowed on Wikipedia because of BLP and privacy issues, not to mention a clear lack of NPOV. Just because you can't get something in an article here doesn't give you license to create an article of your choosing elsewhere. Shell ^babelfish 02:12, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I guess you didn't happen to notice that that site, is in fact, my site. The whole site, all of it. I didn't create that site because of Sanchez. I only created that page because of this case. You can click on the list of pages and see the hundreds of pages I've created already. Regardless of that we have no privacy issues seperate from BLP, and I dispute that we cannot link to pages which are POV. We have thousands of links to POV pages already. The page as you can well see has been in existence for a very long time before this ArbCom case. I don't appreciate your assumptions or aggression, they exhibit a lack of good faith. Wjhonson (talk) 02:19, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually I did, and mentioned it. Regardless of how many good pages you may have, it doesn't resolve you of the responsibility to follow BLP on Wikipedia. With your site, you're welcome to do whatever you want, on Wikipedia, you need to follow its site rules. Shell ^babelfish 04:04, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Mediation Committee

It is my pleasure to inform you that your request to become a member of the Mediation Committee has been successful. I encourage you to place the Mediation Committee page and Wikipedia:Requests for mediation on your watchlist, as well as the open tasks template, which will be updated as new cases are accepted. You are also encouraged to join the Committee's internal mailing list; please email me directly so I can confirm your email before subscribing it. If you have any questions about how the Committee functions, please feel free to ask me. Congratulations!

For the Mediation Committee, WjBscribe 01:11, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Alliance

What is precisely wrong in my comment here? Have I not given this scenario a nuetral evaluation? Have you read my other comments on this talk page? --Matt57 ^{(talk•contribs)} 15:58, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Further, do you think its ok to reduce a 200K article to 70K and deleting sourced material while doing this? Isnt that wrong? We're supposed to provide more details on this website, not less. What is your opinion about this? --Matt57 ^{(talk•contribs)} 16:10, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Your comment wasn't wrong -- you agreed with all the points everyone has been making which caused the article changes -- then, you turn around an jump on the "Elonka's a bad guy" bandwagon when it suits you. I'm sincerely sick and tired of seeing your name pop up everywhere Elonka edits; you disagreed on the Mohamed image thing, let it go.

Yes, absolutely. Especially when the text being removed is from much older primary sources, presented in a highly POV manner and disagrees with current mainstream historical views. This kind of editing happens frequently on Wikipedia for clarity, to update it or just because of sound copy editing. Shell ^babelfish 20:26, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Since you threatend me to get out of this affair, I have no choice but to do so. ITs not like I really enjoyed being part of this anyway. --Matt57 ^{(talk•contribs)} 21:48, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

This is not about one particular affair, I am asking you to stop your harassment of Elonka entirely. Pointing to a thread at WR is really going just a bit over the top, no? If you are unable to stop this stalking on your own, sanctions will be considered to assist you in avoiding her completely. Shell ^babelfish 07:47, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually pointing at a thread on WR is not over the top. It's called democratic free speech and there is no prohibition about it whatsoever. I would note however, that in terms of following and meatpuppeting it's surprising to find WJBScribe and yourself weighing in on this particular content issue, isn't it? The comment left on Matt's talk by Elonka was uncalled for counter-harassment wasn't it. Wjhonson (talk) 07:56, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah yes, I am not surprised to see you've become involved in this too. There must be an Elonka haters club who just got the updated memo. Posting links to a site known to harass other Wikipedian's is most certainly out of line. Wikipedia does not equal free speech, and I'm confused where you ever got that impression. We have policies about behavior here, including how to be civil to others.

I'd suggest that you not go around accusing others of being a meatpuppet, especially when you're referring to long term well respected Wikipedian's like WJBSCribe. Mediating content disputes is hardly something WP:SOCK frowns on, even if you were talking about brand new accounts. You may wish to read WP:HARASS very carefully since you seem to be picking up some rather disturbing habits. Shell ^babelfish 08:02, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Or WP:Kettle. The content dispute was a secret convention excluding the most relevant editor and then a forced overlay, not exactly a standard consensus-seeking approach. I wouldn't be surprised if PHG took the next step in dispute resolution. Wjhonson (talk) 08:18, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Really? Have you looked at the talk page or its archives? This discussion has been months in the works -- just because PHG has consistent plugged his ears and shouted "I can't hear you" doesn't make this sudden, unexpected or, most importantly, the wrong this to do. I would sincerely welcome further dispute resolution which I assume you and Matt would like to continue to be involved in? Perhaps we can all put this behind us once and for all. Shell ^babelfish 08:36, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your constructive suggestion. The main issue that startled me and perhaps you or Elonka or PHG could comment on it, would be the allusion that Elonka re-created a draft version, without PHG input, and then overlayed it on top of the old version without the possibility for comment from all of the relevant editors. IF that is an accurate summary, then that is not the way I would have approached the issue, and it certainly seems to be *stirring the pot*. Perhaps I am mistaken in my take of what occurred and I would be open to being corrected in this belief. The second item which is a bit milder would be the belief that a large amount of detail was consigned to oblivion which would be much more helpful on sub-pages cross-linked to this article. I'm sure you can agree that the project is benefited by more detail not less, and in similar situations we don't purge but split if a particular article is too large. Thanks and have a great day. Wjhonson (talk) 14:20, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, illusion would be the better word. Since last September, editors have been trying to improve PHG's version which relies very heavily on primary medieval sources, contains a great deal of extraneous detail and slants heavily towards a particular minority and very old, discounted POV. Much of this work has been by Elonka because, as you can imagine, experts in this particular subject area are hard to come by. These attempts and further discussions proved fruitless since PHG has reverted any significant change, even those supported by third opinions and RfCs. See, for example, his reliance on a painting title as sole proof a battle existed, even though many highly regarded historians clearly state no such battle occurred here. He insisted from the beginning that none of the article could be deleted, for example, he would not even allow cleanup of the references section here even though it was in dire shape at the time. As I'm sure you can see from present discussion, like the one over quotations, this insistence that no other editor change his article (clearly flying in the face of WP:OWN) continues even now.

Given these issues, Elonka chose to work on the article in her user space, a rather normal approach when edit wars are a problem; she corrected the concerns that existed with the original article PHG wrote using work by current historians (a short list of these concerns can be found at the end of the current talk page). Her work was discussed heavily on the article talk page, other editors contributed to it, it was mentioned in the mediation between PHG and Elonka -- there is no way in which this could be interpreted as trickery or slight of hand -- PHG was fully aware of the ongoing work and commented on it frequently. The first mention on the article's talk page about this version of the article appears to have been on November 1 of last year (at that, two editors supported the rewrite effort even then).

A large bit of the detail was consigned to oblivion because it was inaccurate, overly detailed or espoused a now debunked view (this view still exists, just in a more appropriate weight). Many direct quotations were removed and information from primary sources was discarded in favor of secondary sources. I'm afraid we disagree on whether or not an article can have too much detail; in fact, the idea that articles should not contain excruciating detail is mentioned many places, WP:EL encourages linking when the "amount of detail" would be too great for the article and the Manual of Style discusses being concise and above all accurate. That said, there is nothing that says that none of the material can be incorporated back into the article where warranted, its just that we need a sound starting point. Shell ^babelfish 14:33, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Shell, this is an amazing summary of the situation, thanks for your work in pulling this together. May I have your permission to copy it to the article talkpage? I think other editors would be interested in seeing it. Or should I just post a diff? --Elonka 18:44, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

You're more than welcome to use it if it helps; it might be better off linking since I'm not sure this is exactly article talk material and I wouldn't want it taken out of context. It does beat having to read through all those archives yourself though :) Shell ^babelfish 21:25, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Shell for the above detailed abstract. I've since submitted the previous PHG article to peer-review, since I'm not particularly an expert on the Frankish principalities, and of those who commented at soc.gen.med the general impression was "interesting argument but not really supportable". I'll comb the current article for anything I think I could offer from my own resources. By which of course I mean reliable and verifiable secondary sources. Wjhonson (talk) 21:35, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, the help would be greatly appreciated. If you don't have anything specific in mind, Ealdgyth has started work on a list of further improvements and source concerns that might be of interest -- Talk:Franco-Mongol_alliance#Equal_opportunity_time. Shell ^babelfish 21:40, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

New Semester, New Appeal

This semester I am teaching academic writing to a group of teachers at my school. This course starts on Monday Jan 28. I would like to know if you are still interesting in "mentoring". You can see the syllabus at Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects/ITESM_Campus_Toluca/SyllabusIf so, please leave a message on my talk page and update the mentor's page Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects/ITESM_Campus_Toluca/Mentors, if . If not, please remove your name and information from that page. Thanks! Thelmadatter (talk) 20:56, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Lassie2501 has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

"New content" at Franco-Mongol alliance

Hi Shell. I have shown that your claim that I added "49 new paragraphs" to the article as I was reinstating the full version is higly untrue: Talk:Franco-Mongol alliance#Why is the "longer version" get even longer?. I would appreciate if you could apologize and rescind your comment. Best regards. PHG (talk) 10:23, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Whether you got that information from elsewhere that you forked it to or created it out of thin air, adding 50 paragraphs is not a "revert". My comments stand. Shell ^babelfish 18:07, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

The 50 paragraphs in question were already in the main article as of Janury 14th, before starting the split. It is totally normal that I reinstated it when the splits were deleted. I would appreciate your consideration of the matter and that you retract your accusations accordingly (actual edits detailed in the thread Talk:Franco-Mongol alliance#Why is the "longer version" get even longer?). Regards PHG (talk) 06:59, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

You were well aware that the majority of editors objected to your original text for various reasons. In the course of reverting everyone's work on the shorter version, you chose to add back in information removed or deleted elsewhere by consensus. My comment stands. Shell ^babelfish 18:07, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Shell. As far as I know, the deletion of the sub-articles was not because of content, but just because it duplicated "disputed" content among more articles (I am putting aside the fact that condensing/splitting was requested by Elonka, and I was just trying to accomodate her). These sub-articles being deleted, it is only normal to re-concentrate content in the single original article so that we can discuss from that base. Neither is it "new content": it was long-standing pre-existing content. Besides, Elonka' introduction of her "70k summary" was non-consensual, which justifies reinstating the original article, even if there were a few edits in between (on my side, I had 6 months of edits being deleted...). Therefore your claim that I inserted "49 new paragraphs" as I reinstated the original article is unfortunately untrue. Regards. PHG (talk) 19:08, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not going to argue this with you. You've indicated many time that you're doing what you feel is right and you go out of your way to rationalize and justify your behavior. I happen to feel differently on the issue, but its okay that we disagree. I wonder what your definition of consensus is, because generally here on Wikipedia, when no one but a troubled editor you canvassed supports you, you're not considered the majority for consensus purposes. The fact that you continue to casually toss out the work all other editors are doing on the article and consider them less worthy than your own edits truly troubles me. Shell ^babelfish 19:16, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I feel sad for that you cannot apologize for falsely accusing somebody. Regarding the lack of consensus, the tally at the time of Elonka's forced introduction of her "summary article" is obvious enough: she had no consensus to do it, and her behaviour therefore contravened Wikipedia rules (Talk:Franco-Mongol alliance#False claim of consensus). PHG (talk) 19:37, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Looking for you

HI Shell,

Hope everything is well. The editors (including me) are looking for you here: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_mediation. We'd like you comments.Bless sins (talk) 04:27, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Shell, I updated some of the information about the copyright of the "Image:Fevzi uzmen bayrak gunduz.jpg" on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_images/2007_September_10#Image:Fevzi_uzmen_bayrak_gunduz.jpg. You might want to take a look, so we might remove the deletion tag under the picture whenever it is posted. --Eae1983 (talk) 00:45, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Hey

Hey I haven't heard from you in a while. I asked a question on the admin coaching page a little more than 2 months ago and haven't gotten a reply yet. Just wondering if you could take a look at it. Thanks! (Here's a link in case you lost it) Deflagro ^C/_T 03:51, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Image Deletion

Hi,I've now re added the Loch Tulla image with copyright info etc but am having issues linking it again. can you help? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bpb (talk • contribs) 08:18, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Sure. What you want to do is put [[Image:Loch Tulla-nthview.jpg]] where you want the image to show up. If you want to use the image in a template somewhere (like an infobox in an article) you may need to use just Image:Loch Tulla-nthview.jpg or even Loch Tulla-nthview.jpg -- kinda depends on the template. Hope that helps! Shell ^babelfish 08:24, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Image Deletion

Hi, 2 images I put up was deleted by I did not specify a source. I believe the images come under fair use because they are album covers. How do I re-submit the image? I'll definitely put up a source this time. The images can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:MFGMessageGod.jpg&action=edit and http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:MFGMessage.jpg&action=edit

There's no prejudice against you resubmitting the images, or I can undelete the images for you if they're just going to be exactly the same. Just remember to get all the details in there like the source, copyright owner, copyright tag, and if they're fair-use, you need a fair-use rationale too. If you'd like to have them undeleted, just let me know. Shell ^babelfish 20:21, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Partial list of stubs/short articles created or rewritten by Adv A students

I know there are a lot here but many are very short stubs. If there are a lot of grammar mistakes, just tag it with a clean up tag. I did not require that they wikify the articles due to time. Final versions for grading purposes are due Tue Feb 5 so any help you can give would be appreciated.

Santa Clara del Cobre, San Felipe del Progreso, Villa de allende, Ixtapan del Oro, Zumpahuacán, San Juan del Río, Nautla, Santo_tomas_de_los_platanos, Tejupilco, Saint Vincent (island), Jilotepec, Tlacotepec, Palizada, Santa Gertrudis (This student wrote about the town in Oaxaca State but it redirects to Misión Santa Gertrudis in Baja California. The student´s stub is under the information about the mission), Álvaro Obregón (municipality), Zentla, Bernal, Querétaro, Temoaya, Acambay, Xpu Há, Chapa de Mota, Pasorapa, Huasca_de_Ocampo, Malinalco, Mexico State, Almoloya de Júarez, Polotitlan, Córdoba, Veracruz, Mexicaltzingo, Lagunillas, Michoacán, [Ixcateopan]], Benito Júarez, Quintana Roo, Jocotitlan, Ixtlahuaca, Temascaltepec, Teapa, Tabasco, Huandacareo, Zualcapan, México, Capulhuac, Xalatlaco, Boca del Cielo

Thelmadatter (talk) 00:13, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Administrator Notice Board

I wanted to note that I already have a page about the content (asking about verifiability concerns). My only concern is about the admin involve (i.e. User:Vary, an admin) in this situation. I felt that she took the original argument too personally, went to another page of mine, entered into an argument, and the rest unfolded from there. Thank you for your consideration of this matter. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:18, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I think you might be misunderstanding the purpose of the administrator's noticeboard; the noticeboards are used to alert admin's to something that needs the admin tools, like blocking an editor for persistent vandalism, locking a page or something else a typical editor can't do themselves. The fact that the editor involved is an admin doesn't actually make a difference; unless they're abusing their admin tools, they're just another editor. In any case, there's nothing here for another administrator to do; the other editor hasn't done anything worthy of blocking and no dispute resolution tools have been tried outside of using the talk page for discussion. Shell ^babelfish 02:30, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I must beg to differ, an admin who is potentially violating a rule is something that the Administrators's noticeboard is intended, according to the page: "discussing incidents on the English Wikipedia that require the intervention of administrators." What she did was blatantly obvious. Since she is an admin, this cannot be brought up with one other admin. This does not concern a content issue, so it cannot be solved on dispute resolution. This contains solely her actions and the breaching of actions that an administrator is held to a higher standard for - "you want to make an open informal complaint over the behaviour of an admin, you may do so there." That is what Wikipedia states. If that is in error, as you suggest above, would you please change it. If it is indeed correct, could you please change what you stated and address the actual concern? Thank you. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:58, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry this has been frustrating for you. Right now it appears that you are having a disagreement over what constitutes a reliable source and whether or how certain information should be included in the article. You mentioned that you felt the other editor was wrong and that they were taking things too personally; neither of those is something that an administrator can resolve for you. Administrators are limited to a few extra site tools that most editors don't have; they are not given editorial powers that other editors don't have. You didn't mention anything in your post that would indicate the other editor has used their admin tools at any time in the dispute. Since there is no central body which controls content, the way to resolve these issues is dispute resolution -- involve other editors to help develop a consensus on how those issues should be handled for the article. Also, in the future when making reports, its very helpful to link to the diff that shows the exact edit you're referring to instead using a diff that encompasses many edits by different editors (the latter makes it difficult to determine which statement you are highlighting). Shell ^babelfish 05:32, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Let me make this clear one more time. I am complaining about WP:STALK violation. By following me to another page and performing the same action there without any actual justification and removing two good sourced links and claiming that there is no way they can be used, that makes her actions violate Stalk. She is taking the threads personally. Wikipedia users are not allowed to do that. She is taking out edits on other users trying to stop their say by provoking them into breaking rules or editing other pages of that they edit in inflammatory ways. That is not how an Admin should act. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:52, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

More stubs!!! (the last major batch, I promise!)

Malinalco, Valle, Tlalpujahua, Xonotla, Otumba, Aculco de Espinoza, Lerma, Tonatico, Luvianos, Tarimoro, Guanajuato, Tambopata - Candamo, Donato Guerra, Angangeo, Huixquilucan, Tlatlaya, Jiquipilco, Juchitepec

Again thanks! The students are taking your tagging their articles to heart. Thelmadatter (talk) 20:35, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Four more stubs

Otzoloapan, San Jose Villa de Allende, Temascalcingo, El Oro Thelmadatter (talk) 23:50, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey

Hi Shell, I updated some of the information about the copyright of the "Image:Fevzi uzmen bayrak gunduz.jpg" on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Possibly_unfree_images/2007_September_10#Image:Fevzi_uzmen_bayrak_gunduz.jpg. You might want to take a look, so we might remove the deletion tag under the picture whenever it is posted. --Eae1983 (talk) 13:57, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Consensus

Hi Shell. Please just follow the rules. As there is no consensus for Elonka's version, the only solution is to go back to the Status quo. Best regards. PHG (talk) 14:19, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

In the absence of a consensus for a major change (such as replacing the work of 6 months on a 195k article/400 refs article by a 75k summary), the status quo is favoured. As far as I know, this is standard Wikipedia methodology [11]. Regards PHG (talk) 14:30, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

You mentionned that "The status quo is maintained in deletion discussions when no consensus can be reached". Elonka effectively deleted the original article when she replaced it with her summary. She is not simply "editing" it, she is destroying 300 referenced and 120k of highly sources material. Not only is it rude, it also goes against Wikipedia's proper editing procedures. Since she has no consensus for the deletion of the original article, what she should do is work with it, and discuss what should be modified/improved. Doing otherwise is against Wikipedia's letter and spirit. Regards. PHG (talk) 14:42, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Franco-Mongol alliance

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Franco-Mongol alliance/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Franco-Mongol alliance/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, — Rlevse • Talk • 22:13, 5 February 2008 (UTC), note User:Thatcher is the clerk, not me, I'm just opening for him. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:13, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

St. Thomas article

Hi Shell, the St. Thomas' Episcopal School article continues to be hit by the same IP vandal user:141.197.10.180. I left a warning, is there anything that can be done, perhaps an extended block? Thanks, Postoak (talk) 00:22, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks like they haven't been back to the article since your last warning, but that many only be because its a school kid in which case they'll be back tomorrow. I'll keep an eye out to see if they return. Shell ^babelfish 15:53, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Great, thanks for your help! Postoak (talk) 03:55, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Shell

I am new in this so I am just trying to make contact with somebody I hope you receive this message and help me out in the wikipedia world, take care guillermo7777Guillermo7777 (talk) 00:55, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Illyrian gods

Hello. On the Illyrian gods article, you listed some sources without implementing any reference citations. Would you be so kind as to help me and User:Megistias enhance the quality of the article? We cannot seem to get ahold of Stanley Casson's work and we would appreciate your contributions. Thank you. Deucalionite (talk) 14:52, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I've changed the article back into an article instead of a ridiculous string of redirects. I don't have the book at the moment; I had looked it up while in the univesity library to confirm whether or not the article was real while wikifying it. I'll see if I can get back or have a friend at least look up what page numbers dealt with the mythology. Shell ^babelfish 22:29, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Per discussion on the talk page it looks like a great deal of the information may have been made up by an anon who's unlikely to come back and give us a source. Even though its an obscure subject, I don't believe there's a reason to remove it entirely, so I've stubbed it while I get a hold of the book again. *sigh* At this rate I'm going to have to start my own library just for history topics on Wikipedia. Shell ^babelfish 22:44, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I reverted because I believe the information is either a hoax or no longer regarded as credible. If you look at the talk page, I pasted information on Illyrian gods from John Wilkes' book The Illyrians (Blackwell, 1995 ed.). As far as I can see, none of it corresponds to anything in the Wikipedia article. Wilkes, writing in the 1990s, would have been aware of Casson (the alleged source), who wrote in the 1920s. So we can assume either: (a) the information is not in Casson in spite of claims to the contrary, i.e. we're being hoaxed; or (b) it is in Casson but has since been discredited, in which case it doesn't belong on Wikipedia. Cheers. --Folantin (talk) 22:51, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually if you look at the talk, the problem is that only part of the information actually came out of Casson. Hence my removal of the details the anon IP added without a source that are unlikely to be true, as you point out. Shell ^babelfish 05:42, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Deletion Pierre-Alain Clavien

Hi Shell, on December 31st I had enquired about the article on the aforementioned, which you had deleted for "copyright infringement", and you did not have the time to reply. As the text was not taken from anywhere could you put it up again? Thanks? Muhjoure (talk) 14:34, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't see the second part to your question. I cannot find the email right now, but we received a complaint at OTRS that the article was essentially a copy of another website. After reviewing the articles they did appear to be almost identical.

You can recreate the article, but please be aware that you need to provide references for the information you provide and not write from your own knowledge. You might be interested in some help on how to write your first article Shell ^babelfish 05:33, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Commonwealth Bank

Hello. I have placed an {{editprotected}} in the Talk of this article which you protected today, and I'd appreciate it if you could cast your administrating eye on my reply to your comment about the matter so to offer any guidance you may have. Thanks in advance. :)  SEO⁷⁵ 09:15, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Request for Adoption

I saw you listed as open to adopting-a-user -- please pick me! (I'd make big puppy eyes if I knew how.) I'm new but take Be Bold! literally -- been online a long time (WELL stalwart 15 years ago), Wikipedia a year or two but sporadic in attendance. I've gotten drawn in to helping contribute in the midst of two big edit wars -- the Mark Foley scandal a year ago, and the Prem Rawat issue now. I'm pretty good at picking up policy (to the point where Jossi openly accused me of being a sockpuppet, later apologizing) but especially am looking for social guidance in the Wiki scene, shaping consensus, navigating personalities, etc. Not much of a pitch, I know, but there I am. Thanks. Msalt (talk) 08:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Oooh a old-timer like me; don't see those terribly often around here. Let me tell you about my style of adoption and you can let me know if you would like to give it a try. I'm available via Wikipedia, email, instant messengers, IRC and well, ok, you name it, I've probably got it. I will answer questions, look at situations and give you advice and generally help out with anything you ask. I won't follow around and check up on your edits and I don't give homework or assignments or write long essays about Wikipedia. So if you're looking for a friendly ear to bounce things off of, I'm your gal, but if you'd like something a bit more structured or more of a teaching environment, you'll probably be happier with another mentor. Shell ^babelfish 06:02, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Sounds perfect. The reality is, by nature I obsess on each of my projects for a while and then drift off, using each to procrastinate on the other. (I'm trying to finish up a book now, do taxes, and renovate my house, so of course I'm spending many hours per day on a Wikipedia bio of someone I don't especially care about.) The friendly ear for advice, reality check and perspective is exactly what I need. Where's the paperwork to fill out? Msalt (talk) 18:02, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

You're hired! Did I mention I don't believe in paperwork either? If you want, there's a userbox you can add to your user page - {{adoptee|Shell Kinney}} but there's certainly no requirement you do that either. You can find the majority of my contact information at User:Shell Kinney/Contact - if there's anything you don't see there, feel free to email me and ask. Shell ^babelfish 18:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Great! Thanks again. I'll try the userbox. It works like an anti-evil eye amulet, right? Msalt (talk) 23:31, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

welcome

If you don't mind me asking, which welcome tag did you use here: User talk:Bevildej? Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 17:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

My own - check User:Shell Kinney/W and feel free to blatantly steal and fix up as you'd like or just transclude straight from there. Shell ^babelfish 18:02, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

thanks! Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 18:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

I have to object to your labeling of my edit as vandalism. Yes, I accidentally deleted two of the external links that were appropriate...that was my mistake. I had been removing advertisement and spam links out of the complete list of gay porn star articles and was careless by removing too many on that particular article. When you reverted my edit, you added this spam link and these myspace links which shouldn't be listed as external links per #11 under this WP guideline. Also, these links you re-inserted are questionable since they lean towards being spam links. I'm going to remove the first three I mentioned and I'll ask a few other people their opinions before messing with the other two. AgnosticPreachersKid (talk) 01:49, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

If that's the case, perhaps a better summary than "remove porn links" would be helpful, especially given your username? When I look and see someone just randomly cleared out the external links with a summary like that, it looks like they have some kind of agenda. Shell ^babelfish 08:06, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm gay (look at my user page), so I figured no one would think I had some kind of agenda. All I did was remove spam links, so no "agenda." AgnosticPreachersKid (talk) 14:18, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Ealdgyth's testbed

Hi Shell. Following your comments I completed User:Ealdgyth/Crusades quotes testbed. I added French quotes, references, links to Google Book when possible etc... I also offered to send scans of pages if necessary. I don't see any significant issues with the material. Thanks to tell me if you think otherwise. Please bear in mind that in many cases I have been translating the French original into English, unknowingly of the English editions. I don't see significant differences though, and I am of course ready to shift to the "official" English translations, or provide both French and English when necessary. PHG (talk) 06:04, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

My objections remain the same. You choose paragraph titles, short phrases, quotes on book jackets and any piece of a statement that includes the word alliance -- all of this is done without any regard for the actual meaning or the worth of your choice (come on, a book jacket??). Look at it this way - I read a chapter discussing how despite fighting together and the benefits an alliance would have brought, there was never a formal alliance - you read the same chapter and say "See? They fought together? That's an alliance. And look there, they actually used the word alliance, which must mean that this historian considers their interaction to be an alliance!" Its hair-splitting. semantics and unfaithful to the original intent of the text. Its been said by many people that perhaps you do not understand the import of your research methods; its just very disturbing that you're convinced that everyone other than yourself must be in the wrong. I know that even in subject areas I feel very comfortable with, if a large group of editors were convinced I was missing the point, I'd be inclined to take a hard look at my work instead of rabidly defending it with eyes closed. Shell ^babelfish 08:28, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Removal of category from your userpage

Hi. In enacting consensus from User categories for discussion, I have removed the category Category:Wikipedians interested in books from your userpage. It was determined in that deletion debate that this category should be depopulated of individuals, but kept as a parent category. If you wish to display a category reflecting your interest in books, please consider one of the specific sub-categories under its umbrella. Thanks, and please excuse the necessary editing of your user page! ----Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:19, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Also, please excuse all the unnecessary wikilinking here. :) This is a self-created template for the purpose of notification. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:20, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm rather surprised how that deletion discussion was handled, especially given the last editor had such a good point. I don't just like to read, I care for books -- I have rare and historical books, know about book binding and restoration and generally find it a rather interesting hobby. None of the subcategories have near the same meaning, but since I haven't had anyone ask me a book question yet, I doubt I'll go looking for a replacement category. Shell ^babelfish 17:03, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I was a bit surprised by it myself. In this case, however, I'm truly just manning the mop, as I've never visited UCfD before reading a call for assistance today at the admin noticeboard. Based on that notice, it seems like they could use a whole lot more knowledgeable contributors to those debates, if you feel like pitching in. Sadly, though, isn't that true just about everywhere? :/ --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:07, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

No worries, I don't mind people cleaning up my userspace :) I just wish I had enough time in the day to do all the things on Wikipedia that need some help. Shell ^babelfish 17:57, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Mediation

The mediation on Banu Qurayza has hit another deadlock. You, the mediator, have been previously successful in helping us move along, perhaps you can help again? Thanks, your help is much appreciated.Bless sins (talk) 18:55, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

oh Hai!

<grin> I'm glad you enjoyed the lolcat. It brings a smile to my face and truly does remind me to not take myself too seriously. Thanks for the positive reinforcement! - Philippe | Talk 04:08, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Admin Coaching Re-confirmation

Hello, previously you expressed interest in participating in the Wikipedia:Admin coaching project. We are currently conducting a reconfirmation drive to give coaches the opportunity to update their information and capacity to participate in the project. Please visit Wikipedia:Admin coaching/Status to update your status. Also, please remember to update your capacity (5th table variable) in the form of a fraction (eg. 2/3 means you are currently coaching 2 students, and could accept 1 more student). Thank you. MBisanz ^talk 09:12, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Joomla image CFD

Thank you for querying the Joomla image for CFD. I make a mistake in flagging the image for CFD. There was no malicious intent involved, just a misunderstanding on my part. El Mariachi (talk) 01:47, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

English Springer Spaniel

Thanks for your action on English Springer Spaniel. I believe that we should remove the same boxes from every other dog breed article that uses them. e.g. German Shephard Dog, Golden Retriever Would you concur with that? --TimTay (talk) 15:23, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I would agree. The boxes don't appear to meet the non-free content criteria and until such time as someone can prove they do, they should go as copyright violations. I'm even more concerned that in larger articles, we're actually going so far as to reproduce even larger sections of several clubs breed standards. I wrote up some additional thoughts at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Dogs#Copyright_violation_-_breed_standards Shell ^babelfish 15:30, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

RFAR

Please respond to Brad's request for information in a separate section. Interweaving comments in Elonka's section, especially when you are splitting one comment by her into several, so that they are not signed, is confusing. Do not edit another party's evidence; use your own section. I tried once to fix this but you either did not notice or ignored me so now fix it yourself. For long, detailed analysis you may wish to instead add a section to the evidence page and link to it from the workshop. Thatcher 19:58, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Uhm - actually mine was the first response and Elonka kind stuffed her info in there. And as soon as you moved it, I did add to my own section, which you've now deleted. Kind of afraid this was going to happen again, which is why my information is in user space. Thanks for cleaning that all up :) Shell ^babelfish 20:15, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

HI

Hi Shell. Sorry for mixing my text with yours: I wrote a separate paragrah. By the way, you didn't mention anything about my responsed to Ealdgyth's testbed. Aren't satisfied of the result? PHG (talk) 21:25, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

No problem, we're just running in to problems of making things much harder for everyone else to follow. And yes, I'm perfectly satisfied with the result; it was exactly what I expected. Shell ^babelfish 21:30, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Specifics? PHG (talk) 21:37, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Lets just allow the arbitration to run its course. We don't agree on a lot of things and I don't believe that we're going to be able to convince each other, so we're probably better off not arguing. Thanks for the offer though. Shell ^babelfish 22:21, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Re Admin coaching match

Hey! I'm the guy you've been matched with over at admin coaching. I am a long time user, but my edits are mainly confined to doing vandalism reverts and copyediting now and then. I would like help familiarising myself with the range of areas on Wikipedia and how admin tools can be used to the advantage of wikipedia and the community. --Joe^Talk_Work 21:44, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey there. Looks like we've got some active coordinators again at admin coaching. I don't think I've worked with either one before, so let me give you some details about the way I do things to make sure this match is going to work out well for you. Unlike a lot of the other coaches, I don't have a formal lesson structure - I favor a discussion-like structure where we talk about the whys of admin actions, though I'm always happy to answer any how questions you might have as well. My approach means you're going to spend a little time saying "I would do this." and a lot of time saying "And here's why."

If that sounds like the type of environment you could learn well from and will teach you what you want to know, then I'd be happy to coach you. If you'd prefer a more typical lesson type approach, you'll be much happier with a different mentor since my spontaneity makes me incapable of structure ;) Just let me know what you think. Shell ^babelfish 16:13, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I think a discussion-based structure would probably be good; adminship isn't something you can teach, right? I think I need to learn some more about the procedures behind admin actions so that I don't go rushing in and doing things I shouldn't, but believe that I will be able to make a better contribution with the Admin tools available to me. --Joe^Talk_Work 16:03, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

HI

Hi Shell. You are actually accusing me. Isn't it normal that I can respond to your comments?? I think such a page where you deny the other user's feedback can be qualified as an "attack page". It is only normal that I can respond to your comments there. PHG (talk) 21:56, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I am. You are aware that the entire point of a arbitration case is to discuss problematic behavior and find a way to resolve the issues, correct? It would be impossible to do that without discussing the behavior the case is about. Also, please note that one of the Arbitrators specifically asked for instances in which other editors believe you have misused or misquoted sources - the entire page is my answer to that question. It is not normal that you respond there, it is normal that you respond in your area on the arbitration. You've been informed at least five times now of what is "normal" in an arbitration case; please follow those rules. Shell ^babelfish 17:18, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Viam agnoscere veritatis

Please note that User:Elonka has been making up the story that there were actually 3 letters called "Viam agnoscere veritatis", when I only spoke about one. It turns out it is actually just her own interpretation,[12] and is not corroborated in any way by published sources. These letters are called by three different names by scholars (Dei Patris immensa (March 5, 1245) Cum non solum (13 March, 1245) Viam agnoscere veritatis (22 November, 1248)) and actually nobody says there were 3 Viam agnoscere veritatis except her. I am asking an apology from her, and ask you to consider this examplar case of manipulation and wrongfull accusation.PHG (talk) 19:27, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry PHG, but nobody is going to fall for this. You were the one who first pointed out the German dissertation where a second letter was named as being "Viam agnoscere veritatis". Elonka is not the only person who worked on that article and who pointed out that your assertions of one letter were completely false and many of your sources didn't even name the letter. The talk page of that article tells a vastly different story than your claims here. The only editor who continues to attempt to manipulate is you as exemplified by this post which you cross-posted to many talk pages. Is it too much to ask that you stop attacking those involved in the ArbCom case against you? Shell ^babelfish 19:31, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

In theory...

My ISP has fixed my issues. Note I said in theory. Things seem to be working for now... we'll see what happens. Thanks for doing some maintenance while I was unable to... it's very much appreciated! Ealdgyth | Talk 21:35, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I am really glad to hear you got that worked out or at least possibly :) . Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help out. Shell ^babelfish 21:38, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Mediation

Unfortunately the mediation on Banu Qurayza has not been unsuccessful. Can you tell me that in cases where mediation is unsuccessful what is the next step in resolving the dispute? What would you advise?Bless sins (talk) 14:47, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest that the best thing you can do to resolve the dispute is to involve more editors in the discussion. Right now, with so few people, you're having a hard time achieving a consensus, especially since you have two very different viewpoints being argued. Using article RfCs or finding an applicable project who's members could help out at the article will let you get other opinions on how to resolve the differences and improve the article. Best of luck. Shell ^babelfish 21:19, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Religious User Names

Hi there: I noticed last evening on my watchlist that you removed the user name User:America Needs Jesus from the "User names for deletion" category on the grounds that there is nothing against "POV" names in the policy. Tonight, I see you have, very even handedly, also removed User:HolyMuslimWarrior. I find them both offensive, but that is neither here nor there, as mine is only one opinion. I do think, however, that the names may well make "harmonious editing" difficult or impossible when such strident positons are "in our faces", and that is against policy. Might I ask you to reconsider your position, both in these cases, and for future similar cases? Thank you ៛ Bielle (talk) 02:39, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

There may be other editors who feel the same way as you, however, the noticeboard is only to be used for names that need to be blocked on sight. I don't believe either of those names were blatantly inappropriate or disruptive. Problems with names like those can be fixed first, by discussing with the user and seeing if they'd voluntarily change the name. If you ask but the editor declines to change their name, you can have other editors weigh in at a request for comment. If the consensus there is that the username is disruptive, the account will be blocked.

Hope that helps explain why I only block clear cases on the username noticeboard and gives you options to deal with cases that many not be so black and white. Shell ^babelfish 03:05, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi Shell,

I think the username "HolyMuslimWarrior" is too much. It spreads the view that wikipedia is a battle ground, is too much of self-congratulating, and many other things. --Be happy!! (talk) 04:18, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Completely understandable. If the editor doesn't respond to your request to change their name, you'll want to start a request for comment and gather a consensus from other editors. Shell ^babelfish 04:20, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Hopefully the user will change his username as well as his conception of wikipedia both together. --Be happy!! (talk) 04:27, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Sara Moon Art

I simply just don't get it! This page has been set at the request of lovers of Sara Moon artwork who know others struggle to find information about this artist. The artist is retired, well respected and has been published and distributed all over the world. There is NO commercial gain to be had from this listing. The artist has no publisher and does not want one.

After being tags for quick deletion just last night I made corrections and sent in Copyright proofs which met with your approval. This is not an advertisement, I have made it as factual and impersonal as I possibly can. What else can I do??

John. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jdm art (talk • contribs) 16:41, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

It appears that it was deleted because another editor felt it didn't meet the notability criteria; please see those criteria at Wikipedia:Notability (people). In the email I sent you last night, I explained that you were going to need to provide sources (like magazine articles, news coverage, independent biographies) and clearly explain in the article why this person was notable. Unfortunately the article sounded as if there was a fan base which was interested in the work, but didn't go in to any detail about why this artist would be notable enough to be found in an encyclopedia.

If you can provide sources which show how the artist meets the notability criteria, you can ask the deleting admin to undelete the article, or take the article to deletion review. I know things have been incredibly frustrating, so this might be a good time to slow down for a bit, read up on some of the policies and take a look around to see how more established editors do things. Shell ^babelfish 20:30, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Shell, the warning I made was in good faith. John (User:Jdm art) had made three articles that both failed WP:NOTE and looked like WP:SPAM, had ignored all attempts to communicate on those articles, and had made a few other small edits to direct other pages to his articles. If you will look at my history, you'll see that I'm hard on spam, but that I don't use 4im warnings without provocation.

Did I over-react? It's quite possible--I'm as fallible as the next person. But it looked like spam, and John acted like a spammer. Like most Wikipedia editors, I did the best I could. Justin Eiler (talk) 22:36, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Jdm_art Responds: In my defence, my items were offered in good faith and though may have looked like spam to some eyes, were absolutely NOT so. They were my attempt to record an article on my own work (now recognised as 'not on' and as such I apologise) and that of the very notable artist Sara Moon upon whom I am both an authority and the verifiable holder of copyright consents. Other enties were then made to help those searching for information about Sara Moon, to find the item. Further, I am not aware of, and neither do I see any record whatsoever of "all attempts to communicate" on these issues, beyond the initial Speedy Removal notice, which, even should such exist, could hardly be condemned as a failure on my part to respond as the 'final warning' was issued VERY quickly indeed. I am very new to Wikipedia, can well appreciate the hard work you editors do to keep the website free of SPAM and the like, but I feel that treating those who offer what can surely be seen as mis-guided entries at whatever level or by what criteria, as 'the enemy' to be slaughtered mercilessly, condemned as vandalisers or cast out without opportunity of reprieve should they dare to make more than one error, is hardly conducive to the encouragement of those who are the backbone of the web site's very existence - it's contributors.

Shell, I will take your advice (offered elsewhere) and give this matter some thought before attempting to make a further entry. But I would very much appreciate it if Justin Eiler could find it in his heart to look again at the background to his final warning, perhaps judge me wanting but not malicious, and remove it. Kind regard, John. --Jdm art (talk) 11:33, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Adoption

I would like to be adopted I am brand new to wikipedia. I would like to add alot of company articles and biographies without being blatant advertising. I good intent and would like to be a great addition to the wikipedian community. Please let me know if u would be interested in adopting me. I would Greatly appreciate it:> Henslee57 (talk) 06:17, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much the first thing i need to do is rewrite in the third person?? How do I start this My article Guerilla Talk Radio has been moved to my user page can u look there or do i move it and how? Thanking u in advance this can wait until tomorrow Im est are u?? Henslee57 (talk) 06:40, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

thanks again Will talk 2maroHenslee57 (talk) 07:00, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Adoptee

Hi again Ide like to talk privately is this possible thru email?? Henslee57 (talk) 13:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Requesting deleted article

Hi, I wonder if I could take a peak at recently deleted article Elias Damianakis? I was reading an article about his iconography in yesterday's newspaper and thought I'd add a cite from it to his Wikipedia article (which I've not previously edited) only to find it gone. From the Delete Log, it's not clear whether the delete was due to COPYVIO or prod for NN. Thx, JGHowes ^talk - 13:10, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Franco-Mongol alliance

This Arbitration case is closed and the final decision has been published at the link above. PHG (talk · contribs) is prohibited from editing articles relating to medieval or ancient history for a period of one year. He is permitted to make suggestions on talk pages, provided that he interacts with other editors in a civil fashion. PHG is reminded that in contributing to Wikipedia (including his talkpage contributions, contributions in other subject-matter areas, and contributions after the one-year editing restriction has expired), it is important that all sourced edits must fairly and accurately reflect the content of the cited work taken as a whole. PHG is also reminded that Wikipedia is a collaborative project and it is essential that all editors work towards compromise and a neutral point of view in a good-faith fashion. When one editor finds themselves at odds with most other editors on a topic, it can be disruptive to continue repeating the same argument. After suggestions have been properly considered and debated, and possible options considered, if a consensus is clear, the collegial and cooperative thing to do is to acknowledge the consensus, and move on to other debates.

PHG is encouraged to continue contributing to Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects in other ways, including by suggesting topics for articles, making well-sourced suggestions on talkpages, and continuing to contribute free-content images to Wikimedia Commons.

For the Arbitration committee, Thatcher 01:08, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank-you

I can has mop?

Hi Shall Kinney! Thank-you for your support in my RfA (91/1/1). I take all the comments to heart and hope I can fulfil the role of being an admin to the high standard that the community deserves. Seraphim♥ Whipp 18:28, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

User:America Needs Jesus

That's my Username, I have had no complaints. I've seen lots of Usernames with religious and purposeful names. I don't believe Wikipedia should be a battle ground and I am not fighting, and I dont really argue my beliefs on Wikipedia. I create and edit articles for people to read, that's why were here, to learn, enjoy, and teach others. I must admit your Userpage cat made me laugh, lol. God Bless, Jay (talk) 03:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Uhm right, actually I declined to block you for your username ;) Shell ^babelfish 03:06, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

To shell, I know, I guess I wrote that wrong, I read the following stuff and was grateful my name was pulled out of the discussion. Thanks for declining the block of my username, I am grateful for that. Jay (talk) 04:28, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, ok - I just wanted to make sure you didn't think I was the one who initiated that report. Thanks for clearing that up. Shell ^babelfish 04:31, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

PHG

I just posted a note at Thatcher's talk, and am debating what to do. Perhaps we need to request an expansion of the restriction, to include talkpages? --Elonka 09:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, I think we answer any new concerns he brings up, once. If he continues with the same argument, we ignore it and move on. The offer for him to work with other editors still stands, but if he's going to continue with the disruptive and controlling behavior, there's no reason to encourage him. Maybe we've spent too much time responding to his unproductive behavior? Its possible that by giving him attention when he keeps insisting on the same points repeated we've given him the sense that his stonewalling is collaborative.

I think one of the ongoing issues is going to be that he feels that all of the evidence presented to the ArbCom was false and that the editors who presented the evidence simply managed to con all of the Arbitrators. I'm not sure one can deal with that sort of belief logically. NewYorkBrad's made a well reasoned explanation of the findings and tried to assure him that the Arbitrators went and personally checked sources to make sure the evidence wasn't false; if that didn't sway his feelings on the matter, I'm not sure we're going to be able to do anything to change his viewpoint. I'm afraid that if he's not able to take a step back and honestly look at what's going on, the situation will continue to deteriorate. Shell ^babelfish 10:42, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I can't say I'm happy with being characterized as a part of a "witch hunt" but I'm done replying to him on Edward I and Louis IX unless someone else enters the conversation. We could I suppose link to the Franco-Mongol article in both of the articles, but in both cases, the information is so tangential to the subject of the article, I personally feel it should be left out. I agree with Shell, and we should not have to endlessly answer him when he keeps repeating the same position. I'm not even sure he read the articles to see what I copyedited it to, given his comments. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:53, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I just now saw the new attacks he made :( Since he seems unwilling to discuss article issues civilly despite the restrictions, I've started a report here to request intervention. Shell ^babelfish 20:00, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Jewish lobby mediation

Thanks for taking this on; with your help I hope we'll now be able to move forward constructively. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Notability Invite

Regard, --InvisibleDiplomat₆⁶₆ 00:30, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Irish Wikipedia

Hello Shell Kinney.

I'd like to inform you about an impostor on the Irish Wikipedia who's chosen your name. If you'd like to usurp this account please contact Kwekubo. Kind regards, —DerHexer (Talk) 00:12, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Hey, thanks

Oh snap, the DEA is an admin

ASIMO I would like to thank you for your participation in my recent RfA, which I'm very glad to say was successful at 81/7/0. Some of the very best that Wikipedia has to offer came out to support or oppose me and the kind words from all the editors has really given me confidence to be an admin and I can't wait to start. I will take the advice of the opposes and not jump into any content disputes immediately. As well, I will try to add more content myself. Anyways, in thanks for participating in my RfA, here's your very own personal humanoid robot. Enjoy! --ÐeadΣyeДrrow (Talk - Contribs) 14:19, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Copyvio for Fishing Derby (event)

Hiya Shell! The article has been deleted already (for now), but as that final diff illustrated best, it was a copy-paste of the smaller text of http://msucares.com/pubs/infosheets/is1590.htm - just rearranged slightly, with a few words changed here and there. i.e.:

It was a copy-paste of the smaller text of http://msucares.com/pubs/infosheets/is1590.htm - just rearranged slightly, with a few words changed there and here. This is illustrated best in the final diff. It has been (for now) deleted already. Hiya, Shell!

Hope this makes sense --Badger Drink (talk) 04:25, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Comparision of Fishing Derby (event)

Egads, you're right. Man, I almost think something.... fishy (sorry, sorry) happened, like an edit I was completely unaware of coming right before mine - but maybe I'm just having a clueless night. Let me thank you on behalf of the user for being as observant as you were and - dare I say it? - sharp as a hook. Had you not waded into the pool, the new editor might well have found himself or herself knee-deep in a whale of a frustrating time-- holy mackeral, I'm sorry. Anyway. I think I just saw too deeply into the train of thought (s)he was on, and didn't stop to examine the edits deeply enough. Thank you for your diligence, and, once again (and without the puns this time), sorry for this. --Badger Drink (talk) (will be swimming with the fishes soon) 05:14, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Mediation

Shell,

I appreciate that though I am not sure what confidentiality means in regard to a page that is openly accessible by anyone surfing the internet.

But still, I object to you closing a mediation with accusations towards me and my (supposed) future behaviour. That is out of line. Kindly either restore my comment or remove the accusations.

Regards, Str1977 ^(talk) 10:47, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Since you didn't respond I did so myself. If you want to place my comment outside of the "close case" frame, I have no objection. I would do this myself if I knew why. But please DO NOT delete my comments from a talk page. Or if you do, modify your closing statement. However, I think that would actually be a change to a closed case. My comment is not a change but an addition. Str1977 ^(talk) 12:08, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Then please take back your accusations. Sure, I cannot stop you from protecting your bad faith remarks but please note that all kind talk about "confidential" etc. is contradicted by your comment. Str1977 ^(talk) 11:44, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Blends

I, while working on such, had prior approval by admin. Others (2) complained, because I edited their page during my correction. There were words that are clearly compounds or acronyms counted as Portmanteau, which is blatantly wrong, but that they decided to try and undo the correction. They are not serving to put forth what is right, but port forth what they feel as a trample to their area, hence, WP:OWN. Please read [13]. It will help you understand. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:18, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

A few corrections: 1. When I stated an admin said it was okay, it was to go ahead and change the word, not if my change was correct, but that it was acceptable to mass change the words. 2. The term is used as a linguistic term to explain the basis of a word. To have it as a "colloquial" sense would hinder those who come to Wikipedia to understand a term. It seems that two members are offended by my willingness to change to how it is currently used, as both editors are unwilling to look at a precise, linguistic definition for the term, and even the original use of "portmanteau" was a misreading of Carroll (he uses the modifier "like" which shows the new word as an analogous to the portmanteau, i.e. a bag which has two parts that close together as one). I believe that people, in their zeal, wanted to throw around the word as much as possible, and that is why there is the current confusion. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:00, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

And thats the dilemma. How do you deal with the term on the portmanteau page. In either case, the image of the suitcase is needed, and could not be separated. Now, the POV issue would have to be dealt with there, but it cannot be deemed POV on other pages, since they want to explain the linguistic background of a term (And would have to use a linguistic definition). Since blend covers the various interpretations of what is and what isn't the slang "portmanteau word" it would seem safest to put blend in its place (except on the rare occasion of the "beyond all doubt", which I found 7). Now, for credible sources on the matter, most academics tend not to care. Carroll was never analyzed in his own terms, so it never really came up. It is strange that it gets so much attention for not having many outside credible sources that do anything besides reproduce the original. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:15, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Signature

Shell, could you please remove the size="5" aspect of your signature? It creates text that is larger than that created by the <big> tag and is disrupting surrounding text. Thanks! - auburnpilot talk 22:35, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Doh! Gone. That'll teach me to copy a sig idea without checking it out better first. Thanks for pointing that out! Shell ^babelfish 22:38, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Random

There are not random but well chosen. --87.115.4.188 (talk) 02:15, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Ohhh...well in that case, its all right. Wait. No, no, still a problem. Thanks for playing. Shell ^babelfish 02:19, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

we can play more tomorrow on my next ISP (isn't it wonderful when people don't secure their networks? - means that blocks of ranges are entirely ineffective) anyway - I'll mix in some useful policy suggestions tomorrow. --87.113.83.37 (talk) 02:21, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a good time, policy could use some shaking up. Shell ^babelfish 02:23, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Unwarranted deletions

Hi Shell. You deleted the page User:PHG/Franco-Mongol alliance (full version), in which I had only put a small link "Long version here". I am following the decision that 200k of content take Wikipedia space unnecessarily and that old disputed pages should not be archived indefenitely, and I am respecting that. This minute link is just for users who arrive on this page to know where to find the long version in question. Please kindly undeleted the page so that the link be visible. Also, may I mention that your edit summary is inexact: you write "Recreation of deleted material", which is untrue. I did not recreate material, I only inserted a link to an archived paged from the History of the Franco-Mongol alliance article. Please correct. PHG (talk) 08:17, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but essentially you're trying to point people at your preferred version again. Just as userspace isn't for archiving your preferred version, its not for archiving links to your preferred version. Since the page had literally just been deleted via an MfD, re-creating it with a link to the same text just wasn't on. You're welcome to appeal the deletion to WP:DRV if you still feel I was in error. Shell ^babelfish 15:52, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

anti-Semitism, or oversensitivity?

Hi, Sometimes I am afraid I am over-sensitive. The Race and Intelligence article is obviously controversial and I have been highly critical of user:Jagz who I believe has been pushing for inclusion of a fringe, racialist (if not racist) POV in the article - this is just context, not the issue. The issue is, today he made this edit, creating a new section and providing no explanation or context: [14]. If it is directed at me, I wonder if it is anti-Semitic.

I may be overreacting - it may just be one of several disruptive edits he has made, which I should not take personally, and I have left a note at AN/I concerning disruptive edits. But the possible anti-Semitism nags at me. I know that in general you take these matters seriously and that in this particular case you have objectivity I lack and if you think I am overreacting, well, I would respect and value your judgement. Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 13:09, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Its hard to draw the line, but I think we need to assume good faith when it comes to working on article writing. Starting the RfC was an excellent idea by the way :) Shell ^babelfish 15:55, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate your counsel. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:05, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

my RFA

Thank you! Thank you for your support in my RFA. The passed with a final count of (73/3/1), so I am now an administrator. Please let me know if at any stage you need help, or if you have comments on how I am doing as an admin. Have a nice day! :) Aleta Sing 18:53, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Viam agnoscere veritatis

Hi Shell. Thank you for your help while I was "in the hole". You seem to imply in one of your edits that you have already given a source stating that "Viam agnoscere veritatis" can be used to name the letter "Dei patris immensa", mentionning the article by the German scholar. This is however untrue, if you check you will see that the scholar in question, as far as I know, never names the letter "Viam agnoscere veritatis". There are therefore zero references to the claim that Elonka is making in the Viam agnoscere veritatis disambiguation page. Please kindly check. Best regards. PHG (talk) 21:33, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually the German source uses the word agnoscere or something similar, but I think that scholar was just completely confused in general the more I've read of the article so I'm not sure we need to base any decisions off that. I don't think I'm committed to the disambiguation page or lack thereof. Isn't there a list of papal bulls somewhere on Wikipedia? Would it make sense, instead of a contested disambiguation page, to simply put a note saying "If this wasn't the papal bull you wanted, see the list here"? Then, there's no trying to name several articles under one banner and if people get confused, they still have easy navigation to figure out where they really wanted to go. Shell ^babelfish 23:37, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I would totally agree with that approach. Regards PHG (talk) 13:20, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Something else I didn't think to mention. You've made comments a few times about having a hard time being understood. I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned, but French is my second language, so if you ever think something's not coming across and want to take a stab explaining it in your first language, I'd be happy to listen and see if I couldn't help figure out a better way to put things. Shell ^babelfish 04:51, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Edit warring on Village Pump? Marking large revert as Minor?

You reverted my edit restoring text improperly deleted by Equazcion.[15] You did not state a reason, which is generally improper for reversions, and you also marked this large removal of text as minor. The prior removal by Equazcion was summarized: archiving - poster is banned. The writer who started that is currently blocked, there has been no ban, process has not been pursued yet. And he was blocked for an alleged offense that had nothing to do with the subject matter of the removed material, nor was he blocked at the time it was posted, obviously. Unless you can provide a sound reason for this removal of text, please restore it, your removal would seem to be edit warring, particularly since it was accompanied with no justification and a minor marker possibly concealing it.--Abd (talk) 03:13, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I used rollback since the discussion was archived (rollback uses a standard edit summary and is automatically marked as minor) and I'm sure you are aware that his banning has been discussed due to the persistent use of sockpuppets though I believe that more discussion is needed there. Regardless, the discussion was archived and a further discussion of whether or not that archiving was appropriate was also held. Edit warring is not the way to resolve disputes and advocacy is generally unwelcome. Please find a way to productively discuss your concerns. Shell ^babelfish 03:25, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Richard Jones

I deleted Richard's birth date from his entry at his request. He does not require his DOB to be a part of his biography. Is it not possible to do this?

Susie Lindsay PA to Richard Jones —Preceding unsigned comment added by Susielindsay (talk • contribs) 14:45, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Jet Set Satellite picture

I can't seem to keep the bots from finding and removing the picture that I was given, by the band, to post on their Wikipedia entry. None of the members have an account, so I was just doing them a favor.

I don't even know if I'm leaving you a message correctly, I'm that much of a lost cause. I know I'm going to have to re-upload the photo, but I want to know what I need to put on the site to keep the bots at bay.

Thanks for your time. - CC —Preceding unsigned comment added by CCStebankey (talk • contribs) 01:32, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Editing a protected page

You've just reverted back after a page has been protected. Was this intentional? -- Ned Scott 05:21, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't just revert, I reworded as well - I don't believe reverting solves anything. However, it wasn't protected when I started and I didn't intend to edit a protected page, so if you'll give me a second on this horribly slow wireless connection, I'll undo that. Shell ^babelfish 05:27, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I should have assumed that it was just a mistake, and it seems it's already been unprotected. You're right, it isn't helpful to just revert. -- Ned Scott 05:34, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Ack! I give up :) Maybe we can keep chatting on the talk about any more tweaking that needs to happen so that everyone thinks the wording is expressing what's intended. Shell ^babelfish 05:37, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

You did not protect User talk:Ottava Rima

I think you unprotected it again instead of protecting it, just letting you know it did not protect. I fixed it. _(1 == 2)^Until 16:07, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that. I wonder how on earth I managed that? Shell ^babelfish 16:10, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Re: Participation in editing dispute at Jewish lobby

In that case, thank you. :) Rudget. 17:08, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Indefinite block of Elerner

While Elerner's comment wasn't appropriate, ScienceApologist has been engaging in some serious WP:BLP violations at Eric Lerner (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), the most blatant of which began with claims that Lerner was associated with Lyndon LaRouche, sourced only to a political attack website -- please see [16] [17] [18]. Though ScienceApologist was warned [19] [20] about this behavior by both myself and JzG, today he added a claim to the article [21] that basically amounts to an insinuation that Eric Lerner violated federal election laws, sourced only to the political attack book "Lyndon Larouche and the New American Fascism". I would suggest that the offending claim be removed from Eric Lerner (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), and that, in light of ScienceApologist's extensive history of disruption noted in his block log, his account be blocked for an adequate period of time. John254 17:11, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Interesting that you left this seconds after Eric Lerner said the same thing.

In any case, our policy on legal threats is rather clear on the issue. This block is not about what is or is not in the article or how SA behaves, participants threatening or involved in legal action are not allowed to continue editing Wikipedia. I left a note for Eric to explain this.

As far as the section goes, please continue to work it out on talk. My reading of the sentence is that Eric left NCLC because they asked him to do something wrong; surely that is a point in his favor that he would resign rather than perform the action? Also, I see a book as the source (King, Dennis (1989). Lyndon Larouche and the New American Fascism. Doubleday.) not a blog. You can also try bringing this up on the BLP noticeboard or using another dispute resolution method to involve further editors if you are still concerned. Shell ^babelfish 17:17, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Oops, sorry, you did say it was a book and not a blog; I misread that. Shell ^babelfish 17:18, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

My comment here wasn't "seconds" after Eric Lerner's talk page comment -- it was twenty two minutes later -- please see [22] and [23]. I read his talk page comment after your block notice showed up as a diff in my RC patrol tool. Since, as an OTRS member, you frequently remedy WP:BLP problems raised by the subjects of articles, even subjects who are banned, I don't believe that any impropriety should be inferred from my attempt to do so here. I'm not asking for Eric Lerner to be unblocked, as his statement was a legal threat, and, based on our policy and practices, he could only be unblocked if he retracted his statement. What I am asking is that, if we're going to indefinitely block the subject of an article for complaining about a WP:BLP problem in an unacceptable manner, any legitimate WP:BLP problems should at least be remedied. I posted a report on WP:BLP/N about ScienceApologist's editing of Eric Lerner yesterday, but, so far, there appears to have been no response. John254 18:01, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

And I'm discussing the issue with Eric and suggested ways you can help resolve the concerns as well. Perhaps it would help if someone could suggest a better way to word the statement so that there aren't concerns that it implies he actually did what he was pressured to do? Shell ^babelfish 18:06, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Based on Eric Lerner's statement here, and in consideration of the fact that this material is sourced only to a passing mention in a political attack book, I would be inclined to remove the offending sentence altogether. It's not essential to the article, and has a significant potential to be misleading. John254 18:14, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't have the source myself, so I'm not in a position to be able to comment on your statement. I would suggest you continue discussions on the talk page of the article or in the other places I mentioned. Shell ^babelfish 18:16, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Fortunately, Dennis King has been kind enough to publish the political attack book online -- the relevant chapter is here. John254 18:20, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Looks like the same resource is used elsewhere on Wikipedia, so it appears consensus is that this is a reliable source. I'll be happy to join in talk page discussion about the article, but a conversation here between the two of us isn't going to be a consensus of how to handle the topic on the article. Shell ^babelfish 19:04, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Block of User:KellyAna

This seems a little unnecessary; she finally conceded to having the disputed section in the article. Will you be blocking User:Dougie WII as well, at least? Strictly speaking, he violated 3RR as well: 1 2 3 GlassCobra 22:28, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Was actually just looking in to that, but if they've agreed, there's probably no need for any blocks. I'll just double check with KellyAna and unblock then. Thanks for pointing that out. Shell ^babelfish 22:32, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think they've agreed yet, but I would argue that simply protecting the article is more conducive to facilitating discussion than blocking one of the participants. GlassCobra 22:34, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

As I said, I was looking at the dispute to see if the other editor needed to be blocked; its also worth noting that blueboar reverted her deletion of the material as well. I have left a message for KellyAna; if she'll work it out instead of reverting, I have no problem with unblocking her and not blocking Dougie either. Since there are other people who edit when those two aren't disputing, protecting would prevent that as well, however, KellyAna and Dougie WII have been popping up a lot of places lately complaining about each other and this dispute, so I didn't think sitting by and watching was the best idea either Shell ^babelfish 22:46, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

KellyAna

She reverted your change to the image Image:PASSCharlieBeth04.JPG replacing her ill conceived copyright concerns. I have posted a question in Wikipedia:Media copyright questions, but shouldn't the image be allowed to remain until the issue is resolved? I'm not reverting it myself again because I don't want her to drag me into another edit war. Thanks. -- Dougie WII (talk) 03:13, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I think I may need help with her again at Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald. I added a screenshot and she says it's misleading but how can a screenshot be misleading? This was already decided in another case with her with another administrator.... Sorry to bother you, but this is getting crazy with her. -- Dougie WII (talk) 02:47, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, TAnthony may have fixed it for now, but I'm not sure that she won't come back and vandalize again. -- Dougie WII (talk) 02:49, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Image:PolakSoieEtLumieres.JPG

Why did you request the deletion of this fair use image? [24] If you can provide more justification, someone may grant your request. You may wish to try at WP:IFD instead of a speedy tag as well for a complex issue. MECU≈talk 16:12, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Because it fails NFCC 8 - the article its used in is not about the book and does not contain any critical commentary of the book. At this point its only being used to decorate an article about the author. Shell ^babelfish 16:34, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Jewish Lobby mediation

You left a note on my talk page two weeks ago regarding mediation of the Jewish Lobby article. I am one of the original parties for that mediation. I see that the mediation has started and seems to be underway. I think its great that you seem to want to make fast progress, but please bear in mind that we waited months for mediation to start. I certainly do intend to contribute to the mediation. Could you summarize where the mediation stands? I certainly hope that you do not consider any of the archived sections settled, because they have clearly had very little consideration.

I will add some notes to some of the discussions, but would appreciate your summary of any topics that you consider at least partially settled (if any) so that I can know where things stand and so I know where to concentrate my input.

I would also like to know how you are going to handle the topics to be addressed by this mediation. What is the list of topics which you intend to cover, and how will you move from one topic to another? Are the topic sections on the mediation page the list of topics which you plan to cover in mediation - because I see that there is little correspondence between those topics and the initial ones on the mediation page.

Also, could you refer me to any other mediations you have run so I could see how you run mediations (this is my first mediation, as it is for many of the other editors).

Please answer here on your page to keep the discussion together; I will check here for an answer.

Thank you, Jgui (talk) 03:45, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

You are welcome to jump in at any time; there's no schedule or time limit being imposed. Sections are archived to make the page more manageable; for people without high-speed access, 60-80k of data starts to be a bit much for one page. Since some of the things that started the mediation were no longer in play, we are currently focusing on working out any issues with the sources being used for the article. As far as being new to mediation, you may want to read Wikipedia:Mediation which gives you an overview of the process. Thanks for joining us. Shell ^babelfish 05:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. This should be fun. Can I assume from your answer that we will eventually handle questions that have haunted this page (and that were responsible for its first being placed into mediation) such as whether the term is a "neologism"? And once again, could you refer me to some other mediations that you have run? Thank you, Jgui (talk) 05:41, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

It was my understanding that issues like the term being a neologism had been settled previously (see the comments at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_mediation/Jewish_lobby/old_discussion). You may wish to ask the editors involved to point you at the relevant discussion.

As far as mediations go, one of the tenets of Mediation on Wikipedia is that the process is completely confidential and cannot be used against the participants later, so I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to point you at previous mediations. However, there is a discussion of my style on my user page and since the current mediation has been going on for more than a week now, reading the discussion there should give you an overview of how things are going. Shell ^babelfish 05:51, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

One of the editors of the page spent more than a year arguing that he had the right to delete masses of text based on his assertion that the term is a "neologism". That editor has yet to state whether he still feels that way or not (although he has been asked many times). I do not think this is a settled issue.

I guess this shows my ignorance of mediation. How was I able to see the mediation page if it is confidential? Are mediations not saved and archived for later review after they are completed? Thank you, Jgui (talk) 06:01, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Mediation deals with issues of content only; it does not attempt to solve conduct disputes. Again, you will need to ask the other editors involved in the issue if you wish to understand why they think this is no longer an issue. Since you have been out of touch for quite some time, you might want to take some time to read and catch up.

Open mediations can be viewed unless editors request that they be held in a privileged area. Some closed mediations may still be viewable and some are blanked, deleted or locked. It really depends on the particular case. Shell ^babelfish 06:11, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I am not enquiring about a content dispute; I am enquiring about one of the original mediation topics "Is Jewish Lobby a neologism" which, as I said, has not been answered by all involved editors. I believe I have read all of the talk:Requests for Mediation/Jewish Lobby page; are there any other active pages that I should read? Incidentally, if you want to contact me when I am not actively editing WP, you can send me email, which I encourage you to do if you want to reach me during mediation if I seem slow to respond.

So I assume we are currently having an open mediation? Can I ask if you have run any other open mediations or still-readable closed mediations that I can read? Thank you, Jgui (talk) 06:46, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Rather than focusing on my background, wouldn't it be more productive to focus on reaching an understanding with the other editors involved in the mediation? I'm just a facilitator here. Shell ^babelfish 06:52, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Also, please stop attempting to re-open areas that I have closed. You are welcome to reopen those discussions elsewhere if you disagree with the consensus, but I will not be arguing with you about these issues since I am not involved in the dispute and therefore, unable to debate your concerns. If you disagree with the way the mediation is being handled, you are not required to participate. Shell ^babelfish 06:58, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

(outdent)

Shell, in my first question to you above I asked whether any of the archived issues were closed. Your response was apparently no: "There's no schedule or time limit being imposed. Sections are archived to make the page more manageable", but now you are claiming that you have closed certain topics (although which ones you have not stated) and you are refusing to even answer my questions about why you have closed certain topics with less than two weeks of discussion and before all of the original parties to the Mediation (e.g. me) have had a chance to participate.

Shell, can I ask why you are so sensitive about my requests to see your previous work on mediations? I do not mean this to be offensive, I consider this a perfectly reasonable request, similar to asking a plumber or doctor for a reference. I suppose you are free to refuse, but I fail to see why you would do so - I would hope that you would be proud of your work as a mediator just as I would hope that you would be proud of your work as a WP editor. Thank you, Jgui (talk) 07:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

My response was to place to burden on you if you would like to participate -- in reading those archives, you can see that at least two ended in all parties agreeing on a particular point. Your concern over the OED quote included discarding the outside opinion of multiple editors as "uninformed or wrong" -- this is not how Wikipedia works. If you have any arguments to make over archived issues that have a basis in policy, then you are welcome to make those points - if you're simply going to say "no, that's wrong because I say so" then there's no reason to bother the other parties to discuss that.

I am not sensitive to requests, but given my work here and on WP:OTRS is often confidential, I'm not at liberty to go waving those things about. I suggested you read my user page for more information on my style of mediation and you're welcome to look at my contributions like any other Wikipedian. If you have concerns about my ability to mediate, you are welcome to bow out of the mediation. Shell ^babelfish 17:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I hope you mean you're not INsensitive to requests :) OK, I don't know why you don't want to point me to an example of your experience as a mediator, but that is up to you and I won't ask again. Please bear in mind that it was not meant as an attack, just a way to better know who I'll be working with.

And finally, I am sure that I never claimed the editors were "uninformed or wrong" (who are you quoting here?); I was instead pointing out the obvious conflict of interest of many of these so-called "outside" editors who commented there since they had previously edit-ed the JL page under discussion (which I will be happy to document for you if you wish), and the inexperience with the OR page of the other editors (which I would also be happy to document for you). I was looking for a larger and less biased group of editors to consider the issue, and I was hoping to participate in the discussion since I was an original party to the mediation and since I was the one who first added the quote. But we have other considerations, so I see no need to continue this discussion now, although I would like to revisit it later. Thank you, Jgui (talk) 06:33, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

PHG

Just a correction re this [25] It was actually User:John J. Bulten (not PHG) who introduced the information about the wrong Christian Polak [26]. I know 'cos I did the research and then deleted it! Or maybe I misunderstood you??? --Slp1 (talk) 22:24, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't realize it was John who added that information. Shell ^babelfish 22:39, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

KellyAna 2

Hiya, I've offered to KellyAna to suspend her block so that she can defend herself at the WP:SSP report. If I lift the block, it would just be so that she could post there and at her talkpage, but other than that she would not be allowed to post anywhere else on Wikipedia until the rest of the block time expires. I'm the most recently blocking admin, but you were the first one, and I just extended your block, so I did want to drop you a courtesy note about it. If you have any concerns, please let me know? Thanks, Elonka 05:03, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

No problems here; if a sock report has come up, she should be allowed to participate. Shell ^babelfish 05:10, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. So far she has actually declined my offer because she wants to "serve her time", but if she changes her mind, it's good to know that you're okay on it. :) --Elonka 06:45, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Adoption

Hi, this is Rosalie. I was wondering if you would be interested in adopting me? I am a nice person, love cats, and know very little about Wikipedia. Please see my user page for more info. Could you please leave a reply on my talk page?

Thanks,

Rosalie (talk) 02:00, 6 April 2008 (UTC) Rosalie

PHG

See WP:AN, WP:AE re PHG. I thought you may be interested in being his mentor and also someone he may agree to. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:25, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

My RfA...

Thank you...

...for your participation in my RFA, which closed with 85 supports, 2 neutrals and 1 oppose. I'm extremely grateful for all the the kind comments from so many brilliant Wikipedians I've come to respect and admire, as well as many others I've not yet had the pleasure of working with, and I'll do my best to put my shiny new mop and bucket to good use! Once again, thank you ;)
EyeSerene^talk 17:09, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Cool, the colours match! EyeSerene^talk 17:11, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

please email me my deleted article

please email me my deleted article to noothergodbesidegod@gmail.com thanks alot James —Preceding unsigned comment added by JamesMartinJM (talk • contribs) 04:23, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry but there is no chance the article or anything resembling it would be accepted in Wikipedia. Shell ^babelfish 04:45, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

re huh?

See here [27] for some other confused people and an answer (from FloNight) of part of your question. Hope it helps.--Slp1 (talk) 22:40, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Doh! Thanks for the heads up. Shell ^babelfish 23:40, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:MC#See also

I type too fast :) Cheers, Shell. Anthøny 14:35, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Lol - yeah, I have most all the Med pages watched. Good idea on the explanations too! Shell ^babelfish 14:43, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Image:LCPL on Seawall.jpg

Sorry, I no longer deal with images on Wikipedia. Too much gratuitous aggravation and unpleasant human interaction for zero return. Most of the "image people" (you are a welcome exception) do not comport themselves like decent, sane, human beings. I prefer not to deal with them. Lou Sander (talk) 02:08, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Adoption

Hello. Actually, I'm an adopter so I can't have more an adopter of my own. But Nothing444 may accept your offer.--RyRy5 (talk) 02:15, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not Nothing444's adopter.--RyRy5 (talk) 03:26, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Photo credit

It is not my name, for the last time. The author of this work asked for the caption, and in keeping with the license I think we should honor that request. Could you please point me to the longstanding consensus you speak of? I am interested to read up on it. (Mind meal (talk) 06:14, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

As for the transcription of what the license page actually says, there is nothing to misread. "You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor" is what it is. If anything, you are going out of your way to NOT adhere to such terms. (Mind meal (talk) 06:17, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

No, that's the summary of the license and your interpretation is lacking -- when you read the full license, you see the context and can understand that the copyright holder does not dictate the medium of attribution simply the wording used. I'm not going out of my way to do anything, just letting you know what common practice is on Wikipedia - you however, are edit warring on both an article and a guideline to enforce your point of view. Give it some time and get some other opinions on the subject - if consensus has changed and people agree that CC licensees should get credit in the caption, then that will emerge as the prevailing thought. Shell ^babelfish 06:57, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Spare me the lectures, just talk to me. You cite "common practice" but cannot cite "consensus." That is because there is none. You know full well there is an ongoing debate on this topic. Why favor either side in the midst of an open dialogue? Point me to the previous consensus for what you say there is consensus for. Fourth request. (Mind meal (talk) 08:49, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

There's no need to become heated over this discussion. Everyone involved is being very civil and patiently trying to explain a few misconceptions to you. Policies and guidelines reflect current practice and consensus ; you are suggesting that practice be changed, so you need to demonstrate a consensus in the community that such a change is warranted. Showing their is community consensus for a change means more than the comments of a few editors - you need wide acceptance. I asked earlier, for instance, if you could provide any image, other than the one you were warring over, that displayed attribution in the caption for a photographer who wasn't otherwise notable. You may find one or two instances, but if you start looking, you'll see the a vast majority of photographs on Wikipedia don't do so. Please read mikhaul's post at Wikipedia_talk:Captions#Author_credits_for_CC_licenses since I think he explained the situation excellently.

I also find it interesting that I can't find any area where this photographer actually requested this treatment of their image - it doesn't appear on the image detail page or on flikr where the image originated. I've also looked through OTRS tickets and don't see anything in regards to that image there either. Since that particular image started this entire concern, can you let us know if the photographer contacted you directly or how else you know this? Shell ^babelfish 13:57, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Shell, if you look at my contributions, I spend time at Flickr contacting individuals for relicensing photos for use here. The individual expressed this to me in one of our messages. There is no OTRS ticket because this is a CC license. Mind you, they aren't alone. Several others used to ask things like, "where is my name?" or "can you put my name under the photo?" Far from this being a rare occurence, it actually comes up a lot. I message hundreds of people at Flickr and have heard it come up often, like a theme. (Mind meal (talk) 15:34, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

I've dealt with those same questions before and have found, in many cases, that the photographers who contributed the photograph don't have much experience with Wikipedia or don't really know the CC licenses and what they mean. Often, explaining about the image description page (and sending them a link) helps resolve their concerns. Its the same thing for editors who contribute text to Wikipedia; there are times people have donated things they wrote elsewhere to Wikipedia - they get a note on the talk page of the article indicating the copyright holder and their release, not a note on the article itself. Another editor I know who works with Flikr images sends information about how they will be credited (and a link to an example) to help people understand how things will look - he also makes sure his request includes specific information about how the photo can be reused, that it may be edited and the fact that the image may not stay on Wikipedia forever. A lot of times we can head off these kinds of problems by providing a wealth of information up front or after questions are raised. Shell ^babelfish 15:42, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

In all of this discussion, I've not heard you voice your own opinion on the matter. What exactly does providing attribution to the photographer beneath an image violate, harm or defy? Also, of course I provide information on what the effects of relicensing could entail. I let them know licenses must allow for commercial and derivative works. I'm not going to add more info to my already long boilerplate message about something they probably won't even understand. I find keeping it as simple as possible helps. So if you get these questions, and I get these questions...something is wrong here, no? They appear to assume we should be doing it. That seems to be what is behind it. You might argue it is their ignorance of Wikipedia that drives the questions. To that I say, "if you forget how to tie your shoe, ask a child. They will show you how it is done." (Mind meal (talk) 15:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC))

Out of a hundred image requests or submissions, I may get one question about attribution - its a pretty rare thing. Much more often, I see "yeah, Wikipedia can use it" or some other statement that doesn't confirm the license the way we need. If you don't wish to explain the problem up front, there's no reason you can't explain it if asked and point to the caption guideline for further information. It looks like the discussion has been mentioned on the village pump as well, so hopefully some other viewpoints on the situation can help the discussion.

Personally, I agree with the general usage, like I said, I think its much of the same reason that the history is a separate page and text submission isn't credited in the article either - accessibility, readability and standardization. I don't see a compelling reason yet to change the guidelines - in this case, there was another free image available without the caption concern. I imagine there will be cases that it would be difficult to get another free image, but in my experience, most contributors to Wikipedia are willing to abide by the policies and guidelines when someone takes the time to educate them. Shell ^babelfish 16:08, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Re: Rupert Jee I have replaced the CC licensed photo by User:Mind mealwith a fully public domain photo of larger size, direct face-on versus side view. (photo taken by myself) Even though older, I feel it is best to replace to help solve this dispute. Comments welcome. Bwave (talk) 06:23, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like a good plan until this is sorted out. What's interesting is there's no note on the image description page or over on flikr that indicates that the author even wants attribution in the caption. I'm completely confused as to why this is an issue in that case. Shell ^babelfish 06:57, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Jean Ziegler

You wrote:

I've removed your addition again. Its quite a stretch to believe the official organization misspelled Jean Ziegler as John Ziter. Without some kind of reliable source to back up your claim of a misspelling, this speculation has no place in the article. Shell ^babelfish 22:41, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I noted that Roger Garaudy, another winner of the Gaddafi prize, had his name spelled as "Mr. Rogeh Jarrodi" which suggests that the spelling is different.

Look at the following webpage under the 2002 winners (I find it hard to believe that Mr. John Ziter is anyone else) http://www.gaddafiprize.org/WhoEn.htm

Who else do you think John Ziter could be? I think you will agree that Roger Garaudy and "Mr. Rogeh Jarrodi" are the same person ( Roger Garaudy was a winner in 2002, the same as Jean Ziegler. This suggests that the spelling of western names on the Libyan website is different. It has been widely reported that Ziegler was a winner of the Gaddafi prize in 2002. Who else could John Ziter be? Don't you find it too much of a coincidence?

Keep in mind that Jean Ziegler did win the prize but he claims that he did not accept it (which is the point of contention) - Again, I find it difficult to believe that "John Ziter" is not Jean Ziegler any more than "Rogeh Jarrodi" is not Roger Garaudy. (Hyperionsteel (talk) 02:00, 23 April 2008 (UTC))

You wrote:

Personally, I think its rather scary if the organization can't spell the name of people its recognized, however, there's still a couple of problems with your addition. First, its what Wikipedia calls original research since the misspellings and listing on that site haven't been reported by a reliable media source. Second, using a listing on the site to contradict a person's claim that they didn't accept the award is stretching the source a bit far - there's nothing to show that he wouldn't have been listed regardless of whether or not he accepted the award. It would be best if instead of using this primary source to support the statement, you found a reliable third-party source which would support it instead. Shell babelfish 02:52, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

You have a point - there is no third party source to confirm this. While I still believe that Jean Ziegler and "John Ziter," it should be kept off wikipedia until a third party source is available.(Hyperionsteel (talk) 02:58, 23 April 2008 (UTC))

Comics Guaranty LLC

I finally responded to your question here. Cheers, GentlemanGhost (talk) 22:56, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Rfa thanks

Thanks for supporting my recent request for adminship which was successful with 89 supports, 0 opposes, and 2 neutrals. Unfortunately all I can offer is this lame text thanks rather than some fancy-smancy thank-you spam template thingy. I was very pleased to receive such strong support and to hear so many nice comments from editors whom I respect. I’ll do my best with the tools, and if you ever see me going astray don’t hesitate to drop a note on my talk page. Thanks again for your support!--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 03:53, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Special Award

		The Special Barnstar
		I hereby award The Special Barnstar to you for your great contributions to the first half of WikiProject Biography Spring 2008 Assessment Drive. Keep doing well in second half of it. :) Solar-Poseidon 22:17, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Jewish lobby mediation

Hi Shell

I noticed that you had closed the Jewish lobby mediation, and had opened a second one in the hopes that we could start afresh. However, I also see that you have since modified the mediation Talk: page. Is the first mediation still on then, as I'm hoping? If it is, I'll delete the second one. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:57, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

So far I haven't actual seen anything from Carol that indicates she's withdrawn her threat, however, it does appear that when she said "we", she was incorrect. If the majority of participants would like to continue, I would be happy to keep working on things. Shell ^babelfish 15:08, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism by Hdayejr

Hi. Indefinitely blocked editor Hdayejr has repeatedly vandalized my Talk page and several other pages over the last few days via sockpuppets. I've reported them to User:Theresa knott here, but she appears to have been offline for the last couple days. I was hoping you could do something about it -- repeatedly undoing his edits has started to get a little frustrating. -TPIRFanSteve (talk) 23:17, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Hey, that looks like a rather large IP range - would it help to have your userpage semi-protected? I'd hate to do that to your talk page because it would limit the people who could contact you, but that's even a possibility for a short time if this doesn't stop. Let me know. Thanks. Shell ^babelfish 20:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

RE: "Please be more careful"

You do realize that licenses can be changed on Flickr at any time, right? All photos I upload are Attribution Share-Alike or Attribution. I can't control Flickr users regarding when they decide to change their licenses. Given my body of edits, I think it is pretty obvious I understand what licenses we can and cannot use. (Mind meal (talk) 01:03, 2 May 2008 (UTC))

All of my more recent photo contributions are uploaded to Commons and request Flickr review. I wasn't being rude. You suggested I was being careless. I wasn't being careless. The licenses have been changed since I uploaded them. That is what it is. It happens. (Mind meal (talk) 15:43, 2 May 2008 (UTC))

Re: mediation

I have reread the earlier messages that I sent to User:I Hate CAPTCHAS and I have to say they are rather kind. What I mean to say is, my mood and intent were quite reasonable. If these passages were interpreted as angry I can only say that one must look to their own mood for that answer. I feel that I started off on the right foot and opened communication. This user however is the one that broke down the lines of communication before I began questioning his language skills. Libro0 (talk) 17:23, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I completely understand getting frustrated and I agree that you started out very kind, my only concern was that last message. Typically, unless someone is an obvious vandal or attacking others, I like to see a bit more time and more than one person trying to work with an editor before deciding they should be doing something other than editing Wikipedia. Thats just my opinion though and others who respond to your thread may feel differently about the situation. Shell ^babelfish 17:49, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Alf Tupper

Hi Shell, There's an article, Alf Tupper, which was tagged with the {{OTRS}} template, but never had the information filled in. I remember that you helped me with an OTRS issue before. Would you be able to help with this one? Thanks, GentlemanGhost (talk) 20:25, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I just double-checked; it looks like the confirmation template was added by the same IP address that made the statement of permission. Unfortunately, I can't find any ticket in the OTRS system, so I have removed the confirmation template for now and contacted the site owner to see if I can get the permission confirmed. I'll give it a few days to see about a response and go back and remove the content if we can't get a confirmation. Hope that helps. Shell ^babelfish 21:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

That's great! Thanks for your assistance! --GentlemanGhost (talk) 01:42, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

User:RyRy5

RyRy5 (talk • contribs • non-automated contribs • wikichecker • count • total • logs • page moves • block log • email) Hello. The last time we faced eachother was when I was trying to adopt User:Nothing444. Well, he was blocked and ever since then, many users have told me of my improvements here at wikipedia. May I have your opinions. Maybe you should check my archives since our last encounter and check my my contribs. And maybe my edit count and commenting at my Editor Review. Thanks.--RyRy5 (talk ♠ wikify) 21:51, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

"Faced each other" *grins* I keep getting visions of Mortal Kombat. In any case, I've left a note on your talk page. Thanks. Shell ^babelfish 04:46, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Also, I'll try my best to slow down, but still stay active. And I'll keep up my adoption. Thanks again. Cheers.--RyRy5 (talk ♠ Review) 00:06, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Hello

I saw you on the Adoption centre, which my friend told me about. I thought you seemed like the coolest person on the list. {[;-)} My brother is also going to help me sometimes - he was the one that help me set up - but he said that he would not be around to help all the time, and so that is why I am here. {[:-)} I really hope you will adopt me. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hamletpride (talk • contribs) 12:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey there. Since you're new(ish), I answered over on your talk page to make sure you didn't miss the note. Shell ^babelfish 05:13, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Yay! {[:-D} Thank you. Well Erm. My brother taught me a bit about some of the policies, but there are still many things I am completely new to. I think I really need some help with categories and subcategories, as one of my main weaknesses. But Erm; is there anything you think I need to know first? {[:-)} Hamletpride (talk) 15:55, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't American Actors be a subcategory of Film Actors though? {[8-|} Hamletpride (talk) 18:41, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. Can you teach me how to make, and edit a category? Hamletpride (talk) 15:37, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

That makes sense. So can you move a category page, like you could to any other page? And how do you put it in a "parent" category? Hamletpride (talk) 16:28, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure you do not mean "{{Category...}}, not [[Category...]]"? Hamletpride (talk) 18:08, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Donny Long

Okay, Shell, I respect the decision, though I don't necessarily agree with it, especially since those same blogs have been used as sources by Vinh himself. Be that as it may...

I CAN substantiate, from Governmental sources, that Donny Long has been convicted of several felonies in Florida and California, including Spousal abuse, Battery, Grand Larceny, Burglary, DUI over .20, and Squatting. ANy objection to that?James W. Ballantine (talk) 00:50, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Not acceptable either; please read the policy on biographies of living people. Unless its been substantially covered by reputable media, we're not interested. Since you seem to have such an interest in adding negative material to the article, I'd suggest that editing the article at all probably isn't a good idea. Take some time to learn what Wikipedia is about and then see if you'd be interested; Wikipedia:Five Pillars is a good place to start. Shell ^babelfish 15:03, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[redacted]

Note: This section has been courtesy blanked per a request by the subject of the article being discussed. If you have any questions, please do not hesitiate to contact me, preferably by email. Thanks, Daniel (talk) 04:02, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Elonka's page

Since she is not here it seems that you should make a comment on whether this page is a "magic shield" that should stop legitimate CheckUser confirmed reports of abusive mass sockpuppetry from being effective. Tankred already followed me around and cited the discussion page in various threads as a reason why uninvolved admins should not look at the CheckUser results and the various other proof listed and why abusive sockpuppetry should be allowed. Hobartimus (talk) 20:22, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

No, its not, but I don't believe Tankred is necessarily wrong in giving some context to administrator's who may not be familiar with the entire background. People who review those notes are still going to look at the available information. Elonka has worked really hard to build an atmosphere of openness and trust between editors with opposing views, but I think everyone is still somewhat wary and likely to be over sensitive. There's no need to have discussions on Elonka's page that belong elsewhere, but it wouldn't hurt to drop a note there in that spirit of communication she's trying to develop.

I'm sure it was upsetting to see Tankred's comments, but its also good to remember that sometimes, communications on the internet don't come across the way you'd expect. Take a few deep breaths, in the long run, this will be nothing to worry about. Shell ^babelfish 20:50, 10 May 2008 (UTC)re

Thank you very much

Dear Ms. Shell Thank you very much for your kind interest and deleting the insult that has been written in my userpage by The User Nasr2000. All The best and many thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Faragali (talk • contribs) 20:28, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

You're very welcome. It seems like things are getting a little heated over the article and I really appreciate that you're maintaining your cool. The deletion discussion should run its course in around 5 days. I hope you decide to stay and edit other Wikipedia articles. If there's anything else I can do to help, please let me know. Shell ^babelfish 21:01, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Stnickvillager

Hi. (It's your adoptee here). I would just like to inform you that this user thought neccessary to go to all the pages I have been editing, and undo my "vandalism". He took it to the Wikipedia Noticeboard of Incidents, but was told that he should speak to me about any issues he had (which he hasn't done). Only just discovering these going ons now, I have started a new thread about the user (the old one about me has been archived) at the Noticeboard, about his lack of civility, and the way in which he/she found it neccessary not only to be incivil, but to go to other users, calling me a "vandal". I am unhappy with the way this user has acted, and I just thought I would keep you in the loop with what is happening with me. Thanks. Hamletpride (talk) 16:43, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Please see reply at talk re: these issues Stnickvillager (talk) 20:25, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Need some help

hi, i'm not sure on what exactly to do or who to go to but i was wondering if you can help. I'm having problems with this user User talk:Charles who is alot of the time reverting my edits classing them as POV and vandalism when they are not, he is currently reverting this article Template:Iranian Imperial Family just for the ske of it, i've corrected a couple things on this page and he says they are vandalism and POV when nothing on that page can be POV in the first place. He then insults my grammar and basically saying my edits on here are useless. You can look at my edits and see that is not the case. according to him his word is always final, and his edits are always right and doesnt matter what i or anyone else does we are always wrong. He has done this to other users in the past and i dont think it is fair for this to carry on and for him to be able to act and speak to people like he owns pages on here. If i have put this in thw wrong place could you let me know what to do as i know one of the rules on here is to not "own" pages and to not insult people. thank you AliaBuhler (talk) 07:16, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I've taken a quick look at the situation (or what I can see since you didn't provide any diffs on the matter) and I'm not sure what you'd like me to do to help out. It appears that you have a disagreement on content here that's now spread across multiple templates. I understand that you feel what you are doing is a correction, however, not everyone feels that way -- perhaps you should take a moment to see why they feel that way and how the template came to be the way it is.

The correct thing to do would be to stop edit warring and work with the editors who disagree with you to find a solution you can all be happy with. Barring that possibility, you might want to use dispute resolution to bring in the assistance of other editors to help develop a consensus on how these templates should be handled. Shell ^babelfish 07:35, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

what i would like is a warning to him to stop with the snide comments and telling people they basically know nothing about royalty, everyone here is doing the same and his attitude saying to me that amateurs edits are more expert then me is uncalled for and he shouldn't be allowed to make those sort of comments to anyone. His opinions that his always right and if someone edits his edits he doesnt like it and will make snide comments and revert them back which isn't fair. Things cannot be sorted because he will just delete whatever i say on his talk page and say he wont even read it and or make any comments. There is no editting warring going on with me, i just feel he should be told to stop with the name calling basically and be told that he doesnt own pages which he has been warned about in the past but refuses to take any notice. All this is was shown on his talk page but he will remove anything that makes him look bad. AliaBuhler (talk) 09:51, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Couple of things. First, you still haven't provided any diffs so I can see what exactly you're referring to. Second, you were edit warring -- reverting an article or making changes back and forth with another editor is edit warring. Third, you've made no attempt to understand why people are changing your edits -- this is an important part of contributing to Wikipedia since everything here works by cooperation and with consensus. And finally, I did look at the history of his talk page (meaning I can see things that he removed) and I'm not seeing anything outrageous. If you can provide links (diffs) to the specific attacks you're referring to, I'd be happy to look in to those remarks and see what I can do to help calm down the situation. Shell ^babelfish 08:52, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Image:Voodoopad.png

This was an image you deleted about a year ago. I just read the log. I claim ownership and I claim I released to wikipedia under GFDL. I'm not sure how that doesn't a constitute a response. jbolden1517^Talk 13:44, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

It was a screenshot of a copyrighted program. Your argument was that screenshots of copyrighted software are free, other editors, some I consider knowledgeable in copyright law, disagreed with your assessment. As such, you cannot release the image under the GFDL since you do not own the rights to the software being displayed. Since you did not change the tag on the image to a fair-use claim, the image was deleted. Shell ^babelfish 09:03, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Need some help 2

Hi Shell...I'm a rookie here...and I need some advice. There's a user here that is removing some of my edits here, and I'm not sure why. His name is User: Thivierr, and I've tried to communicate on Kat Von D's discussion page, but now it just seems as if he's taken it upon himself to police the page, and is reverting everything that everyone adds. I put in a link to her makeup at Sephora in the external links, and he deleted it saying it sounds commercial. Her tattoo shop is commercial...I can't see the difference. I'm not sure that what he's doing is fair, and I'm at a loss as to whether or not to continue trying to put information in if it's just going to be deleted. There are many statements in the article itself that have no verification that he leaves alone, but when I try to edit anything, it's immediately reverted. I made the mistake of reverting one of his edits...and this is where it all stemmed from. No one can seem to come to any kind of consensus regarding one particular part of the page, which is the controversy section. I feel like I should bow out and just walk away. Sugarnova (talk) 12:34, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I left a note over at Talk:Kat_Von_D#Neutrality that I hope will help explain a bit more why that particular section keeps getting removed. Shell ^babelfish 18:41, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Ashcroft Technology Academy

Should be deleting this again? *sigh* Daniel (talk) 10:44, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Kat...and your help.

Thank you Shell. I appreciate you taking time for this! I hope you don't mind if I ask a few questions here and there. Thanks again Sugarnova (talk) 18:45, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Comics Guaranty LLC

I don't know what the rule is, but the editor who keeps vandalizing CGC has been at it for months now. Sometimes it gets protected, but they come back soon afterwards. Maybe it should be protected for a long time, or we can just keep reverting. Doesn't matter to me, just thought you should know. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 07:20, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

They're doing it again. They must check it dayly because whenever the protection ends, they revert. The latest revert was seven hours after the protection was removed. Is there something we can do so that I don't have to keep it on my watchlist, but they won't be able to revert? Maybe you can block the IP, it may be a static IP. [28] - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (Contributions) 06:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to give them a final warning; it looks like they've been the major problem in re-adding that biased text for some time now, so the IP is at least stable. If it happens again, a nice long block is in order. Thanks for helping keep an eye on the article! Shell ^babelfish 15:10, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

No problem and thanks. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 17:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this user also makes use of other IPs, including 63.3.17.2 [29], 63.3.17.130 [30], 63.3.17.129 [31][32], and 63.3.17.1 [33]. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 18:24, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

My user page

Shell Kinney, could you please confirm whether it was you who deleted my user page? I am not complaining; simply asking for clarification. Skoojal (talk) 07:23, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Unfortunately, the entire history of your user page contained attacks on the same person who's article you admitted to intentionally sabotaging. I hope that you understand that what you're trying to do here is not going to be tolerated and it would be best to move on to other articles if you have further interest in editing Wikipedia. Shell ^babelfish 07:30, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Deleed image

Hi, is their anyway I can view this deleted image: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:C18Digihadcomparisen.JPG&action=edit&redlink=1 Thanks. User:Arthur Warrington Thomas (talk) 15:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately no, the software will only allow admins to see deleted images. Shell ^babelfish 15:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Allegations of antisemitic usage in Jewish Lobby

Per your request that this not be handled by mediation, the material has been moved to Talk:Jewish lobby for discussion. Thanks. --John Nagle (talk) 18:09, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: Stalking

You said "Perhaps given the number of warnings and blocks you have for edit warring or being disruptive over trying to force changes to an article, this would be a good time to take a step back and consider that the community is trying to tell you that its not acceptable to behave this way while editing Wikipedia."

Ok, then what else am I to do? On the article Banu Qurayza, I went through discussion - a lot of discussion. No use. I went through mediation (you were the mediator). It was closed. On a particular issue, I called an RfC and went to WP:RSN, and I got consensus on both locations. But the user refuses to respect it.

If discussion doesn't work, mediation doesn't work, RfC doesn't work, the tell me what am I to do when a user removes 15% of the article that is sourced to 11 different scholars, all reliable?Bless sins (talk) 07:31, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

If that's the case, then you need to say that. What you said was "this user is following me around" which doesn't communicate the fact that you believe he is violating consensus established by neutral parties in more than one place. I haven't reviewed all the discussion in the links you provided yet, but if you believe there is a consensus and a single user is reverting, opening a user WP:RFC is probably your next step - or, since this has already gone through mediation attempts, you may want to take the issues to arbitration where the committee can look at everyone involved in the situation and decide if some restrictions on their behavior would help resolve these problems.

Give me a bit to look further into the links you provided, and let me know if you have any other evidence of what is going on so I can look over that too and I'll see if there's any more specific help I can give you. Shell ^babelfish 08:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I've looked into the issues a bit further. I would say that I don't see a clear consensus is anything you provided - you have several people for, several against and two editors who agree that the sources are reliable. Please understand that it is possible to have reliable sources and still not state things in a way that is acceptable to everyone. You need to work out a compromise with other editors, or at least find a wording that more editors deem acceptable. In reviewing the discussion, I blocked Str1977 for 24 hours for gross incivility. I'll see if there is anything more I can do to help informally resolve the dispute that's still active on the article. Shell ^babelfish 08:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Shell, there is consensus for atleast one of my edit. Itaqallah, Aminz, and Nick Graves agree with its addition. Str1977 doesn't. Briangotts doesn't agree on a different issue (relating to the Deuteronomy). He was mislead in believing that the RfC was about the Deuteronomy issue([34]). From the mediation Jedi Master Mk also agreed with the inclusion. And yes, you correctly noted that two comments at WP:RSN considered the sources reliable. Other than Str1977 there is no user that opposed its inclusion.Bless sins (talk) 13:58, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Since I have been drawn to this page, let me state that BS's statement above is false:

"Briangotts doesn't agree on a different issue (relating to the Deuteronomy). He was mislead in believing that the RfC was about the Deuteronomy issue ... Other than Str1977 there is no user that opposed its inclusion.

It is true that I informed Brian about the RfC and that, in my message, i confounded two issues I had in mind, the Deuteronomy issue and the BQ chose issue. I later realised my mistake and corrected it. BS's claim that Brian was misled into disagreeing is bogus as per Brian's comment here. BS has read this comment too but he choses to ignore it so that he can cast me as the lone opponent. Another editor, Jayjg, has also expressed his disagreement on my talk page but he has chosen not to get involved.

I hope, Shell, that despite all our quarrels you will see how this behaviour also contributes to the volatile situation on the BQ talk page.

Str1977 ^(talk) 15:55, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that Bless Sins is not always correct in his statements, which is why I originally responded on the Admin noticeboard and asked him to stop edit warring. And, as you've pointed out on the talk page, I did make it clear that I don't believe he has a clear consensus on that or really any of the other issues -- some more discussion is needed to work out a compromise. Shell ^babelfish 16:07, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Only on the article talk page he still pretends to have consensus. Str1977 ^(talk) 16:33, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Crews article again

Shell Kinney, the main section of the article on Frederick Crews is currently titled, 'Publications, work, research and criticism.' Would it be OK for me to change this to something shorter and more concise, say, 'life' or 'work', or is there a reason why that would be illegitimate and get me banned? Also, I'd like to add the date of publication for The Pooh Perplex to the bibliography; is that OK or not OK? Skoojal (talk) 08:01, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

You made it abundantly clear via your now deleted user page that the only reason you edited the article benignly was to build up until you could intentionally put in biased and defamatory text. As such, you are not welcome to edit the Crews article ever again, even to make spelling corrections. The only reason you were given a second chance and not banned from Wikipedia for this behavior was because you appear to be able to contribute productively elsewhere. If it turns out that you are planning on acting the same way on other articles, its very likely that you will be banned all together. Wikipedia does try to take being an encyclopedia rather seriously, so its just not going to be an appropriate place to vent your feelings. Shell ^babelfish 13:49, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, whatever you say. This new stance of yours does seem to contradict what you said in the past, which was that I should ask before making changes, implying that I wasn't banned from making changes of any kind. Unclarity on this point does not exactly help matters. If I may say so, what I wrote on my user page about minor changes wasn't intended to suggest that they were only a way of building up to inserting controversial stuff; they're always worth making in their own right. Skoojal (talk) 22:44, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Skoojal asked me to comment on this, and I did so on my talk page.DGG (talk) 01:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Just to be more clear, I had asked Skoojal to be very careful with his edits before having seen his user page (please see the deleted revisions). He chronicled his work on the article over time and stated that he intentionally built up a Wikipedia account and made careful but escalating edits to the article with the explicit intention of being able to add defamatory material. Given that information, I see no reason that he needs to edit the article, even to make non-controversial edits. Shell ^babelfish 02:24, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

User talk:209.244.30.35 is at it again

[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Comics_Guaranty_LLC&curid=3922553&diff=218330681&oldid=215557580 Lates vandalism. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contributions) 05:17, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Since the only thing this IP has done for months is insert this POV junk, I've blocked it for an extended period of time. Shell ^babelfish 12:24, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

"Personal attacks"

Even though its been said on the talk page, I wanted to make sure that you understood that continuing to attack other editors and behave in an incivil manner will lead to additional blocks. I know that you feel very strongly about the subject, but there must be a way to discuss your concerns without being rude. If you are so sincerely frustrated working on the article that you don't feel you can discuss it without making personal comments about other editors, then I would suggest that you might want to consider Arbitration, the last step in the dispute resolution process. Shell ^babelfish 15:45, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I also feel very strongly about what I feel is these harassing comments on your part. Since my unblock I have not engaged in personal attacks . I now tempers are flaring at that article (but not only mine) and I feel wrongly singled out by you. Str1977 ^(talk) 15:55, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

All right. I will do the best I can. However, I want to note that all these are not personal attacks. Maybe not helping the discussion but also not attacks. If they were, BS accusations against me for "censorship" "deleting x % of the article", "removing x scholars" would be too as they do not address actual content issues but my editing behaviour.

And I must say that it is frustrating if my questions are never answered. Devotus ignores my questions completely and BS responds but leaves out many substantial things contained in my postings. You should also tell him off for this behaviour which contributes a lot to the volatile situation. Str1977 ^(talk) 16:33, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Realizing that accusations of "censorship" were impolite, I've stopped using them.Bless sins (talk) 18:04, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I understand how Str1977 feels. Arguing with Bless sins is indeed pointless; his responses are usually non sequitur, but he keeps reverting, and reverting, and reverting until he gets his way or is outreverted by an overwhelming majority of editors. This experience is the main reason why I stopped editing the article where their dispute is occurring. Beit Or 18:10, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

If that's the case, it sounds like it may have been appropriate to try opening a request for comment on this behavior. Shell ^babelfish 18:34, 9 June 2008 (UTC)