User talk:Stephen Burnett/Archive2

Succession Boxes for Fictional Characters

Please clarify your comments on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (writing about fiction). People think you were talking about succession boxes for both fictional and real figures when yo uere simply comparing the two. I know you weren't, but apparently they can't figure it out.--Dr who1975 21:56, 8 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

thank you for keeping watch

User talk:The Anonymous One#final warning on disruptive editing. Let me know if there are any further problems. If I'm not around to answer, make a report at WP:AIV and link to that final warning. Thank you, — coel acan — 06:22, 16 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'll keep an eye open. Many thanks. --Stephen Burnett 18:41, 16 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

vacrack artical

Thank you for your advise on misuse of Wikipedia. I would like to draw your attention to another link to cocoasoft on the vacrack artical. This is a site offering to sell vacuum beds. Regards, Stewart —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Stewartpalmer (talk • contribs) 21:37, 17 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

You're welcome to the advice. Now that you know not to spam, do by all means revert the spam links of others when you find them. Not adding your own point of view to articles and not deleting content which you personally don't agree with would both be positive steps, too. --Stephen Burnett 21:53, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism on Johann Sebastian Bach

Hi Stephen, earlier today I tried to undo some vandalism on Johann Sebastian Bach. I wanted to ask you if there is a way to directly restore one particular version of the article. This seems to be helpful when there were several acts of vandalism occurring in a row. Thanks for your help! Matthias Röder 13:58, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Matthias. The traditional method is to go to the article history page and click on the version you want, edit (you will get a warning telling you that you are editing a previous version), write an edit summary and save. Alternatively you can do what I did and install popups. This displays a menu when you hover over the version you want, and you can revert to that version with a single click. It has lots of other useful features too - very useful anti-vandal tool. --Stephen Burnett 14:06, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Help:Page_history describes the article history page in detail. Another thing I would mention is that if you go into MyPreferences -> Watchlist and set "Expand Watchlist" you will be able to see all edits to a particular article done on the current day under one single heading on your watchlist, which makes it very easy to collate all the recent edits. That way, you only need the history list for edits going back beyond today. I hope this helps. --Stephen Burnett 14:17, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for your useful comments! Matthias Röder 16:48, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm very happy to be of help. I have dropped in a standard welcoming template onto your discussion page. It's a collection of links to how-to and policy pages which I hope will be useful to you.--Stephen Burnett 17:24, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again! I bookmarked some of the links you posted on my talk page! I removed the Welcome message however, because it takes up so much space :-) I hope you don't feel offended, I didn't mean to be rude or anything... Glad to be part of the Wikipedia music crowd! Matthias Röder 17:31, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, just take what you need from it. Welcome to the mad house ;) --Stephen Burnett 17:35, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of links to bodybags count.com on Horror Films and Slaher Films pages

Stephen,

I was wondering why you removed the external link that I added to the Horror Film and Slasher film pages to the website www.bodybagscount.com? This is a cool site that chronicles and rates the kills in horror films. I thought it was very relevant to the topic, especially the Slasher Film, which talks greatly in the article about how Slasher films are judged on the how many kills and how gory the kills are in it.

And an external link to Bodybags Count seems as relevant as a link to Bloody-disgusting.com seen on the Horror film page.

As I am new to wikipedia, please help me out. Do I need to provide a better description?

Thanks! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Elfman77 (talk • contribs) 14:57, 11 May 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Hi there,

The Wikipedia policy on external links is summarised here. As you will see, it states that use of external links should be kept to a minimum. There are thousands of horror film fansites out there, so it is necessary to be selective to avoid turning the articles into collections of links. Any link added should not only be relevant to the subject, but should have content of high enough quality to enhance understanding of the subject of the article. In my opinion the bodybags site didn't rate inclusion because:

i) It concentrates on one limited aspect of the general topic.

ii) It consists simply of lists, with very little else in the way of descriptive comment.

iii) It is not even very comprehensive in what it sets out to do, as it deals with a very limited selection of specifically American films, from approx the last 30 years - there's no mention of the Italian giallo films for example.

iv) The degree of advertising, which is in my opinion intrusive enough to rule it out under rule 5 on this list.

In my judgement, this was enough to justify removal of the link. I note your comment on the other site; it is one I'm personally not fond of, although it does have more content. However, inclusion of any link has to stand or fall on its own merits, rather than by comparison with others. Having said all that, this is only my personal opinion. The way Wikipedia works is by discussion and consensus. If you feel strongly that these links should be included, you have the same right as anyone else to start a discussion on the talk pages of the relevant articles, and make the case for them to be included.

By the way, you can sign and date your user and talk page contributions by using four tildes, like this : ~~~~

--Stephen Burnett 16:32, 11 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to VandalProof!

Thank you for your interest in VandalProof, Stephen Burnett! You have now been added to the list of authorized users, so if you haven't already, simply download and install VandalProof from our main page. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or any other moderator, or you can post a message on the discussion page. Cheers, Daniel 06:54, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Editting

So you know, this IP address is a high school. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.53.81.170 (talk) 12:47, 15 May 2007 (UTC).[reply]

So what? Being a school doesn't mean your IP has a special permit to go on vandalising unchecked. If you don't like being tarred with the same brush as the vandals who attend your school, get yourself a user account. --Stephen Burnett 17:59, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Image:Kingsleyamis.jpg

Hello, Stephen Burnett. An automated process has found and removed an image or media file tagged as nonfree media, and thus is being used under fair use that was in your userspace. The image (Image:Kingsleyamis.jpg) was found at the following location: User:Stephen Burnett/Amis. This image or media was attempted to be removed per criterion number 9 of our non-free content policy. The image or media was replaced with Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg , so your formatting of your userpage should be fine. Please find a free image or media to replace it with, and or remove the image from your userspace. User:Gnome (Bot)-talk 16:43, 16 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Vandal warning toolbox

I've finally updated my vandal warning toolbox to use the new array of warning templates. Even if you're already using an updated derivative, you might want to take a look at the documentation to see how I may have handled it differently. I tried to keep things compact. Suggestions are welcome on the documentation's discussion page. Thanks for your interest. --Kbh3^rd talk 15:48, 18 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Shannon Stewart (model)

Stephen, Got your message about the links. Since information from my interview was used on her wiki page, I wasn't aware of the link/spam concerns. I just tried to correct the link that someone else put on and then saw the other page. Thanks for the clarification.

Another question: What are the rules for siting sources? Although a direct quote was not taken from my site, all the updated the information was. Thanks.

I am sorry, but I am deeply puzzled by this conversation. I'm not aware of ever having contributed to the Shannon_Stewart_(model) article, and it isn't on my watchlist. Also, I don't recall leaving you any message - and since your talk page is blank, neither has anyone else. Under another user name or anon IP maybe? Could you please help me out by supplying a few links to relevant edits? Also it would be useful if you would sign your talk page edits - just put four tildes ie ~~~~ at the end and it will expand to your user name and date. Thanks. --Stephen Burnett 21:37, 18 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, OK then I am confused. Someone took information from a story I ran about Shannon and then tried to site me on her wiki page. Then when I went to the page and I just changed the name on the link. Then, I had a SPAM message on the top of the page and it brought me to your page? Obviously, you can see that I am new in the wiki world. It's not a big deal. I guess I messed it up. I have read some more on wiki now. Her page is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_Stewart_(model) Thanks. Tshadrix 01:21, 20 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No problem - I do leave spam warnings, but nearly always with users who have put the same link in a number of articles or who are publicising their own site. It's quite possible I made a mistake myself, but without the diffs I wouldn't be able to find it now. As I said, there's nothing on your talk page, so if I've ever left you a note it would in any case be under a different user name or IP. Not to worry, you'll soon get used to the way things work. As you're new I'm leaving a standard welcome message on your talk page that might help you find your way round. Happy editing. --Stephen Burnett 21:42, 20 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the info Stephen. In my spare time (ha! ha!), I'll read through all of the wiki information. I appreciate it. I guess I should just add my article as a reference on her page...I see now that is how it should have been done in the first place. I'll make an attempt at it! Thanks again. Blessings, Tshadrix 18:11, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Citador (Quotes site) links

Hi. I'm really sad that the external links I created have been removed (Like for example on Byron page). It's hard for me to understand, as I noticed that on the same pages from where my links were removed, there exist other links to other quotes sites. I don't want to promote a site nor myself, I just want to let the users to have access to sepcific addtional contents - in this case, quotes - related with each author. -- Citador 17:22, 19 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is obviously your site, and WP:EL is very clear:

You should avoid linking to a website that you own, maintain or represent, even if the guidelines otherwise imply that it should be linked. If the link is to a relevant and informative site that should otherwise be included, please consider mentioning it on the talk page and let neutral and independent Wikipedia editors decide whether to add it.

WP:Conflict_of_interest and WP:Spam#How_not_to_be_a_spammer - particularly item 5 - are also relevant.

Having looked at the site it is not in any case offering anything above what the articles themselves could offer if they were featured articles (item 1 of WP:EL#Links_normally_to_be_avoided) since it is very common for articles to contain quotations, or to make reference to Wikiquote. --Stephen Burnett 21:31, 20 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

-

Thanks for your detailed answer. I now understand better your position, even that I don't find it consistent to the fact that some articles have links to quotes sites (not wikiquote) that have the same scope as Citador. But that's ok, keep up the good work! :) Citador 08:53, 22 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Clues" and detective fiction citations

Thanks for your note. I know it seems like a lot from one journal, but I have to say that there are very, very few authoritative references about detective fiction and this person is providing good ones that relate to specific authors and would make great background reading for people who want to know more about the topic. Clues is a journal, not just a fanzine; it is devoted to academic writing on the topic of detective fiction. (Unlike, say, "The Armchair Detective" or "Mystery Review", to which I have contributed -- I don't have the academic credentials to publish in "Clues".) The one other citation this person provided that I can remember offhand is Robert Barnard's book on Agatha Christie -- he's a professor of English Literature and it was his thesis, plus he's a respected writer of mysteries himself, and it is miles above most other writing on Christie. As someone who tries to approach the topic of detective fiction in an objective way, as opposed to fannish sources like DorothyL, I must say it's really tough to find good neutral citations to add to articles here; if I'd had copies of the journal handy, I might have been adding these cites myself. (I've added about ten references to the same history by Julian Symons, Bloody Murder, and I'm not trying to sell copies of it <grin>.) If I was reading a Ph.D. thesis in this area, these are the type of citations I would expect to find in the bibliography. Also, I think the journal would be far out of the price range of most non-academics ($63/year plus $14 postage) -- if I wanted to read one of these articles, I'd go to my local university library rather than subscribe, and I'm a serious student, so I don't think many sales will come out of these references. I should also add that I'm fairly new here, and have to be guided by editors with more experience than myself -- the fact that two people have had alarm bells ring has to mean something. It is a bit strange to see so many cites from the same journal from an editor with three hours' experience; I will defer to your judgment. I will wait to see what happens, and thanks for raising your concerns with me; I appreciate the chance to provide the above information. Accounting4Taste 01:05, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure how relevant experience is in this case. I can only recall one like it since I started editing here; all the other situations such as this have been a lot more clear-cut. I will admit that seeing so many similar references added to so many pages in such a short space of time makes my hackles rise, but eventually it comes down to striking a balance between what benefit is being offered to Wikipedia by placing them there - which seems to be not trivial - versus what benefit the person is gaining in terms of publicity. At some point - when I have the strength - I may trawl through all the additions added by this indefatigable contributor and take another look. Personally I don't have too many problems with article references, but web links that lead to subscription offers are definitely outside the line.--Stephen Burnett 17:16, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The editor in question has now created an account and is the editor of the journal in question. I don't think I ever saw a link that led directly to the magazine; I had to Google it to find it. As I said, I'll defer to your judgment, but I've looked at these cites and they look valuable to me (I may look up a couple of these articles to read them, on topics that I thought I was expert in). Thanks for your forbearance and willingness to look at all sides of this issue. Accounting4Taste 17:37, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No trivia

Trivia sections must not be kept Read WP:TRIV. Okay? Vikrant Phadkay 15:30, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that something has "trivia" written at the top of it is not a valid reason to remove it if it is relevant content. Wholesale deletion of content with no consideration as to its value is vandalism. Stop it now. Make no mistake: if you continue, I will request for you to be blocked. --Stephen Burnett 15:33, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay! I am stopping. Vikrant Phadkay 15:38, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I would be first to agree that there is a lot of silly content under "trivia" headings that should not be there, and I wouldn't care to make the case for keeping it. Also, a heading such as "Trivia" encourages such rubbish to accumulate. However, a good proportion of the information under "Trivia" in 1984_(film), for example, is good stuff that someone has put in but just not bothered to incorporate into the main body of the article. So please - by all means get rid of rubbish if you must, but be a little discriminating and don't throw out the baby with the bath water. Many thanks for your co-operation. --Stephen Burnett 15:46, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I just read through the list, and it is my belief that they are rubbish isolated facts. I am not convinced that the pairings of the actors or what the director did after 1984 is really relevant to the 1984 article itself. Most film articles typically have a "production" section, so I stuck the bit about the widow's rights in there, and created other awkward sections to throw the relationships between teh actors as a stopgap measure. hbdragon88 17:54, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It was the stuff on film rights, and the casting, that I particularly felt was definitely not trivia, and needed to be kept. Many thanks. --Stephen Burnett 18:01, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Arthur Conan Doyle

Thank you for your message. 'The Speckled Band' and the 'The Man With The Twisted Lip' should be removed from the listing of Doyle's works in the interests of clarity, as they are not books in their own right but are both in the already listed 'Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'. I will be more specific with reasons on any future edits. RJB91 19:18, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely right: thank you for the clarification. I do a lot of vandal reverts, so edit summaries are extremely useful to distinguish genuine edits. Many thanks for your cooperation. --Stephen Burnett 19:23, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Beethoven page

Looks like we have a troll. I'm not gonna revert any edits for an hour or so, per WP:DFTT. --Milton 16:46, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes they respond to a warning. If not, 3 more bites and he's gone. I've seen kids go on vandalising a page for 15-20 edits till they get blocked. --Stephen Burnett 16:50, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's true. It looks like he's gone, though. Usually they log off after a few minutes if they don't see a response, I think. Thanks for your swift revert. --Milton 16:52, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some Like It Hot

My edits 'apeared' to be vandalism? Are you retarded? Lordoc

No; are you? The edit referred to - ie this one - would certainly suggest so. Try, if you can, to remain WP:CIVIL. If you don't I will take the appropriate action. --Stephen Burnett 12:47, 8 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Lost Landmarks

Stephen -

My edits about Lost Landmarks were not spam, nor are they promotional -- Hampton Hotels does not benefit from internet users who are genuinely helping to find these lost pieces of memorabilia (such as Hemingway's suitcases). I now understand that the external links were not the best way to include this piece of news, so I will revise my addition and re-post. Thank you in advance for not removing the revised versions.

Best Wishes.

I think you would benefit by reading how not to be a spammer, with particular attention to item 5:

" Adding the same link to many articles. The first person who notices you doing this will go through all your recent contributions with an itchy trigger finger on the revert button."

You may also find advertising and conflicts of interest useful:

"You should avoid linking to a website that you own, maintain or represent, even if the guidelines otherwise imply that it should be linked. If the link is to a relevant and informative site that should otherwise be included, please consider mentioning it on the talk page and let neutral and independent Wikipedia editors decide whether to add it."

I strongly advise you to take on board the "advice" of that last reference. --Stephen Burnett 21:22, 8 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Noted. Thank you. --Ian Jeffries