User talk:Femto

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Barnstars

Talk Archive 1

Note: By default, I will answer on the same page where a discussion is started. If you find it more convenient to be notified of new messages on your own talk page, just mention it. Femto

Contents 1 RFA 2 Drinking games 3 Template:Element2 4 Split-flap display 5 Request for Adminship 6 Admin tools 7 Linkspam 8 The coveted Spamstar of Glory 9 half life units? 10 Suite101.com 11 Clean-up in Cyrillic alphabet external links 12 School IP 13 Elementbox proposal 14 Question on spaming / external links 15 Questionable deletion of external links 16 POV vandalism 17 Thank you 18 12.172.68.114 19 Markussepp 20 Gym Floor Cover 21 WP Munich

[edit] RFA

I have nominated you to be an administrator. A page has been created for your nomination at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Femto 2. Since you've been through this before, I'm sure you know what to do. But if you have any questions or comments for me anyway, please just let me know. --Ed (Edgar181) 14:58, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

The nomination is accepted and opened. Femto 19:13, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Prior to my supporting, I think I ought to ask the most obvious question raised by your RfA: can you assure the community that, qua admin, you will not discriminate against those who eat manatee steaks? Joe 05:27, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I solemnly swear I won't discriminate against manateesteakophagism as an admin any more than I do as a plain user. Femto 12:02, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, luckily the manitee/is quite devoid of vanity (as Nash says). Congrats on the mop. You have now been cleared to work harder, for free, at a more responsible level. Wow, promoted to Sergeant Volunteer. SBHarris 22:01, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Drinking games

Femto, thanks for your support of my admittedly drastic edit. I'm normally not a proponent of scorched-earth editing, but that list was just ridiculous. OscarTheCat3 20:44, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Element2

I've finished writing the code for the element infobox. It elements fields such as "color1" and "color2" and it eliminates the need for about 60+ elmentbox templates. It still hasn't been completely tested, but it seems to be working well. The next steps I propose are moving it from Template:Element2 → Template:Element, and then ensuring it works correctly. Any suggestions for improvement would be greatly appreciated. The usage is on the talk page. Thanks. --MZMcBride 21:23, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Obviously I'm quite busy at the moment, I'll look into it during the next few days. Some unresolved special cases remain, like the two vapor pressure tables or the three densities for the allotropes at phosphorus, or the covalent radius comment at fluorine for example. Femto 12:04, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Feedback at Template talk:Element2. Femto 21:26, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Split-flap display

Hi Femto. I have a feeling that I agree in principle with removing the vendor links in this article. I am curious, however, as to why you removed them from that particular article. For example, in Nixie tube there are links to sites whose primary interest is selling kits ("vendors") – by the same token, should they not also be removed? Tyler Mitchell 00:51, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I came to the article to remove a spam link, and had time to clean it up while I'm at it, no specific reason in particular. Yes, there were many encyclopedically irrelevant links at nixie tube too; hobby projects not directly related to the topic, foreign language sites, and especially the purely commercial sites. Femto 12:29, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, and the edit! Tyler Mitchell 06:34, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Adminship

Congratulations!
It is my great pleasure to inform you that your Request for Adminship has closed successfully and you are now an administrator! Useful Links: • Administrators' reading list • Administrators' how-to guide • • Administrator's Noticeboard • Administrator's Noticeboard for Incidents • Administrator's Noticeboard for 3RR • Your admin logs: • blocks • deletions • moves • protects • uploads •

If you have questions, feel free to leave a talk page message for me or any other admin. Again, congratulations! Essjay (Talk) 20:04, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations! I'm glad that it went without a problem. --Ed (Edgar181) 23:24, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

supports. Must mean something. :) Femto 12:31, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Admin tools

The mop

Congratulations on becoming an admin! Enjoy your new-found powers, and remember to use them only for good, and not for evil. If you would like to try out your new mop, here are some spots that always need loving care: Category:Images with unknown source Category:Images with no copyright tag Category:Images with unknown copyright status Category:Replaceable fair use images All the best! - Quadell

The flamethrower

[edit] Linkspam

Hi. I noticed you just deleted some "linkspam" on the Parenting page. I wonder what you think of the links listed as "Sources" on the Domestic discipline page. I have some comments on its talk page. Please use my talk page if you want to reply to this message. -- thanks. --Coppertwig 19:51, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. That's fine; however, I made a mistake: I actually meant the page Domestic discipline (lifestyle), which is even more so. I have comments on its talk page suggesting that the entire page be deleted. --Coppertwig 20:43, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The coveted Spamstar of Glory

		The Spamstar of Glory
		Presented to Femto for relentless diligence in fighting spam on Wikipedia

--A. B. 22:51, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] half life units?

Hi,

Don't really know where to ask this... are the units called "a" in the isotope tables for attoseconds, or angstroms at the speed of light? These units differ by less than an order of magnitude... attoseconds seem more logical but the other seconds-derived units all include the "s" raising the question of why this is different.

- thx, Potatoswatter 00:00, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

From Latin annum, year. It's a concession to the fact that scales like minutes (min), hours (h), days (d), and years (a) are more human-accessible than technically correct kiloseconds or gigaseconds. There is no universally accepted symbol for the year in the International System of Units. The ISO31 standard suggests "a" which is language-independent and thus gets widely used in international scientific publications. Femto 11:37, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Aha. Now I know… perhaps the tables could link to some explanation? (Assuming they're generated from some script.) Time doesn't mention the word annum, and year only links to annum under see also. But on that page annum is clearly regarded as a base unit. Units of time shouldn't really redirect… hmm. Talk:annum reflects the general confusion of non-scientists about this abbreviation. Sounds like a little project. Potatoswatter 03:32, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suite101.com

Great response to the CEO of Suite101.com regarding his company's spam. You were so much more succinct and pithy than the rest of us. --A. B. 15:58, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Heh. You like my writing? Maybe I should apply. Femto 16:06, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clean-up in Cyrillic alphabet external links

Can you give some indication of what needs to be cleaned up here? —Michael Z. 2006-11-26 18:34 Z

Avoid collecting links to translation services, browser extensions, file downloads, sites that require plugins (Flash) to display, personal sites of people that are not experts or authorities and/or commercial sites that contain not much more than what can be integrated, or what already is, in the article (whew). All this is not essential to supplementing the encyclopedic content and should be avoided per WP:EL. Femto 19:29, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I went and cleaned that section up. —Michael Z. 2006-11-27 01:49 Z

[edit] School IP

Re this diff ([1]). Weren't the 3 warnings generated just yesterday, including yet another test4 sufficient? What would be the point in me issuing another test4 one day later? And if you took that opinion, why did you opt not to warn them yourself? --Dweller 18:36, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

PS On reflection, this could be read harsher than intended. These are genuine questions - I'm still trying to get my head round how Admins deal with this stuff. --Dweller 18:59, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

See the header of WP:AIV, here applies item 4 of "Do not list here if": "The recent vandalism from an IP began hours (or days) after the last warning — it could be a different person."

Instead of writing a detailed response, allow me to 'recycle' some explanations I gave to another user. See my post at the bottom of User talk:A. B.#195.194.74.26, this may answer most of your questions. As to why I didn't add another warning, I could've and probably should've, but hoped someone else would do it, and working off the AIV list was more important at that time. Femto 20:33, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Elementbox proposal

When editing an element page, you're greeted with a lot of code that's unpleasant to look at and undoubtedly confusing to newcomers. I'm proposing that the element infobox be changed to something similar to what is currently used by planets. It would drastically reduce the amount of code and make the page much more user friendly. Each element would have something similar to {{Elementbox/1}} at the top of the page. On the actual infobox, there would be a box at the bottom that would say "Edit this template," most likely below the references section. The information provided in the infobox doesn't regularly change, so accessibility isn't a real issue. Also, the individual subpages of Template:Elementbox would still refer to Template:Elementbox, allowing the elimination of the innumerable templates currently in use, and also shortening the list of templates used on a particular element page. I'm strongly, strongly in favor of this proposal. I'd greatly appreciate any feedback you have on it. Thanks. --MZMcBride 22:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Pushed it up to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements and commented there. Femto 15:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question on spaming / external links

you removed my links on the weighbridges articel, on the other hand within this article there are these two sentences:

Many commercial companies supply them. One example is Avery Weigh-Tronix weighbridges in the UK. There are even versions that can weigh rail wagons and freight using weight sensors built into the rails.

Another example is the British Manufacturer Griffith Elder Weighbridges. which specialise in portable full size trade approved weighbridges and other digital weighing equipment.

linking to tow of our competitors, i am asking myself where is the difference between these two links and my link i added within the external link section? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.249.201.68 (talk • contribs) .

It's simply because I overlooked those inline links. Removed those too. And you, stop adding links to your company. Femto 15:45, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Questionable deletion of external links

After spending a full day on Wikipedia, looking into a topic that we specialise in and seeing a lack of information. I decided to sit down and spend a day filling in the gaps in Wiki in our niche. Spent a good 3 hours reading up and writing up the compound feed page.

At the end thought could leave a link to our resource as an external link. A industry authoritative site, a free resource, with very minimal advertising - added to act as an additional resource to Wiki readers. As i said the compound_feed page was written by us and our page was supplemental information which was not necessary to add to the page but could provide extra information to the reader.

To then classify this link automatically as link spam is quite offensive and raises definite questions as to whether or not i would like to add information to Wiki.

And yes i had read of the Wiki guidelines to external links, yes i understand that adding links for any other reason than to be a true resource for the reader is not right, and that wikipedia is not to act as a link directory but an informative and current online encyclopedia. If Wikipedia wanted to be so against link spam, i mean why not just ban external links. It would make policing links alot easier and definitely more uniform and fairer. - Harrymarsden 13:22, 03 December 2006 (UTC)

So you know you shouldn't add links to your own company, but did anyway. Yes, this automatically classifies it as linkspam. If you tie editing Wikipedia to adding links to your company, I can only say "good bye". I should have removed these links too, but I've even kept those which contain actual information and which aren't commercial directories to dealers or which only promote your main page. Your problem with this is...? Femto 12:21, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV vandalism

There has been a multi year war over including elements which have not been synthesized, simply because there was a capsize moment when people weren't looking does not mean that policy - namely including notable and encyclopediac content - was not violated. The element numbers in question have references in the peer reviewed literature. I restored them, and will now go back and revert them to the correct status. Stirling Newberry 05:59, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

There is no content in those articles that can't be included in a central article. Notability or not, we don't need a set of scattered and highly redundant pages. Consider a redirect to island of stability where appropriate. You can add your notable and encyclopedic content about individual elements there, until it grows enough to be split.

"Vandalism, even if voted on, is still vandalism" - That's and interesting view of Wikipedia's consensus process, but it won't get you far. You will not define your own 'correct status'. Nothing has changed since the deletion debate. You will respect it. And you will not accuse other editors (including me [2]) of vandalism for doing so. Hope that's clear. Femto 12:54, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you

…for identifying a link added to Korean romanization as economically motivated, and for informing the spammer in a polite way. I only noticed the conversion's abysmal quality but failed to check the ad links. Wikipeditor 18:19, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. I've noticed these ad IDs only recently myself. Looks like they're going to be useful quite often. Femto 14:24, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 12.172.68.114

Thanks for blocking them, but you should have followed other admins' examples and made it much longer than three hours. They were coming off a multi-week block already. And today, they were right back at it in the same two articles, although one "final warning" seems to have scared them off.

In that vein, I have emailed the district's tech chief with a detailed account of the specific vandalism yesterday and the IP's history of being blocked here (links included, of course). Hopefully that will lead to disciplinary action (I got that to happen once last spring). Daniel Case 17:57, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

And then it just bounced. I'll have to call. Daniel Case 17:59, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The last block was one and a half months ago. I didn't bother doing deeper checks of the IP's edit history, to tell the truth. Without evidence to the contrary, I'll assume it's different kids sitting at the classroom computer, so I use a default 3 hour school block. I agree it's a lot of vandalism coming from that IP. Since they returned to the same article today, blocked again, one month, anonymous users only. Femto 19:01, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I spent fifteen minutes on the phone with one of their tech guys explaining this, and he has started an investigation. Daniel Case 20:08, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Very good! It's always better when they try fixing it at their end of the problem. If it's under control we may lift the current block early (though there are also cases where schools determine that all students should log in and request to block their IPs anon-only indefinitely). Just let me or any other admin know. Femto 20:40, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

He said they may want to do that. Have we ever thought of formalizing that as a policy? I should think it would require a formal request from the school board or superintendent. Daniel Case 23:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I've relayed this to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#School IP consent blocks. Femto 15:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Markussepp

Hi Femto, thanks for letting me know about this Doppelgänger. I guess his/her username choice is a kind of revenge for me removing this same Kyllini link some weeks ago. Did you check the IP's of the various "users" you mentioned on his/her talk page? Markussep 20:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

No, the IP info for registered accounts is private, only a few officials can check it, in much more serious cases than this one. I've usernameblocked that account, and will have to keep an eye on the others anyway. There's already something about those links at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam, please report them there if you find any new accounts or new links that we didn't catch. Femto 21:39, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gym Floor Cover

moved to and answered at Talk:Gym floor cover

[edit] WP Munich

{{WP Munich Invitation}} Kingjeff 14:48, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

shrunk the template - Thanks for the invitation! However I have no particular relation to the topic at all, I've just removed some spam links. Femto 15:04, 9 December 2006 (UTC)