User talk:Sjakkalle/January and February 2006

Welcome to my talkpage!

Ordinarily, any comments placed here will stay, and only simple vandalism will be reverted. Personal attacks against me will stay, such comments say a lot more about the person making them than the person who is targeted.

Note that I am quite inconsistent with where I make responses. If it is a response I think several people might be interested in reading, I might respond here. Otherwise, I will probably respond on your talkpage. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:57, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Previous archives of my talkpage can be found at

Hey

Some anon I.P. just mini-vandelised your talkpage. You just warned him for vandalism too, just a heads up. I gave him a {{subst:test3}}. By the way, welcome back =D. - iGod 08:06, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, glad to be back! Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comment

Thanks for your comment in the AfD for Wisbech Grammar School concerning the content of the article as it was at the time of nomination. I've revisited the expanded article and changed my vote to keep, now that there is context/notability established. Your comment on my behalf is much appreciated. —ERcheck @ 19:11, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RFA!

Thanks for your kind words and nomination! I am both grateful and slightly surprised. Five days ago my first barnstar, now this, hehe. I accept the nomination, and have attempted to answer the questions. Please take a look at User:Punkmorten/Sandbox and tell me if anything is missing. Or if anything should be removed. Again thanks, Punkmorten 21:12, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RFC/TC4

Thanks. - brenneman ^(t)^(c) 11:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hideliho Sjakalino!

Ok, if the guy is a vandal then that's cause for a block. But note that the block log (and his userpage) read "usernameblock". So something's not quite right here. R adiant _>|< 12:03, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I have put a little note at the bottom of the talkpage. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tony's redirect

I've redirected Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Tony Sidaway to the first RfC, now called Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Tony Sidaway 1, if that's okay with you. That seems to make most sense. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 12:14, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, thanks. Sigh. What is wrong with the World? Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:15, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

People like me? Anyway, thanks to you both for fixing this up. - brenneman ^(t)^(c) 12:19, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sure thing. We'll see how it goes, if there is no endorsement on it in 48 hours we will have avoided that reef. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:26, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A Barnstar

I award you this barnstar for your tireless work on vandalism. - iGod 14:41, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I know this doesn't really mean much from someone who you've never met, but i'd like to award you for your vandal fighting in the last few days. You've always beat me to the edit and you've been kicking some vandal ass. You go! Keep it up. - iGod 14:41, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:42, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My Request for Adminship

Greetings, Sjakkalle! I wanted to sincerely thank you for voting in my RfA, which passed with a final result of 55/14/3. Your support means a lot to me! If you have any questions or input regarding my activities, be they adminly or just a "normal" user's, or if you just want to chat about anything at all, feel free to drop me a line. Cheers! —Nightstallion (?) 07:43, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks!!!!

You're welcome! Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

Thank you for your support of my RfA, and for your generous comments. I appreciate your confidence. Best wishes for a happy new year, Tom Harrison ^Talk 13:15, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

IP ban

Hey Sjakkalle! This IP address belongs to the Norwegian school Thor Heyerdahl VGS, and after reading through its user page, I think the IP should be permanently banned from editing. Quite honestly, very few (if any at all) here are actually contributing to Wikipedia, as all the edits I've seen so far were vandalizm. Please consider doing so, for Wikipedia's sake. User_talk:139.164.130.171 Also, right now I'm on a second IP, maybe it too should be blocked. 139.164.130.170 10:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. As a rule, we never block IPs permanently unless it is an open proxy. What you see from looking at an IPs contributions are the edits made without being logged in. Blocking the IP will mean that the logged in users will be unable to use the IP as well. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:36, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, thanks for the answer anyway. I understand that youguys want to keep the system open for the general public, but it is sad that so many decide to abuse their privilege. 139.164.130.170 10:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Answers

How long do you think an article on a locomotive ought to be before we can say it is not a stub? I have created a few articles on the Norwegian locomotives in the past weeks, and some people seem to think that template:electric-loco-stub needs to be filled with articles in order to be worthy.
- Yeah, some random busybody has got it in for that template for some reason, but it shouldn't be deleted.
Exactly what is the definition of "slam door" with regard to passenger carriages. Does it simply mean the doors are conventional ones on hinges, or does it refer to the carriages with lots of doors all leading directly into the main seating area?
- Slam doors are the opposite of sliding doors. In the UK they are also ignorant press talk for EMUs, based on the British Railways Mark 1 bodyshell, i.e. the early 4XX series. Some had lots of doors down the sides, [e.g. 4CAP http://www.semg.org.uk/gallery/class413_01.html] some did not e.g. [4-rep http://www.semg.org.uk/gallery/class432.html].
The coupling rod article says that they refer to the rods on the driving wheels of a steam engine. What are the similar rods called on (usually older) electric locomotives?
- Coupling rods (I presume). You get them on diesel shunters too. The designation for a bogie driven off one traction motor is B-B which includes those with coupling rods [1], but I guess since electric locomotives came after steam engines then they borrowed the term. I don't know of any British electric locomotives that had coupling rods though, I suspect some earlier Swiss ones might.

— Dunc|☺ 11:33, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bobby George

I'm not fully convinced yet, but it's moving in the right direction. I've asked the expander to address my issues. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism on Wikipedia

Please be extra-careful when reverting vandalism on the Wikipedia article. The article is vandalized so frequently that there are often multiple vandalisms in a row, so reverting one of them doesn't catch the others. Always look at the history before rolling back. In this case, you reverted an obvious vandalism, but a non-obvious tag vandalism wasn't caught for hours.--Eloquence * 18:01, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Eep..., thanks for spotting it. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:52, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom advice

This is a difficult question. I myself have not fully answered it. I can tell you who I am not voting for and the reason for it. First, the reason: There is a very serious and growing problem within Wikipedia. Some of the nature of this problem is outlined by me here. But, that does not cover the entire problem. I've been pondering how to scope the problem for a while, in an attempt to clearly define exactly what the problem is and do so in as concise a manner as possible so as to gather people within Wikipedia in a unified voice to declare the problem as real and in need of being solved. I've been in discussions with a number of people both here and offline in trying to achieve this. At this point, I don't think I'll be able to complete this work before the elections begin, and I certainly won't be able to garner support sufficient to sway people's voting patterns to produce an ArbCom that is willing to tackle the issue. I wish I'd really understand the gravity of the situation some months ago, but I was not as fully aware of it then as I am now. As much as I understand it at this point in time, these are the factors that play into this problem:
- Casual disrespect for new users by admins, some members of ArbCom, and even Jimbo. Not only must you be an experienced user to have your voice heard (and even being an admin doesn't count as experienced anymore), but you must also be acceptable by some nebulous standard before your voice carries any weight. In short, if you're not in the 'in' group, your voice lacks merit.
- Willful ignorance of policy and guidelines by some admins, and ArbCom supporting their actions in many cases.
- ArbCom's utter unwillingness to hear a case against some people yet clear willingness to hear cases against other admins who behaved much in the same way. I.e., major bias within ArbCom.
- ArbCom's several recent decisions and explanations which have, in summary, left all policies as meaningless. Policy is, according to ArbCom, defined as "common sense" and by how we do things. Both of these definitions of policy are nearly entirely encompassed within individual judgement rather than community judgement; this is starkly against what so much of Wikipedia tells us it is supposed to be; consensus.
As one of the people I am working with said, Wikipedia is no longer "genuinely free and intellectually open" and may never have been so. Yet, it defines itself as such. This leaves the project in a constant quandary. The ongoing utter disrespect for new members of our community is causing quite a number of people to leave, even if they aren't the ones being disrespected. They realize that we can not long live if the project insists on casting asperions on the very lifeblood of our work. Further, they realize we can not change this with the status quo as it is; an unrepentent ArbCom that refuses to enact change, and Jimbo supporting them in such at every turn. Thus, the project to them is untenable. Their view has merit, and I am increasingly becoming of the same view.
ArbCom must change to heal this problem. It will take some very dedicated, intelligent individuals to solve this great problem. I believe the following people are either utterly incapable of helping to heal the growing rift or are actively contributing to the problem (in alphabetical particular order, and I am not going to cite evidence for each; very time consuming): Aranda56, Fred Bauder, Golbez, Kelly Martin, Ilyanep, Jayjg, Jdforrester (James F.), Luigi30, NSLE, Snowspinner, Tony Sidaway. Were David Gerard running, I would vote against him for abuse of checkuser priviledges. But, he's not. Nevertheless, I fully expect David Gerard to be re-appointed to ArbCom by Jimbo at some point. There may be others that I will vote against on the same grounds as above. I haven't completed my analysis yet on a number of candidates.
The only candidates on your list that I have reviewed to some extent are Mindspillage and Nandesuka. Mindspillage I am leaning somewhat in favor of based on the evidence I have seen of recent. But, I have to say I have a gut feeling this might not be a good choice, but I have nothing to support that feeling right now. I will most likely vote in favor of Nandesuka. I think he will do a great deal towards solving the problem. Hope this helps, --Durin 15:19, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

new user

Hey man I want to bcom an administrator,so far,tedcheong has helped me,can you help me too,while I domy edits smalltime. Setworker 15:48, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Before setting about to request adminship, we will need to get to know you, you will need to show to the Wikipedia community who you are. A reasonable amount of experience is usually looked for, something like 2000 edits and 3 months of experience is usually enough for most people. During this time you should show some well rounded contributions, and act in a way which makes people like you rather than hate you (being civil is really important). Good luck! Sjakkalle (Check!) 16:02, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Setworker here,I changed my name. Please give me messages on my user talk page if required.

How do you block a frequently vandalized page?

My user page

Hi. Thanks for the offer. I think I'll take you up on it -- particularly since the admins seem incapable of getting their act together as a body. Since I don't know for sure what has and hasn't been done since I last looked at it, I'll simply revert it to one of my earlier versions. When you get around to the page, look for my last version and, if necessary, revert to it. And then please protect. Thanks much. Regards/peace. :) deeceevoice 17:09, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Still can't edit my user page -- this time because of collateral damage. Another user using the same I.P. address my ISP has randomly assigned me when I access my page. (Happens all the time.) So, if you wouldn't mind, please revert to my latest edit and then block. Thanks much. deeceevoice 17:20, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

Many thanks for your support on my request for adminiship, I'm sure you'll be glad to know the final result was 92/1/0. I am now an administrator and (as always) if I do anything you have issue with, please talk about it with me. --Alf ^melmac 10:34, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

Pgk's RFA

Thanks for your support on my request for adminship.

The final outcome was (80/3/0), so I am now an administrator. I was flattered by the level of support and the comments, so I'm under real pressure not to disappoint, thus if you have any queries, suggestions or problems with any of my actions as an admin then please leave me a note --pgk^(talk) 12:18, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ignore All Rules

Greetings! I've just read your essay on Ignoring All Rules. Very well stated: my views are slightly more liberal than yours (I am Chaotic Good, after all), but for the most part it seems we agree on its proper application, particularly in avoiding upsetting people unecessarily and knowing when to ignore IAR. I don't suppose you'd considered putting it on the talk page to chew on? Mindspillage (spill yours?) 07:45, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the kind words! Glad to see that people actually like to read my subpages :-). Nonetheless, I have looked at your record and several of your views and opinions at various Arbcom cases and RFC cases, and I think that your views on IAR is responsible . I think that there has been a bit too much ignoring of the rules lately, to the point where it has led to shouting and bitterness, and that is what inspired me to write that essay. By the way, good luck in the election, you are the one (and I think only) "incumbent" who I supported. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:08, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I also liked your essay very much. :-) Mindspillage pointed it out to me. Kim Bruning 08:13, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah yes, I see you asked to be relieved of admin duties. Anyway, I remember that you were a very good admin. The controversy (such as the GNAA-policy related deletion you once made) is the reason I opposed your ArbCom candidacy, but if you ask to be readminned, then I will support you without hesitation. Thanks for your comments! Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:18, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure?. I don't recall deleting any GNAA related policy. Rather, based loosly on a poll on such a policy, I remember deleting a vote to delete a vote to delete a policy to delete a vote to delete that particular poll. Or some such equally crazy chain reaction. I was backed up by at least one steward in doing so. Kim Bruning 08:49, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you're right it was that poll. I agree that the poll was really silly, but deleting it was still highly controversial. Nonetheless, good luck, I won't be having sleepless nights if you wind up with a seat on the ArbCom. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:54, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I not sure I deleted the "kick the ass" poll. I think it got redirected by someone else. I do admit to applying it rather tangentially. :-P And thanks! :-) Kim Bruning 08:59, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

I goofed at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections January 2006/Vote/Mindspillage. utcursch | talk 08:16, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Inquiry

In the elections for Arbitrator, you voted against me with the comment that you "just disagree with her stance on IAR to much to support." What is it about my stance on IAR that you object to? Kelly Martin (talk) 18:42, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I should add that my stance on IAR is almost identical to that of Mindspillage's -- and you endorsed her stance. I think you might be confused as to what my stance is. Kelly Martin (talk) 18:47, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Kelly! It is not only the opinion and stance on IAR which matters, but also the actions people have made while invoking it. It was quite painful to put my name in the oppose column on your vote, you have always been nice and friendly towards me, but in your disfavor were the deletion of a number of userboxes and a subsequent "screw process" comment, actions which were more drastic than anything Mindspillage has ever done. Because so many people were upset about the userboxes disappearing and messing up their userpages, I disagreed with your position that process could be ignored in this case. I don't agree 100% with Mindspillage's views on IAR either, but she has agreed with me that IAR should not be invoked when it makes people really upset. The difference in views at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Snowspinner 2 illustrates the difference. Of course, in your favor were the facts that you are sensible about 80-90% of the time, and that you are one heck of a hard worker. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom Vote

Hi Sjakkalle,

As per your opposition vote to my ArbCom candidacy due to the lack of questions, I've elaborated on my statement and explanation at the questions page. I welcome any further questions to be asked to clarify any of your doubts, and let me know on my talkpage if it's urgent. Thank you for your interest! :)

- Best regards, Mailer Diablo 02:52, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for elaborating a little. I have put forth another question which I think matters before I will change my vote. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User 213.8.83.40

I noticed you blocked User:213.8.83.40 before for his actions; well he's at it again, adding vandalising talk pages to his agenda as well. Mainly adding the same unverifiable content repeatedly to Thumbshot and then changing other users' comments on the talk page, despite repeated requests to stop. Any help you can offer is appreciated. Peyna 13:47, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I see it. Apparantly he has stopped... but that is probably because nobody discovered his latest spamming before you spotted it. I'm blocking that IP for a week. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:02, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

He appears to have returned under another IP: User:84.228.233.237. I don't want to revert this edit because I've already gone over the limit for WP:3RR. Also see "his" comments on Talk:Thumbshot. Wrathchild (talk) 17:43, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Don't worry too much about the 3RR in this case. Spamming articles with commercial links the way as has been done here is a form of vandalism, and reverting this away is covered by the exception clause. (Note that adding external links by itself is not a form of vandalism. If somebody adds an external link in good faith, in an attempt to provide further information, and not for advertisement, then the 3RR applies when removing it.) I have checked with the Geobytes IP locater, and the two IPs are in all likelihood operated by the same person, both IPs are based in Tel Aviv. I have given User:84.228.233.237 a warning. Thanks for your help! Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:167.21.254.12 has also started vandalizing again, Danish language today, and Mark Twain yesterday. Mikkel 13:38, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh, some people just won't learn, will they? I have blocked it for a week. Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:40, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

213.8.83.40 (talk · contribs) has returned and added Girafa.com to the Thumbshot article again. —Wrathchild ^(talk) 17:13, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

213.8.83.40 (talk · contribs) has returned and is now on a campaign to remove the link to Copernic from Thumbshot. Please help. —Wrathchild ^(talk) 13:28, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, I see. At least he's only done it once today. I'll keep a watch on it. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:10, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The repeat vandal on Warez

This repeat vandal is User:DickyRobert it follows his mo, celebrity names... targets of warez related articles. As such you can mark any acct doing similar vandalism with the {{DickyRobert}} template. I'll go back through and clean up any wrongly applied ones. ALKIVAR™ 14:51, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah OK, thanks. Kelly Martin has determined two of the IPs as Univeristy of Toronto IPs. Perhaps a range block of 142.150.204.0/23 will help. I'll block them for a month, which will undo the two indef's Kelly has placed, but they can always be reblocked in a month if needed. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:55, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Block

How does 1 get the power to block vandals Batzarro 15:53, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You need to be an administrator. Such status is usually given to those who have enough experience (usually in the order of three months and about 2000 edits) and have proven themselves trustworthy, see WP:GRFA for what people look for in a candidate. Until you become an administrator we do have pages for reporting vandalism such as WP:VIP and WP:AIV (use this when you have warned a vandal up to test4 and the vandal is still vandalizing). Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:56, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Batzarro

I added a few new user boxes at religion user boxes. My user page is really messy. I dont seem to get things right. Could you check out my user page please and post yer reply on my user page.

Your userpage looks tidier than mine! Sorry, I don't know all that much about formatting userpages I'm afraid. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:26, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom

Thanks for asking! I'm afraid I'm not around much these days, but I did took the time to evaluate the new candidates. See my contribs for details. Yours, R adiant _>|< 17:36, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I have put my votes in as well, and I think I agreed with your votes about 80% of the time. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:01, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RfA thanks from rogerd

File:Baseball (ball) closeup.jpg

Hi Sjakkalle- Thanks for your support on my RfA. I appreciate the kind words that you used in your comments. If I can be of any service please leave me a message --rogerd 01:25, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

unblock

Felbeast was wrongfullt blocked by hallmonitor please unblock me

ArbCom election

Thanks for your vote on my candidacy for ArbCom. I think I may be able to help you out of a problem. Unfortunately we can't write with a tone of voice, so I think that my stance has come across as a more blanket statement than intended. I am, by nature, someone who believes in loopholes and exceptions, and that loopholes and exceptions can't always be predicted in advance of them being discovered. Having a rigid rule would mean following it even if it was manifest that its spirit should not apply, to the detriment of the project of building an encyclopaedia. That's the reason why I endorsed 'Ignore all rules' although I think it hideously badly named.

What I don't think is that IAR should be used in a blanket way for users to take it upon themselves to say "I think this is in the interests of the project, and so I'm going to do it and damn the rest of you if you don't agree". The recent userbox debate is a case in point as the deletions were reversed almost immediately and stirred up considerable anger, making it more difficult for any coherent policy to be established - so it was also counterproductive. While I don't like userboxes which are used for advocacy, there is no way that I would ever go around mass-deleting them, not just because policy is unclear at present, but also because it's a discourteous thing to do. I hope you accept this as a slightly fuller explanation, but if you want to inquire further, then please feel free to do so. David | Talk 15:20, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thanks for your note! Changed my vote from "oppose" to "support". Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:57, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RFA thanks

Thanks for supporting me in my RFA. --TimPope 13:52, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

International Freedom Foundation

On January 4, 2006 I created the International Freedom Foundation article. Six days later it was listed on Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2006 January 10 as an alleged copyvio. Inadvertently, I had copied verbatim some small sections of another website to this article. I have since rewritten the whole article on International Freedom Foundation/Temp. If you have a nanosecond to spare, I should be grateful if you would delete the original article and substitute for it the [now pristine] rewritten page. Many thanks.Phase1 21:23, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks. I have done as you suggested. :-) Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:59, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

London Buses

I had a look at the AFD debate on London Buses route 11. Is it a good idea to create one or more articles on London bus routes overall (e.g., London Buses routes 1-20, London Buses routes 21-40), linked together by an index page? --Web kai2000 12:28, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with articles on bus routes is that they keep changing, and sometimes cease to exist altogether and are resurrected in some completely different place. With the London bus, the routes have been a bit more static and the problem is not quite so severe. I have no real opinion if they should be merged or kept separate, I closed the AFD debate as a procedural one (consensus that article shouldn't be deleted) and mentioned merge as a possible option. Just do what you think is best, and if anyone complains you can discuss it with them. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:46, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that.--Web kai2000 22:35, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Seth Ravin

You voted in the DRV for Seth Ravin, and I wanted to let you know that the article is again at AFD: Wikipedia: Articles for deletion/Seth Ravin 2. Thanks. -R. fiend 15:43, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the note. Hmm... CEOs are tough to decide on. I think I'll stay out of the debate for now. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:45, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Superoffice" and Tony Sidaway

Hello. I noticed you blocked Tony Sidaway for 24 hours for disruptively undeleting SuperOffice. Although wheel warring is wrong, Tony had good motive: the company does in fact satisfy the notability criteria outlined on WP:CORP, specifically criterion #3: "The company's or corporation's share price is used to calculate stock market indexes". SuperOffice forms part of OSE All Share index (as can be seen here - it is listed under "SUO.OL"). The three people who voted on the AfD were not informed of this by the nominator (who specifically said it did not meet any of those three criteria), and presumably did not check that fact for themselves. For this reason, Tony's undeletion of the article is appropriate, for the purposes of reopening or re-running the AfD for the article. I am therefore going to undelete the article and unblock Tony, and set in motion the procedure to re-list the article for AfD. - Mark 08:47, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hold on. The only justification for an immediate undeletion is "obviously deleted out of process". THis one is far from obvious. There were AFD debates with unanimous delete consensuses. DRV can take deleted articles and review content if the reasons given to delete were all wrong. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:50, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Very well, I'm prepared to go along with this "deletion review" procedure. However, I will unblock Tony Sidaway. You did not warn him, and he has since agreed not to take it upon himself to undelete the article. Your rush to block a fellow administrator for such a paltry incident so quickly is disturbing to say the least. Even if the 3RR applied to deletions/undeletions, Tony had not violated it. - Mark 09:48, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Doc glasgow has already unblocked him. Tony has been warned very many times in the past not to unilaterally undelete articles, and when he now did so four times (twice on two different articles), it has gone over the top. It is disruptive ignorance of consensus, and not a 3RR violation, I blocked him for. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:51, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That I have been warned that I shouldn't undelete articles doesn't mean that I shouldn't do so. Both articles were resoundingly kept, which suggests to me that I'm doing the right thing. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:15, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

R107 block

Hi there, 212.219.82.35 is a school IP, the registered users R107 and me are the only constructive contributors! Feel free to block all other anonymous edits, but could you please unblock R107, and check contributions in the future. Thanks, Archer7 09:49, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid it is not possible (yet) to block an IP without blocking anyone, even logged in users, who try to use that IP. Do you need an unblocking of 212.219.82.35 now? Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:53, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's no big emergency, if it's so difficult maybe it would be better to leave it blocked. Archer7 10:24, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's set to be unblocked in a few hours anyway. I'll just unblock it now and hope it goes well. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:25, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Don't panic

The article Tally Solutions Ltd is a total bottom-up rewrite containing no material from the version that was wrongly deleted. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:02, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, we'll see what the people at WP:DRV think. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:04, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Greenpiss

Sorry I meant to revert to the one before that and I think we reverted at the same time – just a mistake, sorry again --Ehouk1 10:43, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, no problem. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:44, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tally and SuperOffice

In blocking me, you said you thought I was making disruptive undeletions. So that you can see what I was really doing, here are the steps that I took and the steps that you took. This isn't a way of getting at you, I think what you did was okay after your beliefs and I don't hold it against you that your opinions are opposed to mine--your behavior was okay according to what you could see, or thought you could see, at the time.

19:19, 17 January 2006 Tony Sidaway restored "Tally (accounting)"
19:23-19:37 various quite extensive edits, extending article.
20:38, 17 January 2006 Tony Sidaway restored "SuperOffice"
20:40 Add ticker symbol and for this publicly listed company
02:41 told R. Fiend (who I'd noticed had deleted Tally again) that I'd produce a rewrite of the (already substantially rewritten) article.
03:09, 18 January 2006 Wrote a new draft of the Tally article, based on the original with a small amount of added information from my research.
03:09 restored history of article
Moved it to Tally Solutions Ltd
03:11I also edited the article about the company's founder, Bharat Goenka, to point to the new article.
3:19 I invited R. Fiend to relist it on AfD if he still thought it should be deleted.
Oops, noticed that SuperOffice had also been deleted:
03:24, 18 January 2006 Tony Sidaway restored "SuperOffice"
3:25 I told R. Fiend that I'd noticed that he'd also deleted the SuperOffice article, and explained why I thought this was a very bad idea.
04:13 R. Fiend gave an amicable reply in which he said he'd decided to list my actions on DRV. Which is fine though not optimal, since the articles were in an undeleted state and would probably have benefited from another go at AfD.

And there it ended.

Until you deleted both of them and blocked me.

08:22, 18 January 2006 Sjakkalle deleted "SuperOffice" (AFD consensus: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/SuperOffice, recreated and undeleted out of process)

08:24, 18 January 2006 Sjakkalle blocked "User:Tony Sidaway" with an expiry time of 24 hours (Disruptive undeletion of SuperOffice twice.)

08:36, 18 January 2006 Sjakkalle deleted "Tally Solutions Ltd" (AFD consensus: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tally (accounting), undeleted out of process)

This was four hours later. There had been no wheel war. You thought there was disruption but the deleter said he was fine with the article being undeleted during the discussion and I was fine with it too.

Still, it can be difficult to assess a situation properly, and you did your best. No hard feelings.

From the above you can see that I was making good faith efforts to write an encyclopedia. Sure, I was ignoring process, or rather short-circuiting it, but that doesn't matter one little bit. Fuck process. I didn't need a long and tedious undeletion debate to tell me what I already knew: that the process that deleted those two articles was broken, and that the way to fix it was to undelete and improve the articles. Which I promptly did. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:17, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, good to see that there are no hard feelings, and I want to let you know that I value you as an administrator and contributor.

Keep in mind that process exists for a reason. If anyone is given the right to simply ignore process and do whatever, there would be no point in having process because anyone would be allowed to ignore it if desired. Sometimes the process leads to decisions we don't agree with, but simply short-circuiting it just makes matters worse because it makes contributors feel that their opinions don't matter. It is also difficult to say to a disruptive editor that we have these policies when they can point to an admin and say "But this well-respected administrator is allowed to recreate anything he likes. Why can't I recreate the article on my teacher without being called a vandal?"

It is often said that we are here to write an encyclopedia. I agree. Most of the time I spend at Wikipedia goes to writing, or defending, the encyclopedia. I have initiated in the order of a hundred articles, reverted away several vandalisms and worked a bit with categorizing articles which lack it in order to improve the structure. I just prefer to write it within the confines of process and policy so that nobody will feel that I am arrogantly imposing my will on Wikipedia. Even within the confines of process, we are given a lot of freedom to write as we see best.

As for undeletion: It is a problem that people are too willing to make "Keep deleted, valid AFD debate" votes, thereby making it tough to reverse deletions of articles which through some fluke got a consensus against it. I don't know if there is a consensus or even a majority for it, but I think that a slight liberalization of the undeletion policy might be in order, so that we can more easily review the content as well as the process on DRV, so that the articles fate won't rest or fall on a somewhat flimsy AFD decision. A person should be able to say "Look, this deletion was decided by a number of very ill-informed voters who missed this claim to notability" without being met by dozens of "valid AFD debate"s. Another solution I have though about might be to weaken the "recreation" clause of the speedy deletion criteria so that it only applies for articles deleted by AFD process within the last year, that way a "bad" result will only be temporary.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts. Next time, please bring the deleted articles where AFD erred to DRV. Declare openly: "Here is the AFD debate and here is why the arguments presented are dead wrong." You never know, some people might agree with you and decide that the article really should be undeleted, and I also think there will be a dissatisfaction if we regularly let good articles with good subjects remain deleted due to inflexibility in our processes. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see the point, honestly. It's much easier to take obviously wrong deletions down this route, and a process that has "valid AfD, keep deleted" vote cannot be said to reflect any consensus-based evaluation of the article. I think the best that Wikipedia can do for undeletion is to have one or two people who have a good eye for this sort of thing, and a hell of a lot of balls, and just have at it. At the worst you just end up rewriting and, eventually, backfilling the history for completeness. On letting good articles run through a known problematic process, I don't think that's right. I undelete stuff and if someone wants to they can take it through AfD. I've hardly ever lost one yet. AfD is by and large much better than DRV, though it obviously does sometimes fail. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:29, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wiffle Bat

I for one salute your courageous stand against admin unilateralism. ~~ N (t/c) 01:29, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, thanks. Let's just make it clear that I take no pleasure in blocking good faith contributors. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:58, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For heaven's sake don't tell anyone you yourself "unilaterally" undeleted the history :) For which thanks. The SuperOffice article in particular would have been quite difficult to bring up to the standard of the deleted version. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:18, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The undeletion policy allows me and anyone to make unilateral history only undeletions as long as they are not copyvios. ""History only" undeletions can always be performed without needing to list the articles on the votes for undeletion page, and don't need to be kept for a full ten days. Article histories that include copyright infringements should not be undeleted.". Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:30, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I know all that. I did that with the Seth Ravin history while rewriting as TomorrowNow, and the thing got messed about by a very puzzled-looking Aaron and then speedied as a recreation after he mucked about with it. It was because this sort of paranoia that I joked about your undeletion of the histories. For which many thanks--I think the SuperOffice article at least would not have had such a thumpingly satisfying keep vote if I'd not been able to revert from my inexpert clean-room rewrite to the perfectly good version that had been deleted in the first AfD.

Incidentally except for Aaron nobody has so much as squeaked about my shameless WP:CORP-whoring rewrite of the Seth Ravin article as a company article--a job that paradoxically involved taking out at almost as much verifiable information as I added. But my subsequent rewrite of Rimini Street, which seems to amply satisfy WP:CORP 1, is getting creamed at AfD. If it gets deleted I'll probably take it to DRV on the grounds that at least two deletion proponents are claiming that it's "reposted material" that has "been reworded" (no, I wrote it myself) and "Recently deleted article recreated.". Since the original deletion the company has acquired four heavy-hitting customers including Toyota's finance division. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:49, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Stamina

Ah, well, I work evenings, so I sleep in the early part of the day, and late night is when I have most of my free time. Everyking 10:33, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re:Block

I have just unblocked myself. Next time you decide to block an anon, READ THE IP USER TALK PAGE. That will explain whether that IP is used by heavy-use administrators who request that they are notified before blocks, so that they don't lose huge amounts of work when archiving, transferring articles between categories, or similar tasks. These talk pages will also tell you whether blocks on these addresses should be limited to short periods of time because they are used by multiple users (I know of several other users who share 202.180.83.6 as an IP). I will re-block again - for the usual one hour (not 24 hours), when I have finished the work I'm in the middle of. Grrrrr. Grutness...wha? 13:14, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like our messages "crossed in the post". I shouldn't be long, then I'll block again. But be warned, as I said, quite a lot of dedicated users share that IP. Grutness...wha? 13:17, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

that's really cool

so you can edit the pages to change for everyone!!! awexome!!!216.120.190.157

Spurious blockings

There's no way on Earth that reacting to an IAR article restoration with an IAR blocking doesn't constitute escalating the perpetual floating wheel war. I still think it was a breathtakingly ill-considered move on your part. "Because I thought it was obviously a good idea" blocks generally have to be a hell of a lot better justified than that.

I like IAR, but I did want to add to WP:IAR what Tony said about it: it's a stick of dynamite, be very sure you want to set it off.

Oh, and Jimbo just closed the CFD on Category:Living people against 88% delete. Will you be blocking him for disruption too? - David Gerard 21:23, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It was not an IAR blocking. It was a blocking based on the disruption rule of the blocking policy. Jimbo was mistaken to close that CFD against consensus, but he does have supreme authority here, so I will not block him, and furthermore he has gone against deletion consensus only once while Tony had been doing it dozens of times in a few weeks. Note that I am not opposed to deleting contextless articles Jimbo might create if they meet the speedy deletion criterion A1 [2]. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:05, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, yes :-) I'd forgotten for the moment that was you ;-) - David Gerard 15:39, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

For reverting vandalism on my userpage. I hadn't even noticed it until I saw it was edited on my watchlist. VegaDark 07:41, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome. It was a high speed page blanker who blanked quite a lot of userpages. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:49, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the revert!

Uh, ya. Thanks. I didn't really notice until now what had happened, thanks for fixing it! - CorbinSimpson 08:07, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I thank you as well. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-01-20 09:51Z

No problem. Always happy to get vandalism removed. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:42, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Kai Unreal

Thanks for the heads-up. I've fixed things up. Johnleemk | Talk 11:50, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

Thanks for reverting vandalism on my userpage!

PJM 18:04, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Channel 4

This is not a content dispute, you will notice that there is only one user who thinks it should be on a white background. The user has also been blanking parts of the channel 4 talk page. -- 9cds^(talk) 13:21, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A dispute over which logo to put on a page is a content dispute, not a vandalism issue. Deal with it by using WP:AN/3RR if you must, and don't engage in revert warring. Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:24, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:FRINGE

Hi there. The AFD/DRV debate about Aetherometry inspired me to try and hack together some proposed guidelines about fringe theories. I saw you were an active and thoughtful participant in that debate, and thought I would solicit your comments and hopefully suggestions and edits. At the moment the page is at WP:FRINGE for lack of a better name. Thanks for your time if you can lend any. --Fastfission 17:52, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'll see if I participate in the discussion, but I 'll wait a bit for now. Personally, I think that theories which have received plenty of media attention in the popular press (for instance the Apollo moon landing didn't happen theory received an interesting hour long documentary on the DIscovery Channel) deserves mention, even if they are utterly refuted by scientists. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:37, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Transportation in NYC

Hello Sjakkalle - I notice you've done work on the New York City article and you also express interest in transportation on your personal page. You should check out the Transportation in New York City article. It's really come along and has been nominated to be a US Collaboration of the Week. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:USCOTW We can use all the votes we can get! Wv235 03:38, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I'll take a look at it. Main problem for me is that the only two times I've been in New York is changing airplanes at JFK (in 1988, I was six then). Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:38, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

NoSeptember's RfA

Thank you, Sjakkalle, for your support of my RfA. I appreciate all the nice adjectives you used to describe me :-). I will do my best in my new role and welcome your feedback. NoSeptember ^talk 15:53, 22 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey! Thanks!

Thanks for reverting that vandalistic blanking of my user page... I wonder if that IP address could belong to User:Pickelbarrel? I would have been rather at a loss for what to do if I'd seen that!

Merci beaucoup! Dan 22:10, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

REVERT

You are an administrator,Can u help me. USer:zanimum is harassing me and has blocked my user page.

Please can you unblock it. Please can you block im as he blocked my page for using fair use images but does not practice what he preaches

CAN SOMEBODY HELP ME Batzarro 07:59, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please understand the problem of fair use images. Under almost all, if not all, circumstances, they may not be used on userpages. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:04, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am with Batzarro,User:zanimum has added 2 sockpuppets user:zanimum2 and user:koorooo.

They are using fair use images on THEIR userpages but are vandalising ours This is unfair. Ferall 08:09, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey man,at least can you unblock my userpage. Batzarro 08:10, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

user:zanimum and his sockpuppets are harassing me also YOU are an admin,can you look into it?

Booren 08:21, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please can you unblock my userpage fast. I cannot do without it. User zanimum blocked it because of images but HE is using fair use images. This is unfair. Please can you he;lp me out as a decent administrator. Batzarro 08:23, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have asked Zanimum to look into the fair use images on his userpage. I'll remove them myself if he doesn't. I can unprotect your userpage but ONLY if you will promise not to add the fair use images to your own userpage. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:25, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes,ok to that.Batzarro 08:42, 24 January 2006 (UTC) Also,my page batfiles needs to be undeleted.It is my sandbox Batzarro 08:43, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I have unprotected your userpage. Please don't abuse it. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:45, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure where your bat-files and sandbox are located. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:46, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Batzarro/1 thats the page to my batfiles. Zanimum deleted it. Can you undo it man? Batzarro 09:19, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, that image gallery consists of fair use images, and they are only allowed among the main articles. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:42, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The dog pic was not fair use and the Star wars pic was self made. They were not fair use. Batzarro 09:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Both of the images are tagged as fair use. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:51, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I uploaded both pics personally. The dog pic was on a public domain site at an Argentina kennel.

The star wars pic was done by me on my computer. I may have made a mistake when I uploade the file. They are not fair use,I uploaded both,I know. Batzarro 09:53, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK they were not fair use,both were uploaded by me. I drew the star wars pic myself!The dog pic is public domain. I may have made a mistake while uploading,you cant do thios to me!Batzarro 10:01, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

unblock

OK they were not fair use,both were uploaded by me. I drew the star wars pic myself!The dog pic is public domain. I may have made a mistake while uploading,you cant do thios to me!Batzarro 10:01, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK unblock my user page man,I ll add these pics later. I want to add 2 pics Image:Kirpan.jpg and image:boarhound.jpgBatzarro 10:11, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm having some difficulty here. I have requested some advice from other administrators at WP:ANI. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:12, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK unblock it for now,I ll add some other pics but tell me before u do something like blocking.

I'll wait until I get some advice from other admins. Putting images on your userpage is not all that urgent I think. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:21, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK how long do I have to waitBatzarro 10:23, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A few hours maybe. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:24, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I uploaded the 2 pics myself. I should know. Cant I add on batzarro/1 a list of images I uploaded. Batzarro 10:33, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on if they are copyrighted or not. Copyrighted images (which accounts for the majority of images on the internet) can only be used limitedly, and then only as fair use, and then only on articles. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:36, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

MY PAGE

Batzarro, I have removed your proposed userpage from here (it messed up the next section categorization system a bit). I'm afraid you will need to wait until another admin unprotects your userpage. I suggest you request help at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:05, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

Please accept my embarrassingly belated thank you for supporting my RfA, which much to my surprise passed 102/1/1, earning me minor notoriety. I am grateful for all the supportive comments, and have already started doing the things poeple wanted me to be able to do. And hopefully nothing else... Just zis Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C]

AfD? 12:01, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Heated complaints

I got some rather heated complaints that your userpage contains about three "fair use" images at the bottom of your userpage. Can you look into it? Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:19, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I apparently missed cleaning them off, before I went around to others, enforcing Wikipedia's laws. They've been turned into links. Thanks for letting me know, Sjakkalle. -- user:zanimum

Thanks. Sorry for the trouble I might have caused with unprotecting and reprotecting Batzarro's userpage. Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:08, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OMG, have you ever. I replied before I even saw how much junk you had to put up with recently. No prob on the unprotecting, I likely would have done the same. -- user:zanimum

Vandalism to User:Commander Keane

That’s the last time I’m ever leaving my computer unattended again. Sorry for what appeared to be me vandalising his user page. I was just talking to the school’s technician and when I returned I realised that the guy sitting next to me had edited under my account. I’m so sorry and I realise I may have to explain this again in the course of the next few days. By the way, the IP address I was using was 194.80.20.10, and I am pretty sure whoever it was vandalising under that address before was the same person who edited under my name. — FireFox • T • 13:34, 24 January 2006

OK, I originally thought it was some jokemaking like this, but thanks for explaining! Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:10, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK your page is not blocke anymore. Mine isBatzarro 16:36, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How do i get my page unblocked Batzarro 16:38, 24 January 2006 (UTC) I need it done fast man.[reply]

What?

Behager boks De hjelper meg venn? Batzarro 16:45, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks from Lulu

Storm clouds ...	and silver linings	Thank you for your support on my RfA.
		Unfortunately, it failed to reach consensus. Nonetheless, it proved an opportunity to establish contacts and cooperation with many supportive editors, which will be beneficial to editing Wikipedia in the future. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters (t @)

Takk Sjakkalle!

Trist for vanskelighetene.

takk for hjelpen

Batzarro 08:28, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for voting!

Hello there! I wanted to thank you for taking the time to vote on my arbitration commitee nomination. Although it was not successful, I appreciate the time you spent to read my statement and questions and for then voting, either positively or negativly. Again, thank you! Páll ^{(Die pienk olifant)} 22:11, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Boothy443

Hello,

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Boothy443. Please add evidence to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Boothy443/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Boothy443/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Kelly Martin (talk) 02:53, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sjakkelle

Hi, Sjakkalle. Thanks for your comments on your oppose vote to my RfA. I don't want or expect to change your vote, but I would like to just clear the air and make sure there's no misunderstanding. I wouldn't (at least, I think I wouldn't, I may not find out) just apply a cold percentage check to any kind of discussion/vote/call it what you will.

I do like to see a bare minimum of edits, as they do confer some experience - but I've voted 'support' to guys with 1,500 edits, and oppose to people with 10,000+, so I wouldn't say I was a editcountitisician (is that the term?). A good recent example was Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/RexNL, where the guy had 8000 odd edits, but they were almost all vandalism reverts, and so there was little experience in Wikipedia policy and procedures. I don't have a hard and fast reliance on numerical rules, and I'm kinda wondering where this impression came from. Anyway, thanks, and sorry to bother you. Proto t c 10:08, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Proto!

There are a couple of RFA votes which I reacted negatively to. On Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Hamster Sandwich you openly declared "Editcountitis for life!". On Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Hermione1980 you also opposed the candidacy giving less than 1000 edits as a reason.

Now, I have myself said that a candidate with only 500 edits almost certainly has too little, yet I would support that person if, in the course of those 500 edits, the person has used 150 edits to article space and talkspace to produce 3 featured articles (that's definitely enough experience with creating an encyclopedia), used 20 edits to participate with thoughtful discussion in 20 *FD debates, 20 thoughtful edits on policy discussion (OK, knows policy), created 5 useful templates with 5 edits, 5 useful categories with 5 edits, and the remaining 300 edits on reverting vandalism, and other janitorial tasks (so we see that the candidate can make good use of the tools) as well as having demonstrated a calm and civil demeanor. I would support that candidate even if the 500th edit (a typo correction) had been left out bringing the number down to 499. I think a candidate with such a record deserves to have an RFA judged based on the contributions and not have it dismissed out of hand purely because of a minimum number of edit threshold. In the case of Hermione1980's vote, I felt that you on a rather inflexible manner opposed a conscientious user of the "show preview" button who had accomplished in 900 edits what most people would have done with about 3000.

The problem is that making votes based on such reasoning suggests superficial thinking and that such thinking can lead to poor decisions being made when carried over to some of the administrerial tasks such as closing tricky AFD debates.

Regarding the AFD, it was Rx StrangeLove and Dmcdevit who explained the concerns. AFD changed its name based on a suggestion of Rossami to emphasise that AFD was not supposed to be a vote even though vote count is part of the decision process when the closing admin gauges the consensus. (See Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion/Oct 2005#Name change (again). I do expect admin candidates who plan to close AFD debates to be aware of such fundamental aspects of AFD.

One thing I can say is that I definitely don't consider you too "deletionist" to be an admin, after all, you voted "keep" and "lost" in this debate and you belong to the best association AWWDMBJAWGCAWAIFDSPBATDMTD. But really, one would need to behave really irresponsibly on AFD before I opposed someone because of such things, things like voting to delete articles because they contain typos or voting to keep protologisms because presence in Wikipedia proves that it's used. Your voting is absolutely responsible even though I don't always agree with it.

Also, your work in the article space is excellent, with several good articles, and one featured article is one more than I have :-). So you might say that my "oppose" is of the weaker variety, and I will not be sleeping poorly at night if your RFA succeeds. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:08, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again - thanks for clearing things up further, and for your kind words. If someone had taken the time to explain the Hermione situation (as you did above) to me at the time, I would have reconsidered my vote and amended it to neutral - I do tend to look for 1000+ edits, as it really isn't a very large number, and can be picked up fairly rapidly, but it's not a hard and fast rule. The 'Hamster Sandwich' one I addressed in the comments section of my RFA, in response to a query from Jaranda (cut and paste what I said) - it was a lazy way of saying 'not enough edits'. Someone had a quiet word with me about being more informative in my vote comments, and I hope I've managed to be so since then. I do consider RFAs, *FDs, etc to be votes, as people, well, vote. They are not a majority vote, or even a democratic vote - the vote and associated comments enable the closer to make a judgement of the consensus decision (providing one exists). I think I've got that pretty clear in my head, and I hope that (if) this whole thing does go through that I manage to make the right choices, and avoid any superficial decisions. If it were to be succesful, would you be willing to lend some advice on any particularly tricky calls? Take it easy. Proto t c 11:23, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to bother you again Sjakkalle. A few editors now have queried whether I would be capable of judging consensus correctly. With that in mind, I have posted a comment on my RfA (in the comments section) that I hope addresses this. Please, if you have the time, read it. If it does assuage your concerns, perhaps you might consider amending your vote to neutral. If there are still concerns, please let me know what they are and I will do my best to try and address them. Proto t c 23:16, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

link up every single word

Aye, thanks for reverting that. Looks like someone invented a new form of vandalism but gave up because it was too time-consuming. - Randwicked Alex B 14:08, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

patent nonsense

Me again. I would have called that patent nonsense. It's generally a bad sign if the article's creator feels the need to contest its speedy deletion before anyone even touches it. Oh well, we really need a {{db-bjaodn}}. - Randwicked Alex B 15:21, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In fact I'm rather inclined to think that WP:PN needs an overhaul. - Randwicked Alex B 15:24, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hoaxes with ridiculous content are annoying, and I don't shed many tears over losing them. Hoaxes are vandalism, and vandalism is speedy deletable under WP:CSD G3, but it is usually reserved for pages with nothing but obscenities and the like. It usually doesn't expand to hoaxes. The trouble with speedy deleting hoaxes is that it is easy to get a false positive and speedy delete something which is obscure but true. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:33, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, I think it was recreated because the creator had the edit screen up while it was being deleted, and recreated it, with speedydisputed-tag and all, when he saved. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:37, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do you speak Nynorsk or bokmal Zanee 18:46, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a Bokmål guy. In fact, I think Bergen is the only Bokmål municipality in Hordaland. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:04, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

re: Speedy deletion criteria

Wow. You don't ask easy questions... Let me try to put some thoughts in order.

Was Seth Ariel Green speedy-deletable? Looking at the page history, I think that it is:
- unlikely to be vanity because the claims made in every version are clearly ... well... silly. No one claim was really believable, much less all of them together.
- tough to call it an attack page. It may be a prank and obnoxious but it's not hate speech. As an example, if someone said or wrote all that about me, I don't think I'd be able to make a slander or libel suit stick. It's just too silly. The statements have to be a) hostile and 2) believable before they do damage.
- arguably deletable under case A7 but I personally never use that case. I consider it too open-ended and ambiguous. I understand the reasons that the community decided to approve it and I don't object when others use it (as long as they remain within the bounds agreed during the debate) but I retain reservations about whether the creation of that case was the right solution to the problem.
- arguably patent nonsense but only in the second sense - "Content that, while apparently meaningful after a fashion, is so completely and irredeemably confused ..." I would rely on the impossible timing and general incoherence of the article described in the article if I had to defend that judgment. But it would be a judgment call and judgment calls are generally better addressed in AFD.
- probably deletable as vandalism, though that would have depended on a review of more than just this one article. To prove it to myself required a review of the rest of the user's contributions to establish the pattern of vandalism. Unfortunately, our process currently works backwards for these kinds of problems. We need a better way to identify patterns of vandalism and to make deletion and clean-up decisions based on that investigation. We need a better way to document the pattern and then a way to reference that finding in the deletion reason.
- definitely deletable now as the contributions of a banned user. But I'm guessing that the user wasn't banned when you were wrestling with the question. See last comment. The article should have been used as evidence into the user's behaviour. The investigation into the user should have triggered the deletions, not the other way around. As I said, I don't think we have a working process yet.
Should you be more careful picking your battles? Probably. But not too much. Some things have to be defended as a matter of principle. Some issues are important enough that we must stake our reputations on them. Those of us with the moral courage to follow our convictions do it knowing that we will have to accept the consequences if the community repudiates our views. It wouldn't require courage if we were completely insulated from consequences. <insert stirring martial music here> <also insert a witty reference to First they came...> If you believed that the principle needed to be defended, then the specific circumstances hardly matter. Some of the US' most important civil liberties and protections were established as a result of the principled defense of a hated criminal.
- Would I have chosen to defend this article? A harder question. I've defended articles as bad on principle but I probably wouldn't have tried to defend this one. Lately, I've been spending more time on the anti-vandalism watch. I am learning the reasons behind a slightly more open interpretation of the second sense of patent nonsense. There are some real weirdos out there - people with clear problems holding on to their mental stability. The openness and wide audience of Wikipedia seems to attrack them. I hope they get help, but even more, I hope they go away. They detract from the project.
Is Arbcom a game of CalvinBall? I've recently been introduced to the more formal term, nomic. I've been thinking about it a lot lately. I do think that our project can be described as a nomic. The rules are changable. If you and I don't like a change, well, we can make our case but if we lose we must either decide that we can live with it or move on to other things. So in that sense, I agree with the statement. The Arbcom's mission is to defend the encyclopedia. If the existing rules are demonstrably failing, then they (and we) have an obligation to change the rules. That includes even some of our most sacred rules such as "rule-making by consensus". The point where I disagree is that I don't see evidence that the existing rules are failing.
Could the Arbcom really punish someone for following the rules in good faith? I'd be very surprised. The community outrage would be overwhelming. I took that comment to be a somewhat draconian statement of extremes. They wouldn't punish someone for acting in good faith but they do reserve the right to punish someone for attempting to game the system - for attempting to twist the rules or abuse our privileges in a way that damages the project. The difficulty, of course, is separating the good faith defenders of principle from the bad faith latreen-lawyers. (The second difficulty is getting the members of the Arbcom to articulate that difference in their findings. Too many of the decisions - in fact, too much of all our discussions - are just slapped together rather than being crafted and proofread. Our speedy approach works well for articles because we can trust that someone else will come along and clean up our thoughts but it doesn't work so well for static decisions like Arbcom findings or AFD closings.)
- Does this increase Wikistress among the defenders of principle? Yes. See the second bullet above about why it should <and stir the martial music again>.
Are you harming the encyclopedia when you keep a poor article because there is no consensus to delete? Hard to say. When I close debates (and I don't seem to have time to do anymore), I try hard to find some kind of consensus hidden in the wreck of the discussion. If I can't do that or if I strongly believe that the consensus was just plain wrong, I do what I think is right - defined as "what I think will be best for the encyclopedia in the long term". Knowing that I am going against the consensus, I admit up front that I'm exercising my discretion to override the decision and try to document my reasoning in great detail. And lastly, I stand ready to take the consequences if my decision is repudiated on review.

Okay, that was a very long-winded response. And more than a little pompous in spots. I apologize. You asked some difficult questions and you really got me thinking. Thanks for letting me think out loud. Rossami (talk) 03:15, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing to apologize for, I have no problem with the answers at all! I thought they were good and thoughtful responses and I understand them. Thanks for considering the questions I asked, and I also think that ArbCom should stop people who actively manipulate the rules in order to troll, although they should not use it to reprimand people who sometimes make the encyclopedia slightly worse in someone's eyes (the problem is who this someone should be) due to following the rules in good faith. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:36, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Succesful RfA!

Thank you for your support during my RfA! The community has decided to make me an administrator, and there's work to be done. I look forward to seeing you around the project in the future, and if you see me do anything dumb, let me know right away! Regards, CHAIRBOY (☎) 23:24, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_review#Temporary_undeletion

Advertisement - Please join the talk on if all articles brought to DRV should be fully restored and open for editing by default.
brenneman ^(t)^(c) 15:17, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Previous blocked user spamming again

Just a note that User:213.8.83.40 whom you previously blocked for spamming articles with the same link (and has been blocked twice before for the same behavior) is at it again. Peyna 16:40, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I see it. Seems to have stopped now at least. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:29, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I never made a legal threat

Check out the evidence. It was User:Longhair that made a legal threat TO ME. ArbCom got confused and banned the wrong guy. Please can you see to undoing it. I didn't make any legal threats, and the ban was totally unjustified. You can see from my behaviour that it was all just a big smear campaign by Longhair against me, and I am not like that at all. Zordrac 15:12, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Internodeuser was banned not only for legal threats but also for maintaining an insulting userpage full of accusations, harrasments and personal attacks. I'm afraid that Longhair has not been part of smearing campaigns against anyone. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:16, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's not true. There was nothing in the Arbitration Committee decision that mentioned that as the reason for the ban. One and only reason mentioned was a legal threat, yet the only actual legal threat was one made by Longhair to me. And yes, Longhair was on a campaign of harassment against me. It was horrific. He reverted all of my edits and did lots of awful things. Sadly, a lot of these edits are now in admin-accessible-only pages, so you can't see any of that. And how do you define "personal attacks"? When I say to someone that they are a moron for believing something that makes no sense? Or when someone says to me that my very life is a joke, and that I deserve to die? Which is the personal attack? Calling someone a moron isn't a personal attack. Yes, I made accusations, but I backed them up with facts. There was no harassment by me. Only harassment to me by Longhair. You guys banned the wrong guy. Longhair is the fellow you want to get rid of. Zordrac 17:34, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Premature

That wasn't about you, it was about the poster above you. I had thought to indicate that with the indent, sorry if it wasn't clear. I'll clarify the comment. R adiant _>|< 15:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, might be a bit of a forest fire but I guess it's just that time of the month again. This should really go to mediation, except that the two times we tried that he just made some more nasty remarks and turned away. Oh well. Radiant_>|< 15:32, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- That, I believe, is called tag-teaming. But of course you're not allowed to IAR except if you have a cabal badge. R adiant _>|< 15:52, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

I noticed that you deleted the vandalism on my user page and just wanted to say thanks for catching it.

Take care.

TheRingess 00:44, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Patrick Alexander (cartoonist)

Can you please protect this page with {{NTSA}} on it? - brenneman ^(t)^(c) 12:38, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, done. Thanks for notifying me. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:40, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Err, 12:39, 31 January 2006 Sjakkalle unprotected Patrick Alexander (cartoonist) (Protected while DRV discussion is ongoing)"? - brenneman ^(t)^(c) 12:48, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, checked the wrong items from my menu, fixed now. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:49, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not block

Hi, with recent vandalism from 202.156.6.54, please do not block this IP address as a number of Wikipedians, including myself will be affected by this block. Thank you for your cooperation. --Ter e nc e Ong (恭喜发财) 13:24, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Batzarro

Oh my... that is some record he has. Thanks for helping cleaning away the mess he has left behind. I guess I wasn't tough enough with him. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:49, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's amazing how persistent of a nuisance he's been, simply because he couldn't have Britney Spears on his userpage. -- user:zanimum

AfD closings

Thank you for pointing me to the Wikipedia:Deletion process#Non-Administrators closing discussions section. I do appreciate that you went to the trouble of letting me know where to find information relevant to the situation, despite the somewhat sarcastic last sentence of my reply to you on the WP:DRV page. I should not have made that remark, regardless of being irked at the abrasiveness of the administrator who reviewed the closing. Thanks again. -- Jonel | Speak 00:52, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Great minds

Yes, but some are quicker at the trigger than others! You beat me to it, so I rolled back to your version! Babajobu 07:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Algeria page vandalised

Hi, Sjakkalle. Some idi.. vandalised the demographic section on the Algeria fact page. I'm writing to you because you recently reverted some changes from the same IP. Best regards —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.196.40.138 (talk • contribs) Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:34, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A big thank you for spotting it!. It appears that the vandal moved on to Egypt as well. I have blocked him now. When you see this kind of nonsense, you are absolutely entitled to revert the vandalism yourself as well, just select a non-vandalised version from the history, click the edit button, type in "rv vandalism" in the edit summary, and save the page. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:34, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you

For your kind support of my Rfa, which passed. If you should ever have any complaints about my admin actions, please let me know. Also, should you ever need my help with anything, please do not hesitate to ask! Thanks again! All the best Banez 17:06, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vandal IP 80.249.52.139

This IP was reported to WP:AIV about 15 minutes ago after surpassing the test warning message threshold, and they have not stopped vandalizing since, I'm sorry to say. If you have a moment, could you please review the contributions by 80.249.52.139 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) and do what you feel is necessary? Can't sleep, clown will eat me 10:46, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind, it appears that RobertG has taken care of this one. :) Can't sleep, clown will eat me 10:47, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I was blocking another school in the meantime. Kids these days... :-) Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:48, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My RFA

Hi Sjakkalle/January and February 2006, thanks for participating in my RfA discussion. Unfortunately, my fellow Wikipedians have decided at this time that I am not suitable to take on this additional responsibility, as the RfA failed with a result of 66/27/5 (71.0% support). If you voted in support of my request, thank you! If you decided to oppose me at this time, then I hope that if I do choose to reapply in the future, the effort I will make in the meantime to improve and expand my contributions to Wikipedia may persuade you to reconsider your position. All the best, Proto t c 10:45, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vandal IP:195.194.79.4

Hi. Just to let you know that this IP address is for a college. Al least 200 people use this IP address, so if one person vandalises it, there is no way of finding the person who did it.

If at all possible, could you block all unregistered people from editing pages permanently?

Thanks, sonicKAI 12:51, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately no. There is a policy proposal to change this, see Wikipedia:Blocking policy proposal, but it has lingered for some time without anything happening. Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:03, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I realize that this deletion nomination was made in good faith, and I agree that the original link to Kelly Martin's RFC was out of line. However, my own experience is that userbox TFD (and DRV) debates generate a lot more heat than light. I've edited this box to change the reference to Kelly to a non-personal link to Wikipedia:Administrator Code of Conduct. This way, it cannot be construed as a personal attack against a specific user. In the future, when you come across unnecessarily inflammatory content on userboxes, it may be more productive to simply edit the box rather than attempt to have it deleted. Hopefully these silly wars will die down, but until then, I think it's best to avoid anything that might give either side an excuse to argue. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 05:56, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RfA Thanks!

Okay, this is perhaps a bit overdue, but thank-you for your support in my recent RfA! I passed with a final ~~vote count~~ consensus of (82/1/0), which was a lot of support that I really appreciate. I'll try to live up to the expectations; and on that note, if there's ever something I do wrong (or don't do right), please spit in my general direction. Cheers! --P e ruvianLlama^(spit) 05:31, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Joke's RfA

Hi Sjakkalle, thanks for your support in my (successful) RfA! –Joke 16:03, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My RfA

Thank you
Hello Sjakkalle, and thank you for your support in my request for adminship! It passed with a final count of 63/4/3. I am honoured by the community support and pledge to serve the project as best as I can. I'm also honoured to have the support of a great Wikipedian such as yourself. Now if I can only figure out how to pronounce your username. CanadianCaesar The Republic Restored 16:50, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Three weeks of admin tools

Today three weeks have passed since I was granted access to the administrator toolbox. During this time I have made use of it in the following way:

Protections and unprotections: 1
Blocks and unblocks: 4
Deletions and restorations: 69
Rollbacks: 246

I've found that the rollback tool is much more useful than I'd thought for vandalism patrol. In fact it makes that task so easy that I've been doing it more than before. On the other hand I've been surprised by how little the blocking tool is needed. Having done a significant amount of vandalism patrol I have still only blocked one solitary vandal. The great majority of addresses which send out a vandal edit do so only once. Those who do it more often usually stop after a warning or two. Only rarely is a block actually needed and in those cases someone usually beats me to it.

As a side note I haven't retired from writing articles either. I'm still hoping to bring Freyr up to featured status but even though I've already performed more edits on it than on Hrafnkels saga back in the day, a lot of work remains to be done. Community expectations for featured articles have gone up and so have my own ambitions. I'm currently waiting for a couple of books I ordered to arrive and then I may be able to make the final push.

I'm trying my best to live up to the trust you showed in me by supporting my RFA. If ever you feel uncertain whether I'm using the admin tools in the best interests of the project, let me know. I am at any time willing to relinquish the mop and reapply for it to address concerns people have and ensure that I'm not using the admin tools without being trusted to do so. Haukur 22:41, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Auriga Logic

Sjakkalle, This work was writen by me for the company, and since i still work for the company i thought i could upload it anywhere i wanted to do i have to rewrite the whole thing now? that will be kinda hard you know, im not that creative enough to think of a new write up, any suggestions?

Welcome back

Glad to see you back, by the way. CanadianCaesar The Republic Restored 02:56, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I guess I will not be as active as I have been, but I don't want to be completely gone from the English Wikipedia either. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:14, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RFA Thanks!

Thank you!
Hello Sjakkalle/January and February 2006, and thank you for your support in my request for adminship! It passed with a final count of 98/2/0. If there is anything I can do to help you, please leave me a message on my talk page! -- xaosflux ^Talk

Vandal

Hi! I have a question about blocking, as I'm inexperienced in this field. User:Ravithisis made a grave personal attack here, [3], may he be blocked now? Punkmorten 17:05, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My RfA

Thank you!

Hi Sjakkalle/January and February 2006. On behalf of my right eye, I'd like to thank you for giving me your support on my recent RfA. It ended with a final tally of (73/2/2) and therefore I have been installed as an administrator now, and I'm ready to serve Wikipedians all over the world with my newly acquired mop and bucket. If you have any questions, do not hestitate to forward them to my talkpage. Once again, thanks for your support.

Soothing R 20:44, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My RfA

Thank you for your support of my request for adminship. I'm delighted that the RfA ultimately succeeded with a final consensus of 52/1/0, so I am now an administrator. If you ever have any comments regarding my editing, or I can help you at any point in the future, please feel free to leave a message on my talk page. Again, thank you!

_└^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 10:38, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

re: The userbox war

You are right that this whole discussion is an absolute mess. I've been watching but trying very hard to stay outside this particular war. I share your concerns about the T1 case. It is vague and was imposed from outside. Yet, unlike the other externally imposed mandates such as WP:V and WP:NOR, this is a new mandate - not one that we've all grown up with. I keep hoping that over time (probably a year or two but at least months) we will become used to the new rules and the controversy will simply drift away. Unfortunately, partisans on both sides seem more interested in fueling the fire than in working on the encyclopedia. We do seem to attract a certain percentage of users whose sole goal is controversy...

My personal opinion is that the only useful userboxes were ones which described skills relevant to writing encyclopedia articles. The only good examples I've ever found were language-based - "This user is fluent in German". None of the others represent any sort of verifiable fact.

For those describing areas of expertise, I can claim to be an expert in quantum physics but, unless you are also an expert and evaluate my edits, you can't really verify my claim. I can, however, verify your language skills fairly easily.
For those userboxes describing personal opinions or biases, I've never yet found one that made a bit of difference in how I interacted with the user or evaluated his/her edits. The bias of a pro-gun-control user is evident from his/her edits to relevant pages. I don't need to see a userbox to know that. And if I'm going to be offended by their bias, well, I probably didn't need to see the userbox to be offended. Their actions are generally sufficient to tell me what I needed to know.
Role-based boxes such as "I'm an admin" or "I am willing to help on the Vandalism Patrol" are conceivably useful but I don't see people actually using them much.

So I guess I see them as pointless but mostly harmless. People are labeling themselves and I will continue to choose to ignore the labels.

Now, I have heard accusations that some people were using them to organize in an attempt to coordinate bloc-voting. I never saw any personal evidence of that but can see how it might happen. If it did happen, I would consider that a violation both of the letter and spirit of our decision-making process. But the solution is to control and correct the decision-making process. As we have said many times, we do not decide by vote-count. If every admin stays true to that principle, the bloc-voting won't matter.

In hindsight, Jimbo made a mistake when he yielded to temptation and imposed this solution on the project. It was too granular an issue for his level of responsibility. Now that he's done it, the community will inevitably insist that he continue to intervene to clarify what he really intended. I can't help but remember the moral of Robert Heinlein's Glory Road. I suspect that Jimbo forgot it. We can ask Jimbo to get involved on one side or the other but if he asked me, I would advise against it. Anything he could do will likely damage his leadership more than just letting this controversy run its course.

Hmmm... I'm rambling a bit. Let's see if I can answer your specific question. What can mere mortals do?

My approach has been to mostly ignore the issue. If my analysis that the userboxes neither harm nor help the encyclopedia, then let the partisans wear themselves out over this issue. (At least when they're fighting over userboxes, they're not biasing actual articles.) My hope is that they will begin to see that none of the "reasonable" admins are participating in the discussion anymore. I consider this a form of shunning and hope that this will guide most people to taking less confrontational approaches. Wikipedia works mostly because of such social controls.

In the meantime, I see a more reasoned discussion that is quietly asking about the proper role of the userspace generally. I believe that, in time, that discussion will make the existing userbox controversy moot.

In the short term, about the only involvement that I'm choosing is to administratively isolate the controversy (by consolidating it into single discussion areas so the rest of us can keep working). I'll also occasionnally make a quiet comment when an obvious new person says something really stupid like "Jimbo can't do that". I'll try to quietly explain that "actually he can and here's why we still volunteer for the project anyway". But I see that as part of our continuing role to educate and mentor new users. I see no such reason to argue with an experienced user who should know better.

That's a long-winded response that probably doesn't answer your question. Sorry. Rossami (talk) 20:11, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

IATA codes

Can you check to see that the code is either a redriect to the airline or an entry in the dab article when you add a new one? Vegaswikian 07:53, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, the ones I added seem to have redirects already or have entries in disambig pages. (Except SS which redirects to the Nazi terror group), the disambig is at SS (disambiguation)). Also I removed Horizon Air from 8C, I don't know why it was listed there if they have code QX. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:58, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

[4] is a good source if you want to find missing ones. Select airline code and then in the lower set of boxes enter a letter or number. Using the historic codes there it shows Air Horizon was asigned 8C so maybe someone got confused. 08:04, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes I see, not "Horizon Air" but "Air Horizon" in Togo. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:09, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Poetry Pages for deletion

WayneRay 23:48, 22 February 2006 (UTC)WayneRay I had spent a considerable amount of time adding and updating the Canadian Poets and Publishers within Wikipedia. I have been busy at work for the past two months and haven't logged on to check on things. One of my authors, who has a wiki page Navtej Bharati, said both his page and mine were up for deletion?? I looked on my publisher page HMS Press and it was only updated until 1995. Mr. Bharati (who incidently is one of London Ontario's largest book publishers) book came out in 2002 so therefore was not in my authors list. I had re-written HMS Press in accordance to one of Wiki's editors and the new layout was accepted in 2005, NOW you say it is up for deletion. You guys dont like Canadians?? I don't understand the logic. I can update the information and add the next 50 books I did and his name will be on the list for verification. Please explain. I have been publishing Canadian and American poets since 1982 and have about 150 publications. ???[reply]

I'm sorry, but I don't know much about either the authors or publishing company. I sent HMS Press to AFD because someone had tagged it for speedy deletion, and I disagreed. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:21, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Brian Peppers

I like you. I respect your contributions. But we're going to have to differ. I think destroying content is A Bad Thing. I think allowing the subjects of articles to a/ have them deleted or b/ have them rewritten to suit is A Bad Thing.

I'm not really fussed by the userboxes thing, Sjakkalle. I think Aaron's comments on that score were pretty much on the money. It's an excuse on both sides for bullying and politicking, which is being indulged in by people on both sides who are here at least in part for those purposes. A wiser (or perhaps just a better informed) leader would not have fuelled the fire and perhaps would not have the view that people really will leave their politics at the door (which a quick survey of the right articles here would show they most definitely do not). While it's in userspace and doesn't touch the articles, I am only really concerned that the upset that the whole thing's caused adds to the poison here, which isn't a good thing (although people should probably not be striding off into the sunset over it).

But the content matters or nothing does. Admins deleting userboxes is one thing. Deleting articles because they don't personally like them is another. Sometimes, yes, there's some foul rubbish that no one is going to miss. Delete away! You know that all will consent. But when you know that there won't be consent, and you know that the opposition is not just some guy trolling... Well, we're into a different game.

The "external matters" are of no account. When the broader community has decided they don't like someone, such as Daniel Brandt or Ashida Kim (very minor figures, frankly), their dismay at their article is treated with contempt. We just don't have a reasonable standard.

So my comment for Aaron was well deserved. He helped cause the crisis over Brian Peppers. He misused his admin powers to do so. I don't respect that. I like admins who accept that they are representatives of a broader community. Aaron is smart enough to know what he did and he knows why I'm particularly angry at him, which I won't go into. He will not be part of the solution, Sjakkalle, because he doesn't think he did anything wrong.

You mentioned the forking thing. You know, I don't think we're all that far away from the point that if someone made a serious attempt to fork, it could play. I mean, someone with cash and servers sufficient to provide the same service. Wikipedia has enormous inertia -- it's established, which those who say "just fork" like to ignore -- but it's still small enough and has had little enough impact that it could be worthwhile for someone with the means. What will happen if a well-resourced competitor offers a more attractive milieu, someone who could really get the encyclopaedias onto the desks? I dunno. But I don't think showing contempt for the people making the encyclopaedia for you is a good way to set yourself up for that day, if it comes. Grace Note 00:56, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Tony Sidaway/Workshop

I have just done a massive refactoring of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Tony Sidaway/Workshop, in order to

remove personal attacks, irrelevant comments, and bickering
make the page readable and usable for the arbcom, as at its previous size of 183KB, it was not.

As your words appear on that page, I'm letting you know so that you may review the changes. I have tried not to let any bias or POV I may have color my summaries; however, it's a wiki, so if you think I've misrepresented your words, please fix them. Wearily yours, Mindspillage (spill yours?) 08:18, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think if I saw a personal attack from you, I'd just about fall out of my chair. :-) Mindspillage (spill yours?) 22:54, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can I find a way to inform people about what this is and not have it regarded as "blatant spam" ?

--- That pretty much says it all. If I spammed I apologize. I just didn't see an article about it and figured I'd make one.

The article in question, BioPerformance, looked like what you would see on a company website, listing its product and then its company goals which consist of advert-like slogans. If you think this company deserves an article, check WP:CORP first to see if the company itself is a valid topic. Then, the article must be written in an objective and neutral manner. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:02, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Paul Chang and the Rest

Hi! Sorry for the mixup on the AfD entry for Paul Chang and the associated articles. Two of us were nominating these articles at the same time, so the bundled articles are tough to pick out. There are actually five articles bundled with the nomination. The other is Noontide Filmworks. Thanks! --Bugwit grunt / scribbles 12:17, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the note. Noontide Filmworks is gone now. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:32, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hello again...just wanted to drop a note to let you know that the deleted articles for Noontide Filmworks and Wallace Chang (deleted as Wallace H.J. Chang) have magically reappeared. Since they were deleted, I can't compare the new articles to the deleted ones to see if they are substantially different, or just another attempt to get the same article into Wikipedia. Thanks! --Bugwit grunt / scribbles 15:58, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Tony Sidaway/Workshop (Again)

I have just readded three proposed remedies to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Tony Sidaway/Workshop, which had been removed. I have also refactored these comments to

remove personal attacks, irrelevant comments, and bickering
make the page readable and usable for the arbcom, as Minspillage recently has done.

As your words appear on that page, I'm letting you know so that you may review the changes. I have tried not to let any bias or POV I may have color my summaries; however, it's a wiki, so if you think I've misrepresented your words, please fix them. Respectfully yours, InkSplotch^(talk) 14:44, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Block

I invoked WP:IAR in this egregious situation. Striver (talk · contribs) has been gaming 3RR for awhile, has been disruptive to a point and has been creating articles in a strong POV push that are quickly nominated for deletion by others. The articles he has been creating have notablility only in the the most minor of terms and he has spammed other users to vote in the Afd's and in the Afd spaces himself. I recognize that my block may not appear kosher, but unless he reforms from his disruptive pattern, a permanent ban is probably in store after arbitration if necessary. I have recieved both on my user talk page and in email, 19 complaints about this editor for over two weeks now. I thank you for bringing the issue to my attention, but I would hope that you'll examine the contributor's edits and recognize that my block is not as unilateral as it may appear.--MONGO 10:04, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The editor is free to use whatever means he feels are available to him and if it means arbitration, then that is fine...see also his attack page on 9/11 articles and on particular users on the associated discussion page as well Wikipedia:WikiProject Conspiracies Guild.--MONGO 10:35, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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