User talk:Taxman/Archive2

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[edit] Block of anon user

Good 1 week block. Nice to see an admin taking a strong stand against vandals. None of that 24 hour block or "well he needs to be warned fifty time AGAIN" (like they are entitled to some kind of due process or that they forgot that vandalims is wrong...") Good job. You're on my list of good admins now :)Later.Gator (talk) 17:38, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Well I'm all for due process, and warnings first are very good because sometimes they do work. But once warned, when an editor shows obvious intent to cause problems, we don't need them. I do prefer a recent test4 before blocking for a long time though, unless it's really obvious. I agree in general we are way to lenient with people that are not helping the project. It's not that hard to play by the rules. - Taxman Talk 17:41, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Well said. See you around.Gator (talk) 17:43, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. If you remind me after you have about three months of editing experience and do some content creation (maybe I missed it in your vandal fighting work though) I'll nominate you for adminship. If you're willing to fix up our legal articles that would be great, but any topic you have good references for or are willing to research would be good too. Those are my personal preferences for admin candidates, and many share them, but you may get nominated and be successful without that. - Taxman Talk 17:52, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hey

Taxman, are you back now? :-) --HappyCamper 15:53, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes and no. Moreso, I figured I'd just be honest that I never managed to completely give up the addiction. :) But yeah, I'll pretty much be here but just avoid getting involved in things that will take major amounts of time. Thanks for noticing - Taxman Talk 13:04, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Okay :-) Nice having you around! --HappyCamper 01:22, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks for the b'day greetings. :) =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:53, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Citations

I think we agree: Citation and trustworthiness

Ok thanks, but I'm confused why you're telling me this. - Taxman Talk 18:06, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] US taxation

Here's what you have to do. You have to read what I post to see the sources cited. Since they're cited, they also stay. Also, I am adding to the article. Your disagreement of the cited sources doesn't make it any less an add. It just becomes your PoV. Don't delete my valuable additions just because they don't agree with yours. If you do so, you will be blocked.--bb69 18:19, 6 December 2005 (UTC)BB69

The sources you "cited" don't support your position. To proceed, you need to find sources that do. The 1040 instructions are not where the law is and staking your position on what the 1040 forms don't say is laughable. - Taxman Talk
Incorrect. The sources I cited do support my position. They will be posted. You haven't proved anything contrary, which is typical. --bb69 18:30, 6 December 2005 (UTC)BB69 Talk
Apparently you aren't able to or are unwilling to understand basic argumentative structure. Your the main topic of your edits are not supported by any reliable sources, your edits just refer to non definitive sources on related matters. It's classic red herring logical fallacy. Please find reliable references to back your position or you will be blocked from editing. - Taxman Talk 18:34, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
It is you who aren't able to or are willing to understand basic argumentative structure. All of my topics and edits are support by reliable sources and my edits refer to definitive source on related matters. Again, just because you don't agree, doesn't make them wrong. You are about to be blocked from editing if you keep this up.bb69 19:30, 6 December 2005 (UTC)BB69Talk
The sun is made of paper mache. Prove it isn't... go on, prove it! (and no citing to scientists, because they're all part of a conspiracy to convince us otherwise, so they can keep all that paper mache for themselves). Well, since you can't prove to my satisfaction that the sun isn't made of paper, I'm going to go ahead and put that in the Sun article. BD2412 T 18:35, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I've never brought one, but I've commented in a few - I believe that it would not be inappropriate in this case, but I fear that it would quickly devolve into the subject trying to "prove" his beliefs. BD2412 T 18:38, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Well it's fairly obvious he isn't even trying to actually prove his case, so I believe the process would be pretty successful. His version of "proving" is readily seen to be flawed. It takes some time to start and RfC, so I'll make one last attempt to reason, then we'll go that route. - Taxman Talk 18:46, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Agreed - I can think of a few other editors who will join us in certifying the dispute. BD2412 T 18:48, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Is BB69 the only one, or are there more that should be looked at? BB69 just happens to be the one I've run into this time. - Taxman Talk 18:53, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
There have been others, but they have generally been anons. Of course, BB69 may have been responsible for some of it, but we don't even need to go there for purposes of an RfC. BD2412 T 19:00, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I have already found reliable sources that support my position. I have posted them all over discussion pages and on the articles. Look around a little bit more. I will feel free to edit articles as I see they need when they are incorrect and adding when I see needed. Don't talk about violating commen sense when you're a victim of it. I've already been through this sort of talk with Wikipedia and they agree with me. Your modes of tactic are unacceptable and I will also purse dispute resolution as I have in the past and stopped types like you. I'd rather you just pay attention and discuss things with me first. --bb69 19:24, 6 December 2005 (UTC)bb69 Talk

BB69, your "reliable sources" amount to gematria - you take individual words, pick out definitions of those words from cases that have nothing to do with the point at hand, and then cite those definitions as Gospel to demonstrate that the words of the Constitution and the tax code mean something other than the obvious meaning which the courts have discerned. You also misunderstand the role of the courts, which is to interpret the law - where a word is subject to multiple interpretations, it is the function of the courts to determine which interpretation was intended by the lawmakers. This interpretation is presumed correct unless and until the legislature changes the law to express a differing intent. BD2412 T 19:41, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
BD2412 , if you think my reliable sources amount to gematria you should check out your own. I take words that have been discussed in cases, no matter if the case was about it, it covered the topic that I mentioned. It's not my fault if you don't understand that the Constitution said no direct taxes and that you don't understand what that means. I have tried to spell it out for you to no avail. You misunderstand that the courts can sometimes misinterpret the law and not even allow law in some cases. The Constitution is the ultimate law of the land and if the courts do not adhere to it, they do not supercede it still. The law has never changed, only the courts sometimes do. bb69 16:50, 7 December 2005 (UTC)BB69
Well BB69, I've taken your response to mean that you're not willing to be reasonable and work with other editors. It's obvious enough that the sources you cite don't back up your position that I have a hard time believing that you believe what you are writing. Your citations are irrelevant to the points you are trying to make with your edits. So I've created an RFC on the matter. Please respond there, and stop disrupting. - Taxman Talk 20:20, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Taxman, then you've assumed wrong. It means I am willing to be reasonable and work with other editors. It's obvious you don't understand and don't agree with the sources that I cite backing up my position. All my citations are relavant to the points I'm making with my edits, you just don't happen to agree with them and never source anything yourself on your views. This shows me exactly where you're coming from. I have already responded in the RFC on the matter. I have also requested mediation with your disruptions.bb69 16:45, 7 December 2005 (UTC)BB69
Reallize that the RFC is demonstrating a consensus against your actions, so if you continue to add material that is not supported by reliable sources, it will be seen as disruption and you can be blocked from editing for it. To avoid that, make sure your sources actually back your edits, as it seems is possible that you have done in this edit. If you have in fact done that in this case, please continue that. Do reallize however that you haven't established how the material in that edit is relevant or important for the article. I so far have not taken a position on the material in the article and I'm not saying I don't agree with your sources. What I'm saying is that your edits were not backed up by them or any others, and the other parties to the RFC agree. Your response to the RFC simply repeated your earlier demonstrably false statements. - Taxman Talk 17:07, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
A consensus against my actions do not make them wrong. It just states that many people disagree. The RFC is there to have someone take another look at all the actions. As always, I will continue to add material that is supported by reliable sources, so, no disruption. I don't see how I have to state the relevancy to that add as it is a direct quote from a court case having to do with income tax. I don't see many adds establishing the relevancy of their adds, so there should not be a double standard. I will continue to say that all my edits are backed up if the other parties think differently they will have to show me. That's what a discussion is for. And if they do that, they will also have to show me where every singl edit also show relevancy. My response to the RFC states accurate statements. Should it come down to the proof of every single edit that everyone has made, it will be a mountain of information and many pages long. Right now, I will let my text on talk pages serve as proof backing up what I have said on the RFC page. bb69 17:56, 7 December 2005 (UTC)BB69
No, but it does indicate the likelihood is that you are wrong. I would also recommend you stop claiming your edits had sources to back your claims as it's easy to demonstrate that is false. That is the central problem here. And because you have disrupted and you are the one making claims contrary to established understanding, you do bear additional burden to back up your edits. Again, bold claims require greater evidence. The RFC does establish a consensus that you have violated Wikipedia policy and does support actions against further policy violations by you. - Taxman Talk 18:08, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, so the BB69 RFC has established that lots of people think BB69's edits don't make sense, and that no one but BB69 himself thinks they do. OK, so now what is the next step? I do hope that procedures like this will simplify our work of writing an encyclopedia... I would certainly like to learn how to deal effectively with such disruptive editing in other areas.... --Macrakis 05:07, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

As I outlined in the RFC, BB69 (and any sockpuppets or anonymous IP's he edits under) carries a greater burden to establish the veracity of his edits. For starters his edits can be reverted if they look fishy, and he must present clearer evidence that the edits are correct and relevant. The RFC has been successful in gathering comments from qualified editors to establish that BB69's edits are not appropriate. It is my understanding of the blocking policy that edits that continue defy the consensus established in the RFC would qualify for blocking under the disruption criteria of the blocking policy. That block should be listed at the Administrator's noticeboard for review. If challenged, the next step would be to proceed to request arbitration. My guess is this case is so obvious that an arbitration case would be rejected instead with the advice to simply block the user if the behavior continues. A same overall approach would be my advice for similar situations: 1) try to resolve the situation on the user's talk page by pointing to relevant policy, 2) establish consensus in an RFC, 3) enforce the RFC, and finally 4) take it to arbcom if need be. So you could definitely help in this case by watching out for suspicious edits by BB69 or anonymous IP's related to this issue and reverting them if need be. Unless I'm missing some edits he seems to have currently gotten the point that his edits aren't acceptable and has resorted instead to arguing incessantly. That's fine as long as articles aren't suffering, though eventually arguing without improving articles is itself a block-able issue. - Taxman Talk 14:48, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Find-A-Grave links

I was here to read what was going on today with our mutual "friend" User:BB69 and I noticed your link to Wikipedia:Find-A-Grave famous people. User:UninvitedCompany has placed comments at WP:AN/I and at Wikipedia talk:Find-A-Grave famous people raising the question whether the links to findagrave.com should be deleted from articles. If you have an interest, you may want to participate in the discussion.

And something does need to be done about the stream of tax protester changes; it is very draining. -- DS1953 19:34, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey, I just have the template up, I think having the famous people graves bit in there at all is odd. It's not related to the missing encyclopedia articles project. - Taxman Talk 19:36, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
The relationship to the missing encyclopedia articles is that there are many individuals listed that are missing articles here. IMO it is very pertinent to filling in those gaps. Doc
Yeah, upon looking more closely it's just being used as a list of possibly needed biographies. But then it's name is odd (implying we're trying to find the graves), and I think it would be an improvement to simply include it in the missing biographies. But if having it separate is an advantage, so be it. It's not a big problem, so I won't worry about it. - Taxman Talk 17:07, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 205.189.150.1

Well done. Glad to see an admin who believes that a"final" warning is a final warning and stops cutting so much slack for people who seeks to destroy our hard work. THANK YOU!Gator (talk) 18:09, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hindi vocal samples

Hi. I might give it a try though I don't have a great voice. deeptrivia (talk) 01:50, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey that would still be great. It may spur someone that does have a voice actor's quality voice to do them later. But anything is better than me, an American native learner trying to pronounce the syllabary. :) - Taxman Talk 13:58, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
I can make wav files with the software I have. Is that okay? deeptrivia (talk) 03:31, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
Actually I figured out I can make ogg files too. I'll be doing that. I'll record everything on one file, and send it to you to see. If it's fine, I can split it into files for individual letters. deeptrivia (talk) 03:37, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
The vocal samples (the whole alphabet in one file) is here. Please tell me what to do next. Thanks. deeptrivia (talk) 03:55, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning

Hi Taxman, I'm sad at the comments you made on MediaWiki talk:Copyrightwarning - I don't feel it was necessary for you to accuse me of bad faith. I admit that it's a rather silly thing to get in a fuss about. Cheers, Talrias (t | e | c) 15:33, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Then you should have stepped back and left it alone before you did it. You did edit war on the page with no evidence to back your position. It's better to think before editing and if you're editing emotionally, simply not do it. - Taxman Talk 15:37, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
You're probably right. I was just annoyed at some of the incorrect comments made on the talk page (which seemed to persuade you to weigh in on their behalf). My apologies for my conduct. Talrias (t | e | c) 15:50, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] User:Taxman in exile

Hello, Taxman. Are you in fact User:Taxman in exile? I didn't see anything about it on your userpage, and so it made me suspicious. Just making sure, Blackcap (talk) (vandalfighters, take a look) 01:49, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh, God, I'm sorry, I didn't check the page history. O.K., I see that it's you. Sorry for the bother, Blackcap (talk) (vandalfighters, take a look) 01:50, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
No problem, thanks for checking. :) I should note it on my userpage, I just didn't yet. - Taxman Talk 08:09, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Hi Taxman, I just recognized, what a great job my nickname-collegue at en:WP is doing. In German Wikipedia I'm far away from becoming admin, but I'll try not to let your nick down there. Just wanted to say Hi and hope we can get along well. So long de:Benutzer:Taxman --84.57.255.155 23:59, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Hallo, that's pretty funny. If I knew any German at all, I'd ask you what your price for relinquishing your user name would be. I've been using Taxman as a username for years. Wouldn't you just rather have the German equivalent anyway? :) In any case, just spend some time getting familiar with the important policies and do the name proud. - Taxman Talk 01:18, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, the German equivalent would be the German word for "steersman", and thats defenately not what I want to express. And as I'm also using this nick on the internet for some eight years now, I wouldn't sell it anyway :D. After all, I wont edit in en:WP with this acc, and your edits in de:WP are probably easy to detect *g*. TheGermanTaxman --160.62.4.10 13:19, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates

Thanks for correcting the snafu on the talk page. A silent edit conflict meant that I was completely unaware that I had obliterated others' comments. It was completely unintentional. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:23, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I of course figured that, but man it was odd. Silently merging is probably a good software feature. Silently replacing is a problem. - Taxman Talk 17:31, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, thank you anyway. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:46, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] From fair Italy

Dear Taxman,

I just translated your Italian User Page... and welcomed in your Italian user talk. If you wish you can read some instructions for non italian speakers/writers. Happy wikiing in it.wiki too. εΔω

[edit] WP:V citations

You may be interested in Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#Citation format poll: Format of citations and WP:V examples, and WP:FN. (SEWilco 16:49, 14 December 2005 (UTC))

Yeah, I saw it, but would you just back off and calm down? The general point is good and obvious, but you're obscuring the issue by your methods. Just step back, and it will probably help make it more likely common sense will win out in the end. - Taxman Talk 17:12, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Common sense was doing fine until the ArbComm lost theirs. Ignoring those who rule doesn't seem like a good idea. (SEWilco 03:45, 15 December 2005 (UTC))
Well no, you can't ignore arbcom, but you can avoid escalating it. I haven't read a lick of the case nor the evidence (and hopefully I never will. I stay as far away from those as I can.), but I do know you can't make it in front of arbcom for always editing politely and with common sense. So while it's always possible they're all off their rocker, it's more likely not. You might as well self assess and see where your actions are contributing to the problem, even if you're not 100% culpable. Being gracious in admitting fault and backing off attack mode can go a long way. - Taxman Talk 04:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] WP:FARC

Thanks for the kind words, but I think I have an uphill battle with Roy Orbison. To be honest, it is not great, but is much better than it was. On the other hand, I think Behistun Inscription is entirely fine.

Given the reactions of others, I think my finger must be completely off the pulse here. As for listing Christmas the week before Christmas...-- ALoan (Talk) 02:59, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Well no, I think we have just gotten a sudden change in what people want for FA's from a bunch of people that showed up at FARC but don't seem to participate much in FAC. It comes and goes I guess. As long as it is in the name of better articles I'll live with it. - Taxman Talk 13:00, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
I take your point about improving featured articles. Unfortunately, as far as I can see, listing an article on FARC rarely results in it being improved. It is a bit like voters on FAC spending their time objecting due to minor points they have identified rather than just dealing with those points themselves. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:49, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
In some cases I simply know nothing about the topic and the given issue is something I can't fix, and that is of course true for others. But on anything else that most people could fix, you're right. The only thing we can do there is encourage people to take action instead of just complaining. Try bringing it up on the talk page. Eventually we can shift the culture to improving what can be improved instead of a bare remove vote. - Taxman Talk 14:25, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Malwa FA nomination

Hi Taxman! I've modified the lead a bit to address your concerns, and have also commented on the nomination page. Please check that out. By the way, I'm planning to do the Hindi vocal samples immediately after returning from a short vacation, on the 27th. Cheers :) deeptrivia (talk) 03:56, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I'll go look and comment at the FAC entry. - Taxman Talk 13:00, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Peer Review of Cheers

Just so you know, I tried to address your comments on Cheers peer review! Thanks for a look-over, and any additional comments would be helpful! Thanks. Staxringold 03:57, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks again! Made some more touch-ups, and after a little more Peer Reviewing I think I'll take a shot at FA. I'll post again to request your support when I do. :D Staxringold 22:26, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Parsi disambiguation

I think your suggestion is good, although what of Pakistani Parsis then? Not to mention desis and NRI's around the world of Parsi extraction. Although, I don't have a better suggestion, and think that your suggested title would be a vast improvement on the current situation! In other words, I was just nit picking and the desi/NRI issue can easily be put under the Indian umbrella... and I don't think Parsis in Karachi would be terribly offended - but when it comes to those two countries... Khiradtalk 07:43, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] BD2412's RFA

Thanks for not avoiding giving a me too vote in my RfA, Taxman - I'll do my best as an admin to help make the dream of Wikipedia into a reality! BD2412 T 22:01, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Taxman and BD2412, some names of possible admins (I have not further investigated) include AlanBarrett, Hike395, and ElfGuy. --Ancheta Wis 20:55, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
Point was you need to get them to agree, nominate them, and have them be successful :) But that's the easier part sometimes, as you've alread identified them. I don't know any of them, so you'll have to do the nominating. - Taxman Talk 21:00, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, I sent them talk messages. The probability of success is about 1/3. Who knows? I made them no promises, but promised to work with them on a good-faith effort if they were interested. That appears to be the limit of my responsiveness, as my crystal ball is currently clouded. And the fickleness of human nature makes this somewhat iffy. My strategy would be use the current sequence of actions which were templated by BD2412's nomination of me last 23 Dec. But if each of them required a different set of actions to somehow set the RFA's in motion, then I understand that I would be the one with the responsibility to husband-along the nomination. However, these actions were undertaken with somewhat rapid response; there might well be other more appropriate names for whom the process might better succeed. I am not willing to subject anyone whom I moot for RFA to humiliation. --Ancheta Wis 21:37, 27 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Correct name for an individual retirement "account" really is "account"

Dear Taxman: One hates to nit pick, but in the article on Individual Retirement Accounts, the statement that the "umbrella" term for the concept is legally Individual Retirement Arrangement instead of account is simply incorrect. The individual retirement account was created by amendments to the Internal Revenue Code made by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), which enacted (among other things) Internal Revenue Code sections 219 and 408 relating to IRAs. Subsection (a) of section 408 defines the term "individual retirement account" and subsection (b) defines the term "individual retirement annuity." An individual retirement account and an individual retirement annuity are two different but related legal concepts under the Internal Revenue Code, and both terms are directly from the statute itself.

IR "accounts" and IR "annuities" are collectively referred to as "individual retirement plans". See Internal Revenue Code section 7701(a)(37).

From a technical legal standpoint, it is in my opinion incorrect to say that the use of the word "account" is incorrect, as account is the term actually used in the law itself. (I just don't want to make the change myself, at least not without first explaining it.)

In an unrelated matter, I was very impressed with the way all the editors handled the BB69 controversy. I'm a new kid on the block and although I know I was hard on BB69 at times, I really was doing a lot of "holding back" and just watching everybody else work and trying to learn how Wikipedians handle that sort of thing. It was pretty interesting.

Because of your interest in taxes I am almost surely gonna be asking for your advice from time to time. Yours, Famspear 00:21, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm, that's quite interesting. The term arrangement is prominently used in publication 590 and I could swear I've seen that in the code too. I checked § 7701. I don't really know how to follow all that, but § 408 is pretty clear. Clearly that is evidence that "account" is acceptable, and looking at p590 they eventually use the term too, so that certainly warrants a change to the article. I don't really claim an expertise in tax matters as I'm not an attorney, but I happen to know what I'm talking about in some areas that I've researched carefully. In any case you cought an error of mine and that's what this is all about. People like you that are willing and able to do proper research are very valuable to Wikipedia, so don't worry about nitpicking. Checking facts like that is the only way Wikipedia can become reliable. So change away, no reason to be hesitant as long as you have solid references to back it up.

As for BB69, it looks like we've been fairly successful, and though it won't work in all cases, the same general method used there should work most of the time. Steadfastly insisting on following our key policies is important, and following dispute resolution if need be should work most of the time. - Taxman Talk 00:49, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Dear Taxman: I know you're right about the term "arrangement." It's also a "term of art" and it appears in many places in subsections (d), (k), (l), and (p) of section 408 for sure. I know that whole section deals with IRAs of one kind or another, but I just have to tread lightly whenever I get into the area of IRAs or anything to do with retirement plans, employee benefits, etc., as it's such a mine field and not an area in which I practice. I can't "talk" about the area too much; I always have to look everything up. Anyway, I'll make an appropriate change to the article soon. Thanks for your input. Famspear 03:40, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Dear Taxman: I just added some more information to the article on IRAs about the term "arrangement," which I found also appears in certain Treasury regs (and, as you pointed out, in IRS Pub. 590). The fact that the term is used in a formal Treasury regulation (not just in an IRS publication) shows you were right about the term being used as an "umbrella" term. Therefore, my statement that "arrangement" is not an umbrella term was wrong. Instead, I should have said that the term is just not used that way in the statute itself (where the term is used in a more limited sense). Oh, I just love to split those legal hairs! Famspear 16:35, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hindu-Arabic numerals

Hi! User:RN moved the article to Arabic numerals despite 28 votes favoring the title "Hindu-Arabic numerals" and only 17 favoring "Arabic numerals." He argues that if we don't count voters with less that 150 (or sth like that) edits, only 56% voters "support changing the title to Hindu-Arabic numerals", while at least 60% support votes are required. However, it was agreed between all parties in the beginning of the vote that the proposal is to move the article to "Arabic numerals" from "Hindu-Arabic numerals." It was also agreed (though I thought it was very unfair) that:

  • Those opposing the move have the advantage that it won't be moved unless there's a 60% majority
  • Those supporting the move have the advantage that the person proposing the move can do the *short* opening statement.
  • For all the rest of the voting procedure both parties are equal. (quoting Francis Schonken from 21:04, 18 December 2005 (UTC))

I would definitely have preferred it the other way round, since I think an opening statement makes a HUGE difference, since many people just read the opening statement and understandably don't bother with the discussion below the votes. The present situation was accepted with the agreement that the article will be moved to "Arabic numerals" only if more than 60% voters favored that title. Thus, only 40% oppose votes were sufficient to retain the title "Hindu-Arabic numerals." In the present situation (with over 60% voters opposing the change), I find the move to "Arabic numerals" ridiculous, besides being completely unjust and unfair. Your comments will be appreciated. deeptrivia (talk) 05:10, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Ok I set up what I think is the best way forward. It's ok to have the article where it is at until a consensus can be reached. See the talk page. - Taxman Talk 16:35, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi Taxman! I have put my reasons yet again, on the page you created. However, I'll be surprised if those favoring "Arabic numerals" will do the same, now that they've got what they've wanted by hook or crook. See for example, User_talk:Deeptrivia#Clarifying. I am sure of winning an RfC or an RfAr on this issue, but I don't have the time, energy, or inclination for the same. Thanks a lot for your support, and I hope to collaborate with you on more constructive things in future. deeptrivia (talk) 17:03, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

See it doesn't need to go that far. This is an official, properly structure requested move. The consensus it establishes (if any) will be followed. Just work within it and even people with different views should be able to agree on the outcome or at least how it was reached. - Taxman Talk 18:10, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cold fusion

You can count on my support re: dispute at Cold fusion. - FrancisTyers 15:59, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm coming to this fresh. As you say, there are so many edits, can you point to the "old" version that was good? William M. Connolley 17:31, 29 December 2005 (UTC).
I haven't done the looking for that yet, but I think it may be sometime in August of this year. - Taxman Talk 18:10, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Parsi disambig

I've followed your (and Khirad's) suggestion to resolve the disambig Parsi, but rather than move it to another page (as you asked, what title would it have?), I've simply applied a little wordplay at the top to reference the alternate meanings.

Better now? :) -- Fullstop 20:46, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Happy New Year

Dear Taxman, Happy New Year to you and thanks for your help with India related articles. --ΜιĿːtalk 08:03, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, and happy new year to you too. :) - Taxman Talk 12:54, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Happy New Year!

Wish you and your family a happy New Year!!! [With due apologies as I can't resist this: And collect more taxes] :) =Nichalp «Talk»= 13:06, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Ha, thanks. Happy new year to you too. - Taxman Talk 13:22, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Blocking of User:StephenBengHo

Thanks. You saved me the trouble. It went on far too long. -- Longhair 13:24, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

If you can find specific justification, the block can be extended. Of course coming back and repeating the same behavior warrants a longer block next time. - Taxman Talk 13:32, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] University of Michigan

The article has recently been nominated to appear on the main page. Nevertheless, there are several issues that I am trying to resolve, including the fact that there are not enough "negatives" mentioned concerning U-M. There are some things in the works on the article's talk page, including hazing and "town and gown" issues. You once mentioned something about the university administration's being indifferent to student needs and concerns. Is there a source talking about that? Personally, during my times at U-M I didn't really pay attention to such issues (I could be described as one of the apathetic types on a campus where activists can be seen everywhere). Pentawing 23:08, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's the most important of the criticisms, but I have heard it. I can't even begin to think of where to find a source for something like that. Perhaps some of the Princeton Review or US News and World Report discussions would include something on the administration. Or maybe it's really no different that other universities and is just idle complaining. More concrete would be citing complaints about such high tuition and tuition increases while the endowment expanded so much. Though I'm not sure there's a prominent source for that. More important I think would be to not make as many things such an obvious positive comment, like top this and over x that. I actually thought UM didn't do too bad at that now, but maybe we're just so used to it that we just buy the U's propaganda. See my comments at Talk:Michigan State University. That article has been drastically improved along those lines and people there thought UM was biased the same way. The UM article is justified in reporting a high quality because there are objective measures of that. It just shouldn't go farther. - Taxman Talk 23:30, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
So the article as is has no further problems? My concern is that someone might complain of NPOV problems once the article gets on the main page (for January 11). Of course, there is an anon who seems to have problems when any such positive information is removed from the article (he left such a message on the talk page which you responded to). Pentawing 17:38, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cold Fusion Page Edits

Please stop removing the current "External Links" from the Cold Fusion article. These external links have been in place for months and months without any controversy and are unrelated to the other controversy regarding the editing and content of the page. The external links are provided for information purposes for people looking for more information regarding cold fusion. There is no rational for removing informative links. Thank you. Rock nj 03:13, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikinews link

I've fixed the link on your Wikinews user page. I hope you don't mind. --Chiacomo talk 23:44, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Heh, no, that's fine, thanks. - Taxman Talk 00:00, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Taxman, thank you very much for your answer on currency notation.

Well you're welcome, though I answer a lot of questions and I can't think of one on notation. But glad you got your answer. - Taxman Talk 21:43, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] OpenBSD

I've fiddled a bit with an alternative structure for the article here, trying to split it sort of by subject (openness/licensing/security/etc) and hopefully make it follow a bit better. Do you think this is any better, or a better idea at least? I know it's still a bit thin (or non-existent) in some areas but I do plan to fix them :-). I've also made a few minor changes to fix some of the worst short sentences and prose problems, but I'm not entirely sure I wholly understand what is bad. I know it isn't brilliant, and some parts may be worse than others, but on the whole it doesn't seem any worse to me than other articles, so I'd appreciate any further comments you might have. NicM 16:43, 7 January 2006 (UTC).

Yes that represents some advantages and improvements, but unfortunately it's still too long even without the criticism section. Try to merge and summarize some sections. The history may be a bit too short now, while others have gotten too long. I think the article has got to mention Theo's abrasiveness at least in a sentence or two. That's practically the best known thing about the project after security. - Taxman Talk 16:54, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments, I will mention criticism of Theo in the Criticism section (or what will probably become part of another section, maybe Uses and criticism), but I'm having a hard job working out what else to merge/remove. When you say summarise, do you think summary style would be appropriate, particularly to move the subsections of the security section into an article, say "OpenBSD security features", or would it be better just to find text to drop? I've deleted the Hackathons section, and will merge it into Hackathon after this version of the article is finished, and am wavering on whether to just delete the Ports and packages section. NicM 17:47, 7 January 2006 (UTC).
Generally summary style is better if you have detailed information on a subject that is too long for the main article, especially if it is accurate sourced info. The ports and packages seems a key facet of the OS so don't delete it all, just make it shorter if need be. - Taxman Talk 18:34, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. I've split the security section off summary style, merged some other sections and shortened some of the text, and added some stuff about Theo in the history bit and criticism of OpenBSD under Uses. I wonder if you would care to take another look and let me know what you think. NicM 12:12, 8 January 2006 (UTC).
Yes, that is much better. It's more logically structured, better writing, and less undue attention to less important topics. Though now you have room for a slightly expanded description of the security features. I think that is justified by the project's focus on security. Maybe on the range of expanding the last paragraph on features to about twice it's length, giving some context on priv sep, etc. And of course now you'll have to get consensus for your version. - Taxman Talk 17:51, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Okay, great, thanks. I've added a little more on privsep and I'll take another look at that paragraph later. I'm going to post a note on the talk page and if nobody complains in a couple of days I'll change the real article. NicM 18:10, 8 January 2006 (UTC).
I've made the changes to the real article now, if you care to take another look sometime. In any case, thanks for your help. NicM 18:39, 11 January 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Risk limitation vs. risk transfer

Dear Taxman, you deleted my edit on risk limitation in the article on Risk Management, saying that risk limitation is a form of risk transfer. Would you care to comment on the following example? If I never carry around more than 50 bob, my risk of loss when being mugged is not just generally reduced, but limited to 50 bob. Where should the risk have been transferred to in this case? Actuary 12:37, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

No, that's different than what I removed. The above is risk reduction as it is generally classified. The example you put in the article was about insurance which is transfer. I recommend spending some time with a risk management textbook. - Taxman Talk 13:13, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Biodiesel citation

OK, I have cited the recent changes that I had made on the biodiesel discussion page. Is there any other place where I should note these citations for future reference? Thanks for the advice and thanks for asking me before you reverted the edits (Im new to the process).

I left a response on your talk page and the biodiesel talk page which I don't normally do but I thought it would help you. - Taxman Talk 13:11, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Block User:198.150.36.49

Taxman,

I appreciate your strong stand against vandals. Please help ban IP address 198.150.36.49 . I noticed that you have delt with this address in the past however its user is back vandalizing important pages such pages as "Andrew Jackson" and "Cheif Justice of the United States". Please help.

Thanks

Have a look at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. That is the best place to list user's or IP addresses that are vandalizing. But blocking is meant to prevent vandalism, not punish. So particularly read and follow #2 before listing there or asking for a block. Not only will that page get a faster response for you, but if you follow the guidelines, it will be more helpful. - Taxman Talk 13:24, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RFA thanks

Hi. Thanks for your vote on my RFA... & your support during the voting. William M. Connolley 20:54, 15 January 2006 (UTC).

No problem. The voice of reason has got to be supported. :) And wow, with 129, you must be busy. - Taxman Talk 13:31, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cheers

Hi! I don't mean to intrude, but I noticed you have made some edits to the Cheers article in the past! I've given the article a serious reworking and I hope it can garner your support on it's FAC. Thanks again! Staxringold 01:56, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll have a look in a bit. - Taxman Talk 13:31, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments! I added a second ref for the Long attempted suicide, and I really have looked for print sources (without success). Any further advice would be appreciated, or of course your support! :) Staxringold 18:36, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
The article has undergone some nice POV touching up and added some technical information (the lead was also switched to be more useful to a completely uninformed reader), any chance I can get your comment turned into a support? :) Staxringold 23:45, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, for whatever reason I can't put a finger on it's still just ok. A good article just not one I'm ready to support. Don't worry about a comment. It won't keep the article from being featured with other's support. - Taxman Talk 14:04, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Ah well, thanks in any case. I've added a great printed source, Toasting Cheers, to confirm and add data by the way. I'm mostly trying to hedge up support as Monicasdude appears to be taking his usual route with FACs of giant complaints and then never posting if his issues are dealt with. Staxringold 23:48, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
What you do in that case is simply respond to each in good faith so that anyone looking them over (including Raul654 who makes the final call) can decide for themselves. Also try asking on Monicasdude's talk page. If they don't respond after a couple days you can note that in the nomination to show you've done your best. What I see in the article now is that it feels less well organized. For ex, the section headings don't match ideally with what is in each section. - Taxman Talk 23:53, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I've tried to respond to everyone as much as possible. I would really appreciate (like a copyedit) a short review of where you think the flow breaks apart so I can improve it! Thanks! Staxringold 00:32, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] BSD

I'm planning to install BSD on my system. Since there are three versions: Open, Net and Free, which one would be more suited to desktop use? What are there any advt/disadvt of the three? Thanks, =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:09, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Well what they say is true, OpenBSD focuses on security and isn't terribly user friendly, but the docs are so good that if you want to learn you can. I've never used NetBSD much, but those that do, love it. I've run FreeBSD a lot (off and on since 3.4), and my take is that it is the most suited to the desktop, but still not as much as Linux. FreeBSD's handbook is also very good, so you can learn all the basics from it. My best advice though is to try installing them all even if only for a couple days to get a feel for them. I think you'll really like them as it is really nice to have such a cohesive system, but they don't have quite the momentum Linux does, so they are less polished in some ways though more in others. - Taxman Talk 13:31, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the info. I guess I'll try FreeBSD and ping you if I have any issues. Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:28, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I recommend downloading a copy of the handbook in compressed text form (it fits on a floppy if you have one) so you can refer to it as needed. As one whole text file you can search through it really easily in a text editor for any word you want. Here's the link. That should get you most everything you need, but wierd hardware issues can always come up. So yeah, let me know if you need anything and have fun. There's certainly something entertaining on a primal geek level about recompiling and upgrading your operating system while you're using it. - Taxman Talk 17:32, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Berumen

There's nothing more to my vote, I don't know this guy from Adam. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:06, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, but point being your comment was we shouldn't delete just because he asks. I agree, but there are more reasons not to have the article. Not the least of which is there is so little verifiable information about him. - Taxman Talk 23:13, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] email

Did you get my email? I sent it via the 'email this user' feature. :) --mav 05:04, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and I responded. Sorry, I don't always check that email every day. - Taxman Talk 05:37, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] On the Mono Edits.

Not sure if I have to reply on your page or on mine:

Thanks for the comments Taxman. Although I have documented this in other places, the situation basically became problematic because this person removed the comments from the talk page and avoided the discussion while at the same time removing the text that was there.
I agree that I should not write about my personal involvement on the page, but in this case I was just restoring text that was there before but that this person decided should not be there (see the discussion on Talk:Mono development platform)
I do not want to get into personal details, but the guy seems to be genuinely antagonistic to all things related to Mono. See the history of edits that he has done to the Portable.Net page, he seems very upset.

- Miguel.de.Icaza

I've moved my reply to your talk page to keep it consistent. I didn't reallize you did both, which is also fine. - Taxman Talk 18:42, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Garry Kasparov

In the talk page of the above article, I have inserted a quotation from the autobiography of Garry Kasparov: Unlimited Challenge, ISBN 0-00-637358-5 regarding how he solved a chess problem before he knew how to play the game. This answers a request for citation in the beginning of the article. Sincerely, Sir48 22:47, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

That's great. More is always helpful if you can verify more facts in the article from that source. Thanks a lot. - Taxman Talk 21:33, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] PII FAC

Hi Taxman - I just wanna make clear away from the FAC page that I added the Ceylon, Burma notes as you suggested. Bhutan and Nepal are already there. Thanks for your advice. Rama's Arrow 21:22, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I'll have a look, and I'll follow the fac page. - Taxman Talk 21:33, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RE: Requests for rollback poll

You mentioned the validity of a poll whose threshold for promotion was not stated up front was suspect. However, the page clearly states that it is up to the BCrats discretion if the person requesting it would be given it. Assuming good faith, I assume you weren't questioning the BCrats' decision making abilities, were you? Thanks. --LV (Dark Mark) 19:42, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi you're really stretching it there. I was referring about promoting a proposal where the promotion criteria were not spelled out and nothing more. The proposal being successfully turned into a process is a completely separate thing from the day to day use of the process. - Taxman Talk 19:46, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't mean anything by it. I was just making sure, since the page states, "After four days, a bureaucrat will grant the rollback permission if he/she is satisfied that the user will not misuse rollback." So I was just curious. Thanks again. --LV (Dark Mark) 19:51, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Now I understand the confusion. I made my comment more clear I was referring to the promotion of the proposal itself. Sorry bout that. - Taxman Talk 20:36, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Okay, sorry for all the confusion. It just struck me as when when I read that the first time. I was like, "What? It says how promotions would be handled right on the proposed policy page." Thanks for the explanation. See you around, my friend. --LV (Dark Mark) 20:42, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anon IP causing issues

Hi Taxman, There's someone from 67.174.232.187 that's causing a lot of problems on a few articles (Bharatanatyam, Tamil language, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Kannada language and the like).

I have replied on the talk page to a lot of his queries, but this person seems to have something personal against the Tamil language. Could you please help? Thanks. - Cribananda 05:15, 26 January 2006 (UTC)


Thank you. - Cribananda 05:16, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

No problem, but if I'm not around, follow the procedures at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism and someone will take care of it. Generally explicit warnings are needed, but I used my discretion that this one was obvious enough. - Taxman Talk 05:23, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
chek out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:67.174.232.187 67.174.232.187 07:04, 27 January 2006 (UTC)


[edit] RFR poll

Hi Taxman, in response to "Also besides the link to Wikipedia:Requests for rollback privileges that I saw everywhere, nowhere did I see mention that there was an ongoing vote.", I announced the RFR poll on the Village pump policy page, the village pump proposals page, and the admins' noticeboard, as well as adding links to {{cent}} (the centralised discussions template), the top of the recent changes text, and the Community Portal. It was definitely well announced. :) Talrias (t | e | c) 11:21, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Me again. :) Regarding your comments about ease of removing the privilege, the change you suggest is already part of the proposal. From the removal procedure: "In the case that the rollback tool is being misused, a bureaucrat may, at his/her discretion, remove the rollback ability." Talrias (t | e | c) 22:46, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
How's the text "Egregious misusers of rollback may have their privileges immediately revoked by a bureaucrat, at the bureaucrat's discretion. After the privileges have been revoked, the bureaucrat should note the action taken on the bureaucrat's noticeboard."? Talrias (t | e | c) 00:22, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes that works well. Also the adjustment to "again misusing" makes it clearer there's no abuse tolerated after the first warning. As I said in the poll, the easier it is to take away, the less risk there is in giving it out. Which of course means the tool is more helpful and hopefully less abuse. - Taxman Talk 14:20, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
That's great, I'm fine with all your suggestions. Those were my original intent anyway, I guess when writing it down I just forgot to include explicitly that kind of wording. If you like, please go ahead and clarify any section you think is unclear about this. :) Talrias (t | e | c) 14:27, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Ok I've done that. I think it was a minor change but made clear what you were thinking anyway hopefully. - Taxman Talk 14:36, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, Taxman, that is indeed what I had in mind. Would you consider moving your comments to the appropriate section on the poll to reflect your latest comments? Talrias (t | e | c) 14:54, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I was in process but had some other things to do. Patience my friend. :) - Taxman Talk 15:07, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. :) Talrias (t | e | c) 15:13, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ramacharitamanasa

Actually the difference between "Hindi" and "Sanskrit" with reference to these proper nouns is rather hazy. Pronounciations are exactly the same anyway, so if there's a convention that more "Hindi"-ish words do not have to end in an 'a', I am not aware of it. I basically followed rules on Wikipedia:WikiProject Hinduism. deeptrivia (talk) 18:08, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Well I'll defer to you of course, but in everything I've learned in Hindi, in almost all cases you don't pronounce the final a, as in you don't say dasa for दस you say das, and that is the way it is normally transliterated, without the final a. Unless of course the word is like देना, but that's a different a and रामचरितमानस doesn't have that. - Taxman Talk 18:42, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RfA

Hi Taxman, thank you for your vote on my RfA. I am not sure which of the concerns you are going by (or it may be all fof them), but I have posted a comment on my RfA in a bid to clear things up. I hope youwilltake the time to read it,and perhaps to reconsider your vote. If there are still concerns, please let meknow what they are via my talk page and I'll do my best to assuage them. Regards, Proto t c 23:12, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thakore

As it it a rare treat, I'm delighted to see proof that someone appreciates my first go at such an undeservedly impopular Wiki-subject. By the way, Mr. Admin, is there any way (or could it conceivalbly be created) to see -as an various websites- how many readers consulted a page, perhaps a more significant -and at times more uplifting- measure then the contributors (often including a good deal of edit warfare in various degrees of severity)?

There's no viewing stats kept per article because it became clear long ago that would just be way too costly on storage and processing. We're perpetually underfunded for the hardware we need to just keep up with demand. I guess the reward has to be in just getting accurate information out there that will be free. - Taxman Talk 03:00, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Hopefully you don't mind I went ahead to make some use of your fine suggestion to consult Platt (I didn't think of using this site, though I once bookmarked it before I became a Wikipedian, and didn't know it was public domain), even if it's a bit outdated here and there. I marked it as stub (that system doesn't strike me as very effective in practice: the tag apparently attracts almost no serious content contributions, rather useless bickering) because I knew I would return to it, so I made some other additions as well, and structured it. The divinity was unknown to me, the Rajput class I read about but never properly explained. Will you try your hand at the reamining uses mentioned in Platt?

Of course I don't mind you used it, that was what I put it there for. You may want to go format the sources as at WP:CITE though. Platts was actually written in 1888 or something like that so it's long passed into public domain. - Taxman Talk 03:00, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

As for the alternative forms of Indian titles, that's rather a lost cause: even within Hindi (and often other languages are also in the mix) there often are non-homophonic variations (e.g. Raja has variations Rana, Raol, Rawal, Rawat), and the spelling used in various sources, even the better ones, simply is NOT standardized, not even for a single princely state's ruler, not even during the colonial era. So I simply followed RoyalArk (often the best-informed site on titles). If you have a taste for it, you could wade trough over 500 pages in the princely states site and mark the forms used (if you do, why not keep notes to add a list of known thakores ?) so as to determine whether most are in the west (probobly mainly Gujarat) but even with a number (far from complete, probably) and proportion this would not take into account the greatly different weight: possibly many tiny Gujarati thikanas would fit into a few geater ones elsewhere Fastifex 10:56, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

For further fixes to the article I'm going to have to leave that in your capable hands. I've now mentioned everything I know about the topic. Yes the stub marking system probably doesn't in itself solve much but at least it acknowledges we know it's a work in progess and ideally draws some new users in that can help. Anyway thanks for the response and keep up the good work. - Taxman Talk 03:00, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Michigan State Capitol

Thanks for your input on the above article. I have modified the tree part per your request. Thanks. Jtmichcock 18:59, 27 January 2006 (UTC)



[edit] Algal cultivation for the production of biodiesel

hi Taxman

I posted an article under the discussion section for biodiesel. I'm just writing in reply to your comments.

Well, this is the main article about biodiesel. It's not appropriate to go into a detailed discussion in the article about biodiesel production from algae because there is so much else that needs to be covered.

This is why i didn't post it in the article, but on the discussion page. I think that it's a little bit short to dismiss the most efficient, environmentally-friendly, and economic means of producing biodiesel, as not being appropriate in an article about biodiesel

There's only so much room on the page. Ideally main articles on a topic should be around 30kb of text with further detail in subarticles as per Wikipedia:Summary style. I'm not arguing with you, just pointing out long standing consensus about the best way to write articles. An article has to be balanced based on importance of each subtopic. There are many facets to the biodiesel subject and making the bse oil from just one of the possible sources can't have undue coverage in the main overview article. - Taxman Talk 03:14, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Further detail could be covered in an article dedicated to the topic such as Algal biodiesel.

-An article about "algal" biodiesel, or soy-biodiesel, or mustard-biodiesel, wasn't really my point. For the most part, by the time it's biodiesel, it doesn't really matter what it was made from,(obviously you'll have slightly different levels of oxygen content, and variations in gel point), but it's still biodiesel. You could make a seperate article about the different types of biodiesel, but its seems that that would be more to the point on a page about biodiesel. My point is more towards the fact that the majority of biodiesel is based on some type of "vegetable" oil, and that biodiesel produced from algae not only has the highest yields, but, aside from the reclemation of waste products, is the only biodiesel by which you can honestly claim its environmental benefits(most of the positive numbers for CO2, NOX, etc, aren't based on a full life-cycle estimate) as I'm sure you know. It's like the push for hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, hydrogen is extremly clean. Where do you get it? Well you produce the hydrogen using a coal or nuclear power plants.


But remember Wikipedia is a place centered around collaboratively building reference material, not to discuss how to's.

I didn't mean is as a discussion of a how-to, but more towards pointing out a hole in the information. Detailed enough information on any subject can amount to a "how-to", and i don't think that trying to prevent an article, or information that gets accumulated from reaching that level is a good thing. Part of the best aspect of an encyclopedia, or learning, is that it exposes you to things you didn't know before, and gives you new directions in which to go. Trying to keep reference matireals, or links to other information too strictly tight just makes your information incomplete and lacking.

Of course we want to include all relevant, important encyclopedic information. So I agree with what you're saying there. But it's long ago been decided there are some things Wikipedia is not and instead should be housed at other Wikimedia projects. Howto's are one such thing and should be at Wikibooks. - Taxman Talk 03:14, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Imagine a world in which every single person is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing. And we need your help. [wikimediafoundation.org]

I'm also not sure why you left a long list of questions and also a long list of links. If you already have the links, why are you posting them for us if they don't have your answers?

I posted the questions, on a discussion page, because they are the questions that need to be answered for the efficient production of biodiesel. In any detailed discussion about biodiesel, and i hope an encylopedic entry is intended to be detailed, I can't see them not coming up. I never said that the links didn't have the answers, a few of the questions i've found some answers to, and as i do i post them so that others have them too, but there are more answers, and more people out there who know the answers.


But to answer your overall question, it is not yet publicly known if there's going to be a cost efficient way to produce oil from algae. The current research into it seems to be being done by private companies that are trying to commericallize the method so they're not releasing details in order to try to gain a competitive advantage. So basically most of your questions are not publicly known.

I did know that, and i've been coming up against that the more people i talk to. The real impression i get is that oil-rich algae is being produced successfully for the production of biodiesel, but as you said, privatly, and that the focus is more on setting up a system,(genetically engineered strains that can be patented, expensive photobioreactor systems, etc) that prevents just anyone from being able to do it once they go public. But i'm hoping that by asking the question, and by gathering enough information and making it available, people will see that the only real hang-up to producing biodiesel from algae seems to be what strain to use, and a system that works with that strain.

-Daemon

Well someone that could corner an efficient method of doing it would have quite the gold mine of course. But wikipedia isn't the place to produce primary research. We report only on what is known. I commend your efforts to dig up information about it and anything that is published already and relevant we can include. The rest should be done elsewhere. Keep in touch with the various biodiesel groups and you'll find there are plenty of people that are doing research on it and there is probably enough public research already out that no one group is going to be able to control the production. So please contribute to Wikipedia according to it's project goals and use other outlets for other types of work. But thanks for the links. When I can get around to it I have a ton more that I'm planning to use for a ground up rewrite. - Taxman Talk 03:14, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Biodiesel outline

You had an outline laying around in main article space. I've userfied it for you at User:Taxman/Biodiesel outline in case you need it, because otherwise it was going to end up being deleted. Seeya. --Cyde Weys 04:28, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Raney nickel FAC

I took me some time to get around them, but I think I've addressed the concerns you had about this article. It would be nice if you could comment on them in the nomination page. Thanks a bunch. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 04:06, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Federal Reserve System and the US Dollar

Dear Taxman:

Recalling the BB69 matter back in December, a somewhat interesting discourse (with, shall we say, some "similarities") has been developing with an editor named "Xode" at the discussion page Talk:United States Dollar at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:United_States_dollar#Article_neutrality_and_factuality_dispute

under the heading for Factuality Dispute. I am in no way comparing Xode's conduct to the outrageous behavior of BB69. The similarity lies in part in the way certain editors seem to be on a "mission" to educate everyone on what they perceive as some great injustice and, I argue, want to use Wikipedia as a soapbox as part of that mission. When you see the materials Xode is promoting regarding the Federal Reserve and the banking system and compare them to the tax protester rhetoric, I think you'll know exactly what is going on. Your input on that Talk page would bring a lot to the table! Xode's User Talk page is interesting too. Yours, Famspear 22:24, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Remarkable similarity, I would agree. It seems like you're doing just fine handling it, so the only thing I thought was needed was to welcome the user and point out the policies. He/she can't follow them if they don't know them. - Taxman Talk 23:38, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Dear Taxman - Belated thanks! Yours, Famspear 17:57, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comments regarding The Wind Waker

Thanks for your comments at the FAC submission of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. I wanted to reply to this without cluttering up the nomination:

I do wonder why people choose to spend so much time on topics like these when there are so many basic topics we have next to nothing on.

I'll be the first to admit that CVG articles aren't the most important topics to be covered in an encyclopedia. At the risk of making a generalization, quite a few editors interested in video games aren't very good writers. There are many CVG articles that are very poorly written, too detailed, or only of interest to other gamers. Partially due to this, I've found that CVG articles often get the short stick here at Wikipedia when it comes to respect. One reason I spend time on articles like The Wind Waker is to try to show other Wikipedians that CVG articles can be well-written and (hopefully) an interesting read, even for non-gamers. The second reason is simply that I enjoy video games. Wikipedia is a hobby for me, not work, and writing about something that I find fun or interesting makes it the more enjoyable for me.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading the Wind Waker article, and thanks again for your input. --Pagrashtak 02:44, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My RFA

Hi Taxman/Archive2, 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 10:46, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 1.0 Collaboration of the Week

Hi, I noticed you signed up as a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. Recently, a 1.0 Collaboration of the Week was created to work on essential topics that are in need of improvement, which will ultimately go in a release version of Wikipedia. You can help by voting, contributing to an article, or simply making a comment. Thank you for your support. :) Gflores Talk 08:02, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where?

Hi, you thanked me for my contribution where? Cygnus_hansa 13:33, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Hindi. The link was in the section title, thus the subject of my comment. :) - Taxman Talk 13:38, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindi

Oh, so you were talking about Hindi article! Thanks for appreciating and for the link. I am myself a native Hindi speaker (+ linguistics scholar). I am also planning to put up certain features that I have added here to Sanskrit and devanagari too. Cygnus_hansa 17:35, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Most excellent, that article has been needing a linguist very familiar with the language able to fix it up. It's particularly in need of some discussion of the current thinking from experts on the history, development, and dialects. As only a learner I'm hardly qualified to do more than comment on what I see and read. - Taxman Talk 17:48, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Katie Holmes

Greetings! You have edited the Katie Holmes page in the past. I've completely reworked the article and have posted it on WP:PR in the hopes of advancing it to WP:FAC. I would be grateful for your comments at Wikipedia:Peer review/Katie Holmes. PedanticallySpeaking 18:59, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Undelete Template:User USA Police State now!

the consensus was a "strong keep". This is an abuse of your admin powers. --Revolución (talk) 18:47, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Kindly use some civility, assume good faith, and relax. It clearly met the speedy deletion criteria so it is far from an abuse. I've restored it now, but please consider focusing on building an encyclopedia, not wasting time promoting divisiveness. - Taxman Talk 19:02, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gandhi PR

Hi Taxman - whenever convenient, I hope you can have a look at the Mahatma Gandhi article and visit the Wikipedia:Peer review/Mahatma Gandhi. We are working to address some serious issues with the article that are threatening its FA status. I value your advice a good deal. Rama's Arrow 04:06, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Rama's Arrow 21:51, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AfD commentary

Please spend some time understanding the relevant policies before voting. That comment is out of line. If you don't agree with my comments, then criticize my comments, not me personally. Don't assume bad faith on my part. It's not that hard to be civil. | Klaw ¡digame! 16:48, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

It's not assuming bad faith, it's assuming you don't know. It wasn't meant to be incivil, so I apologize if you felt offended. Not knowing isn't fatal, it's just not helpful. Your vote and reasoning was very far out of the well accepted understanding of the policy. So I meant it literally. More people need to spend more time understanding the policies, and if they did, the project would run more smoothly. Again, sorry. - Taxman Talk 17:00, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for that response. In all likelihood you did not understand my meaning, and I will take partial responsibility for not being clear. I didn't spell out my reasoning fully because others on the page had made the points I would have made.
Your assumption is incorrect; I understand the policy fully and cite sources or references for just about every substantive edit I make these days, but again, two people (or nine) can interpret an official policy differently. WP:NOR focuses on theories and interpretations, not on hard facts (see this section, for example). Is a map with accurate road lengths sufficient to meet the prohibition in the top section on "unpublished data?" I can see arguments both ways on that one. I take the view that it is sufficient, especially in light of the policy's focus on theories rather than data.
As for your comments to me, you might rethink your tone. Your comments to me on the AfD page would have been adequate without the line I quoted above, so there was no reason for you to go that extra mile and deliver a verbal slap. I understand none was intended, but I hope you can see why I saw it as one. If you thought I whiffed on the policy, then either ask me to clarify my reasoning, or cite sections of the policy that refute my points. | Klaw ¡digame! 17:13, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Katie Holmes

Thank you very much for your help with this article. I've nominated it as a FAC and would appreciate your comments at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Katie Holmes. PedanticallySpeaking 16:10, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lothal

Hi Taxman - I'm preparing Lothal for FAC - it is almost ready. I'd greatly appreciate it if you could pay a visit and let me know if the article needs improvement on any point. You are a master analyzer of FAs (really). Thanks, Rama's Arrow 14:35, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Taxman - thanks for your great analysis! I've made a detailed reply to your points on the page, and I want to add some points later. I will have fully incorporated your suggestions (adding more technical info and evidence), but I have found only one source with such detail regarding Lothal anywhere. Lothal per se is not a centre of any debate today. Rama's Arrow 17:16, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Regarding your comment on political userboxes - I believe there's been a rule change, and I will take my POV userboxes down, but after some time. Thanks for your concern and compliments! Rama's Arrow 17:20, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindi and Indo-Aryan

Hi, thanks for your audiofile on Hindi--it is 99 % correct. ( /ri/ vowel is missing) I would have made a better file but I have no microphone in my computer. As you are an admin, I request you to please insert some additional characters in the Insertbox in the edit page: r, h, t, d, m, n: each with a dot immediately below it. These are used for IAST transliteration of retroflex vowels & consonants in all Indo-Aryan languages like Sanskrit and Hindi. Its too inconvenient to search for these characters in another page and copy and paste them again. After all, you have a flood of god-knows-what characters in the insert-box, you can easily afford to bring in a few more. All articles related to India require them desparately. I dont know why you people reverted the earlier scheme which classified the inserbox characters as french, german, mathematics, IPA, etc.Cygnus_hansa 20:42, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

That actually requires developer rights and skills I don't have. Those different pages with several hundred extra characters were really nice and I wanted to have them too, but I guess that caused some unintended problems, and some people complained about the extra kb of dl for every edit. I think enough people liked it that they may bring it back if it is fixable. Sorry I don't know where to point you to to get more info except asking at the technical page of the Village Pump. You should have good results there. And please do encourage those that are able to make it available at least as some sort of user preference. As to the audio file, I didn't record that, User:Deeptrivia did, and he is a native speaker. I meant to have him record a few of the missing sounds like /ri/ and the extra sounds such as those you mention above and even re-record a few that aren't as clear. In fact, I'll go do that now. - Taxman Talk 20:59, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Userpage "doodling"

I posted the following bit in the MfD debate on God of War's little subpage, and thought I'd post it here too, in case you'd like to discuss further. Best wishes, Xoloz 21:06, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I responded there, hope you don't mind that I removed the duplication. - Taxman Talk 21:34, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindi Grammar

Actually you are correct. The verb table I have written is only for a few common tenses and aspects which show concordance with English. There are many more kinds of aspects in Hindi, which I myself cannot name, because in school we are taught only synonyms and antonyms and idioms in the name of Hindi grammar.Cygnus_hansa 01:18, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Meta:Babel

I Have dropped you a reaction on m:Meta:Babel#Terror on Czech part of Wikipedia continues. -- Vít Zvánovec 11:46, 23 February 2006 (UTC) Again. -- Vít Zvánovec 22:33, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] help requested

Hi Taxman - if/when you have time, please have a look at Wikipedia:Defense of content - its a bunch of new ideas I'm pushing to protect quality of Wikipedia articles in face of vandalism. Rama's Arrow 21:24, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I also drop you a ...

First, thx for your engagement on the terroristic page [here]. Sure, it is not ease to understand that. For you knowledge: in last approximately three weeks there were three admins who asked to be desysoped on the czech wiki (one of them: me) and there were two members of the arbitrage commission who resigned their function. Other admins are in a vacation or something like this. So, as I wrote to Anthere, there is a very serious situation in the czech wiki. The man with whom you have been corresponding up to now (V9t Zv8novec) is not the only one, there are more, and the problem is, that they are organized and try to monitore all what here happens. Nevertheless, thx for your try to help. 217.83.109.171 23:43, 23 February 2006 (UTC) - - - sorry, here my sign: -jkb- 23:46, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FAC advice

Taxman, I'd just like to thank you for your article on FAC advice. It's given me some good ideas on what to work on for an article I'm interested in. I feel like I can really take action on your advice, which isn't true of a lot of the guidelines for wiki articles I've seen, so thanks! Makemi 19:16, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Glad it helped. If there was anything particularly unclear, or you thought could be better explained, let me know. It's possible I've been doing the FAC thing long enough that I don't know what's not clear to someone that hasn't. - Taxman Talk 03:45, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:AKS74 and other matters

A new user, AKS74, has recently vandalized the University of Michigan article, which I reverted. Though I sent a harshly worded warning (I don't know if that was appropriate, but with vandals I am not taking chances), the fact that the user's first edits were vandalism doesn't bode well for me. Hence, I was wondering if you, or another administrator, would mind monitoring this user and/or give advice on how to handle a potential problem user (along the lines of "Willy on Wheels").

A second item concerns a message you sent some time ago concerning my interest in adminship. Though I wasn't able to respond immediately (I apologize for that), I have come to the conclusion that I am not ready at this time. Not only do I have other important things outside Wikipedia (which limits the amount of time I can spend here), but I also have several articles (two U.S. city articles, three planet articles) that I want to get to FA. By being an admin, I feel that my abilities to commit to those projects will be greatly diminished. Nevertheless, when the time is appropriate, I will signal my interest in being an admin. Thanks for the suggestion though. PentawingTalk 21:27, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

You did fine, though we try to make the first warning as pleasant as possible. Generally I try to ask them to make positive contributions instead. Funny enough people making stupid edits at first may be worthwile editors if they want to. But I'm also not against quickly blocking those causing damage. If you warn them and they repeat the vandalism that's clear blocking territory. If you want, the quickest way to get a response is to list it on Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. If they vandalize after a warning they'll get a block pretty quick. As for that specific user, unless I'm missing something they stopped pretty quick after the warning so there's nothing to worry about with that one.
And I commend you for focusing on articles, you certainly don't need to be an admin, but you also don't need to spend much time on admin functions either. Basically it would allow quicker reverting of vandalism and blocking if that's all you wanted. But hey also let me know, and don't sweat it if you don't want it. We need article writers too. - Taxman Talk 03:42, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lothal FAC

Hi Taxman - Lothal is FAC! Please give an up-or-down vote at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Lothal. Thanks for all your help and advice! Rama's Arrow 15:03, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Biased Admin

I was just informed that there's another ON issue on Wiki. My first reaction was, "oh no, here we go again." But upon further investigation, it is clear to me that you judge content based on a bias, not on the quality of the content. The one that jumped out at me the most was the booting article. A lesser version of that article has been linked on wiki forever (formerly in the bootstap wiki I believe). No one has ever had an issue with it. We (I'm an O-nerd admin) got the author to clean up the article, add to it, and post it on ON. He then updated the wiki link to his new, better article, which you removed ... ok, fine, maybe you didn't like it. But then I look at the other external links that are allowed to remain and it is more than obvious that you care nothing about content, and only about your personal vendetta with Uriah923. It's as good if not better than the other links provided that are allowed to stay. I just think it's sad. I was at least partially on your side before with the old O-nerd issues, but now you're putting personal feelings in the way of good information. If you have to remove the hard work of others to feel good, go ahead. Despite all your suspicions, there is no SEO campaign by ON via wiki. Give it up man, it's just not true. I'm not denying the issues of the past, but that is nowhere near the case now. If you can honestly say that the ON article you deleted from the Booting article is of lesser value than the other external links, then that's fine and I accept that disagreement though I still think you're wrong and should consider deleting the other links as well. If that's not the case though, I'm loosing faith in you man. No hard feelings. I just ask you to judge ON authors by their content, and not by your past issues with Uriah923. I'm sure that's too much to ask though. Your obsession with a past issue seems too much for you to forget. I'm not looking for a debate, conversation, deal or anything like that. Wiki is your land. I'm just stating that I think you're going too far, that's all. Good luck with whatever it is you do. MarkMcB 01:38, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

There were countless polite requests for this issue to have ended in a better manner. The extraordinary amount of time that was and is being wasted on the issue is detrimental to the project. There's no huge gain to a Wikipedia article to have external links. What articles need are the highest quality references such as textbooks, journal articles, highly regarded whitepapers, rfc's etc. Yes we know having links from Wikipedia is very valuable because of our pagerank, but that's not what we're here for, and we're probably going to have to get tighter about it. - Taxman Talk 03:31, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I understand what happened in the past and I understand why it was wrong. Now let's discuss today. Today ON has an improved version of an article that was cited on wiki when it was lesser without issue. After the improvement, the only thing on wiki that changes is the link and you remove it. Doesn't that seem odd to you? I feel like you're judging me and the authors on my site because of the actions of one individual. That'd be like you going to jail forever because your brother is a murderer. You're punishing my authors because you don't like Uriah923. I wish you'd just say, "I, Taxman, am willing to judge the entire content of a site and all of its authors because I dislike one person." What if wiki had a rogue admin? Should the world dismiss its content??? Of course not, that would be ridiculous. All I'd like to see from you is some consistency. You target ON articles, not poor external links like you claim. Many of the authors for my site spend a lot of time and effort working on their articles and I know them to be better than the average wiki external link. I just can't understand why you can't allow people (non-ONs) to post links to our site if they deem them useful. If you or wiki is sooooo concerned with SEO and PageRank, then why don't you implement no follow attributes on your links and make them useless for Google credit? I get severely irritated when I read how you dismiss content as SEO with no explanation other than "once upon a time I had this problem with Uriah923." Continue your crusade if you must, but just know that you're only discriminating against the authors of ON who are the same people who enjoy contributing to sites like wiki. And please, give up on the SEO argument. Nearly all of our visibility comes from when our articles are posted on sites like Slashdot or other high traffic/high visibility sites. I personally keep track of our traffic and I've never seen a trend or spike on ON that was related to wiki. We'll do fine with or without wiki links, but that's of no concern to me. My concern is that you are deciding which links should or should not stay simply by a domain name. You owe the wiki community more thought than that as an admin. If you don't like external links, then please get to deleting. I've seen a lot of non "textbooks, journal articles, highly regarded whitepapers, rfc's etc" cited in wiki articles. But we all know that's not what you've been looking for in your recent delete-spree ... you're looking for "ON.com". MarkMcB 06:35, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I can't fix everything on this site; I can only work on what I see and promote best practices. Again, what we need are reliable references, and yes in this case I feel it is better to not reward a site where someone has acted so irresponsibly; we don't need external links, they're just a non-critical extra. If the links to your site weren't so important, then why are we even spending time on this issue? - Taxman Talk 13:14, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Oh ... my ... gosh!!! I give up man. You win whatever game you're playing. No matter how many times I tell you I don't care about the links, you're going to fall back on your conspiracy theory. While we're at it, I'll just assume that the only reason you ever worked on wiki was to gain admin right for for self-gratification and bragging rights with your peers because apparently there's no way that anything done on wiki is for the good of the group. Perhaps you didn't read what I wrote: I don't care if you take off our links ... just stop being a biased admin!!! If what you are preaching is true, then you've got a lot of work to do. It just seems funny to me that you've got the time to delete the ON links, but not the others that are in the same article. ---- So, let's drop that one, you win your power-trip game. Please answer this, why do you get to say, "we don't need external links?" If they're not needed/useful, then why are they even allowed on wiki? It would seem that many disagree with you. Also, I'm curious what you're going to do in a year or so when someone throws up a wiki page for ON because it's become a popular site. It's bound to happen as our growth has been steady since day 1. Every other site similar to ours has a wiki page I've noticed. I can only assume you'd delete one entitled ON, regardless of who writes it with a note saying, "this is clearly SEO." What will be your justification then? In more general terms, are you ever going to let go of the past? MarkMcB 14:17, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I could respond further, but for the most part I'll just stand on the basis of what I've already said, and let the manner of your comments strengthen my points for me. As to our articles on websites, everyone wants one about theirs so it's not surprising we have too many--it's a significant unfortunate bias in our coverage, among others. If and when ON has a verifiable popularity/importance to warrant inclusion of an article on it, that wouldn't be the end of the world, but it still wouldn't justify having lots of links from our articles to ON. - Taxman Talk 15:23, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Manner? If you mean frustrated, then you're right on. I'm frustrated because I don't like you labeling the anything related to ON as "spam." If you had an issue with Uriah923, then please label it as "Uriah923 spam." I get extremely irritated when I watch you go around claiming that ON is on some sort of wiki SEO campaign. It seems very much like slander to me. I guess the root of my frustration is that you blame ON for your problems. At one point in time that may have been at least somewhat true, but it certainly is not anymore. I'd be quite satisfied if you simply stopped citing "ON spam" when you remove a link to ON. All you're doing is building an unwarranted bias against my site. Like I've said before, I don't care how many (if any) links to ON are on wiki. I do, however, care when you toss around the name of my site (or "ON") as if it's some sort of spammer's haven. If nothing else, do me a favor and be more specific in your accusations and actions when you leave your little notes in the edit summaries. I respect your intentions as a wiki admin, but I think you're letting emotions bleed over into just arbitration. If your issue is with Uriah923, then please cite this in your actions and don't discredit my work and the work of the patrons of my site. MarkMcB 22:55, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Now that's fair enough, I can change that, but I'd rather that I'll never have to again. As founder of the site I would again recommend you strongly encourage Uriah923 to drop the issue as it is giving your site a bad name. For what it's worth it wasn't to connect the whole site to it, but simply as the simplest descriptive term of the promotional efforts being done in the name of the site. - Taxman Talk 00:06, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
Great. If possible, could you contact me via the email address on the bottom of ON. I'm unaware of how Uriah923 ties into the recent deletions and email would probably be a better forum (unless you want to make your talk page even longer). I'm willing to do whatever is necessary, but I'm admittedly ignorant to a certain degree on what exactly the current issues with Uriah923 are and how to recognize them. MarkMcB 00:31, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
No major need. It's really simple. Just ask him in the strongest words possible to stop trying to use Wikipedia to promote your site. That includes linking to it, asking people to consider links to it, and complaining when the links are removed and the site is put on the blacklist due to his efforts. His activities aren't good for your site or ours. - Taxman Talk 13:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
You're asking me to scold him when I have no proof (which is what I wanted to discuss via email). Needless to say, I'd like to have some proof of the alleged promotions. As far as I can tell (and I'm no wiki expert), he hasn't posted any links to ON. Is there some forum where he's asking others to do his work? Perhaps I'm missing them. I'm sure you understand that all I want is a solid case before I go accusing him of wrongdoing. The initial issue seemed cut and dry, but I don't see the basis against him on this one. And I think the reason he's complaining about the link removals is because he watches you like you watch him. Let's face it, neither of you trust the other, and both of you seem to freak out anytime the other does anything related to ON. Anyway, that's irrelevant. I would simply like any info you can give me on how I should show that he is doing things in a manner that's not acceptable for wiki. Thanks! MarkMcB 17:16, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindi Vocal Samples.

Hey Taxman, sorry for the late response. Yeah, I guess I missed ri, and probably the voice quality isn't all that good either. I'll try doing it again soon. Thanks! deeptrivia (talk) 04:04, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Well you don't have to do it if you don't, recruit someone else if you want, but thanks for creating them, they're just fine. You don't have to do it all over too since they just need to be chopped up anyway. The phrases in List of common phrases in various languages would be good to have too if you're willing. - Taxman Talk 04:51, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
And while we're at it, can you tell me what मितूवा might mean? I can't remember the rest of the sentence it was in and I'm not sure if the spelling is right (I can't tell by sound the difference between the t's and d's and long and short vowels all the time yet), but I've heard it in a few film songs and I can't find it in my dictionary. - Taxman Talk 04:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Split infinitive

Talk:Split_infinitive

Someone more skillful than I (er.. than me?) please tidy up my thoughts, please.

There was a request for references to be cited. In the above split infinitives debate, the address: http://courses.lib.odu.edu/engl/jbing/544--infinitive.html may help someone very keen to follow up the thread thoroughly..

That is a good start. It's not a highly reliable reference of it's own but it does cite some that appear to be, so it could be very helpful in improving the reliability of our article. Thank you very much. Why not get an account here, and get ahold of some of the source listed at that link and start contributing. It's pretty addictive. - Taxman Talk 19:20, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use images

Hello. I'm trying to get an article up to FA status, and I noticed you were an individual heavily involved in the process. I read through your FA guide, and I would like to ask you a question. What exactly is the problem with fair use images. And if using them, is there some sort of criteria. You mentioned it in the FA advice you wrote, yet I'm still having a problem understanding the problem. Perhaps you could further explain. Pepsidrinka 19:48, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

There's a few problems, the biggest one being they're not free. We are the free encyclopedia, with the goal of describing all encyclopedia knowledge. We're not the fair use encyclopedia. The next problem is people rarely properly apply the fair use rules and use correct fair use rationale. In using a fair use image we're publishing someone else's copyrighted work and benefiting from that. But even with 100% correctly applied fair use rationale, the image is not free to use for all purposes. A teacher wishing to use a Wikipedia article in class, or someone wishing to use it in a corporate presentation, or whatever other purpose free information can be put to is probably not covered by the fair use rationale that Wikipedia is claiming, as the rationale only apply to Wikipedia's use of the image. So they must strip out the fair use images and be left with a lesser article and/or face the liability of violating copyright. Now to be fair a lot of people don't respect copyright, but when we hold ourselves out as the promoters of free information, we should follow what we promote. You may also wish to get User:Carnildo's views on it as he is very good at patrolling for fair use problems, and he may have a different view than I. In the end my guideline says free images are preferred, but properly tagged fair use images are allowed, which I believe is the situation. I think in the long run we'd be better off if they weren't allowed, but I don't get the final say. :) - Taxman Talk 20:19, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Provided some references.

I've installed some references in my last two edits in the free will entry.[1][2] Two of the sources are (1) a college philosophy textbook and (2) Tom Morris, Ph.D. in Philosophy from Yale and has published extensively, including haven written the user-friendly Philosophy for Dummies book. I'm glad your stopping by for WP:CITE. Too many times I've seen editors ignore the policy even when it comes to challenged material. --Wade A. Tisthammer 20:50, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the addition. I can't say I'm enthusiastic about the status of Philosophy for dummies as a Wikipedia:Reliable references though. Ideally more and higher quality sources would be used, but again thanks for the efforts. They are a step in the right direction. - Taxman Talk 04:17, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks!

Thanks for your kind words on my talk page. I'm glad that I managed to put across my thoughts on the "lucky" (as you say, it's all luck) million. It's the project as a whole that I'm interested in. Thanks again! :) Nach0king 09:45, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome, rock on, and make the most of your 15 minutes! Did you end up with any media appearances yet? - Taxman Talk 21:58, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:FARC

No, I disagree with you (politely). Please read the nomination of Matthew Brettingham's FARC. [3]. While Tony has removed his oppose vote, since I nominated the others, there is a growing clamour on FAC these days for numerous references, and a uniformity of style and prose and certain personal information. Because the subjects I write about are often long dead and/or lesser known I am unable to conform to that. So the pages I have edited will eventually be FARCd, I am just nominating them before some-one else does - a simple solution, then all the FAs can be uniformly full of "compelling prose" and numerous references on well known figures. Giano | talk 15:27, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I did read the nomination. But that seems like something more worth discussing with the nominator and the commenter. I know his comments were too harsh, and even innapropriate, but in human interaction that's going to happen. The nominator appears a little inexperienced, so some discussion with her would be warranted. I saw none on her talk page. Even after all that the article that you reacted to the situation on is a clear keep. Nominating all the others is really just clogging up the process and not helpful. Please remove them and just discuss the issue so we can effect positive change.
What is happening at least as far as the referencing issue, is standards are being raised. That should happen in this project as we strive to have more and more reliable material. You wrote the articles and presumably have access to the sources you used. You are in the ideal position to cite any particularly important points in the article to the best available source. If you prioritized the top 5-10 facts in the or each article for importance and/or potential contentiousness, and cited those, that would be all that is needed to fully comply with current standards. Is it easy, no? Does it make the project that much stronger, absolutely. If you're willing to do that, I'll go and point out the points that could use them. - Taxman Talk 21:58, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Please do not trouble yourself. I have no intention at all (as I have said) of going back re-reading books I've already listed to comply with constantly changing regulations. If I did that, next month something else would arise, and the month after that, and again - No a clean break is better. Let future FAs be just an assembly of facts already on the internet that can be easily checked by those interested. I never go back. I never look back! Giano | talk 23:14, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I can understand your bitterness due to the comments made, but not your opposition to improving articles. So the standards are raising--that's a good thing--not a reason to not improve articles. And inline citations don't have to be the cesspool of low quality sources that you seem to be thinking of. Anyway work on contributions you do enjoy and we'll be at a better place in the end anyway. - Taxman Talk 04:17, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:FAC and WP:FARC

Hi, Taxman. I'm having trouble understanding why Geogre chooses to post this eloquent argument about Tony1's copyediting FAC objections on my talkpage and there only; I suppose he simply doesn't want to offend. (And yet, in a double impulse, he does post it.) Anyway, I thought you might be interested in reading it. Bishonen | ノート 16:01, 3 March 2006 (UTC).

Hmm, I'll try to read it in a minute, you might notice I'm a little flooded at the moment, but thanks for pointing it out. Haven't run into you in a while :), hope you're well. - Taxman Talk 21:58, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Having read it, it is interesting. I agree with some of the points he has and certainly disagree with others (especially the economics, but that's tangential anyway). But that's how the game works, if there were no differences of opinion we'd have a completed project already, and a very boring and factually incorrect one at that. I'd just ask if he's ok moving it to the FAC criteria talk page or somewhere more appropriate for getting some use out of it for having discussions that can improve how we work here instead of a lonely comment on your talk page. - Taxman Talk 22:13, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Not that lonely! Bish's talk page has the 6th most traffic of any user talk page - official! - and only missed the top 5 by less than 0.1% (one post in over 1000)! -- ALoan (Talk) 23:29, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Hello good sir! What prompted your arrival here? And lonely more referred to not being connected to the pages that it might be more relevant on. And no thank you sir, I'll keep my space here quieter if at all possible. - Taxman Talk 04:17, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Essentially, the comment has such a pointed reference to Tony1, and the horrors that arose when Tony went up for RFA are so well documented, that I felt like posting it anywhere but as commisseration was going to generate another round of hurt feelings and high heat. I don't feel like playing at avoiding the overly sensitive or being diplomatic when such diplomacy would be one-sided only. I also don't think that it would do much more than be a figurehead argument. Enough people object to narrow cossetting of FA's into style sheets and corporate boredom, but few people want to express it in as ... forceful... a way as I did that I'd just be used as a battering ram. If I were going to draft a version of my comments for wider consumption, I would argue that applying any single style sheet to a large document (and Wikipedia is a huge one) is folly, that style sheets are products of corporations that require ease of reading as a top concern, that style sheets invariably fail to achieve ease of reading, that conformity of prose style is boring, and finally that authors attempt a type of music with their writing (whether the music is cacophonous or euphonous), and applying an alien grid onto writing blindly destroys the readability.
As for the Marxist part of my rant, I figured that people wouldn't agree, but if I'm even slightly right, the copy editor who crows about his job is someone co-opted by a capitalist system and mistaking training for thinking. We all want clarity and conciseness, but many of us rely on the reading to find it, not the search and replace Polyphemus grope of a style sheet. Geogre 00:21, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, I still think it would be better said in a more relevant place, but since I more disagree with the thrust of the way you've written it above, do what you like. :) Some consistency is beneficial, and some important composition guidelines should be encouraged. Overdoing it is not the greatest idea, and it does seem some of that is going on too. Other than that, I haven't dug into Tony's comments, nor am do I feel qualified to add a significantly useful point to the debate. - Taxman Talk 04:17, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spoken Hindi article

I have created a spoken Hindi article on Hindi wiki. It is about Indo-European language family. Those interested, especially the foreigners learning Hindi, may wish to look at the page and listen to the spoken article here : hi:हिन्द-यूरोपीय भाषा-परिवार. Please tell me if you face any problem. Cygnus_hansa 17:09, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

That's very awesome, thanks for making it and letting me know. Maybe I'll start a word for word English translation both as an exercise and as a further learning tool. Wikibooks seems like an ideal place for that. In the same vein, commons really needs Hindi phrase samples. I'll see if I can find the place where that is coordinated again if you're willing, and want to beat Deeptrivia to doing the Hindi phrases in List of common phrases in various languages. - Taxman Talk 21:58, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for encouragement. Of course I am willing to help!Cygnus_hansa 22:53, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for arbitration

I have listed a request for arbitration in which you are an involved party here. uriah923(talk) 20:41, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Obviously I'd rather you wouldn't have since more wasted time on a settled issue is not helpful for the project. We'll see how it goes. - Taxman Talk 21:58, 3 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Copperchair

Hey- you know the fifth ban on Copperchair was 'sposed to be for a year, not a week, right? --maru (talk) contribs 00:13, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I covered that in my post on the adminstrators noticeboard about the issue. Nothing required a year. - Taxman Talk 04:27, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I've unprotected it (because, to be completely honest, I had forgotten about it... I meant to unprotect it when the March 1 block expired). I've also replied at WP:AN and on the talk page in question. Feel free to delete my comment now. Have a nice day. — Mar. 7, '06 [21:32] <freakofnurxture|talk>

[edit] Proposal for compromise

Ok, let's try to end all of this. I understand you want the blacklisting to stay because it saves you time (i.e, you won't have to check up on me or the two IPs from which I contribute). So, how about we compromise?

My part
  • Swear to a permanent ON gag order: no talking about ON or its content on any talk page or article other than my user page (including making suggestions for links or adding commented-out links, etc.)
  • Concede all links you already removed.
  • Voluntarily remove any remaining ON links (other than my user page).
Your part
  • Concede the blacklisting.

This is a big sacrifice for me because I sincerely believe that the links were valuable and that I have the right to suggest links even to sites with which I am affiliated. It is a sacrifice for you because you run the risk of me breaking my promise. I get what I want, which is the door left open for ON content to be included on WP if it is ever found worthy through the normal, NPOV, non-me means. You get what you want which is the removal of all ON links and a gag order on me.

You may say that this has been tried before, but the key difference is that this time it's permanent, clear and voluntary. Last time, some ambiguous blanket statements were barked out, I dropped the issue (eventually), and then Redwolf24 came along and lifted some restrictions - all of which led to me feeling justified in pursuing link-by-suggestion. This time, I voluntarily submit to a gag order and the removal of all non-user page links (even though I feel both are unjustified) for the sake of the whitelisting. That's about as big of a compromise as you could expect or want. I hope you'll give it some serious thought as it presents a quick end to all of the arguing and a long term solution with which both of us can live. uriah923(talk) 23:52, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

It's rather disingenuous to offer this now, don't you think, after you've one more time chosen specifically to waste everyone's time on an issue that had already been clearly decided? Interesting timing considering that your arbcom request isn't looking good and there's a stronger consensus to keep the site on the blacklist. Not that I alone could even take the site off the list, as it appears several other people believe it should stay. Lets see, you've shown desire and willingness to break previous agreements, ignore nearly unanimous opposition to your actions, use anonymous IP's to add your links, and you've added some very disingenuous comments to your user page, and completely misrepresented the situation on meta. Don't you think it's funny that nearly without fail everyone that reviews the situation sides against your actions? I fully believe in assuming good faith, but once someone has completely removed all reasons to do so as you have done with this specific topic, it would reckless to keep assuming it. External links, while having some value, simply aren't valuable enough to justify the damage in this case. It would be much better to simply end the issue and it appears that has more or less been done, and this is already ended. - Taxman Talk 15:36, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Disingenuous? The proposal for compromise is real and sincere. What's disingenuous is refusing to assume good faith or to see the merits/logic of a situation or argument because you seem to have everyone convinced I'm a linkspammer (something that still has no foundation).
I've not misrepresented anything anywhere; my comments on the arbcom request and the whitelisting request are valid, justified and logical. However, as we fail to see eye to eye, I thought a compromise was in order. If you refuse, then I guess it's back to endless arguing... uriah923(talk) 17:03, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Hopefully this "endless arguing" will be done at meta, since, as was pointed out in the arbcom request, Wikipedia has no power over the blacklist. TheJabberwock 00:12, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks for bringing attention to the ON problem; hopefully it's been killed once and for all. I thought I'd give you this invitation:

Hello, Taxman. Thanks for your help removing linkspam from Wikipedia! If you're interested, come visit us at WikiProject Spam and help fight linkspammers on Wikipedia.

[edit] Kennedy-Thorndike

Please read the references, the experiment is covered by reference 5. I cover the mathematical reasoning. Could you please check? Ati3414 23:08, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Then cite the actual source. Your mathematical reasoning is not suitable as a reference. In fact it should not be considered at all unless it is seriously trivial, and then it shouldn't be cited, just explained on the talk page if need be. You need to cite third party, Wikipedia:Reliable references as you have been asked a number of times. In this case a peer reviewed, respected journal would be what we're looking for. - Taxman Talk 23:16, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
OK, so I did it. So people will have to fork over minimum 30$ to find out what went on. I think wiki is broken (from many points of view). But so be it. Ati3414 23:41, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Well you can either be part of the problem or part of the solution. Thanks for being reasonable and citing other sources. Lots of people have access to those and can check them. If you have insights into how Wikipedia is broken there are lots of people including me that would like to see if there is a way to fix it. I can direct you to the right places to discuss getting changes made. But ignoring multiple requests to adjust your actions is not the way, and will in fact lend much less weight to your position. The way Wikipedia works has been hammered out by adjustments from many people, making it unlikely that you are correct if everyone is opposing you. Of course they could all be wrong, but that would be able to be born out by looking at the situation logically if you can remove the emotions from the issue and state your case clearly. - Taxman Talk 00:07, 17 March 2006 (UTC)


OK, here are a few:

1. There is no way of adding extensive calculations to clarify a point. Having a part of the server assigned as a repository would solve this.

2. Editing by committee doesn't work. You need senior editors, knowledgeable in the subject matter.

3. You need editors assigned per subject. The current situation allows any administrator to make decisions on any subject, whether they know it or not.

You mention that there is a body that discusses these improvements, I would be very interested in getting connected.

As an aside, can you explain why you reverted my additions again? Ati3414 00:25, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

1) The reason we don't do that is our policy against original research. WP is not the place for refereeing specific claims or verifying calculations. That is why the NOR policy and the verifiablility policy together require citing only third party published research, etc. Have another read through those. For truly trivial things the talk pages work fine.
2) This whole site disproves that point. Editing by committe works remarkably well up to a point. We do however need senior, knowledgeable editors even though we have a lot of them already. If they work within the rules the results are typically very good. There are a number of systems in proposal stage like Wikipedia:Stable versions m:article validation and Wikipedia:Scientific peer review that seem to be good solutions to improving the problems you seem to be referring to.
3) See Wikipedia:Administrators. We just have access to some extra technical tools and generally have experience enforcing Wikipedia policy. We are not empowered to make specific topical decisions. The most we do is listen to and enforce consensus. That's not always perfect, but it is better than the alternative of no enforcement.
4) There's not a body really besides the Foundation board of directors, these things are discussed by all Wikipedians. The way it works is proposals are made and if they gain a lot of support they can be implimented. That can be tedious, but overall it's not doing too bad. Besides policy proposals, these things are discussed on the talk pages of the policies such as those I pointed you to. Overall the issue so far is much more that you haven't looked into how things really work here. You'll have to do much more of that before you can know how it is broken.
5) I didn't revert you, I moved it to a more appropriate place as I explained in the edit summary and on the talk page. Please use the talk page before simply replacing your edit back to the same problem you had added before. It's that type of thing that is making things difficult for you. If you add the page to your watchlist, and checked it, you would have seen my edit to the talk page. You should have then discussed there before reverting back to your position. I reasoned why my edits were justified, you need to do the same. Please use that talk page for more. - Taxman Talk 01:33, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Thank you Ati3414 02:33, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Peer Review/History of Puerto Rico

Thank you for your comments regarding history of Puerto Rico. I have added a bit of information to the lead paragraphs per your suggestions. Once again thank you very much. Joelito 00:08, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Can I interest you...?

Hi, Taxman. If you're at leisure, I wonder if you might be interested in taking a look at my S. A. Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition of 1897, that I just listed on FAC, especially the referencing. I don't know if you remember we had a set-to about references earlier—probably not. But this is how I like them. Having a notes and a references section may seem like a heavy or pedantic system (and on Saffron it sure is—they have achieved a frightening combination of the worst features of all possible systems), but IMO it's the best way of leaving the text as clean and light as possible, with not too many superscribed note numbers, and with consecutive note numbers. I live with all sorts of footnote systems in my job and have never seen the weird jumping-about note numbers anywhere but at Wikipedia—I find them very odd and distracting. Another advantage of the way I do it in that article seems to me to be that the list of references gets to be alphabetical. Grubbing about for one particular reference in a non-alphabetical combined "Notes and references" list becomes inconvenient in proportion as the list becomes long, and they do seem to be getting longer and longer lately. Anyway, don't put yourself out or anything, but I'd be very glad to know what you think. (I realize you can't actually check most of the references; I'm trying to persuade somebody/some people from the Swedish Wikipedian's Noticeboard to do that.) Bishonen | ノート 01:19, 19 March 2006 (UTC).

Are you just asking if I like the way you did the referencing? In fact I do, as the alphabetical references section is nice. But I'm not overly stressed about the format of the citations as long as it is done thoroughly. Clearly that was done there and the article is great of course. Maybe see if your ideas can't get merged into the cite.php system. As far as checking them, you're right, I don't know Swedish—I've got a few languages on my learning list ahead of it. After Hindi I figure I'll polish my Spanish then dabble in Mandarin, but maybe Arabic first :). But do you mean you want some Swedish speakers to check each citation to each source or what? - Taxman Talk 04:53, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Heh, thanks. :-) I was thinking of a Swedish speaker doing a spot check, more like. Say getting Lindström's book out of the library and looking up my citations. That would be the ambitious way, and is a lot to ask of people, but anybody who had the language could check out the online Swedish Balloon Association page with Andrée's practice flights, and the Grenna Museum Andrée bio, in a few minutes. User:Tupsharru is on it — probably the ambitious version, if I know him — but I don't know when he'll have the time. Truthfully, those few English-language sources I've scared up are pretty worthless. Bishonen | ノート 06:18, 19 March 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Hindi

Hi, recently I have been making a lot of articles in Hindi. In fact, nowadays I am almost the only one on Hindi wiki who is writing anything. The Indo-European languages articles is actually the only spoken article in Hindi. Most of the articles in Hindi are a few lines stubs--hence unsuitable for spoken article. Still I could suggest you some relatively longer articles (all made by me) from which you can suggest :

  1. Harry Potter hi:हैरी पॉटर
  2. Jesus Christ hi:ईसा मसीह
  3. Latin hi:लातिनी
  4. French language hi:फ़्रांसिसी भाषा
  5. Jerusalem hi:येरुशलम
  6. Kashmir hi:कश्मीर
  7. Hinduism hi:हिन्दू धर्म

Please give me your suggestions soon. Cygnus_hansa 21:28, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Kashmir looks like a great one. Not too much specialized vocab, good basic geography topic, etc. It is unfortunate that Hindi hasn't attracted more contributors, I've been thinking of asking at the Indian Wikipedian's noticeboard for ideas on what can be done to encourage more participation there from new Wikipedians and current ones. I'm not yet able to contribute much there and it may be a while before I can. - Taxman Talk 21:42, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Agreed on Kashmir. But it might tale me sometime. Cygnus_hansa 22:17, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My RfA

The three admin tools I use the most are the rollback button, the ability to delete articles, and the ability to see deleted pages. Blocking is not one of the tools I've used very much, and I've agreed not to block anyone for at least a year after I get admin privileges. Could you reconsider your opposition to my RfA? --Carnildo 04:22, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, as I respect your contributions, and obviously many other people do too given that they are willing support you despite your actions, but misusing admin tools is something we can't be lenient about. I appreciate your commitment, but you should have thought about that before you blocked two admins that hadn't done anything. And it's not about just blocking—it's about the other tools too. - Taxman Talk 12:57, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindi wiki spoken article

I have made the spoken version of Kashmir article on Hindi wikipedia, after improving it. You may listen it at hi:कश्मीर.Cygnus_hansa 18:26, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

That's awesome thanks. I'll listen to it tonight. I've never understood why the spoken template didn't link to the specific oldid of the article that the spoken version was based on. It was the latest one here I take it? - Taxman Talk 19:11, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I had copied the template from English wiki, and now I have corrected it.Cygnus_hansa 07:36, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindi Grammar

Could you please invoke or request some bot which can convert the html characters of the devanagari script into the proper devanagari script at the hindi grammar page and the Hindi page?Cygnus_hansa 20:07, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't have anything to do with the bots, but User:Curps is the one that runs a bot that does that. I've asked him to do it and hopefully he'll be able to get to it soon. - Taxman Talk 21:16, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RfC

I agree. My only hesitation is that, for users who mean well, an RfC can be hurtful, and for those who don't mean well (i.e. trolls), it gives them another platform. I've therefore left a note on User talk:-Lumière to see whether we can resolve things between us. If nothing constructive comes of the approach, I'll either look for an uninvolved admin to start issuing blocks or go ahead with the RfC. Cheers, SlimVirgin (talk) 02:25, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Meta adminship request

Procedures at meta requests for adminship call for mentioning here that I am applying for adminship with my meta account, m:User:Taxman. So there you go. - Taxman Talk 01:39, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hi

Hi Taxman, and thank you for taking time to vote on my RfA. I understand that my last 6000+ edits were not sufficient to convince you that edits like some of my early ones would never be repeated again, but I sincerely hope that at some point I would be able to convince you of my transformation. Looking forward to working with you in future. Regards, deeptrivia (talk) 03:26, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

It'll take some more time, at least as much as the original, and probably a specific apology. Basically some way to know it wont be repeated. I know it's frustrating, but edits alone likely won't do it. - Taxman Talk 13:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Peer review Kolkata

Hi! A request has been made for peer review of Kolkata. Could you please help improving the article? Thanks.--Dwaipayanc 11:00, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll have a look in a bit. - Taxman Talk 13:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Keratoconus

Hello again. I thought I would drop by to let you know that a good number of improvements have been now actioned on the Keratoconus article. Temporary account's comments have been addressed to his satisfaction, and there remain now just a few minor issues on Talk:Keratoconus about other items for inclusion. As regards your comments on the FAC page, I have endeavoured to improve the flow of the text, and combine or expand the shorter paragraphs. The worst remaining offender in this regard is the Contact lenses section, which still has a number of short paragraphs. My difficulty here has been expanding them meaningfully while not upsetting the balance of coverage, or joining sections that are not directly related. Your mileage may vary, of course, but I'm of the view that the readability of this section is not adversely affected. If you feel differently, or you have further comments on how to improve the article, they would be very welcome. Regards, --BillC 11:38, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Looks pretty good, I'll adjust my comments there to support. - Taxman Talk 13:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindi Grammar

Please see the Hindi grammar article now. I have made the pronunciation transliterations and a bit more additions. Please tell me what else would you like on this page. As for the links that you sent me earlier, I am unable to download any corpus free of charge.Cygnus_hansa 13:24, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

It looks good. My only worry is that to be complete, it is quite long and leans towards some things more suited to a textbook than an encyclopedia. But that's not a huge problem. I'll leave more specific things on the talk page if I see them. Bummer on the corpus, I thought you might be able to get summary statistics through your university, but I'll see if I can't figure out something here. - Taxman Talk 13:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My RfA

My RfA recently closed and it was a success, passing at 84-02-00. I would like to thank you for taking the time to weigh in and on your subsequent support. And I know it's quite cliche, but if you ever need any assistance and/or want another opinion on something, grab a Pepsi and don't hesitate to drop me a line on my talk page. Thanks again. Pepsidrinka 05:13, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. - Taxman Talk 13:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] It's here!!!

Dear Taxman:

And it's here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Announcing my CS 492 term-end paper: On Wikipedia — the Technology, the People, the Unfinished Work. Image:Wikipedia.pdf

Thank you for all the kind help you have lent me during the paper-writing process!!!

Long live Wikipedia!!!

Shuo Xiang 22:21, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindi Swadesh list

Hi Taxman,

You think this list is not "suitable for Wikipedia". I respectfully don't agree with you. Here are some reasons, among others, why I created this page :

  • I first created it in the French Wiki, where there was nothing, neither in Wikipedia nor in Wiktionary
  • The Wiktionary list does not include romanization of the words, which could be useful to non-Hindi speakers (could be fixed by adding a new column including this information, however less readable than a dedicated page)
  • Wiktionary gives a raw list, and does not include any reference to books and websites.
  • More people use Wikipedia than Wiktionary; as an evidence, you fixed Wiktionary list after having fixed Wikipedia's one.

So, the discussion is open ... Croquant 09:43, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh and I missed that your response was on the talk page there too. I'll copy mine there and I'd prefer further discussion be there. - Taxman Talk 15:52, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Wiktionary can and probably should include transliterations. Some of the Swadesh lists there do, it's just not well coordinated yet. Wiktionary can and should include references. I'm going to add my references there when I'm done. External links are fine as far as I know also. And yes, Wikipedia gets more traffic than any of our other projects, but that doesn't mean we should include everything that is supposed to be only in those projects. What Wikipedia is not specifically defines things that should not be here including word definitions. That especially applies to vocabulary translation lists. So again, I'm not saying it wasn't good work, this just isn't the place for it. And at first I didn't see the list creatd here, I just saw the link you added in Hindi to it, which I would have seen had you added a link to Wiktionary instead. I've gone through and checked every word against at least one other dictionary, so as I get time I'll put them all in the Wiktionary pages. Once it is fully transwikied there the article here should be deleted. Sorry, just focus on what each project is for. Wiktionary is even better, because there a full definition of the Hindi word can be included in every language's Wiktionary. So the English can have an English definition, the French can have a French definition, etc. - Taxman Talk 13:53, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FYI: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tax Honesty Movement

Please opine! Cheers! BD2412 T 14:23, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Buy Term and invest the difference

Taxman thank you for all your updates. I appreciate you NPOV approach and look to your comments for moderation. I've made some significant updates to Buy term and Invest the difference and hope you have the opportunity to review it.

Ken

[edit] Enquiry on FA policy

Hi,

I wanted your suggestion regarding Featured Article Candidate policy since you seem to be quite active in these. I am currently working on Indian Institutes of Technology and am working hard to get an Featured Article status for it. Unfortunately, even before I could start a Peer Review, an anonymous IP nominated it as FAC. Needless to say in the shabby form it was then, the nomination failed miserably. Now I have organized a Peer Review of the article and got some suggestions for improvements that I implemented. I wanted to know how soon can I again put a request as FAC without getting oppositions like "This is too soon".

I would also appreciate if you can give your comments on it at the Peer Review Page of the article.

Thanks,

-Ambuj Saxena (talk) 15:55, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

As a procedural issue, simply explaining that an anon nominated it when it wasn't ready would cover the issue of re-nominating too soon. But the article has a bit more to go before it is ready, so nominating is not likely to be successful yet. I will try to detail the issues I see on the peer review page. - Taxman Talk 16:43, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply and the wonderful edits at the page. The edits were overall good, but the edit about Illumination festival changes the meaning of the sentence and makes it misleading. Although Diwali is a festival of lights (and Illumination festival is celebrated on that day), the Illumination festival is unique to IIT Kharagpur (celebrated nowhere else). I have rephrased it to make the meaning clear. Waiting for your comments in Peer Review. Hopefully with your help, it will achieve FA status soon. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 17:36, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Do you.....?

I've just come over here for a private winge and moan. Do you ever get seriously agitated by being told what is wrong by a bunch who never seem to write a proper article? Good, I feel better for saying that - I'll get back to my writing. Giano | talk 16:42, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Venting is good—in moderation at least.:) - Taxman Talk 23:23, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Verify the phonography cylinder 'plug in' models.

Moved to Talk:Phonograph cylinder because I don't have any involvement with those topics. - Taxman Talk 12:17, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Humphrey Bogart references

Hello, "Taxman" --

This is a message from Andrew Szanton, a freelance writer and editor. I think it's fair to say that I provided the first major draft of the Humphrey Bogart article several years ago, although obviously it's been much edited and supplemented since.

I believe you posted a message saying that featured articles should make their sources clear.

If you want to know what sources I used, several of them were Lauren Bacall's memoir, "By Myself," Stephen Bogart's book about his father, "Bogart: In Search of My Father" and Katharine Hepburn's book "The Making of the African Queen." I also found useful an old profile of Bogart published in Time Magazine, which had some direct quotes from Bogart; I could probably find the date of that piece if you wanted it.

If you get this message and have any reply, could you e-mail me at aszantonATrcn.com ?


Thanks, Andrew Szanton aszantonATrcn.com

That's excellent, thanks for the reply. Yes, ideally I'd like all the information you can gather about those sources, and better yet, an appraisal of how the current status of the article is in terms of those sources. Basically, is the current articlce accurate, and would those sources serve as good references for it? I've munged your email so you don't get a lot of spam, Wikipedia pages get trawled by spambots all the time, but I will try to email you to. - Taxman Talk 17:46, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/Old Swiss Confederacy

Could you address my main point - that the article is not comprehensive and baldy structured? Lack of inline citation is just a minor issue.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:59, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I had not responded before (though I did now) because I simply feel the article is good enough. If it was the worst FA out there, I'd be more inclined to drop it, but it is far from it. - Taxman Talk 17:46, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Version 1.0 "Release Version Qualifying"

Hi, I'm interested in your feedback on Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Release Version Qualifying. It's essentially an idea to use a process similar to WP:FAC to identify and handle articles and lists that would go in a release version. Maurreen 19:38, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] SEO

I don't know if you know about User:GraemeL/Watchlist; I think you might find it useful. A question came up about whether links with "http://" removed - e.g., "spamsite.com" - would help a SEO campaign. If so, what about "spamsite DOT com"? Thanks, TheJabberwock 04:08, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Please respond here. TheJabberwock 04:12, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Do you know the answer? TheJabberwʘck 00:46, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP 1.0

I thought since you are interested in this project you might be interested to see a CD version of en now exists see Wikipedia:Wikipedia-CD/Download & 2006 WP CD Selection. This is being discussed on the 1.0 project pages but progress breeds enthusiasm so I thought I would let you know. --BozMo talk 09:10, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Free Images

Hi,

I recently read that if any image is free, it should be preferably be uploaded to wiki-commons so that other wiki projects can also use it. Since I didn't knew this earlier, I added a lot of free images about Indian Institutes of Technology to English Wikipedia itself. Now I feel that it would have been better if they were uploaded in commons. What is the correct procedure that I should follow so that the images get shifted to commons (obviously without getting duplicated). Thanks, -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 09:20, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, you just need to upload them to commons and then delete the ones here. Let me know and I can delete them for you if you need me to. - Taxman Talk 11:59, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Thanks for the reply. Please delete the following Images from English Wikipedia (all of them are uploaded by me).

  1. Image:BSBE IITK.JPG
  2. Image:IIT Bombay Main Building.jpg
  3. Image:IIT KGP Main Building.JPG
  4. Image:IIT Location.PNG
  5. Image:IIT Organization Structure.PNG
  6. Image:IITM Library.JPG
  7. Image:IITM swimming pool.jpg
  8. Image:Illumination festival.JPG
  9. Image:Inter IIT.jpg
  10. Image:Southern Lab IIT Kanpur.JPG
  11. Image:VGSOM_IITKGP.jpg

The files have been copied at Wikimedia Commons so these may now be deleted. I will also appreciate if you can delete Image:IIT Location.JPG. This is in IFD (nominated by me) as it was obsoleted by Image:IIT Location.PNG. Although its still some time before the IFD gets a week old, since its made by me only, I think it can be done in good faith. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 14:08, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

They're all deleted. Hope you didn't miss copying any! And that didn't need IFD, it met the speedy criteria. - Taxman Talk 15:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks again. I didn't miss any. This was pretty clear as the IIT article still appears with all the images (even after forcing the browser to refresh cache). From now on I will take care that I upload things at proper place the first time itself. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 16:25, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RfC

FYI, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/-Lumière SlimVirgin (talk) 23:09, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help for vandalism

Hi, User:207.63.41.121 (contribs) is continuing to vandalize pages even after repeated warnings. Can you help. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 14:16, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

That's common with dynamic IP addresses, it's probably not the same person each time, and they've stopped after your last warning, so it's not ready for a block yet. In general if you want the quickest response to vandalism list them at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism as I may not always be active. But the guidelines call for not listing until a user or IP has vandalized after a recent warning unless you can demonstrate it is a static IP. - Taxman Talk 15:00, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some advice needed for dealing with another user

Knowing that you are an admin, I was wondering if you (or any other admin) can help me out on this.

Recently, I have gotten into an argument with Wxyzdan over various content and formatting issues regarding the WXYZ-TV article. Though I believe I have tried to be as accomodating as possible, the user seems to be, in my view, confrontational and at times have accused me of being closed-minded and "possessive". I don't know whether I should respond to his comments for it seems that one false move on my part could drive him away from Wikipedia. At the moment, I am not requesting for mediation or arbitration; instead, I am trying to see if there is a means of diffusing the situation before it gets out of control. The user's comments are on my talk page under DMA (which he removed from his own talk page under an IP address). Also, if you have anything to say on this matter, can you post on my talk page so that I could easily be made aware of it? Thanks. PentawingTalk 00:34, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I'll probably not worry about that article for now. PentawingTalk 05:55, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Siege of the Alcázar

You left an interesting comment at Siege of the Alcázar... I think some images would add a lot to that article! To help people get "in touch" with locally available required photos, I've proposed creating categories like Category:Requested photographs in Castile-La Mancha rather than the generic and not especially helpful Category:Requested photographs used at the moment. However, the talk page I posted on has been pretty slow... if you would like to make a suggestion at Wikipedia talk:Requested pictures#Subcategorizing Category:Wikipedia requested photographs that would be appreciated :-) TheGrappler 16:31, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Budget/hardware updates

Hi Taxman,

Would you be interested in helping me update foundation budget/hardware status, with input from mav? A full report would go on meta and the foundation site; with a BRION section in the signpost after it comes out. (pls reply on my talk page also)

Cheers, +sj + 20:22, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Jeff Moe is my hero. I just updated that page with the fundraiser results... talked to mav recently. still need to get last Q4/Q1 budget/hardware info. Be well, +sj +

[edit] Muhammad Ali Jinnah PR

Hi Taxman - I request your help. Please review this article, because I need some serious critical evalution which I have not received from anyone. I'm trying to make it an FA. I hope you have some time for this. Thanks, Rama's Arrow 19:58, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Transwiki to Wiktionary

Hi Taxman,

You have included this template : Template:Move to Wiktionary in some of the Swadesh list pages.

Could you give me information about how to make these transfers ? Is it automatic, or do I Have to create the pages in Wiktionary by myself ? Thanks for your answer. Croquant 08:01, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

It has to be done manually, but first you need to check there to see if the language is already in a list there. Look at wikt:Appendix:Swadesh list and look at the individual lists for the language families. Since the idea is to compare languages, the idea is to fit it into one of the existing tables, not have separate lists for each language. Does that make sense? - Taxman Talk 12:18, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I think so. As I don't want to me prendre la tête, as we say in French, with all this stuff, I'll shift to more interesting topics. Bye. Croquant 21:34, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] thanks!

Hi Taxman - I'm extremely grateful for your excellent feedback. Thank you very much for coming to my aid. I hope you don't mind me soliciting your aid whenever an FA drive is on. I've noticed that you have an eagle eye in the analysis of writing - you amaze me consistently! Thanks again, Rama's Arrow 15:44, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. As long as I know someone is willing and able to implement suggestions, I'll give as many as I can. Anytime you've completed the suggestions and want some more, I'm happy to dig in further too if need be. - Taxman Talk 16:01, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Hi - Jinnah is FAC. I decided to move on FAC becoz I believe that all remaining objective criticism will only be obtained there. I ask for your support and welcome all criticism. Rama's Arrow 15:06, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding Jim Henson

Hi, I'm fairly new to Wikipedia but I did add a small bit on Jim Henson's wikipedia page under '1970s' about his project 'Tales From Muppetland'. The only sources I really used were http://imdb.com/title/tt0068613/, my mother (she's the one who brought it to my attention to begin with, it was something I had long forgotten) and http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Tales_from_Muppetland and http://www.pulpanddagger.com/movies/t.html -- I tried to keep it the content I added short and simple. Also, I created a stub on 'tales from muppetlant' which resembles the stub from the muppet wiki, but I haven't figured out how to make it say 'This article is only a stub'... my apologies! I'm trying, anyway. :) Hope this is all allright with you.

[edit] Another request

Hi Taxman - I have another, more personally important request for you. Whenever you have time, please examine Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel - I'm anxious to make it an FA, and I need your critical advice becoz there are some underlying issues I've not spotted yet. Thanks for your help in Jinnah's FA drive. Rama's Arrow 16:13, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I've finally gotten to it. I left my comments in the text and on the article's peer review page. It's another very good article, just needs the final polishing to be a successful FAC. - Taxman Talk 15:26, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 1WW Refactor

Please see Refactor and New discussion.

You were gracious enough to comment on 1WW; as you may know there are now seven competing proposals. On April 6 I suggested that I be permitted to refactor the proposal page into a single, unified proposal. It's my belief that most of us are tending toward the same or a similar restriction on wheel warring. I think it's unwieldy, though, as it stands. A fair number of editors have commented on these distinct versions but (precisely because they are so similar) no single one has gained undisputed consensus. I suggest that a single, improved version may fare better on its way to policy.

Just as I proposed the refactor, an editor brought to our attention yet another competing proposal, which I merged into the others, using the same format. Still another proposal has since been added, bringing the total to 7. The two new proposals are encountering an indifferent reception but they, too, have some merit.

At the time I suggested refactor, I also put myself forward as the editor to write the initial draft, based on the plurality of support for "my" version. Since the two new proposals have been added, this plurality has held.

I don't for a moment feel that this gives me any special right to dictate terms; rather I hope to draft a proposal uniting the best features of existing proposals. Unlike any of the seven currently competing versions, this refactor will be open to editing immediately by any editor. I will ask editors to refrain from supporting or opposing the new draft for the time being; instead, to edit the proposal to reflect their specific concerns. I believe the true consensus policy will then emerge, in true wiki fashion. After all, we're not so far apart.

I come to your talk page today to ask for your comment on this refactor. Clearly this will be a major change to the proposal page and I don't feel comfortable being quite that bold without some expression of interest in the idea. Once the new draft is in place, I hope also for your participation to polish it into a true expression of our values. Let's move forward with this complement to WP:3RR. John Reid 04:07, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] your FA advice

Hi Taxman. I think your advice should be expanded and bullet-pointed a little. Do you agree? Tony 15:04, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Sure, just let me know what you have in mind on the talk page and we can have a go at it. Once it's polished up, I was thinking it could be moved out of userspace per the discussions on the WP:WIAFA talk page. - Taxman Talk 16:01, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming of districts of India

Can you have a look at Talk:List_of_Indian_districts#X_District. I would prefer no to make it too personal there and instead prefer NPOV style analysis. Anything that is not an objective fact, should of course be signed. regards Tobias Conradi (Talk) 11:10, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] thanks

Hi Taxman - your points are very helpful. I know that there are many traces of fancruft and pro-independence bias, which I'm working to root out systematically. Thank you very much for answering my request. Rama's Arrow 15:27, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC comment reply

Regarding your last sentence here - ...not to mention one particular article I like... Raul654 21:09, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

For whatever reason I didn't put two and two together connecting the FARC nomination of that article with the current FARC talk page antics. I should probably stop feeding, no? :) - Taxman Talk 21:14, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't think he's trolling because I don't think he has malicious intent. He just needs some clueing in. Raul654 21:17, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Normally I wouldn't jump to that conclusion, but posting those types of aggressive comments completely ignoring that it had already painstakingly been answered for him only days before is not exactly trying to be helpful. - Taxman Talk 21:49, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wigwag

I posted on the second FARC nom for Wigwag (that you removed today) that just two days ago you'd asked for references on the page. I realized in looking at it again that you'd actually asked for references one year and two days ago, without response. While I understand a FARC nom can be delisted without the guidelines being fulfilled, isn't twelve months asking for input on the main concern—a lack of referencing—essentially fulfilling the guideline? You asked rather brusquely "seriously?" of the nominator. Well ya, seriously, this seems as obvious a candidate as any and as dead a talk page as an FA can be.

This is actually my second comment on the topic as I posted similarly on the wigwag talk page. I just thought I'd ask you directly because it seems to be for you "if I can keep this off FARC, good" whereas I think "if a page needs to go to FARC it should, as the FAs as a set are better off for it." Marskell 23:29, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

But you'll also notice there is a reference. Moreso for that person to renominate it they had to ignore (3 times!) the reasoning that it was removed before. They could have just left a talk message instead of nominating it again. I'm with you on the if it needs to go to FARC it should after some reasonable efforts are expended to marshall the resources that can improve the article first. As mentioned on the FARC talk page, there has been a strong consensus for quite a while that comments should go on the article's talk page first. If that's done in good faith to allow improving the article and nothing happens and it still fails the criteria, then it does need to be removed from being featured. - Taxman Talk 00:20, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm curious what you think of the suggestion I've posted on the WP:FARC talk page. Marskell 14:31, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I noticed on my watchlist that you're running for 'crat. Presumably, this will take up a lot of your time. But please Mr. Taxman don't give up on our little conversation :). I think I see some movement toward my suggestion (and of course some arguments against it) on the FARC talk page, and your continued input can only be good. Marskell 23:45, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Don't worry, I think the idea is self evident enough that it will succeed. Discussion will work. - Taxman Talk 00:45, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IIM PR

Hi - We need your help, whenever its convenient for you, on making the Indian Independence Movement an FA - I've started the PR. Its a different project than the others I came to you for - we need your advice on how to improve the present large body of info to FA quality. Rama's Arrow 14:14, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggested RfA

Well, I am quite flattered. I am going away for the weekend -- in fact should have been off Wikipedia hours ago -- and will review the materials when I return. Robert A.West (Talk) 16:03, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, sounds good. - Taxman Talk 16:07, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Good luck with the RFB

...or break a leg. Which ever you prefer.
Signed,
brainybassist

Well thanks, I wasn't going to publicize it, but if you insist... :) - Taxman Talk 22:23, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
My apologies, I hope I don't start an uncivil outbreak of positive votes.... ;). Have a good day. brainybassist

[edit] Detroit, Michigan - On peer review

Seeing that you critique articles that are in the FA process, I was wondering if you can look at the Detroit article and comment on anything that needs improvement. I am hoping to get the article to FA, but I need some ideas first before doing so (P.S. this is one of the city articles I have mentioned before that I wish to get to FA). Thanks. PentawingTalk 03:14, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

heh, nothing like picking the worst (last I checked months ago) and bringing it up. That would be great, and I'll review it tomorrow and offer what I can. - Taxman Talk 03:37, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
The article has gone through some more modification and I was wondering if you could look at it again (though for now I am not focusing on the Detroit Lions bit as you have suggested. Who knows, they may be better next year :-). PentawingTalk 04:26, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I went through the article some more and tried to address the issue of fiscal mismanagement within Detroit. However, the book sources that I am encountering only focus on periods of fiscal crisis in the 1930s-1940s and the 1980s, most of which lay the blame on the city's dependence on a single industry and business flight from the city. Mismanagement is only mentioned with regards to the public school system. If there is any mention of fiscal mismanagement with the government as a whole, the information is only found in Detroit dailies (Detroit News, Free Press, and Metro Times). I am currently not sure how to address this any further, though I am open to any suggestions. In the meantime, is there anything else that the article needs without becoming too long (per suggestion by Nichalp)? PentawingTalk 18:16, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RfB Question

I thought I'd alert you to a new question posted at your RfB. Best wishes, Xoloz 11:12, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I saw it and responded. Let me know there if you want more clarification. - Taxman Talk 13:11, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your comment at Silsor's RfA

I hope this comment was just a joke. It would not be good to have a bureaucrat who wants to speedy promote admin candidates. --TantalumTelluride 19:57, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

It was a friendly assertion of extra support, implying it will be a landslide. I'm pretty sure it's never been done, so I wouldn't be the first to do it, but for the record, for other cases where admins voluntarily relinquished their adminship it has been asked by another bureaucrat (Raul654 if I recall) whether the process needed to be gone through. I think the response was that it should. I can dig that up if you like. - Taxman Talk 20:09, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
That's reassuring. Don't bother digging through archives. There's more important work to be done. --TantalumTelluride 20:12, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
In 2004, there was at least one admin who was promoted days early (I think by Tim Starling), leading to a series of "Support candidate, oppose early promotion" votes for the popular candidate. Also, PMA did not have to go through RfA to be resysopped in February 2006. NoSeptember talk 15:48, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikicite

Just wanted to let you know I responded to your comments on the Wikicite project page- sorry for the belated response, but I've been on wikibreak lately and in any case that page doesn't generate much traffic, so check it only occasionally. In any case, your feedback was appreciated. Thanks!

Jleybov 21:08, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC reform

I have a feeling this is just going to die a slow death unless Raul makes a comment. It is 10-2 in favour (not to be over-"pollish") and now that I watch it closely it makes more and more sense. Virtually every nom would benefit from this. Alabama's instrangience is a little disappointing but he's the only person seriously opposed.

I did ask Raul, but he seemed ambivalent. Given that you've been at it about two years and presumably post to Raul once in a while, perhaps you could ask him and eloquently explain the benefits? Marskell 18:44, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

The issue is there is no short and sweet summary or problems and benefits. It's all spread over the full conversation that is a bit hard to follow, so I can see why Raul didn't get a chance to power through it all. I'll try if I can get to it, but you could also make a clear and concise summary for him. It seems so obvious to me that there is either something that we're missing, or the case hasn't been made clearly enough. - Taxman Talk 19:20, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I did actually present my user page User:Marskell/Featured Article Review to Raul after posting to you and he noted he is warming to it. Largely I think he's just busy as all get out (as gramma liked to say), on or off Wiki. The page is probably a bit different then when you first read it; I'm trying to be as non-didactic, non-"do this", as possible.
The briefest summary of the benefit, (if you want a poster :): "We want a review period prior to a nom, but this is often unobserved, and always debated when it is observed, occasionally with rancor. The reform brings the review into the process and solves this problem. If you want to start a FARC and get feedback immediately, it's done. If you're concerned there isn't enough time given to save an FA, this is also addressed because we now have a review and then a removal period." If somehow you can impart this wisdom to Alabama, that would be wonderful. But I often think if one's immediate reaction is reactionary ("don't change"!) then one remains that way (I've been guilty of that certainly)...
But I don't think of Raul that way even if naturally one less headache is a good thing. Well explained, I think he'd see the benefit. Anyway, "nudge" here or there in favour of the idea when you can. I'll try to make sure it doesn't get buried in an archive somewhere. Marskell 22:34, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bureaucrat

Mazel tov! SlimVirgin (talk) 01:56, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Enlarge
Mazel tov! SlimVirgin (talk) 01:56, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations, you are now a bureaucrat! It's great to see new bureaucrats eager to get stuck in. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me, or raise them on the Bureaucrats' noticeboard. I look forward to seeing you around, Warofdreams talk 01:45, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations on a well-deserved promotion, Taxman. :-) SlimVirgin (talk) 01:56, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much to both of you. I'm caught between saving everyone an orange banner popping up to interrupt their editing and wanting to thank everyone. Maybe I'll do a happy medium. It was very gratifying to see that type of show of support, both from people I have worked with over time and have a lot of respect for and from people I can't recall ever even seeing their name anywhere, much less having interacted with them. Thanks all, and keep up the good work. - Taxman Talk 03:19, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Congrats

Congratulations. Sorry I missed your RFB - I suppose I didn't scroll far enough down the page. Guettarda 01:46, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much, but just go do more of what you do well to help this place out, and no worries. :) - Taxman Talk 03:19, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Congrats Taxman! Let's celebrate with a year of no new taxes. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:26, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
My heartiest condolences. I think willingness to be a bureaucrat shows a high sense of duty and self-sacrifice, perhaps even masochism. Bishonen | talk 08:55, 5 May 2006 (UTC).
At first I thought the condolences were for Nichalp's lame joke :), that's what I really need them for. Being a bureaucrat, despite the name, is not too onerous a task. - Taxman Talk 12:44, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Congrats! You certainly deserve this! --Siva1979Talk to me 16:14, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations. I don't quite know you, but welcome to the ranks :) — Ilyanep (Talk) 16:08, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Well thank you. This project being so large, we haven't quite crossed paths on much, but you have a lot of people's respect, and mine from everything I'm aware of about you. :) - Taxman Talk 16:12, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Congrats! I hope you wont get edit conflicts when closing RfA...you know...with all these new BCrats running around :).Voice-of-AllT|@|ESP 18:53, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

More congrats! I'm honored by your kind thanks and expect you to be an excellent bureaucrat; your fair and reasoned style is perfectly suited to the role. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 23:44, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations, old friend. I was glad to see on my return that you've gotten bureaucrat permissions. Some days we still do things right around here. —Encephalon 15:50, 8 May 2006 (UTC) PS. I hope this doesn't mean less time for you at the FA related pages, though.;-) —Encephalon 15:52, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Remove content?

I hear your instruction to restore the POV. Note that the anon initially deleted the previous content and replaced it with the content now on the talk page. I understand that you feel that it is unreasonable for the anon to do like it says at the top of the talk page and discusss major moves before making them. Do you also feel that the previous content at NSA warrantless surveillance controversy that was replaced should be deleted - that the anon's action in deleting that content should be restored? Metarhyme 13:24, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

That's not what I said. I said the anon's action is not vandalism just because you disagree with their POV. Discussing major moves doesn't hurt, but it's not really required. Work with them to follow our content policies and produce a better article. It may be the case that a happy medium is better, but in either case some research will need to be done to cite some reliable sources. In the end those settle nearly all disputes. - Taxman Talk 15:32, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
The section the anon deleted twice is thoroughly referenced. You did not answer my question. May I request that you respond at Talk:NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy#questions of warrantless surveillance? - Metarhyme 17:07, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
You're right, I missed your question, and I've now responded there. I'm not really qualified to dig into the issue further. It appears the anon's replacement had sources too, so those should be taken into account. - Taxman Talk 17:28, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I'll alert the guys who did the section to this opportunity. Metarhyme 18:44, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Congratulations

Thank you so much for the notice! I'm off to bed but, when I'm back with the Wikimmunity, I'd like to know if I need to do anything with the tools I had already, including godmode-lite and popups, to avoid anything that might resemble a code conflict. Thanks again! RadioKirk talk to me 04:24, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Not that I'm aware of, but I never used godmodelight, you'd have to ask there. As for popups, if you put the right switches in it gives you the admin tools in the popup. Pretty convenient. - Taxman Talk 04:39, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Caught that already, thank you. :) RadioKirk talk to me 04:52, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Blissus leucopterus

Thanks! Unschool

[edit] Still with me?

Should I bug people some more? Perhaps we just go about thrashing out a page and present it as fait accompli?

And congrats BTW. I had meant to vote and before you know it a week's passed. Marskell 17:11, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, and no worries. Yes, I'm still for it. I'd say repost the most concise summary you can for at the bottom of the discussion (maybe in a new level 3 section) and note there is so far basically a consensus to go forward and no new objections. Without major new objections we should move forward, as I believe the concerns are as adressed as they can be without trying it out. One minimum risk way might be to start running FAR with the new proposed system to iron the kinks out, then within a week or so, merge FARC in. I wouldn't mind moving my latest four noms there to the removal section to get it going if you're willing to handle the logistics. I think the removal process there should work exactly like it does now at least at first because that allows the least risk change and the greatest benefit. Other changes can happen in the future. Presenting the least change with the greatest benefit in the simplest way can be the best way to get changes made. - Taxman Talk 17:22, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Ok then, I'm going to putz about Wikipedia:Featured article review/sub. We'll need templates and what not and a few more specifics about how to nominate. Really, it won't take long. Marskell 08:53, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Review before FAC

Hi Taxman. Can you please have a look at Wikipedia:Peer review/Chola dynasty? It'll be entering FAC soon. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 05:28, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Taxman for the initial review. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 08:30, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Taxman for your suggestions. I couldn't make up my mind as to how to phrase it without changing the tone of the lead paragraph. I have move this to FAC. I'm sure that other reviewers will have similar suggestions for us to choose from. Thanks for sparing time to review this amongst your busy schedule. - cheers Parthi (Venu62) 00:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ahmedabad PR

Hi Taxman. Can you have a look at Wikipedia:Peer review/Ahmedabad. Your comments would be very helpful. - Aksi_great (talk) 06:34, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks for voting in my RfA!

Thanks for your vote in my RfA, and for the discussion last night. The nom failed to gain consensus, but I'm glad I accepted it; it's been a good learning experience! - Amgine 16:59, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks for the congrats. (^_^) ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 00:16, 11 May 2006 (UTC)



[edit] Can you please remove Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Gangsta-Easter-Bunny?

It was removed by reason of IAR (good reasoning, I think), but has yet to be closed properly. That's all. (If you want to discount my moral support, go ahead - 0/21/0 was just awful to see, and I added it after it being removed by the RfA page.) -- Jjjsixsix (t)/(c) @ 00:45, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

It was removed, but I have now closed it. You can also post that kind of thing on the Bureaucrat's noticeboard if ever needed in the future. - Taxman Talk 03:16, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hello!

My! I must have missed something - you are a bureaucrat now! My hats off to you :-) How are you doing these days? I have not seen you around for a while. --HappyCamper 03:50, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Time flies, and yes it seems something happened in the interem. :) I think this place has just gotten so big it's not as likely to cross paths with people as much. And I've been trying to cut back my reference desk time as it seems to be pure entertainment and doesn't help articles all that much. But I'm good, and it seems you've been editing well—I checked up on you a bit back to see if you were around and saw you were still plugging away. And I'll award you the bestest barnstar ever if you want to fix up Orbital hybridisation and/or LCAO to a FA :) - Taxman Talk 04:03, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
The fact you asked so nicely about orbital hybridization and LCAO makes it a very enticing :-) Yes, I know, I know...last summer I said I would improve it, albeit I only made one edit or so. I have gradually moved off of the reference desk ever since we got Crypticbot running with the archivals. I do pop back occasionally, and I'm quite happy to see that it is still robust. --HappyCamper 04:11, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
No worries, better to work on what interests you instead of feeling pressure to do one. But that is something I'd enjoy a really good article on, and hopefully we'll eventually have it. Or recruit another qualified soul if you like. - Taxman Talk 04:14, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] thanks

image:wikiThanks.png image:wikiThanks.png image:wikiThanks.png

Hi Taxman - I'm very sorry to have disappointed your expectation in me, but it had become impossible for me to compromise my principles. I don't covet adminship at all, so it wasn't a difficult decision. However, I cannot tell you how greatly joyous I feel at the enthusiastic, wonderful support you expressed for me. I don't know how hard it will be to understand that your supports means extremely a lot to me. I thank you from my heart, and please let me know if I can ever be assistance or help in anything. Rama's Arrow 19:47, 14 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] My RfA

Thank you very much for the promotion. I'll do my best. —Whouk (talk) 15:56, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Name change

Hi Taxman! I'm not as well versed about these name changing things, but I wonder if you could take a look at the request from this user which I blocked earler? There is some dialogue on the page which I hope would be helpful for you. Let me know what you think when you get a minute? Thanks very much! --HappyCamper 22:16, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Hello! Just getting back to you about this - no problem at all. I think User:Jimbo3 is a good user too. Excellent contributions to Automated milking. --HappyCamper 23:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bands

Cheers for the pointer. The one you delinked was the one I'd just delinked, which the creator of the article in question seems to have put back again... —Whouk (talk) 12:28, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edits by banned users

I saw your comment on User talk:Uriah923. I think that really makes sense. I've been working with User:WAS to restore some of these good edits made by banned users. Our discussion started on Jimbo's talk page. WAS did a very good job of avoiding controversy by completely redoing Starfish Galaxy and recreating Battery electric factory flat truck in a different context. I've followed his lead with other articles, but there are literally hundreds of good edits made by banned users and more that get reverted almost every day. It only takes a minute or two to verify or invalidate an edit made by a banned user, but it can take hours to redo the article. In order to avoid any appearance of using the same words, the redo is often not as good as the original version by the person who was banned.

What you said about a good faith editor taking responsibility for these edits with an explanation makes sense. I want to make sure I do it right so that there is no confusion. The first time I did it, I just put rv in the edit summary and was called a sockpuppet by SlimVirgin. After I explained to her what had happened and corresponded with her by email for several days, she unblocked me, but while I was blocked, User:JW1805 reverted all of contributions, including the ones that I had written completely on my own. Since I wasn't a banned editor, I wanted to change my edits back to how they were, but I didn't want to start a revert war with JW1805, so I asked Jimbo in the nicest way I knew how for a clarification. As soon as I did, SlimVirgin banned me again.

I'm not telling you this because I necessarily need to be unblocked. I just want to know the best way to proceed. Should I create a second account? If so, should I avoid editing any of the articles that I did before (the ones that I know the most about)? Are the contributions that I made to Wikipedia before lost? Am I tainted now, so I can no longer help this project? I will do whatever you advise. David (Pole star) 15:11, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Well no offense, but I've been around here long enough to know how to read between the lines of the above and know there's a little more going on than that. I trust Slimvirgin and she probably has some pretty good evidence. It's really not that hard to get along, follow best practices, and be productive here without getting sanctioned. - Taxman Talk 19:08, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
No offense taken. I didn’t mean to infer that SlimVirgin is a bad person in any way. She’s human. She acted on impulse, truly believing that I was this banned editor. When I proved to her that I wasn’t, she unbanned me. I wasn’t angry at her when I brought this up to Jimbo. I just wanted to avoid the same kind of misunderstanding again. That’s why I explained my story to Jimbo and to you. I understand that you are both very busy and don’t have time to look into individual banning cases, and I’m not asking for that, or for you to think less of SlimVirgin. I would just like someone with authority to explain exactly how we restore good edits from people who are suspected of being sockpuppets without making it appear that the restoring person is a sockpuppet.
My idea is that a person should have to do something wrong or be confirmed as a sockpuppet, not just suspected, in order to be blocked forever. It may look suspicious to make the same edit as a suspected sockpuppet, but some of these suspects have made dozens or hundreds of good contributions. It is arguable as to whether something like this should have been reverted in the first place, but if another party can independently verify that these words were actually misspelled, they should be able to make the same changes without getting blocked. As it sits right now, very few people dare to approach these articles unless they go out of their way to avoid saying anything that the suspected sockpuppet said. That’s not healthy for the website. I think you agree that the best words should be in the article, regardless of who originally wrote them. Yet, how do we get them there when Jayjg says, “Edits by banned users are always reverted; we don't waste our time evaluating their worth?” Not very many normal editors would have the guts to do what uriah did. That’s why this revert and hundreds of other reverts of good edits have been avoided like the plague. Would you like to see what happens when I try fix the misspellings in that article? David (Pole star) 00:27, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
A new user probably can't redo the edits because of the chaotic system we are in. Thems the breaks of accepting open editing. An experienced user could redo them and take credit for them, and for them it's not a risk. If they don't get redone it's not a huge loss, because if they are good edits they (or the same spirit) will eventually be done anyway. It's not rewording edits that are valuable, it's researched contributions from very good sources. - Taxman Talk 11:31, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Username

Hello Taxman,
I picked you from Special:Listusers/bureaucrat and so I ask you to change my Username to User:Tolanor. I hope you can help me, greets, --Tolanor 15:23, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Done, but for future reference to anyone reading this, that should go on Wikipedia:Changing Username. Would you like me to block your old username to prevent an impersonator? You'll have to recreate it then let me know. - Taxman Talk 21:56, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Policy editing requirements

I've edited the NPOV page three or four times in the last two weeks (usefully I think). I'm 15+ months, non-admin. Should I really be forced to run for adminship (which I may or may not want to do) to be able to contribute on the policy pages? Marskell 19:49, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

This is probably better on that talk page, but your edits were probably good ones. Protecting the page would not prevent the edits, they'd just get made by someone else until/unless you became an admin. Sure that's a bit more work, but it's probably a net savings not having to revert vandalism and other non improvements. And you'd be a shoe in for adminship for all I know, so there's not really a problem there. But finally I don't expect that to gain consensus, but I added my agreement there too because I don't think it would be a bad idea. - Taxman Talk 21:45, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
It's "net savings" that makes me uneasy. "Anyone can edit" is a net loss for committed contributors yet essential to the encylcopedia's popularity. It would be a "net savings" in lost vandal reversion time to simply lock every article to contributors of a certain level. This would also, of course, destroy the Wiki. The occasional newbie shows up and posts something stupid on WP:V or OR. Is this actually a huge problem? It's a huge problem on GWB and thus I supported semi-protection, but it's not a problem on the policy pages in my watching a few. The only things close to edit wars I've seen on policy pages have been caused by admins themselves, which this doesn't solve. Marskell 22:35, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
No, that wouldn't destroy the wiki, it would just be different. The vast majority of productive edits are from logged in users. If people had to prove their abilities before getting the ability to edit articles (or better, a subset of them or a stable version for ex) then we would eliminate vandalism (on that subset or stable version) and actually have an attraction for more skilled people. A few thousand people do a huge proportion of edits. All we need to do is increase that pool. I believe the vandalism and troll problem keeps out the type of skilled people we really want editing the project. This is not a social experiment, and open editing shouldn't be the primary goal. High quality free content should be. - Taxman Talk 11:25, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Well we obviously have fundamentally different opinions of what Wikipedia is, so no need debating further here. I would only add: you cannot expand the committed pool further if you close the door from the beginning.
The FARC subpage is I think ready to go BTW. Marskell 13:05, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't propose shutting out open editing completely, really I think it would be better to have an approved editor only stable version at least as a test. I think everyone would be surprised at how much nicer it would be to edit there. And that way you get both. The open wiki to attract people that like that part of it and the stable wiki that has no vandalism and trolls. That way you certainly can expand the pool. You're not shutting the door, it's just a different attractant: desire to share expertise instead of "can anyone really edit this?". Wikipedia is so well known now that we would have plenty of talented people wanting to edit if they didn't have to deal with the vandalism and trolls. People in favor of open editing consistently discount the number of talented people turned away by the crap we all have to deal with here. And yes, FAR looks good. Nice work on that. - Taxman Talk 13:56, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RFA

Thanks for closing it, my friend shouldn't have nominated me anyway. --Sunfazer | Talk 22:48, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chew Valley peer review

Thanks for your peer review comments on Chew Valley. I've made some changes based on your coments & would be grateful if you'd take another look. Rod 08:53, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help and advice with this - you guidance has made it a lot better. As you suggested I've now put it up for FA (grateful for your comments there), but I'm unsure and unable to find the instructions for archiving the peer review. Rod 15:19, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User talk vandalism

[4] Gahzzz12345's modifications to your talk page. Have a nice day. ~Kylu (u|t) 21:53, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for reverting. :) - Taxman Talk 22:21, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gary Howell

Should this have been deleted?

A a notable West Virginian.
Nationally Known Automotive Person in TV and Print
International Credit Card Fraud Expert

That is just the highlights--71Demon 15:40, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, according to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gary Howell it looks like it should have been. - Taxman Talk 16:18, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Static version

Hi Taxman - on the discussions on Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates you sounded very much in favour of some kind of static version of Wikipedia. I just put together a very rough draft of an idea - your input would be much appreciated.

As for my two ideas about referencing - I did suggest at DYK that they only list articles with references, but they weren't too keen. In the end, I added a suggestion that articles with references should be preferred to the guidelines, and thought perhaps I'd revisit the issue later. Having seen how Bunchofgrapes's proposal for deleting unreferenced articles failed, I'll have a think about how to tackle that one. I really think that would have a huge knock-on effect and would love to see it implimented. I think you have a certain reputation as a referencing advocate, so if you were to propose it, the idea might carry more weight. Worldtraveller 18:33, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I made a comment and we can follow up on that there. As for DYK, they um need to be shown the light. Highlighting non referenced facts is like highlighting violations of WP:V on the main page. Wait, it's not like that, it is that. I think the way to approach these referencing issues is make sure the people that know how important they are are all on hand to explain and answer questions. Create a discussion on WP:V and point to it from the fact and reference check project and WP:NOR, and anywhere else that could be influential. And link from DYK for that specific issue, and the deltion policy for that one, but likely only after the base proposal has been discussed on WP:V. That way we can organize the work and get these very important changes made. If you set it up, I know many people (including Raul654 for the DYK at least) will be on board. Just focus on conciseness. - Taxman Talk 19:04, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request again

Hi Taxman,

Can you please have a look again at Indian Institutes of Technology article and tell if its ready for FAC. Thanks, -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 05:30, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

The structure seems to be in place now. Still needs some improvements in phrasing before FAC. I'll see if I can't get a chance to go to work on it, then let you fix up anything where I change the meaning unintentionally. Might take me a couple days to get to it. - Taxman Talk 14:16, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks for your congrats. :) -→Buchanan-Hermit™/!? 23:06, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request regarding problem user

Hi Taxman - I request you (in your capacity as an admin) for help in resolving some issues user:Anwar saadat has been causing. You may be aware that on WP:RFA, this user has caused issues by objecting to nominations for very generalized, unfounded reasons that have provoked serious responses from other people. On my RfA, he said that my username was "Islamophobic" and that my reversion of POV edits on Jinnah was vandalism. He has also been objecting in a generalized, unfounded manner on WP:FAC. In an FAC especially, people are supposed to object by reasons that can be fixed. Anwar does not. It appears that his objective in doing this is to wreck the nominations. Additionally, it seems that he operates with an anti-India, anti-Hindu bias (most of this behavior has been on Indian FACs and RfAs) - others may disagree, but it just seems that way. Additionally, other folks have found him to be trolling and stalking. When users have attempted to talk to him, try to work out the problems or try to understand his thinking, he has not responded to him, and instead he refactors his talkpage and brands the comments in a depreciating, mocking way. Already two administrators - user:Gurubrahma and user:Sundar have attempted to talk to him.

Please see user talk:Gurubrahma#Need your advice, where the full jist of the issues and diffs are available. I request you to please try to explain to him that his behavior is disruptive and rude. I've tried to explain to him that we want to work positively with him, but he has only mocked such comments. Rama's Arrow 00:42, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Also, I'd like your opinion on pursuing an WP:RFC on this - is it the appropriate next step? Rama's Arrow 00:47, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
RFC is not a bad idea. It can be anything you want it to, but it's most useful way is as a demonstration of consensus that a user's actions are disruptive. With a strong consensus the user can be blocked under the disruption clause for the problem behaviors. But it can also just focus on what the problem behaviors are to point them out in a clear fashion for everyone and hopefully get them to stop. So it could be very successfull if treated that way. I've had success with at least two different difficult users using RFC. In the meantime accumulating diffs and evidence on a subpage is a very good idea. I've not seen much of the editors behavior, but labeling good faith comments on his talk page as trolling is not only a personal attack, but evidence of a user that isn't working well with the community. - Taxman Talk 11:27, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Version 0.5

Hello, Taxman. As you expressed interest in a stable version at FAC's talk, would you be interested in helping out reviewing articles for Version 0.5? We started the nomination process yesterday, so any comments and help would be much appreciated. Thanks! Titoxd(?!? - help us) 01:26, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A little request....

If you get a chance, I wonder if you could take a look at Psittacosaurus and offer your advice regarding its possibility as a FA? Thanks a million! --HappyCamper 01:36, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Definitely. If there's anything wrong with it it's in the factual content which I'm not qualified to judge. But great research and structure. I'm sure youll be fine handling anything that comes up in FAC, so send it up as soon as you're ready. - Taxman Talk 17:14, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IIT for FAC

Hi Taxman,

The IIT article is up for FAC. It seems to be doing good, but some editors have raised concerns over its language structure and suggestion has come that it be copyedited by a non-Indian editor. Will you please care to do it. I will be grateful. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 08:50, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles and Fundamental Duties of India

Hi Taxman - I request you to please examine this article. Its a good, substantial article that is being prepared for FAC, but I'm afraid that the prose, writing in is horrendous shape. Apart from spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and repititions, the writing is not smooth, "rich, even brilliant prose" and the subject matter is not comprehensive, even though the author has done substantial research. I don't know if I should advise a complete re-write or what exactly to do on improvement - your assistance is sorely needed. Rama's Arrow 18:31, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry it took me a while to respond. That sounds like more of the type of thing you're much better at than me to work on. If you put it up for peer review send me a link, or if you want me to put PR type comments on the talk page, I can do that too if you still want. - Taxman Talk 17:24, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My RFA Poll

I see you ended my RFA poll due to too much negative feedback, I hope to try again later with better results. Axiomm 04:54, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Water fluoridation

Hi, Taxman. I saw that you have commented in the past at [[Talk:Water fluoridation controversy]]. Well, if you take a look at Talk:Water fluoridation, you'll see that there is a content dispute going on. I'd love to hear your comments if you have any. Sorry to solicit your comments on an article with which you have had no prior contact, but I'm somewhat desperate for third party comments at this point. Thanks! - Jersyko·talk 01:23, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for commenting. I usually don't mind being patient and waiting for consensus to develop via Rfc and such, but they started talking about arbitration already . . . anyway, I sincerely appreciate it that you were willing to respond, let me know if I can return the favor someday. - Jersyko·talk 13:46, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Torchic FAC

I commented on your comment. Highway Rainbow Sneakers 14:30, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

And again. Highway Rainbow Sneakers 15:40, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I'll follow the conversation there if you don't mind. - Taxman Talk 15:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The merge (again)

Well, we got all the way there in finding consensus for the merge and then haven't taken the decisive step in actually doing it. I posted to Raul without comment. Would it be too bold to simply edit the WP:FAR to look like the sub-page? Marskell 17:17, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

It may rouse some sleeping objections, but you did everything you could (got general consensus and waited, and mav posted it at all the relevant places, so I'd say no. Go for it. - Taxman Talk 17:19, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another thing first

I'll try and push the FAR thing forward over the next couple of days. In the meantime I've been sucked into the astrology vortex. Please see this RfC I have initiated: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Aquirata. You'll recall this is the fellow who clogged the NPOV talk last week. I cite your edits twice, so you may certify if you're up for it. Cheers, Marskell 09:04, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks! Yes, I have been active, just to notice that I am less harsh than another admin who did exactly the same at the same time. And yes, I am conservative. If I am not sure, I am not doing it (left a lot of speedies and blocks to others). -- Kim van der Linde at venus 19:44, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindi Wiki

I, one of the new sysops, have given a throughly new look to the main page of Hindi Wikipedia. Please see the Main page, and give me comments on my English user page en:User:Magicalsaumy.

[edit] Thanks!

Though the subject title is pretty self explanitory, thanks! Your words of wisdom will certainly be heeded. -- Natalya 02:06, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindi wiki

English link added. And the page is well visible on Mozilla, only formatting is a bit painful. On my Mozilla Firefox, sometimes the characters get squeezed on each other, and span out of the boxes in which they are kept. You can suggest a rewording of the message. As for the alignment of the boxes, the "floating style" has deliberately been made as such. The inspiration has been taken from French and Italian wikis.Cygnus_hansa 14:57, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm just telling you what I think. There shouldn't be any IE only message, and I think the misaligned (to me) boxes distracts the eye too much. Especially the little green box on the right at the top and the featured picture vs the लेख लिखना. Those are the most jarring. The rest aren't as bad. - Taxman Talk 15:18, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Taxing

Hi Taxman,

Loading you talk page is very "Taxing" on my net speed. Time to archive, I guess. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 16:32, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Archived per request. Did you really come just to read my talk page? :) - Taxman Talk 17:54, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I read the talk pages of all the people I have contacted whenever they show up on my watchlist (this goes for the articles and other pages too). This way I get to know many more things going on that would take a lot of time before reaching me through usual channels (like word of mouth, etc). No wonder with around 2000 pages in my watchlist and following up the developments, speed is a major issue and hence the request. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 18:01, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindi Wiki Insert tookbox

Hi, The Hindi wikipedia's Insert toolbox has been edited to include many new characters. Please edit and common page at Hindi wiki, jus to view the new insertbox. About the स and श with dot below, I shall give a detailed explaination later. And I know that the comments within this toolbox are very nervejarring, but to encourage foreigners, etc, I think the phonetic symbols should be there. Please bear with me for that. Thanks, Cygnus_hansa 19:05, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I was just looking at that today. I've never seen the justification for using the स with a dot as /z/ before. I had thought the Indian government panel is the one that standardized on ज़. Having the explanation in there isn't too bad, but it's probably better to move the explanation into it's own page and just link to it though. Then you can have more detailed explanation but not clutter the edit tools and have space for English and Hindi explanations. - Taxman Talk 19:11, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Certainly I'll give the explaination at the appropriately created Help and guideline page, not write an epic inside the toolbox. The government panel is stupid, and further, the govt of India prefers only "pure Hindi", prged off all loanwords, and hence /z/. My argument is that /s/ and /z/ are allophones in most languages, such as English. Both are alveolar consonants, the former voiceless and the latter voiced. ज is a plosive, not even a fricative (that s and z are), and it is a palatal (-like) consonant, not even alveolar. Believe me, Indian govt is not like the Western countries, it proudly makes stupid and blatant mistakes. Increasing caste-based reservation quotas is a proof of this.Cygnus_hansa 22:42, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I understand the logic, but even if it's well justified, we can't use something that's not standard, which as I understand it ज़ is and स़ isn't. - Taxman Talk 02:39, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
We'll continue to prefer ज़ over .स for standard Hindi words borrowed from Persian and Arabic, whose spellings have become a standard and integral part of the Hindi lexicon.Cygnus_hansa 11:36, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cornell

Pentawing said that you helped with copyediting the UMich article and helped it earn FA. My current project is to bring Cornell University up to FA status, and was wondering if you could offer some advice on its most recent Peer Review. Thanks. -mercuryboardtalk ♠ 22:59, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I've left comments there. I don't mean to be harsh, just as accurate as I can be to help improve the article. I'll follow the PR, but if you do a ton of work and I haven't had a chance to respond, give me a reminder here and I'll dig in for some more that can be improved. - Taxman Talk 02:39, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
I just spent about an hour copyediting the entire page, and I did find tons of pov and bad prose, which I fixed. Please see my changes here. It's improving dramatically but could always use more input. -mercuryboardtalk ♠ 04:24, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
Taxman, the Cornell alumni section is finally fixed, thus, I was wondering if you could critique the page again? Thanks!--Cornell010 20:38, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Actually, we included the Willard Straight Hall takerover (not positive) and we have several other negative points we have added in. I am sorry to say that negative elements got put on the backburner.--Cornell010 23:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
I was thinking about adding that Cornell gives out meger amounts of financial aid, and that many complain about Cornell's fall in the rankings.--134.67.6.11 16:49, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Apologies for not replying sooner

Sorry for being impolite and not replying sooner about your RfA suggestion. I have not had time to Wikipedia much in the past five weeks, which is probably a good illustration of why I should not be an admin. Nevertheless, I thank you for the kind compliment. Perhaps in a few months I can reconsider. Robert A.West (Talk) 01:52, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

No worries. Just do what you want to do to help out. Let me know if I can do anything in the future. - Taxman Talk 14:42, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Invitation and Recommendations for writing articles on Hindi Wikipedia

Hindi wikipedia invites and welcomes Wikipedians to contribute for the cause of spreading knowledge and the Hindi language. This page contains guidelines for writing a wiki-article on any topic at the Hindi Wikipedia, with special recommendations for writing in Hindi (Note: The script/font-family for Hindi is Devanāgari; the script/font-system for English is Roman script, also, the Hindi spelling system is not completely standardized). This article is yet in English language (mostly), in order to encourage even non-native/foreign people who have learnt/are learning Hindi to contribute to the Hindi wikipedia, and native Hindi speakers who normally write in English. The examples given below are only for explanation. Recommendations:

  1. Firstly for proper viewing, it is recommended to keep all links NOT-UNDERLINED. Otherwise the मात्रा below the Hindi alphabets might get partly hidden behind the underlines. For this, please go to My Preferences (मेरी पसंद) at the top of the page, then click Misc., and then choose "underline links -> Never". Save your settings. Also, do not click yes for "justify paragraphs", otherwise on some browsers, the devanagari script will appear highly distorted.
  2. All users are requested and encouraged to contribute articles here, especially, to create new articles on general topics. They are also encouraged to expand the existing articles, and improve upon them. A non-user can also do the same; it is recommended but not required to register yourself as a wikipedian user at the Hindi wikipedia. As far as possible, each article should be written with a Neutral Point of View (NPOV)—no nationalistic or partiality or hatred based articles are welcome. The articles should be based on facts—and appropriate references should be provided as and where needed. See the English wiki's help page for editing in general. Almost all the general wiki-features are available for editing on Hindi wiki too. Guidelines for the content matter is mostly the same as given in English wiki.
  3. Since the Hindi wiki is at its initial stages, users are welcome to take introduction and basic points from the English (or another) wikipedia's corresponding article and translate them for small articles. An in-page link to the English wiki's article will be deemed sufficient for references (a template might be created stating this). For longer articles, it is recommended to mention the references separately.
  4. Since most computer users in India and elsewhere have the standard Western-type keyboard, it is best recommended (but not necessarily required) to use the virtual (software) keyboard like the one of Hindimozhi or of ISIS (Tavultesoft Keyman)—which are freewares. These are advantageous because the contemporary Hindi-speakers in India often write messages/chat using Hindi words but written in Roman (English) script, and the layout of these keyboards is quite the same that such people use. For example, using the "normal" keyboard with this software, typing ga would give ग and ghaa would give घा.
  5. Create the article with its name written in Hindi (devanagari script). Always take care to include the nukta (dot below) for foreign / Urdu loanwords wherever it occurs in the standard spelling. For non-Indian names, use that spelling (for article name and other words) which is commonly encountered in Hindi newspapers, G.K.-books, Hindi-dubbed TV documentaries and Hollywood films and magazines. e.g., America-अमरीका (या अमेरिका), China-चीन, French-फ़्रांसिसी. For English acronyms/short-forms, use the initials in Roman script, and again create a full form in Hindi and redirect it to the short form. e.g. IPA (अन्तर्राष्ट्रीय ध्वनि वर्णाक्षर); UNO (संयुक्त राष्ट्र संघ). Doing the opposite is also fine. But creating the article with the Hindi short form, as सं०रा०सं०, is not recommended. Also, the article proper must be written with the proper nukta, as फ़ारसी, and then, a non-nukta (mis-)spelt version फारसी should preferably be created to redirect to the correct spelling.
  6. Hindi wikipedia strongly recommends the users to write articles in everyday common Hindi in the खड़ीबोली dialect (Hindustani or Hindi-Urdu, i.e., बोलचाल वाली हिन्दी, which may include many loanwords from Persian and Arabic). The use of शुद्ध संस्कृतनिष्ठ हिन्दी is in general neither required nor recommended. E.g., use: वजह instead of कारण, ख़ास instead of विशेष, वगैरह instead of इत्यादि, लेकिन instead of परन्तु etc. However, for technical and specialized vocabulary, the use of शुद्ध संस्कृतनिष्ठ हिन्दी is recommended and usually mandatory. Thus: upper House of Parliament—संसद का उच्च सदन, but not Urdu—मजिलिस का ऐवान-ए-बाला ; Foreign Minister—विदेशमन्त्री, but not Urdu—वज़ीर-ए-ख़ारिजा ; knowledge/science—ज्ञान/विज्ञान, but not इल्म. Use spoken Hindi's ये and वो instead of यह and वह / वे. Do not use the title of respect जी after names, it is unencyclopedic. Thus: कृष्ण / श्री कृष्ण but not कृष्ण जी. Use the आप form and its corresponding 3rd person verbal conjugation for writing about respectable persons. Thus: श्री वाजपेयी मध्य प्रदेश में जन्मे थे. But not: वाजपेयी मध्य प्रदेश में जन्मा था. But do not use the pronoun "आप" itself in-text in biographies.
  7. English should be used sparingly, only when required; i.e., if the corresponding शुद्ध हिन्दी word is too "difficult and not generally encountered", or if it is a proper name of non-Indian person/place/terminology/title, or if the user is highly unsure of the proper translation. It is recommended (but not required) for English-to-Hindi translation while writing articles, the Shabdkosh online dictionary should be used. For each English word, that alternative should be used which is generally encountered in everyday spoken Hindi, and also fits well into the context. Use of intelligent guesses for newly encountered words is also allowed, and so are translations encountered in Hindi-dubbed TV documentaries, Hollywood films, Hindi-translated books, etc. e.g., दमपिशाच for en:Dementor (used in dubbed HP films).
  8. If used, it is recommended to use the English words within the articles using the English (Roman) alphabets rather than devanagari (or better, the devanagari transliteration should be used in the sentence, followed by the English word in Roman alphabet in parentheses). Such words should be italicized and not put in quotation marks. Preferably, there should be an in-page interwiki link (like :en:) on the word to the English wikipedia. If the word comes as an integral part of a sentence, so as not to break the continuity, the en: prefix should be hidden by writing the word again after the pipe sign (piped link). Thus, recommended: हैरी पॉटर ने ''[[:en:Pensieve|Pensieve]]'' के अन्दर ''[[:en:Little Hangleton|Little Hangleton]]'' गाँव में लॉर्ड वोल्डेमॉर्ट की माँ ''[[:en:Merope Gaunt|Merope Gaunt]]'' को देखा. ''[[:en:Resplendent Quetzal|Resplendent Quetzal]]'' पक्षी के ऊपर एक मेक्सिकन पादरी डा० ''[[:en:Pablo de la Llave|Pablo de la Llave]]'' ने काफ़ी शोध किया था. Whence,
    • हैरी पॉटर ने Pensieve के अन्दर Little Hangleton गाँव में लॉर्ड वोल्डेमॉर्ट की माँ Merope Gaunt को देखा
    • Resplendent Quetzal पक्षी के ऊपर एक मेक्सिकन पादरी डा० Pablo de la Llave ने काफ़ी शोध किया था
  9. Always start the first 1 or 2 lines of the article giving its definition (from any standard dictionary/other wiki) or suitable introduction. Thus, recommended: ललिता सहस्रनामन हिन्दू धर्मसुधारक आदि शंकराचार्य द्वारा रचित देवी दुर्गा को समर्पित एक पूजा-मन्त्र है, जिसे कई हिन्दू रोज़ श्रद्धा से जपते हैं । But not: ललिता सहस्रनामन मन्त्र जपने के लिये लड्डू-पेड़ा, ताम्बुल, सिन्दूर, लाल चुनरी के साथ नित्य इस मन्त्र का पाठ करें, तो जल्द ही गड़ा हुआ ख़जाना मिलेगा । Recommended: वैमानिक अभियान्त्रिकी (en:Aeronautical engineering) विमानों (en:Aircrafts) की अभिकल्पना, निर्माण और प्रचालन करने का विज्ञान, कला और कार्य है । (translated from Eng. Webster's New World Dictionary). But not: आजकल वैमानिक अभियान्त्रिकी के लिये देशभर में कई कॉलेज खुल गये हैं, जिनमें अग्रणी स्थान यूटोपिया स्थित लालू-यादव टेक्लिनक कॉलेज का है ।
  10. For names of countries, cities, places, languages, people, books, films, technical vocabulary, mythology, etc, start the article like this:
    • 1. The name in bold ('''अपोलो''')
    • 2. starting parenthesis, then English name in Roman script, in-page interwiki-linked to English wiki ff. by semicolon ((अंग्रेज़ी : [[:en:Apollo]];)
    • 3. The native name(s) if applicable in the italicized native script, preferably followed either by its italicized approximate Hindi pronunciation or non-italicized phonological transcription within / /, ff. by closed parenthesis (यूनानी : ''Aπollων अपोल्लोन''))
    • 4. the rest of the definition or introduction (प्राचीन [[यूनानी धर्म]] (ग्रीक धर्म) और प्राचीन [[रोमन धर्म]] के सर्वोच्च देवता थे ।) For country names, only the standard short form of the name is needed in the first line. If there is a common name for a difficult word in Hindustani, also mention it. Whence: अपोलो (अंग्रेज़ी : en:Apollo; यूनानी : Aπollων अपोल्लोन) प्राचीन यूनानी धर्म (ग्रीक धर्म) और प्राचीन रोमन धर्म के सर्वोच्च देवता थे । If you don't give the interwiki English/another language link (which would be deemed to be the default reference), then you MUST provide an appropriate reference.
  11. Please leave no article without an appropriate category. See the list of created categories here; you can also make a new category (pref. in Hindi). Please leave no article without at least ONE off page (like en:) interwiki link. E.g., the user can check the article name (say Apollo) on the finally redirected English page and append to the Hindi article ([[en:Appolo]])). These interlanguage links will help a bot to update all interwiki links for that article in all wikipedias. The category and the aforementioned link should be typed at the end of the article. If the article is very small, mention it as a stub/substub.
  12. Use of templates is welcome. See the list of templates here. If creating a template, name it pref. in Hindi.
  13. Use पूर्णविराम ( । ) instead of a period (.) for ending statements. The पूर्णविराम, semicolon, colon and dash (but not comma) must come after one space after the word to prevent ambiguity. Use the international form of the Hindu-Arabic numerals (1,2,3 instead of १,२,३), as used by the Constitution and the Government of India (even for Hindi). There is no need to use the हलन्त at the end of Sanskrit words wherever it occurs. Hence, prefer: संसद over संसद्; अथर्वन over अथर्वन्. Use the proper quotation marks “” from the Insert toolbox, not "". Write dates as 2 मई 2006 (ईसवी or ईसापूर्व). Write time as 3:45 pm. Separate common suffix-words like शास्त्र, विज्ञान, ज्ञान with a hyphen. Thus: रसायन-शास्त्र. For most others, leave both the words of the noun-cluster free. Combine them into one word only if it is very common to do so. Thus: सामवेद.
  14. The use of ज़ for the en:voiced alveolar fricative (/z/, as in zoo, rose) is fundamentally wrong. Its nearest counterpart is the en:voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ (as in sea), and not Hindi ज (en:voiced palatal plosive). Hence, it is suggested and recommended that for the sound /z/, whether it comes in English (etc.) spellings (z) for while pronunciation otherwise, should be transcribed as स़ (स with a dot below, available in the Insert toolbox). Hence: Reason रीस़न, not रीज़न ; Roses रोस़ेस़, not रोज़ेज़. But common Hindi words borrowed from Persian/Arabic (so-called Urdu words) are allowed to continue with ज़ spelling. Thus: ज़रा, नज़र, तर्ज़. The en:voiced postalveolar fricative (/ʒ/ as in treasure), inexistent in Hindi, can similarly be transcribed with श़. Thus: treasure ट्रॅश़र. The nukta (dot) available in the Insert toolbox can be combined with various consonants to suggest a more exact phonetic devanagari rendering of foreign sounds. E.g., since phonetically, English Think and this are not equal to थिंक and दिस, a better transcription could be थ़िंक and द़िस. Please take care of the dot below in so-called Urdu words, otherwise the Hindi spelling is deemed incorrect.
  15. For the following English vowels met, mate, mat, transcribe as मॅट (short vowel), मेट (not मेइट), मैट (not मॅट, as popular in Marathi). However in contemporary Hindi and here, it is acceptable to use ए instead of ऍ. Thus: अमेरिका is more popular than अमॅरिका. For cot, coat, caught, transcribe as कॉट, कोट, कॉट (not कौट). Transcribe English /t/ and /d/ as ट and ड.
  16. Use half-न before त, थ, द, ध, न, instead of anuswaar अं. Use half-म before प, फ, ब, भ, म. Use the anuswaar before all the rest of the consonants (not half-ङ, ञ, ण). If the मात्रा is not above the alphabet, use chandra-bindu, but only for nasalization. Thus: अन्दर, not अंदर ; अन्त, not अंत ; हिन्दी, not हिंदी ; सम्भव, not संभव ; पंचमी, not पञ्चमी ; अंडा, not अण्डा ; कंठ, not कण्ठ ; लैंड, not लैण्ड ; आँख, not आंख. However, both forms are acceptable in contemporary Hindi as well as here; the prec. are just recommendations.
  17. When proceded by another vowel, use the pure vowels instead of य (unless the य is clearly articulated while pronouncing). Thus : जाएँ, not जायें (not जावें) ; आएगा, not आयेगा . However, both forms are acceptable in contemporary Hindi as well as here.
  18. Please pay careful attention to the masculine/feminine gender (and singular/plural) in adjectives and verbs, else the sentence becomes ungrammatical.
For more information/suggestions/criticisms, please contact any one of the administrators of Hindi wiki here, preferably en:User:Magicalsaumy. This page can also be found here.

Thank you,

Cygnus_hansa 00:19, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trivia

Hi Taxman,

One small enquiry. If an article has a "Trivia" section, is a valid to oppose its FAC because of it. I hope you understood what I meant, otherwise I will clarify my statement. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 21:04, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but it's because of a combination of the criteria, mostly 2a, but also 5. Information in a trivia section is either important enough to cover in well written integrated prose in the appropriate section of the rest of the article, or not important enough and should be removed from the article. That has been very long standing practice on FAC. - Taxman Talk 21:33, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 05:03, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Austrralian Catholic University- a request

G'day Taxman, Pentawing recommended that I contact you for some advie on this article that I have been working on. Any chance you could take a look-see and pass on some sage advice. Cheers mate. Soundabuser 05:30, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you

Thank you, Taxman. We should be seeing each other around a lot from now on. I look forward to it :). Thanks again, Redux 15:10, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Figuring out

Hi Taxman. Since I found you online, I can take the opportunity to verify this: I was trying to carry out the requests for username change, but apparently Special:Renameuser is not working. Could you try to perform a change (there are two open requests at WP:CHU) and let me know if you managed to get through, if it's not too much trouble? Thanks a lot. Redux 14:12, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Seems not to be working for me either. But it could be the server load at this time of day, as we're near the peak. Username changes when they have a good number of edits are brutal on the servers so it's better to do it in the middle of the night UTC time when the server load is typically lower. Of course, it could be something else, but that's a good idea anyway. - Taxman Talk 14:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. I was thinking of something like this as well, but wanted to make sure. All is well then :) Cheers, Redux 15:46, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RfAs

Hi Taxman. The two RfAs that you closed today (15 June) were supposed to close only tomorrow (16 June). Did something happen? Redux 21:18, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Shh, no one noticed. [Looks around sheepishly.] It seems I've had a practical joke played on me and the clock on my phone and on my computer have been changed. Lovely mess we have now though. Off to the noticeboard to work out a solution. - Taxman Talk 21:30, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Growing Old

Sorry for the RFA mistakes I made. My memory is getting worse lately. I will be 51 in a few months. :-( Anonymous__Anonymous 12:15, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I was wondering if you could review the Cornell Page

I know that you have previously reviewed the Cornell University page, therefore, I was wondering if you could do it again. Thanks! User: Cornell010 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindi question

You to me on 17.06.2006: Hi, I hope you don't mind my snooping but in a talk page message you left were the words "sadhiwaad" and "subhekachha". I was intruiged because I could make out the rest of the message, but upon searching for those words in my dictionaries I could not find them. I gather they are both of Sanskritic construction, but my understanding of Sanskrit roots is too weak to be of much use. Would you mind explaining their meaning? Thanks - Taxman

Me to you: Hello. I would surely explain the words. Subhekccha is made up of two words: Subha and Ekchha. Subha generally means good or fine, and Ekchha indicated ones desire – subhekaccha denonte “All the Best””. Sadhuvad is an expression used to bless some efforts. So It is a sort of a word of encouragement, which an elder person gives to a younger ones. BTW, I like the snooping! All the best! --Bhadani 14:26, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Thank you very much. Even with 70,000 some entries in my Hindi-English dictionary, it still misses a lot of words. What I probably need to do is order a more comprehensive all Hindi dictionary from India, even though I'd then have to look up many of the words in the definitions in my other dictionary. Any recommendations? The ideal dictionary would be one targeted towards students with simpler definitions, but with a large number of entry words. The most authoritative dictionary with the most entries would be the higher priority though I suppose. - Taxman Talk 18:08, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Profit sharing

Ref. done. BTW, where was this "reverting first" are you talking about?. I wrote just a little bit, since I am not an expert, but there does exist much more to write about.

P.S. Since you seem to be expert in taxes ("Taxman") please check my recent Fringe Benefits Tax series. I aint no expert, but there were red links.

`'mikka (t) 18:37, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I guess I didn't save the edit or it didn't take, so no worries, and thanks for the reference and the additional info. And I'm no expert, but I'll see what I can do. - Taxman Talk 18:48, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RE:Duplicate RfA votes

Thank You for pointing this error to me. The main cause of this is that I was using a different PC and in that particular PC, the colours of my signature could not be distinguished. However, this may not be an acceptable explanation and I am disappointed with my self for this utter carelessness by my part. I assure you that this would NOT repeat again. Because of this major errors (I voted twice in a total of 4 recent RfAs), I feel that it may be some time before I am even fit to consider the possibility of running for adminship. I have striked out those RfAs in question and currently, I am very, very furious with myself for these errors. Once again I wish to assure you that you would not worry about this in the future. However, I am currently unable to correct the number pattern for these votes and hope that you would fix this. --Siva1979Talk to me 03:02, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

iva1979 Do not worry so much about this error. It happens all the time. Surely nobody thought it was anything other than an honest mistake. FloNight talk 03:31, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Don't stress that much about it. Notice I'm not mistake free, and neither is anyone else. My only worry was that it represented a lack of care in looking into the candidates, which is the only important thing. Mistakes are correctable, so not a major problem. - Taxman Talk 11:20, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My (Mtz206) RfA

Thanks for supporting me in my RFA. My Request was successful with 41 supports, 12 opposes and 5 neutrals, and I'll do my best to live up to your expectations. If in any point in the future you get the feeling I'm doing something wrong, do not hesitate to drop me a line. -- mtz206 (talk) 02:53, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Actuary

It's fairly good, but from long experience on FAC, I can tell you it won't pass without some substantial changes. I'd recommend replacing it on PR and soliciting some wider opinion. Specifically it has POV problems in claiming actuaries are the most important, qualified, etc. It also doesn't even mention risk management which actuaries could be said to be an important part of, with risk management as the broad umbrella area of knowledge. Also there's the perception that actuaries are typically the number crunchers only, and others actually make the decisions, whereas this article paints it as actuaries running the show. Finally actuarial science is something that has a wealth of books and other reliable sources published on it, but the article currently doesn't cite many/enough. I could look for more if you'd like more suggestions of things to polish up, but I wanted to let you know there were issues to fix before FAC was a good idea. - Taxman Talk 21:16, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for you input. I'll comb through the article again for those waesel word issues; I guess I missed a bunch. Also, it does mention risk management, bith in the lead and in "non-traditional" My fear is that going into to much detail threatens to overwhelm the article. Also, most books are about Actuarial science, not the Actuary themselves. There are plenty of books on lifecon/cas prob/freq sev issues etc. Gosh knows I had to read a bunch getting my letters, but that deals with the WORK, which is properly contained in Actuarial science, IMO, and not Actuary. However, I do defer to your expertise, and will try to get some more sources in. Do you really think is best to put it back on PR? -- Avi 21:22, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I do to be honest, it didn't seem like it was there long, but if you just want to work on a couple rounds of my suggestions instead, that's fine too. I also didn't dig into it in depth yet, I just wanted to notify you of problems I saw right away to minimize the difficulty. Yes, you don't want to go into too much detail that should be in actuarial science, but those resources would improve the verifiablity of the relevant section, and where appropriate, the rest of the article. I'll try to dig in for more suggestions, but I've got a lot of other things to do. If you need me to I can look for more tonight, if you're ok being patient, I'll do it on Saturday. Let me know - Taxman Talk 21:36, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RfA

Hi there:

Thank you for your kind words on my talk page about my RfA, and thank you for being prompt in closing the thing when it was done.

— DLJessup (talk) 05:48, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] need citation guidance

Hi, we're having an argument at Talk:programming language over the level of citation needed for FA status. I'd appreciate it if you could give your input as to what should be cited and what should not. I am also confused because my recent FAC Forth failed for not enough citations even though I can't think of anything in it left to cite. Thanks. Ideogram 15:56, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Signing

Taxman, I've notice that many users (you included) have formatted their signatures with little graphics or coloured the text. Could you point me to instructions on how to do this please? --Mr Minchin 20:10, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Signature actually redirects to where you need to go to find out the basics. After that it's just about using wiki and the allowable html markup to have it the way you like it. Keep in mind consensus is really swinging against overly long signatures because they can drown out comments etc, so keep it short and sweet. I'm even considering shortening mine back down. - Taxman Talk 23:22, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Congratulations

Thanks! I just hope I don't accidentally break anything :). Extraordinary Machine 23:11, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

It seems there's almost nothing left you really can break, so you should be fine. You can even undelete images now. I won't tell you what the one thing you can still mess up is because it's obscure and you have to read through all the warnings to even find out how to do it. And even that a developer can fix. - Taxman Talk 23:22, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
History merge! [Evil cackle.] The truth will out! Bishonen | talk 23:27, 29 June 2006 (UTC).
Who invited you? :P :) - Taxman Talk 00:10, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fundamental Rights, Directive Principles and Fundamental Duties of India

This article is on FAC. However, Nichalp has requested that the article be copyedited by someone who has not been involved in the article. If you could please help out, I'd be most grateful! --May the Force be with you! Shreshth91(esperanza elections!) 08:20, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] George W. Bush

Hi Taxman - I request your help in making this article an FA. I just re-wrote large segments of the article, and I need your critical analysis to determine what to do next. Help! This Fire Burns.....Always 22:54, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyedit request

Hey! I was wondering if you'd be willing to copyedit Duke University which is a current FAC, but has been opposed by Mercuryboard who wishes for the text to go through a "thorough copyedit" by someone unfamiliar with the text. I looked at your previous work and it seems great to me, so I thought I'd ask you. I'll understand if you don't have the desire/time to copyedit it, though, since university articles can be sometimes boring if you don't have a personal connection to the particular university (I think this one is interesting though). Thanks! -Bluedog423 05:40, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re:Howdy

Wow! Looks like some important people do remember me. /me grins broadly --Nearly Headless Nick 11:01, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Well I wouldn't go so far as to say important, but thanks :) - Taxman Talk 14:11, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks for the congratulations and promoting me to admin. I'm looking forward to further helping out. --liquidGhoul 13:12, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

You're very welcome, just don't make me look bad :) - Taxman Talk 14:11, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mitch Modeleski

Dear Taxman: Please watch the above-referenced article which is about a well-known tax protester. An anon user is repeatedly blanking the article and replacing it with a resume. Yours, Famspear 14:39, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Libya

Hi Taxman,

I've recently added Libya to the list of featured article candidates. Overall the candidature is going well with many of the objections now sorted out. The final concrete objection is with the article's prose. I have been the main contributor to the article and have been looking at it for the previous 9 - 10 months. My eyes no longer see it freshly, so I am not a suitable copy-editor!

To meet the final demand of copy editing, I have been advised to ask different people to edit parts of the article.

I would really love to get this article featured as you can probably see from the page's history! I've worked very hard on it and I see this as possibly being the final hurdle.

You can see the prose objections, mostly raised by Sandy, on the candidature page. If you have the time, please choose a section (Politics, Religion, Culture etc.) and copyedit, perfect, ace it! I would be very grateful with any help I can get.

Thanks a lot,

--Jaw101ie 16:50, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] At the same time..Almost

Hi Taxman. We almost closed Centrx's RfA at the same time. I removed the transclusion to the main RfA page, but got an edit conflict when closing the RfA itself -- I thought it was someone trying to get a late participation in, but as it turns out, it was you closing the RfA. I'll leave the "honors" to you, then (you've probably already taken care of it as I'm writing this). Cheers, Redux 13:24, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok I'll call jinx now because I just got the yellow banner from this message as I left a message for you about the same thing. Yes, I promoted just after I closed the nom. - Taxman Talk 13:27, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Next thing you know, we'll be closing RfAs only at sunset; to see who "draws first". The Lonely Shepherd will be playing in the background... ;). Indeed, some coincidence(s)! Redux 13:36, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
To see the latest in the race between these two bureaucrats for most promotions, check here ;). NoSeptember 14:38, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My RfA

 Thank you so much for voting in my recent RFA. It passed on the relatively narrow vote of 38/8/8. It was also one of the least-participated-in RFA nominations in several months, so pat yourself on the back, and join the party on your left, but first, take your cookie!

NOTE: I can't code HTML to save my life. I copied this from Misza13. I guess I should write him a thank you note as well. Cookies sold separately. Batteries not included. Offer not valid with other coupons. May contain peanuts or chicken. Keep out of the reach of small children, may present a choking hazard to children under the age of 3. Do not take with alcohol. This notice has a dark background and therefore may be eaten by a grue at any time. The receiver of this message, hereafter referred to as "Pudding Head" relinquishes all rights and abilities to file a lawsuit or any other litigious activities. RyanGerbil10, Jimbo Wales, and the states of Georgia, North Dakota and Wisconsin are not liable for any lost or stolen items or damage from errant shopping carts.

Thank you so much! RyanGerbil10(The people rejoice!) 03:56, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindustani grammar

Even I am not comfortable with the Hindustani grammar article, but only because of its redundancy, not because its my copied one. Btw, look the entirely new look given to the morphology section of Hindi grammar.Cygnus_hansa 19:26, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Please note that on the talk page. I didn't want to be rude and just send it to AFD, and perhaps they can justify a need for some distinct information to occupy that page. Hindustani language has the same problem, except it does have a legitmate need to exist and just cover the uses of the term. - Taxman Talk 21:14, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I cannot think of anything in Grammar which is different from Hindi in Hindustani.Cygnus_hansa 06:07, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
The only one I know of is Urdu more strongly preserves the femenine agreement in some postpositions, whereas not as many Hindi speakers do. I don't know of others either, but most grammar expositions I've read refer to the grammar being almost identical. That means there are at least some differences, but nowhere are they stated. Finding those might be useful. Finally I do think your voice is needed in the discussion on where the grammar articles should exist. If the consensus is to have one, we should merge the articles, so please don't edit Hindi grammar anymore until we have some resolution or else the merge won't work. I'm very concerned about having so much redundant duplicated material across the various Hindi/Urdu/Hindustani articles, and I'm baffled others don't see the problem in that. - Taxman Talk 18:14, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh no, I have already made huge changes to the Hindi grammar article. It is the primary article, and it should have the freedom to be edited as and when required. And Hindi also preserves all gender agreement in postpositions, else they are deemed non-standard and non-prescriptive.Cygnus_hansa 00:30, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Well it appears you are going to be over ruled if you don't join in the conversation. I will make sure the history preserves the edits you have put into the article, but as the article is open for editing, if there is a consensus to merge it with another, then that is what must be done. It does appear the consensus is growing for there being one grammar article and having it named Hindustānī (Hindī-Urdū) grammar. I'm not a fan of that name, but none of us can single handedly violate consensus. - Taxman Talk 15:21, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your comment about the closing

Well it was about as close as they come, but I didn't feel I could call it a consensus to promote. See what you can do to address the concerns raised, especially demonstrating you have knowledge of the important policies admins deal with. With that and some more experience it appears most people would support you in the future, so I wasn't concerned that if I didn't promote now you'd never get it. Good luck, don't take it too hard, and above all, have fun editing. - Taxman Talk 17:04, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for leaving me a note about it—towards the end, I realized my chances were slim, as it dipped below 75%. I trust your judgement though...I can see that you are one of the most active bureaucrats in promotions. It appears that the four points of opposition were:
  1. More encyclopedia edits—logical, this is an enyclopedia
  2. More participation in AfDs
  3. Badly written self-nom
  4. Staying out of situations I don't know enough about
So basically, I probably won't apply again till I have at least 1500 mainspace edits, and I have some experience with deletions, merges, and when I have a really good nom with well-written answers. But I do appreciate your time in communication with me, as I appreciate everyone who took the time to discuss/vote/opine in my RFA. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 17:53, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Languages

Hi There! Can you translate my name in what language you know please, and then post it Here. I would be very grateful if you do (if you know another language apart from English and the ones on my userpage please feel free to post it on) P.S. all th translations are in alpahbetical order so when you add one please put it in alpahbetical order according to the language. Thanks!!! Abdullah Geelah 16:41, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Well you've already got all three that I've got a clue about, so you're on your way it seems. - Taxman Talk 17:21, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] oversight

Congratulations, you get to be oversight as well, now we can make you do more work ;). NoSeptember 16:29, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Well then shhh, don't announce it. :) - Taxman Talk 17:52, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fourth International

Just over a year ago, you provided several useful suggestions in a peer review of this article. Since then, I believe that all your suggestions have been implemented, while the article has undergone considerable changes. I've now submitted it for a new peer review, and hoped you might be able to have another look and comment. thanks, Warofdreams talk 19:18, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindustani grammar

Plz see my new suggestions in the talk page of the same.Cygnus_hansa 22:03, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Computer-assited reviewing page

Please, set my page back. And, please (!), stop your expeditive censor job, and start discussing a bit, few seconds before deleting my job. Thanks. EMLM 15:29, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] +sysop?

Hey Taxman. Forgive my misplaced diligence/nosiness/ignorance, but I was looking at the user rights log and didn't see the same +sysop for Phaedriel as there usually is for most newly appointed sysops. Is this a bug, feature, or otherwise? Just figured I'd give you the heads up, in case you just forgot to hit a checkbox or something. Cheers, EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 03:46, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Using another tool, it appears she has sysop rights, so I imagine it's just an edit summary type thing that you didn't put. No worries, just making sure she got her tools. ;o) Sorry for the bother. Take care, EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 03:51, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Nope, there's no summary to put in. The +sysop is automatic as the interface is very simple. Good catch, I'll have to ask if there is a reason why, though I'm sure it will amount to a small glitch in the code. Just curious though, what tool did show that she had them? - Taxman Talk 03:55, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I have a variety of tools from User:Voice of All in my monobook.js, one of which is a simple "rights" tab which shows you which rights a user has. For example, I can go to Special:Contributions/Jimbo Wales, click the rights tab at the top, and it tells me he has Sysop and Steward, with Oversight and Developer. EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 03:59, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Of course, lest we forget the simple tools, there's always Special:Listusers/sysop as well. EWS23 (Leave me a message!) 04:59, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
If I could offer my crazy opinion, the SVN logs show that in rev 15928 (30 hours ago as of this post), Brion committed a fix for bugzilla:5585, bringing the log entries generated by Special:Makesysop (for our 'crats) in line with the ones generated by Special:Userrights (for stewards, see the Meta user rights log). en.wikipedia is now running off MediaWiki 1.8alpha r15928 (Special:Version), so the change went live between the last admin's promotion and Phaedriel's. :) --james(talk) 11:25, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Not to discount what appears to be your perfectly correct analysis, but we did figure that out before I went to sleep. :) The old view of the log was actually a kludge. - Taxman Talk 13:08, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Pfffff, I was at school! :) --james(talk) 13:24, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Small favour

Hi,

I was just wondering if I could ask you for a small favour? A user had moved 1984 Anti-Sikh Riots to 1984 Anti-Sikh Pogroms using the 'move' feature. Another user broke the redirect and copy and pasted 1984 Anti-Sikh Pogroms back to 1984 Anti-Sikh Riots. Is there a possibility of fixing this break in the history? Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 15:38, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Done, but you'll need to help guide the discussion on the talk page towards deciding what the best name is. After that there are a lot of problem redirects to cleanup. After there is evidence and consensus for the best name, make sure every page links directly to the correct name. - Taxman Talk 16:53, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Okay, will try. Thanks! Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 16:56, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ambuj's RfA

Hi Taxman - I am puzzled. A couple of weeks ago, Sean Black was promoted to adminship, even though his support stood at 71%. So why wasn't Ambuj promoted at 74%? Rama's arrow 19:29, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

The reasoning was that Sean was already an admin, and past discussion had held that there should be a consensus to de-admin, not necessarily one to re-admin. Also considering he was an admin in good standing and voluntarily gave it up. Not sure I would have done that but I understand the reasoning. - Taxman Talk 19:43, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Very well, no use pissing about this any longer... Its WP's loss. Rama's arrow 19:58, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding external link in Vegetarian Cuisine

Hello Taxman, I just found that you've removed the link modification I made for HappyCow's vegetarian guide in the external links section. Another user, Mig asked me to expand on the description and link that was posted there. I believed that linking to different sections made it easier for someone to find those articles. I'm somewhat new to this, and sorry if did so incorrectly. I posted a message in "Vegetarian" section for him to review it and improve it if necessary. I'm going to put it back and remove the other two links. Your assistance is appreciated in formating this a useful and correct way. Thank you. Trueveg 17:06, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindi-Urdu grammar

Hello again Taxman. Thanks for all your help thus far. I have a question for you that you might be able to answer. Currently I am adding the Nastaliq to the Hindi-Urdu grammar article and have gotten some others that might assist me. However, I realized that there was another option that we could do. Would it be possible to merge the histories of the two articles so that the Nastaliq script on Hindustani grammar would be kept but Magicalsaumy's edits would stay? If this is not possible, I will continue to do it manually but as I said on the Talk page, it might take a week or two. I would really appreciate if you could help me out here. Thanks for your time. Jdas07 04:21, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately due to the fact that they have been edited too much concurrently, a history merge is not feasible. Thanks for your work in merging the new material in, I'm glad you have some help. - Taxman Talk 13:19, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Hello Taxman. From looking at Talk:Hindi-Urdu grammar, it seems like you have knowledge of IPA. I have added some Nasta'liq to the article while my friend, Kitabparast is adding the majority of it. Neither of us know IPA. Would you be able (or could you find someone) to add IPA where it is missing after Nasta'liq has been fully added to the article. Could you please let me know if you could do this for me? If not, I will have to find someone myself. Please let me know. Looking forward to hearing from you soon. Thanks in advance. Jdas07 22:35, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please accept my apologies.

Taxman, I have finally realised that my link has been removed for genuine reasons. I did think that it was being removed by somebody not wanting my site to be found as has happened in the past. I've finally stumbled across the history pages etcetera. Having read the guidelines eventually, I fully understand your reasoning behind the removal of the link to www.yeclaserve.com and will not be replacing the link again, "hooray!" I hear you saying. Although the site does have some advertising, I strongly feel that for those researching about Yecla, yeclaserve.com has some excellent resources with the forum, etc. Would you possibly take the time to tell me in which way I could make the forum comply with your guidelines in order to have the link included. Once again, sorry for the hassle caused. dean (at) yeclaserve.com

You have to understand everyone wants links from Wikipedia to their site. The only ones that are really valuable are official sites or those that add significant content that could serve as a reliable references and aren't too commercial. The only way I see that site complying would be to reduce the prominence and number of ads. There are over 10 on each page and the site appears set up purely for the advertising. But if you go to Talk:Yecla you can discuss it if you feel you can justify why it meets WP:EL. Thanks - Taxman Talk 19:57, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lions Clubs International

Thanks :) Dlohcierekim 04:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Salvador Dalí

Last year when I completed Diego Velázquez you suggested I polish some of the other articles on Spanish artists. My FAC on Salvador Dalí, which I think is an exceptional article, has been faced with objections that I have as of now completely addressed; currently, only one of the editors has changed their vote, and few new editors are offering opinions. Mind having a look and weighing in on the article in its present state? Thanks : ) --DanielNuyu 12:28, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I will have a look, thanks for the heads up. I'm glad you had a chance to get to it, I had looked at it earlier and it looked very good. I'm confident any issues can be dealt with to make it a successful FAC. - Taxman Talk 13:50, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shotgun House

Hi Taxman, I added a missing 'of' in one of the first few paras [5]. Since this is going to be the FA soon, I was wondering if the change can be made on the summary [6] as well. Thanks! - Cribananda 18:08, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up, but actually I think it's perfectly correct and reads better without the of. "and the pellets would fly cleanly through the house and out the back door." flows better than "and the pellets would fly cleanly through the house and out of the back door." - Taxman Talk 18:44, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok, may be... - Cribananda 18:47, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] your edit

I think it may now be too strong. Substantial research always necessary? Surely not at the hands of a practitioner in the topic. That's why I softened it with "often". Tony 14:16, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Even an expert needs to cite their sources. For the few people in that category, I think they'll know the extent of their research will be to find the citation information and review the information. Even that probably qualifies as research though. There are areas I would consider myself nearly an expert in, but I still check my sources. Practitioners aren't necessarily experts and aren't exempt from research and citing sources. - Taxman Talk 14:46, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yo

Please check out my experimental reorganization of your advice page, revert freely. Rationale on Talk. Bishonen | talk 23:26, 10 August 2006 (UTC).

[edit] your note

Taxman

Thanks for your message. Very relieved to realise halfway through that the "FU" in the title didn't refer to something else, but means "follow up". I couldn't care less about categorising my and other pages as "personal"—no problem; what I do object to is the campaign being waged by SV et al, which mixes the personal and the political into a poisonous concoction. I was very irritated by your comments on the FA talk page, and thought that you of all people might have avoided writing negative statements about fellow FA-advice writers. There are critics and proponents of your page, as of mine.

And in case there's any doubt: moving my page out of my personal space is the last thing that I want. There have been calls for this to happen, so I've set out my reasons on the talk page for my main 2a page.

I do wish that you would back up the advice on the page that you initiated by spending a little time reviewing FACs. Just the occasional appearance would be good: there are not enough reviewers to resist the pressure for a lowering of standards, and the traffic is now huge.

And on a related matter, why, I wonder, are the Perfect Article and the other one still cited within the criteria? Shouldn't they be moved down? Now there's a tripartite division (within, beneath WP-space, beneath personal space). The first category, IMV, should be moved down to the second. Don't you agree?

Tony 01:30, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

But see, as I tried to point out to you I did not write any negative comments about you. You seem to be taking your displeasure with the way others are acting out on me. Yes, I enjoy reviewing FAC's but to do it right takes a lot of time that I just don't have much of right now. My own article contributions are way too low lately. I try to stay out of the rest as much as I can, but clearly I'm not being very successful at it. I just hope I'm able to influence the project positively enough in the time I have. And yeah, those have just almost always been linked to. We really do have too many style guides. Perhaps I should merge the one I started with how to write a great article and help consolidate others. Less better ones would be more useful I think. - Taxman Talk 02:34, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FYI

Not that it would have made any difference, but today is August 11, not August 12. Cowman109's RfA would have ended in about 16 hours. Again, it probably wouldn't have made a difference, but I don't want you to get confused for future closings. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 14:01, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, people here think this is funny to change my clocks, because I never know what the date is without them, and for whatever reason I never check a calendar. So not checking Wikitime often enough resulted in that. Really must check wikitime consistently. - Taxman Talk 14:04, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jtkiefer

Thanks for response. Once you read the above, you will understand how the community might feel queezy about alternate user abuse. :) Dlohcierekim 15:56, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Just an innocent question.

I know this may sound like I'm attacking you, but really I'm trying hard to phrase this Wikipedia-Correctly.

Regarding Disambiguation links on the tops of pages: I understand that Benzin the song is relatively unknown song in North America (Heck, it's German!), and so I don't at all disagree with you removing it. Heck, it didn't even look that good: The chemical userbox squished it pretty badly. You probably did the right thing (And I was probably being a bit dumb, at the time). So what's the common Admin or Wiki stance on Disambig links?

I ask this mainly because of a user's dispute with Euthanasia, a certain ROHA (operating from a variable IP address) disagreed with it and removed it (Several times). At the time I thought it was Policy to attempt to guide users with respect to relationships between titles.

So, I'll sum it up here, I guess: What's the policy regarding Album or Musical disambig links on pages? Some of those albums (that are disambiguated) are infamilar to me, (And as such if I didn't know what was going on on Wiki (IE: I was a newbie), I'd remove them) but that's my personal bias. I'd like to know how people determine if such disambigs are appropriate or not. (And hopefully avoid embarrassing, potential, Test Template usage)

I just kind of think that as an Admin (And veteran wikipedian), you might be able to help. Thanks in advance!!!

Logical2u 21:34, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

PS: I don't really care where you reply at the moment: I've watched your page for the moment.

As far as I know there's not highly defined policy on it. If a significant portion of the readers of an article would be confused by the main name, then a disambig message should be at the top, but it's better to simply use something like Template:otheruses which links to a general disambig page. But when there's not likely to be many people at all confused by the name, then it doesn't warrant a top of article disambig. Basically discussion on the talk page can work out if one is warranted. If a lot of people thought it was, then it should go back, I wouldn't mind. - Taxman Talk 02:10, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Congratulations

You're now an admin. I recommend being conservative with the new tools, especially at first as you get used to them. Re-read the policy before acting, but dig in and help with the backlogs as soon as you can. Have fun, and again, congrats. - Taxman Talk 01:59, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! As enticing as those new buttons look, I'll make sure to be very careful and conservative with the new tools. :-) —Mets501 (If responding, please do so on my talk page) 02:00, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Household income in the United States

Hi, I saw your comment of the FA canidate discussion of my article, Household income in the United States. You pointed out that there are several sentences with structural, missing words and the like in my article. Since then I (as well as other users who help with occasional correction of syntax and typos) have conducted several copyedits and re-wording of certain section. I was wondering if you could take another look at the article and perhaps state whether or not things have improved. Thank you. Best Regards, Signaturebrendel 00:54, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fuel

I'm not sure I can face it. I know nothing about it, so I'd be starting from scratch. I did try to clean up the intro a little, and I may look in from time to time, but I don't think I can commit myself. But thank you for asking. I think! ;-D SlimVirgin (talk) 10:33, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Maru

Can you please have a look at WP:ANI#User:Marudubshinki? Snottygobble 02:01, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindi-Urdu grammar

Sir, it seems like there is a war about to occur on the talk page. It might be beneficial if you take a look at this. Ahmed27 02:07, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Fundamental Rights... of India

Hey there! That's no problem, just as long as you get to it. And if you can't, I'll understand. There's no obligation. :D --May the Force be with you! Shreshth91($ |-| ŗ 3 $ |-| ţ |-|) 16:38, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AN/I

I just noticed your comment on my page from days ago.[7] (I was distracted by a subsequent message posted shortly after your own.) Anyway, I do trust you to stay committed to preventing this editor from abusing our trust again. Don't hesitate to let us know if the task grows tiresome. We all help each other out around here, except for those who hinder instead. Cheers, -Will Beback 10:55, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Name Change

Hello. I was thinking about submitting a name change request and was hoping to ask you a question first. If I have AWB and VP access, will I lose it if I have a name change, or would that be part of what is reattributed from the old account to the new account? Thanks --Brian G (Talk) 02:47, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

That would probably not happen automatically, since those are independent pieces of software. I doubt they check the username change log, but it's possible so you'd have to ask them to be sure. At worst, I'm sure it would just be a matter of asking them to reassign to the new name and show them the change request/log. - Taxman Talk 11:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your response. I am thinking of changing my name to After Midnight which is less "informative". Is there any sort of stigma associated with this change or any other reason that I should consider before I make the formal request. (i.e. I know you don't know me, but is there anything that should dissuade me from making this change?) Thanks for your time and consideration. --Brian G (Talk) 23:04, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Well there is the school of thought that editing under your own name is more accountable and more impressive to the real world. You can't put something like Taxman on a resume or list of accomplishments for example. There are a number of published opinion piecies criticizing that Wikipedia can never be accountable until people edit under their real name. Obviously the other side of the coin is privacy, and I think is a strong enough argument to explain to anyone that you don't want stalkers, which has happened to admins that have blocked vandals. That's basically the arguments as I know them. Obviously you see which choice I made, though on WP I've always had this username. :) - Taxman Talk 23:39, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi, sorry to bother, but I didn't know if we hadn't gotten to an "off-peak" time yet or if my name change request got archived before you had a chance to get to it. Thanks --Brian G (Talk) 16:10, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I really hope that I didn't seem impatient; I just got worried when I saw it move to the archive. Thanks again. --After Midnight 0001 11:08, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Happy Wiki-Birthday!

[8] Happy wiki-birthday! and yes, your userpage is still on my watchlist :) --Durin 19:19, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Heh, thanks. :) - Taxman Talk 19:23, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Happy Wiki Birthday too! (Just read your userpage, and I agree particularly with the stable branch stuff. Let's hope we do it some day soon.) — Matt Crypto 19:30, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Thank you very much. Surprising it's been that long, and for the life of me I can't recall why I didn't edit between August and that next March. I certainly was following Wikipedia closely. But according to the Signpost the stable versions are going to be tested on the German Wikipedia first then hopefully rolled out here by the end of the year. I'm fairly confident the benefits will be obvious enough, but you can't please everyone. Now if I could just sell people on following through on Jimbo's comments that we should focus on the quality of current articles over adding so many new ones then we'd really be somewhere. All it would take is just for a while raising the bar for inclusion of new topics so we could focus on quality. - Taxman Talk 13:04, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
  • The statement by Jimbo is fine, but lacks any implementation vision. In business planning terms, it's a long range goal with no objectives, no tasks, no metrics to measure. It's unlikely we'll attain the goal without these things in place. --Durin 12:43, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Then it's our job to come up with those right? If we want to be leaders to move the project forward, we can help fill that gap. So where best to start? We already have too many pages on article assessment and other useless pages in Wikipedia space, so I'm loathe to start another. It would be better to be integrated in somewhere — the Wikipedia 1.0 project is probably the best place, but the talk pages there are a little quiet. Ideas? - Taxman Talk 13:56, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm short on ideas right now. I've been puzzling over the serious lack of coherent goals on this project for a while. I feel as though Wikipedia is an amorphous blob right now. We've no strategic plan, no assesment matrix, no achievement metrics, etc. I need to do some more work to be abolutely certain, but outside of the foundation bylaws (which don't really address this), we've nothing codified in any form regarding the projects objectives other than being an encyclopedia and the project's policies and guidelines. Policies and guidelines are several rungs down the pyramid in an organizational structure, and devolve from goals, objectives, and tasks...not the other way around. I haven't devoted enough time to this though process to come up with solutions. It'll take some time to develop something in that direction, and I need to spend considerably time on research before I can get to square one. --Durin 16:10, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Part of that comes from your inherently analytical personality style. I'm largely the same way, but I've been working for a long time to be flexible to other styles. Analytics inherently want concrete steps and take comfort in numbers, but that's not always the best solution. Metrics miss a lot of information and concrete rules don't always help. We do have an overall objective of creating the most complete and high quality encyclopedia ever and most importantly we have the major core content policies that dictate how the content should evolve. Together those offer the needed guidance to move forward. Now that's not to say that some concrete goals, plans, etc couldn't add some value especially in the case when there is a specific goal like improving current quality vs focusing on adding greater numbers of articles. Any ideas you are able to come up with I'm all ears. - Taxman Talk 23:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
    • As a passer-by that's hijacking this thread, you're always welcome to help out at the Version 1.0 Editorial Team. Right now, we have a few points to do listed on the talk page, so you can help us by giving us some tips, or better yet, with some elbow grease... :) Titoxd(?!?) 03:32, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Póvoa de Varzim

I've done some work on this to rephrase the Portuguese expressions that Pedro had put in when translating it, but I'm now too close to the article to do it justice. Your reviews at PR are always spot on, so I wondered if your talents extended to copyediting, and if so whether you could spare some time to look over part (or all) of this article? Apart from the prose I think it is a solid FA candidate, and it would be a shame for it to fail on that one factor. Yomanganitalk 16:28, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, it seems I missed it while it was on FAC. No my copyediting skills aren't superb, but I'll see if I can help. What I'm better at is telling you if it's ready and what it needs to be ready. Once it's fixed up I can tell you when the article is at a point that it is virtually guaranteed to pass FAC. I'll leave some comments on the talk page. - Taxman Talk 13:04, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] T on the Fringe

Firstly, thank you for all the help and advice you gave me, and for the articles you pointed me towards. I am sure that I am now able to make a significant contribution to Wikipedia, thanks to your guidance.

I am just a little confused as to why T on the Fringe is not worthy of an article, when sister event T in the Park, is.

Thanks once again. Graemecairns 16:49, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

It seems clear that event is much more important, though I'm not convinced we need an article on it either. And no worries, if you just focus on things that aren't marginal for inclusion I think you'll have a lot more fun here. - Taxman Talk 13:04, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Username

What an interesting hiccup straight off the bat! I blocked the account (Tangotango walked me through just to be sure!). Thought best to address this with you on this page rather than WP:CHU in case the culprit sees my alternative choice and does it again. You mentioned the possibility of enforcing a change on their part, which obviously would be perfect - but I get the idea this may be somewhat of a hassle for you, and I rather not have you go to even more trouble! As I've never had a screen name, I'd like to keep it as close to Glen as possible, so of all alternatives I guess Glen-S GlenS is the closest. Shall I go and list this on WP:CHU so as to follow procedure? Thanks in advance for all your help! - GIen 14:29, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Nope, if that's the one you want you can have that. You had the request up on CHU before they took the account and their intent was obviously bad faith. Just let me know which one you want. Heh, your first admin action was to block yourself. :) - Taxman Talk 14:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Glen_S it is then, appreciated, thank you once again :) - GIen 17:24, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Done, but hah, that block still does show in the block log as you blocking yourself. I unblocked you just in case. - Taxman Talk 17:52, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yo, dawg

I blocked a coworker screwing around. So I knew who it was. Take a look at my usual blocks and you'll see... Bastique▼parler voir 18:01, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah, well in that case it's fine. Just trying to spread the word that insulting and inciting is not a good way to solve the problem. Carry on. :) - Taxman Talk 18:17, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Looking for your suggestion

Hey Taxman, I've been making edits to several articles related to private schools, and one thing that keeps coming up is opinions in The Bullis School's article. I can't seem to find any precedent for this on other schools pages and I'm not sure what should be done about it. Your suggestion would be appreciated. W Ed 23:44, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The perception, prestige, and quality of a school should be mentioned if there is evidence for it, which there should be in most cases. But what is in that section is purely original research because there are no sources. Newspaper articles, facts on school ratings, etc could be used to source similar material. Is that what you were asking? Another simple point is the article never mentions how many students are in the school, teachers, etc. The education level of the teachers if known could be a marker of quality too. - Taxman Talk 02:03, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Thank you, I'll see if I can find any articles on the school in the local news papers. The number of students and faculty are listed in the InfoBox on the side - should they be mentioned in the article as well? Thanks again, W Ed 11:43, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deville RfA

Hi there Taxman. Can you unclose this please? I wrote the nom at 2.30 but Deville didn't accept until 8. Also, Srikeit said he was going to support, so maybe give him the extra few hours if he still wants to? Thanks, Blnguyen | rant-line 02:45, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

No such thing as unclosing. :) Only a steward or developer can de-admin so there's no reason to open up the nom page. If Srikeit wants to he can leave a message on Deville's talk page or on the RfA talk page. The nom was a runaway success so the 5 some hours difference was immaterial as the accountants say. :) And yes I reallize we don't have that meaning in an article here. :) - Taxman Talk 02:53, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I would have supported too, if I had seen the RFA and not been away. Anyway, I think you are looking for materiality (not to be confused with materialism). -- ALoan (Talk) 13:26, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Great catch. I never would have thought of looking at that term for the article. So I created a disambig and linked to it at the top of material. Materiality happens to need some work too. Off to see what I can do. - Taxman Talk 13:48, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edits to Cosmetics Ingredients' Pages

Greetings, and thank you for your attention to the cosmetics ingredients section. I would like your opinion to resolve a conflict: You edited "Jojoba Esters" to "Jojoba Ester" citing that wikipedia favours singular names. However, the titles to this and other cosmetic chemicals were written as the INCI (official nomenclature) names, i.e. as they would appear on an ingredient declaration printed on, say, a bottle of lotion - in this way a consumer may easily find information based on the name as it appears, without having to reconcile the plural/singular question. many official names (e.g. Jojoba Esters) are listed officialy (INCI nomenclature) in plural form and this is why they would appear as such in the Wikipedia. Istvan 23:20, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

The naming conventions are pretty clear on this and have been very consistent about that for as long as I've been here. Basically unless something is only referred to in the plural, the article should be at the singular. Some sources in all manners of subjects will refer to things in the plural, but redirects will cover any of those needs for people typing in the article title that way. So by all means create all the redirects (which moving does automatically). Jojoba Ester and Jojoba ester are also different articles, so if you wish, you can create the redirect from the capitalized version to the non capitalized. - Taxman Talk 23:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fourth International peer review

Hi - I've worked through the article and hope that I've now addressed your points. I'd appreciate it if you could have a look at the changes and check whether they cover all your points and are sufficiently clear and detailed. Warofdreams talk 23:23, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Linky, linky, I need the link :) But sure I'll go have another look. - Taxman Talk 23:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Email

Just popped you through one :) - GIen 09:40, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Got it. - Taxman Talk 10:10, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Any luck? - GIen 14:26, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Hm, you didn't get my response? As mentiined there it looks like a failed rename which I can't fix. You'll have to try to catch a developer on IRC - #wikimedia-tech on Freenode or on the tech mailing list. Wikipedia:Mailing lists has it as Wikitech-l. - Taxman Talk 14:34, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RfA

Thanks for closing my RfA. The instructions on the bottom seem to imply that discussion can continue on the talk page. Is this correct? Stephen B Streater 09:42, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Yup, if need be. - Taxman Talk 10:10, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
As a matter of interest, did you read the discussion, or do you only do this if it is close? Stephen B Streater 10:48, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I did read it, but primarily from the perspective of gauging the consensus, which did happen to be fairly clear. Whether or not I agree with people's reasoning does not get taken into account. I do happen to agree free content is critical, so continue discussions in the appropriate place(s) and keep up your good contributions, which many people have commented on. - Taxman Talk 10:57, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for taking the time. Normally I'd have all this debate fixed up in advance, which would make things a lot simpler at RfA. One problem with the subject of video access is that is seems to be Too Big for any forum. We have reached consensus in many places, but everywhere I have discussed this turns out to be the wrong place. Do you have any suggestions on an appropriate forum (obviously excluding Meta Video Policy talk pages, Village Pump (Technical), Village Pump (Policy), and the talk pages of related articles)? I've also tried WikiEN-l, but have had no response at all. Stephen B Streater 11:06, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
It's not really my area. The VP seems like the best place to me, so ask the people who told you those weren't the right place where they think would be better. If they can't think of one, then the VP defaults to the right place in my eyes. Sometimes when you don't get a response it's because people think the issue is fairly settled. - Taxman Talk 11:10, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I've found Danny now, and he's told me what I needed to know. Stephen B Streater 18:47, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RfA message

My RfA video message
Image:RfA message.ogg
Stephen B Streater 08:40, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks!

I will start reading up on how to use the tools. Thanks for the notice! NawlinWiki 10:45, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Admin

Hi,

Thank you for your congratulations. I am really determined to justify the trust in me you all showed promoting me to the admin status. This seems really odd that I haven't stood for the promotion earlier. My devotion to the Wikipedia project and helping it grow are my main reasons to become an admin at last.
Kpjas 20:41, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Recent page move

....copied from Sukh's talk page.... Hi! user:Zafarnamah has moved page Anti Sikh Riots to Anti Sikh Pogroms without consensus again. See diff:

[9]

I see that you have already warned him on his talk page. This is for your information please. BhagatSingh 14:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Appreciate your intervention. 192.206.28.62 21:11, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
What's needed now is evidence to support the right naming choice. So help with that would be most appreciated. I don't really know anything about the topic. - Taxman Talk 21:42, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Carnildo

The discussion with him was private. I believe that the community is overfocused on apologies, which carry little weight in the real world. I think that it is unfortunate that the RFA is proceeding poorly, and am particularly dismayed that people who dislike the excellent and necessary work he has done on fair use image cleanup have chosen to oppose his nomination for that reason. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 15:58, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

He certainly doesn't owe anyone an apology, but he is asking to again have tools he once abused. Admitting he was wrong in abusing them would go a long way. To my mind and apparently a lot of others, if he wants extra priviledges he should at the minimum own up to what he did being wrong. As for the oppose votes due to his good work on images, those are easy to ignore. Heck, they'll probably earn him some support votes to conteract their ludicrousness. Carnildo is just implementing policy, so in that arena he's clearly doing nothing wrong. - Taxman Talk 16:28, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My RfA

Thank you so much. It must have been a difficult one to call. I will try not to let down the community or your judgement in my actions as an admin. --Guinnog 13:04, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Excuse Me

Excuse me, but I thought we were done with this. I had the same problem with you people last week, and I assume this has to do with that karmafist person, who I live in the same town as. If i've broken some rule somehow, let me know, and we'll work it out else where, i'm not looking to make trouble. Until then,please desist with the defammation. I'm assuming that Coffee Shop is in the same shoes as I am, and I'd hope that the Assume Good Faith page is not meaningless, so i'll help him even if nobody else does. Vice President In Charge Of Office Supplies 21:51, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


  1. Ok, 1. You're the one disrupting this "consensus gathering exercise" by accusing me of things just for me sharing my opinion. 2. Bureaucrat or not, you've also voted in this "consensus gathering exercise". You're a biased party and cannot ethically assess a fellow voters opinion while having your own vote stand. 3. I will not yield to intimidation or bullying(regarding your comment to blocking me), regardless of whoever you think you are. This just makes me think even more that the consternation that must revolve around Carnildo makes him not worthy of this position. Vice President In Charge Of Office Supplies 22:42, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
    If there's a rule against new users voting somewhere, please just show me it and I can respect that. Otherwise, please remove your comments about me about me being some other person on the voting or i'll follow the advice of Ryulong on how to move on from here with your comments about me. I have no issue with you personally, but I will stand up for my right to be heard the same as anyone else without being accused of some thing I have not done. Vice President In Charge Of Office Supplies 00:19, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] One More Thing

On what you said about "charity". I don't want your charity. I want to be treated the way I try to treat others -- with as much respect for the opinions of others as possible, and it bothers me when that doesn't happen, so I apologize if I have offended you somehow, but I would rather have you do whatever it is you want to do than try to treat me as a second class citizen. Vice President In Charge Of Office Supplies 00:27, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other Guy

Interesting spelling, "defammation". --Tony Sidaway 22:37, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

What the hell are you talking about? I mispell a word, so I must be that other guy? Vice President In Charge Of Office Supplies 22:42, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Well it's kinda tipping that way, on balance of probabilities. --Tony Sidaway 22:45, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disruption warning

I have issued VP of OS a disruption warning for his actions in Carnildo's RfA. I'll be happy to hand out the block if the disruption continues. ++Lar: t/c 11:27, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anti Sikh Riots

Copied from Talk:Anti Sikh Riots.

"...To me NPOV would say you couldn't refer to them as pogroms in the title and lead unless you could show prevailing opinion is that they were in fact pogroms...". I agree with that user:Taxman. I am copying here the definition of pogrom here, "...officially encouraged massacre or persecution of a minority...". There is little doubt that some Congress leaders were involved but there is no evidence of any "official encouragement". Please also note that there has been a heated debate on this on the Khalistan and most users have always reverted references to "Pogroms". Hope that clarifies. Syiem 22:56, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Questions about Guinnog's RfA

If you have a moment, I'd be very interested to hear a bit about the process of deciding Guinnog's RfA. I am trying to get familiar with the ins and outs of RfA, and one of the things I spotted was a discussion in Redux's recent RfB where he talks about (a) the need for transparency, and (b) the need for extraordinary circumstances to justify a promotion in the 75-80% support range. I understand that bureaucrats must use their best judgement; WP:BUR doesn't say much more than that, except for a reference to "traditional rules of thumb".

So I have two questions. First, can you tell me if there is a policy or guideline document that provides more detail about the process of deciding a promotion? Redux's comments made it seem to me as if such things as the need for transparency were settled policy, but I've been unable to find any reference to this. Is this just a consensus emerging from historical discussions of bureaucrat actions? Second, would you be able to shed any light on how you went about deciding Guinnog's promotion? (I voted to support Guinnog, by the way.) It was clearly borderline, and I'd like to know what considerations you applied and how you applied them.

Thanks. Mike Christie (talk) 12:29, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Those comments don't exactly follow the longstanding promotion guidelines. It's not that there needs to be something extraordinary, but the judgement of the bureaucrat that the consensus is to promote. There's not 100% agreement among bcrats about what to use for judging that and there never will be. It's a human process that you can't perfectly boil down to numbers. But what I do for any likely promotions and any that are possibly close is first to read through all the comments. Then I look through for possible bad faith/sockpuppet/other irregular votes and see what the results would be with just those tossed out. From the raw numbers I consider a number of factors such as the weight given by the candidate to their opinion and the strength of the argument and evidence. I give more weight to those with a lot of solid reasoning. Then I'll take a look at just the very well known long standing highly trusted Wikipedians and those known for very conscientious comments in RfA and see where they stand as far as supporting and opposing. On the balance of those factors I'll judge if I think there is community support for promoting. In the specific case you asked about many of the objections came from editing in a particular article. I gave particular attention to people that gave evidence and opinions whether Guinnog had learned from his mistakes or not, giving weight to the fact that his "adversary" in that article supported and gave evidence as to why he believed Guinnog had learned from his mistakes. Hope that helps. - Taxman Talk 17:31, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
It does; thanks very much for the details. Mike Christie (talk) 17:41, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Withdrawal of Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Tromsogirl

Tromsogirl submitted a request for adminship earlier this morning. After a brief conversation with me (see User talk:Srose and User talk:Tromsogirl), she chose to withdraw her request. She has also posted this desire on the RFA itself. I just thought I'd let you know, as the RFA isn't listed on the main page RFA page (and I'd like to keep it that way to avoid an unnecessary pile-on even after withdrawal; sometimes the 'acceptance' line is skipped). As I'm not an administrator (yet) or a bureaucrat, I was wondering if you would be so kind as to close the RFA. Thanks in advance! Srose (talk) 15:13, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


Hi Taxman, Yes if you want to delete the RFA you can do as it wont be needed, whichever is easiest with you :-) Thankyou :-) (Tromsogirl 17:38, 1 September 2006 (UTC))

Since it was never listed, I've deleted it to make way for your hopefully successful bid in a few months or so. - Taxman Talk 17:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Wikicite

Just wanted to update you on the status of the Wikicite project- parts of the software are already functional, and I have modified the Cite extension to pull bilbiographic data from open catalog servers (e.g. Library of Congress) based upon unique keys like ISBN number. Technically this component is the data import function of the bibliographic catalog sub-project Wikicat. Here is a live screenshot of the software. There is actually not too much to be done, software-wise, before this can be rolled-out on Wikipedia. The real effort is making sure that the bibliographic catalog is designed correctly, which requires researching the professional cataloging standards out there.

I announced the first phase of the project- the bibliographic catalog- on the foundation list about a week ago and though the response was fairly positive, I would appreciate it if you could help drum up support to help push this through (it seems like there's an official non-offical policy of rejecting any new project proposals at this point). The endoresement of a Wikiproject group would be especially valuable. BTW- an essential component of Wikipedia 1.0- stable version designation- is ready to be rolled-out so there's something else to lobby for.

Jleybov 23:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the update, it's great to hear the code is ready. I'm a little confused why it would need a separate foundation level project. I didn't have a chance to check yet, but did you post to the Wikipedia:Wikiproject fact and reference check, and the WP:V talk page? Those would be the places to gather like minded people. - Taxman Talk 13:50, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I posted a while ago to Wikiproject Fact and Reference Check, both the main page and the talk page; I also posted to Wikiproject Forum for Encyclopedic Standards- again, both main page and talk page. Very little response from either. I am not really an active member of either project, though, so perhaps if someone who was drew attention to Wikicite again there would be more interest expressed.
The reason for having a stand-alone project is that one component of Wikicite- the bibliographic catalog, Wikicat- is logically a separate resource that should be cultivated in its own right. For example, in the long-run I envision the ability to follow an in-article citation from Wikipedia to Wikicat, and then use Wikicat to see which sources that source itself cites. This could be used for the purposes of strengthening an article, or a user could come to Wikicat directly when in the process of performing independent research. In addition, the technical changes to support all this are major enough that a separate project is pretty much required anyway- we are adding a bibliographic catalog database that is much more complex in its structure than Wikipedia, and which will eventually require its own UIs to enter and change data, plus cataloging rules documentation to ensure the data users enter is consistent, etc. ....
So anyway, if you could help raise awareness of the project and build support for it that would be very very useful. Even adding names to the "People interested in joining" list on the project proposals page would be a big help.
Jleybov 18:03, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I'll see what I can do to publicize Wikicite. I think it's a clearly good solution to our reliability problem, and I think once more people are aware of it it will pick up momentum. If you're confident that Wikicat is the way to go to support wikicite, then that should also be eventually evident. But as a pragmatical solution partial steps are often much easier to implement. Try to figure out a way to decouple Wikicite from anything that needs a separate project, at least enough to get it lanched and working. Then once that change has been sent through, if Wikicat is truly needed then the need for it will become obvious to everyone. But trying to change to much can be a problem and stall the whole process. Have you talked to some of the mediawiki developers to see if your code for Wikicite can be smoothly merged in? Most patches supplied are rejected because they don't fit in with the current codebase in a smooth way. - Taxman Talk 18:40, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Luckily all of my changes should fit within the existing Mediawiki architecture and in fact are being implemented as extensions. Wikicat and Wikicite are separate but very inter-related, with Wikicite in fact being dependent on the former (though not vise-versa)- to cite you need someplace to store bibliographic data, after all. I have tried to roll things out in stages, though, such that useful functionality becomes available as soon as possible. For example, Wikicat would be rolled-out as initially "import-only": no UIs would be provided to manually enter data, but data would still come in from open catalog servers in response to users citing particular works. In fact, I think most of the features of Wikicite could be enabled on top of this initial release of Wikicat.
In any case, please let me know what additional features you would like to see in Wikicat. I have already followed, for example, your suggestion to extend the Cite.php extension citation mark-up rather than introduce a new one.
And again, just let me reiterate the importance of having community support for rolling out new features. The stable version feature has been code-complete since last year, but no move seems to have been made to take it live on Wikipedia yet- this despite the fact that its author, Magnus Manske, is one of the main developers of Mediawiki!
Jleybov 21:39, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] San Francisco, California Article

Hi, another editor and I have put in some mega-hours over the last two weeks trying to knock the SF article into shape for a Feature Article nomination. Since you have been active in other Geographic articles nomiated for FA, I was hoping you might be intersted in looking at the SF article? Also, the current editors are a bit cross-eyed and could use some recommendations for other Wikisouls who might be willing to proofread or copyedit the article. Thanks for any help!--Paul 02:41, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Sure, I'll see what I can do. - Taxman Talk 12:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Thank you! I appreciate any help.--Paul 16:40, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
We have completed all of the suggested changes and have re-submitted the article as a FAC. Thanks for your help.--Paul 05:48, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My adminship

Thanks for the welcome, and I'll be sure to watch where I step! Larry V (talk | contribs) 05:00, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Carnildo

Hi Taxman. You wrote "We therefore reinstate Carnildo's adminship, on a probationary basis, for a period of two months, after which his activities will be reviewed by the arbcom" [10] Have the arbcom agreed to that? Regards, Ben Aveling 10:02, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, enough of them. :) - Taxman Talk 13:00, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] JPD's RfA

Thanks, Taxman, for giving me the sysop rights and the good advice! JPD (talk) 16:48, 5 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Wondering if you could...

Use your oversight powers to delete my user page history? There is sensitive personal information on there that I would like removed. Everything up to the most recent edit? Magic Window 14:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

All revisions with personal information have been removed. The rest are simply deleted. Just FYI and FOI, in the future these types of requests may be denied since you chose to put your personal info out there. - Taxman Talk 15:33, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Politely registering protest

Hi Taxman,

I support Carnildo, and am very happy he got his adminship back, something I just became aware of after reading the Signpost. However, I write to you to express my shock at the closing of his RfA.

I appreciate the arguments have all been aired, and that being a bureaucrat is a very hard thing to do. I respect you, and don't wish to belabor my point, so I'm going to put this very simply. Objectively, Carnildo's RfA closed as "consensus not reached." To say anything else is sophistry of a very low order, equivalent to saying that the sky of the planet Earth is "Pink with Purple polka-dots." Despite his RfA, he was promoted. I understand why, I even agree with the reason why (forgiveness), but I am nevertheless distressed at the apparent effort of the b'crats to make "2+2" equal "5".

B'crats have the authority to promote, you did so, and it was the right thing to do. B'crats do not have the authority at assert that the "sky is polka-dotted," and they shouldn't embarass themselves by trying to do so. Twisting plain facts only harms the integrity of the bureaucratship.

I hope you see my point, and I hope the bureaucrat corps in general is wise enough not to repeat this error. Re-promotion of Carnildo should ideally have happened through ArbCom or Jimbo; absent that, if the bureaucrats agreed promotion was right, they should done have so, clearly and plainly despite the RfA.

As I say, I supported Carnildo, and yet even my "common sense" is a little bit offended by the notion that 61% is an RfA consensus. Such a suggestion is so far from reasonable that I feel justified in applying analogies from the schoolyard to it.

In short, good job in promoting; not so good in explaining the promotion. If (Jimbo forbid) there ever is a "next time" like this, I'm sure you b'crats will do better. Good luck :) and best wishes, Xoloz 16:57, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate the polite effort to register your disagreement, and your points are duly noted. - Taxman Talk 19:11, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Script

Per your IRC request, I wrote it up today. Clear your browser's cache, then go to the history page of any RFA candidate page. There should be a "data" tab.Voice-of-All 23:07, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Here's to Looking!

Abbie is looking at you. Teke (talk) 03:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Enlarge
Abbie is looking at you. Teke(talk) 03:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RfB

I "closed" it because the ending date had long passed, notice ram-man's comment "is anyone going to close this?" in an edit summary. I did not finalize the tally, make the promotion decision, or archive anything, I left that for a bcrat. Voice-of-All 16:37, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I know that's what you did it's just that people's comments are valid as part of the consensus gathering up until the point a bureaucrat closes it. He apparently didn't reallize that either and should be patient too. Like I said it was one of the few grey area RfBs in years, so it shouldn't be surprising it would take more time to decide on. - Taxman Talk 19:10, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I always though of the closing date as a hard number. People could added something just a few minutes after the time is up maybe but not hours after, which is why I closed it. If the ending date doesn't really matter (so its not really an "ending date" but more of a "ending around this time most likely" date), then I am fine with that, as long bcrats pass it only when they deem it necessary. I just wan't aware that that was current policy. There seems to be a lot of confusion and lack of clarity about how RfA really works, perhaps this could be clarified.Voice-of-All 20:56, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
That's why we have bureaucrats for it, it's fairly clear for us. :) And when you say tally, I'm assuming you mean closing date. But it's never been a hard time limit and especially not in close cases. We've mentioned a few times on WT:RFA that comments up until a bcrat closes the nom are valid even if after the listed closing time. - Taxman Talk 21:00, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Roni Lynn Deutch

Dear Taxman: Your input could be valuable regarding the article Roni Lynn Deutch at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Roni_Lynn_Deutch

My personal view is that the article is pretty much an advertisement, even if the article wasn't put there by Ms. Deutch herself -- but you may have a different perspective. Yours, Famspear 19:52, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] template cite book

Hi. May I ask you: what was your intention of this edit on template:cite book? (which you reverted afterwards). We normally discuss changes on the talk page. Also, experiments should be conducted in a sandbox (especially for such high use templates, as these two edits invalidated the cache of 19,207 pages twice). Cite book applies the template doc page pattern. --Ligulem 17:40, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Hence why I reverted it. It was an accidental edit that I reverted as soon as I could, so I'm confused why you are asking. I was copying that template over to the Hindi Wikipedia and initially didn't see that I was about to hit save on the wrong project first. If your intent was just to say be more careful, that is surely noted and perfectly reasonable. - Taxman Talk 17:46, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
This is in no way meant as bold critique. But sometimes someone is trying to achieve something and it might help to understand what that was. I also didn't find a notice on the talk about your accidental edit. The doc page pattern is relatively new (I wrote it). So I am interested in any problems this might cause. Also for me as a poor (or should I say lucky? :-) soul who can no longer edit cite book since its protection (which was a bit a frustration for me first), I'm a bit sensitive to admins dropping by without a notice on the talk. But no harm done. Everything is fine and thanks for your explanation. Cheers, --Ligulem 17:57, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jharkhand

Hi Taxman. Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Jharkhand&diff=prev&oldid=75345964 Thanks. --Bhadani 19:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Taxwoman. Thanks for the information. You have good knowledge of Hindi, as also of suitable wikipedians for making matches. All the best! --Bhadani 16:07, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wiktionary request

नमस्ते Taxman, कैसे हो आप? Sorry for the delay in replying, was caught up with my college stuff. Anyway I reviewed the list you gave me & have found that a majority of the listings are correct. I have found a few errors in the list but instead of plunging in & correcting them, I'd prefer a second opinion from some other editor who is a bit familiar with the language. Despite being able to speak Hindi fluently, my knowledge of pure Hindi is rather limited. So I'll discuss some of the stuff with people like Aksi_great on IRC before I make any concrete changes. Anyway this list seems a good place to start with the pronunciations. What d'you think? Hope to see you on IRC sometime. Cheers --Srikeit (Talk | Email) 18:41, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

कोई बात नहीं, that sounds like a good plan. I forgot you may or may not read and write in Devanagari so much either. But thanks for looking into it, and yes those would be a perfect place to start with the pronunciations. Though some on that list are certainly not the most common words. Start with the ones that are the most common I guess. Thanks again - Taxman Talk 19:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Carnildo's RFA

Hi Taxman

I have not been here before, in fact I have deliberately waited a while as I did not want to leave a message here in anger I would later regret. I have always respected you, especially your work on the FAC page, in fact I always thought a support from you was worth three supports from some other people. However, following your advocacy and support of Carnildo's promotion to admin status, I feel I can no longer trust or have confidence in the arbcom to do what is right and best for Wikipedia. In my opinion you and your colleagues have seriously let down the factory floor of the encyclopedia and made a huge error of judgement. It no longer seems worthwhile expressing an opinion towards consensus on any Wikipedia matter because ultimately one knows the result will be decided behind closed doors regardless of (what one of your colleagues calls) the "fickle and ill-informed populace." [11]. Well I am not fickle or ill-informed, I am very consistent and very well informed. I don't call for your resignation, but in all honesty I can no longer respect your judgement. Sorry. Giano | talk 22:08, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry what I did made you feel that way. I did what I did because I felt it was the right thing to do, and I would like to think that even though you disagree with me, you could at least respect that I did what I did because I felt it was good for the project. Not that I agree with what Carnildo did, which was certainly wrong. Funny thing is if I had gone with what people referred to as a chummy decision I would have sided with you and Bishonen and ALoan, three people I have a lot of respect for, but doing that would actually have been the real thing that would have let people down because it would have meant compromising what I thought was right for the sake of people I like. - Taxman Talk 22:49, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Taxman -

Sorry for the screed below (not my first in recent weeks) but I wanted to reply to the above.

You may have noted, by the way, that I did not vote on this RFA - I can remember supporting an RFA on only a handful of times, and as far as I am aware I have never opposed anyone; neither was I involved in the pedo-userbox debacle as far as I remember - so you would not have been "chummy" with me by deciding the other way. I respect that you made a decision that you thought was right, but I am also very disappointed by it.

I deeply respect your contributions too; indeed, I have great respect for all of our bureaucrats (look, I still think you are "our" bureaucrats). While the position "only" denotes the ability to do a few extra administrative actions, any person who get the job has to have demonstrated a whole range of virtues to which I can only aspire, and understandably the entire community looks to you as a group for a lead.

I think you are agreeing above that there was no "consensus" for the promotion (I just fail to see how 39% of people objecting to any proposition can amount to consensus in favour of it - if you think it does, please let me know how) but that you wanted promote User:Carnildo anyway because he would make good use of admin powers for the benefit of the project. Well, I have no doubt that the majority of people who fail RFA would make good use of the admin functions (limited as they are), and I would support making many more people admins, but I don't get to make the decisions: the community does, through the agency of the bureaucrats. The community appointed bureaucrats to decide whether someone should be an admin, on the basis of community consensus. If the position has changed, and bureaucrats have now taken the discretion to appoint anyone they please as an admin (without, as far as I am aware, the community having any say in the matter) then we should just wipe RFA and its noxious fumes away and have a system where editors can ask bureaucrats for adminship on an ad hoc basis, and either get it or not.

What worries me more is that this whole debacle has exploded over a slew of Wikipedia:... pages, with collateral damage in all sorts of places, with hardly a peep from the bureaucrats. You have replied a few times to explain the position ("unfortunate argument ... temporary measure ... special consideration ... extenuating circumstances ... forgiveness and reconcilliation", "sometimes you just have to do the right thing", "Give us some credit that we didn't throw consensus out the window...", "there are not likely to be many if any future RfA's with such extraordinary circumstances") and User:Nichalp has added a few comments, but nothing strictly on point, and a stony slience from User:Angela, User:Essjay, User:Linuxbeak, User:Pakaran, User:Raul654 and the others - ignoring User:UninvitedCompany, who was the nominator - but a lot of comment from User:Tony Sidaway, User:Kelly Martin and others). Perhaps a tactical bureaucratic silence is intended to let the flames die out, although the fires are still smouldering as I write; perhaps the bureaucrats have no intention of displaying public disagreement with each other; but it would be very helpful to have an authoritative statement from the bureaucrats on their support of this decision, its basis (in terms of consensus or discretion), and if / how it affects future decisions. Is this just an exceptional case? What does RFA mean now?

But the worse thing is that you appear to be saying that an editor can make the most gross and unfounded allegationsm, indulge in heinous abuse of admin powers, display no remose, not apologise, and then expect everything to be all right and become an admin again. Well, there is a very strong component of opinion that it is not all right (more than enough, I would say, to prove that there is no consensus). I have great respect for the work that User:Carnildo does in straightening out our images, but he does not seem to know right from wrong. As the same time, I find that other people who I admire just as much are not given anywhere near as much slack in situations where their "crimes" are not nearly so culpable.

The general atmosphere here has gone to hell in a handbasket, and I have no idea how to stop it. -- ALoan (Talk) 00:08, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I find the more I focus on the problems the more I think the place is imploding. When I let go of that and focus on the good things and how to move articles forward faster, it's still all pretty amazing. I'm particularly excited about the stable versioning experiments on the German wiki as I think that really has the potential to take the project to the next level if done right. Another of my favourite (spelled just for you) things to look at is the graphs from here, which in the end shows that after all the problems, we're still doing a lot right.
It's not hard to see why other bureaucrats are not commenting based on the degree of twisting words around, unfounded accusations, personal attacks, etc that have been going on. And I doubt you could find a case were someone made a non-repeated mistake (beyond all that happened in the incident that led to the rfarb) and then went on to produce such good work with no other serious mistakes that over a 100 people were willing to support them after making such a big mistake (or set of). You say you could, but I'd be surprised. - Taxman Talk 16:03, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
  • What disturbs me most about this whole affair now is that were I advising an arbcommer how to survive this on a personal basis my advice would be to sit tight and say nothing, if the common herd don't like it they can leave, they will be replaced by some other short term editor who will write a few pages and then move on when disillusioned. The individual power of each individual arbcom member can only be maintained if the common herd is constantly turning over and changing, divide and rule and the "mob" will never become strong enough to drag the arbcom in a tumbril to explain their actions. Giano | talk 18:32, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for taking the time to respond. As I have said a couple of times, this is not a witchhunt, at least as far as I am concerned, and I also regret any personal attacks. I just want to understand what happpened, and why, and its implications.
I am sorry that words have been twisted and unfounded allegations made, but the rampant speculation is surely only a result of decisions being taken behind closed doors, with little or no transparency and so little subsequent comment from the people making the decisions. One of the most informative comments on WP:BN came from User:Kelly Martin, for goodness sake, who has no position, as far as I am aware, as a bureaucrat or on ArbCom: I have no idea why she should be involved in the discussion.
If you had simply said, "the level of support in this case is significantly below the level typically taken as a rough consensus for passing an RFA, but in this case we are using our discretion to make a one-off exception because there are so many exceptional circumstances, and we won't be doing it again unless equally exceptional cirucmstances arise" (which is what I think you are saying above) then so be it. But I really don't see how you claim that there was consensus in this case. By all means be bold and ignore all rules in the effort to improve the encyclopedia, but at least be open that that what you are doing.
On the wider question: I see an awful lot of pettiness and pettifogging bureaucracy emerging recently which is really depressing, not to mention agressiveness little short of edit warring from some quarters to have the last word or to get one's own way. Quite how someone who blocks others for incivility and personal attacks can give the impression of having so little self-knowledge (indeed, rank hypocrisy; not to mention a bullet-proof arrogance and flatly dismissive attitide to any criticism) frankly amazes me. WP:BULL all over . I will not name names, but you may be able to guess who I am talking about (and if I am blocked for a personal attack, well, gnothi seauton, as they say).
But, yes, there are lots of good things, and the WP:100K project is exactly the sort of thing to get people thinking about positive contributions. I can't help thinking that this massive eruption of discontentment will end in tears, one way or the other. But I suppose I am here for the duration. End of sermon. [please feel free to have a right of reply; otherwise, this correspondence is closed] -- ALoan (Talk) 20:16, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for the e-mail, which I have only just read. Did you speak to Giano about the matters that you mentioned? -- ALoan (Talk) 13:58, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
  • ALoan, dear boy, friend, I love you, but please wake up. "words have been twisted and unfounded allegations made" They knew all this was going to happen, a first year law student could have told them that, and probably did. The decision was not made lightly, all options were carefully considered (weren't they Taxman?). The arbcom, (all of them I suspect were in on this - even Angela - there are no innocents here) calculated and estimated the response from the "fickle and ill-informed populace." [12] . (note: no one has censored Kelly Martin for such a stupid error) How far dare they go? They have now taken a vow of silence, so must be judged or damned together. They will survive because as I have said they divide and rule, poor old Sidaway though they use him as their barometer. Even I am never that cruel - but he is getting away with blue murder (check his recent contributions) - so they assess and calculate. Sinister isn't it? Doubtless the next comment will be Giano is paranoid! Well I am not, I smell a rat, I see a rat, and I don't like it one little bit. Giano | talk 20:53, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
  • And of course we have the usual re-action to common sense here [13] Giano | talk 21:22, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Rationale location

Hi, Taxman I was pleasantly surprised at Carnildo's promotion. I have my own ideas about why that was the right decision. With all the words flying around, I imagine your rationale must be here somewhere. I just haven't found it yet. Could you show me the dif so I can read it? Thanks, cheers, and happy editing. :) Dlohcierekim 14:19, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

It's all on WT:RFA though you have to pick through the volumes of discussion to find the comments from myself, Dan and Danny. - Taxman Talk 15:35, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. :) Dlohcierekim 20:58, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
For whatever it's worth, I agree. On the RfA, I went so far as to suggest that some of us allowed anger and bitterness to cloud our judgment in opposing. A sad situation, but I think, once the furor dies, good will come of this. Cheers, :) Dlohcierekim 21:11, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bot flags

I see that you just flagged[14] another bot. Thanks for watching the page and giving quick responses :).Voice-of-All 01:21, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I didn't really close it properly because the new tags suggested at the bottom of the talk page leave <noinclude>'s at the top and bottom of the page. I'm not exactly a template wizard, but I'm sure you could fix it in no time. - Taxman Talk 01:31, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Email

FYI I've sent you an email (I was lazy so I sent it from my meta account (just saying so in case you use different accounts)). JoshuaZ 03:57, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I may not have a chance to check it today, so I apologize if it is timely. I'm actually flabbergasted at the response some people have had there. - Taxman Talk 12:02, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
It isn't too time senstive. Also note that in the deletion discussion Pathos is claiming that Naconkantari is the only Metan favoring deletion. If (as I gather from your remarks in the discussion) you favor deletion you may want to clarify that point. JoshuaZ 16:26, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your early closure of User:BobbyLee's RFA

First of all, let me say that I agree completely with your early closure. I was only wondering how long it would take for a 'crat to do it.

What I want to understand is who should SNOW an RFA and when. Almost as soon as BobbyLee's RFA went up, User:Naconkantari deleted it without explanation. I thought the lack of explanation was rather rude but I agreed that BobbyLee's RFA had no chance of passing so, when BobbyLee reinstated the RFA, I redeleted it. While I was writing up my explanation of the deletion to BobbyLee, I had a quick message exchange with User:Chacor who indicated that he thought the RFA should run a while so I reinstated the RFA.

In retrospect, I see that the RFA resulted in a fair amount of support for BobbyLee as an editor and future admin even though the RFA itself was SNOWed.

My question is: Should a non 'crat ever SNOW an RFA? How about a non-admin like myself? Do you agree with Chacor that the RFA should have been allowed to run for 24 hours to allow people to vote even though the result was obvious to anybody who had any acquaintance with the RFA process?

Thanks.

--Richard 17:29, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

You say you deleted it, and I just assumed you had. Usually when we say deleted we mean actually deleting a page, not removing a link to it from another, but now I see that's what you meant. As for delisting and closing an RfA early, for good faith nominations such as this one I tend to prefer it be done by a bcrat because we have experience deciding when they have no chance of succeeding and because that's our official position there's less chance for discord. The general guideline we have discussed is when it's gone long enough to pick up a substantial number of comments and the margin of support is less than 25% or so it's a good candidate to close early. Closing before there is a substantial number of comments is not a good idea unless it is obvious it is a bad faith nomination. If it is really obvious it is a bad faith nom, it's ok if a non bcrat does it. So for nominations of or by vandals or people on their second edit or something like that anyone can close and they commonly are closed by non bcrats in that case. There's also been more discussion on this a few times on WT:RFA if you want to look in the archives, and I think it got duplicated once or so on WP:BN. - Taxman Talk 17:43, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Devanagari Spell Checker Bot

    • नमस्ते |

Dear Taxman, thanks for your valuble suggestion about spellchecker Bot.We at Marathi Wikipedia will study your valuable advice. At Marathi Wikipedia we reffer a Bot as सांगकाम्या(saan'gkaamyaa).We will keep in touch with you in this respect.

I am a user from Marathi Wikipedia presently mainly working on linguistic and grammatical aspects of Marathi Language.

Mahitgar 06:14, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aphaia's block

Actually, I think you misunderstood Aphaia's comment due to her poor English. She didn't mean in a week a but for a week. (Yes that means I'm blocked on Meta for week). Her comment was presumably per this conversation http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Aphaia&diff=prev&oldid=436576 . However, she then replied to a comment by Arbusto on the matter so I naively thought that if she was willing to discuss the matter it would be acceptable for me to comment (also because she hadn't blocked me for my involvement in the deletion discussion and the deletion discussion had multiple Metans involved arguing for deletion). Aphaia hadn't mentioned that this was taking time up from her Election Duties (obviously I wouldn't have discussed the matter with her if she had made that clear) but as you can see from the above see simply claimed I was "bothering" her. I must also express some slight skepticism with the election justification seeing as she apparently had time to respond to Arbusto. At this point, I'm finding the entire situation on Meta in regard to Jason to be absurd. JoshuaZ 16:26, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Charizard FAC

Could you please stop harassing supporters? Highway Daytrippers 20:57, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Please stop trying to repress discussion, I am not harassing anyone. Last time I checked we are free to discuss and disagree. I have not been impolite nor told anyone they can't have their opinion, but when someone has made statements based on what I believe are a weak position and not helpful to the project I have every right to disagree as long as I am polite. I've come to reallize that articles with low quality sources being passed off as if they have high quality ones is a serious problem for our credibility and what we are trying to accomplish. - Taxman Talk 21:05, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment for you

over on the Meta RfD page... http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Requests_for_deletion#.5B.5BUser:Jason_Gastrich.5D.5D - Amgine 04:47, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Email

FYI, I've sent you an email. JoshuaZ 14:10, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I will not get that for some time. Possibly not until Monday, sorry. - Taxman Talk 16:54, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Then I'll just state the contents roughly here although you may be aware of it already. Since there were claims that the user claiming to be Davey on Meta was not Davey I sent email to the real Davey through his Wikipedia email. I got a reply confirming that that was not Davey and the real Davey has since shown up on Meta under the username Theox. I can't offer my analysis or comments on this on Meta since I'm still blocked there however it would seem to me like a checkuser of the Davey impersonator would be in order, possibly across projects(either through cooperation between checkusers or by a Steward) to determine who was doing it. I suspect given your long time on the project you will have more success getting this to happen. JoshuaZ 20:40, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Also, on a related note, this may be of interest to you. Forgive me if this looks like an excuse. (If you want, I may be able to provide a translation for you to post) JoshuaZ 02:51, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Worst case scheduling didn't happen so I responded to your email, and check your meta talk. She really is stressed out about counting the votes. Doesn't make the block right, but really please do avoid contacting her at all until the election is over. As for the rest, I'll let you handle it, you have more info than I. - Taxman Talk 03:27, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IPA Peer Review

Hi again Taxman! You added some helpful stuff to the peer review of International Phonetic Alphabet, especially about the article's introduction. Well, I added another paragraph to the article's intro, but I was wondering what we should specifically aim for in the introduction (what needs to be mentioned?). If you could give some advice, that would be great. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 20:46, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for responding so quickly and offering advice! I've done some work on the article today. Cheers, The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 17:22, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] For your work

I award Taxman the Defender of the Wiki barnstar because of his actions to protect the quality of this project! Well done, Highway Daytrippers 09:07, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
I award Taxman the Defender of the Wiki barnstar because of his actions to protect the quality of this project! Well done, Highway Daytrippers 09:07, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] review

Hi - Please do me the kindness of visiting and sharing your views at Wikipedia:Editor review/Rama's Arrow 2. I need your advice and criticism, and I would be immensely grateful if you could spare a little time on this. Thank you, Rama's arrow 15:53, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Charizard problems

I was only saying that you weren't exactly taking in both sides of the argument, you weren't trying to the point from our point of view, which we were for you. Are you planning to block me over something like that? Highway Daytrippers 17:53, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I wasn't being deadly serious, I wouldn't have given you an award if I truly thought you were just rabbiting. Highway Daytrippers 17:54, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Well I think you should be able to see how giving me an award and insulting me somewhere else at the same time looks rather disingenuous. I also don't believe you can support your first statement above, but that's neither here nor there I guess. And no, that's not something worth blocking over, but it's not exactly helpful either. - Taxman Talk 18:03, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] hmmm...

I know this doesnt matter one iota (and maybe I'm anal) but may I please fix the tally to 111/0/0? :) Glen 17:59, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd prefer not since that gives the impression the tally is more important than it is, but someone will do it, so it might as well be you. :) - Taxman Talk 18:15, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you!

I learned quite a bit about myself from my RfA, and I will use that knowlege to help my judgment in the future.

Thanks for your comments. I will definitely follow them.

--Nishkid64 22:14, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Geni RFB

Hello, I've commented on Geni's request for bureaucratship (is that the phrase) to the effect that it might be an idea to postpone it until the ongoing ArbCom process regarding Giano, Tony, Kelly etc. has been resolved - there seems to be some workshopping of ideas there that relate to bureaucrats that might be better to be resolved, rather than stoke and inflame this and future RfB's - This isn't a request for action, but I'd appreciate your thoughts on the matter. Many thanks. --Mcginnly | Natter 00:15, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmm that case was requested to examine the behavior that came out after the Carnildo promotion so I didn't even look into it. I generally try to minimally participate in Arbcom stuff only when absolutely needed because I find it stressful and it doesn't involve improving articles. I find it conceivable that Geni never looked at that workshop just as I didn't before now. I suppose it's possible it would have been better to wait to start an RfB until that RfArb is closed, but I see no value in not finishing out one already started. - Taxman Talk 05:32, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Giano arbitration

Please consider this edit Fred Bauder 11:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I suppose I should give notice of this arbitration to all Bureaucrats. Fred Bauder 11:36, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Speakers per article

You may be interested in this new page showing the number of speakers of a language worldwide per article. NoSeptember 17:20, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, had you read comments I'd made in the past on the discrepancy between number of speakers and number of articles? I did a similar analysis using numbers from List of languages by number of native speakers, which even if the latter isn't highly accurate, its a decent first order approximation. Maybe I'll run the comparison on the whole m:List of Wikipedias to get the updated status if Gdarin doesn't do it. - Taxman Talk 18:21, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Hello, look here: m:List of Wikipedias by speakers per article, if you wish you can add smaller Wikipedias. I've changed some numbers of speakres according to newer data. Greetings, Gdarin | talk 11:06, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Doremifasolatido User Name

I picked your name randomly from the list. I see that some requests for name changes get addressed immediately and others not at all, as in never. What gives? My request is legitimate, though I grasp that it is quite recent and may be difficult to understand. The selection process whereby Wikipedian administrators determine which squeaky wheel gets the grease is difficult to understand as well. Wikipedia, at times, is not really a democracy so much as a bureaucratic chaos. Anyway, I wish to disassociate this screen name from my previous contributions for the reasons stated on the page for changing names. Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Doremifasolatido 03:19, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your speedy action. The user and talk page are still there (I hate to be a complainer) and they probably should have disappeared. Nodoremi 14:00, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

By convention user talk pages are not deleted. If you want, I can delete your new talk page and move the old one to it. Otherwise it can be moved to a subpage of your new user talk page. Let me know what you want to do. I'll delete your old userpage. - Taxman Talk 16:33, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

The first option you give seems to make the most sense, if it means renaming it. Otherwise, whichever you prefer, since it's difficult for me to understand how it would turn out. Thank you very much for your help. Despite my wry remarks above I actually think very highly of Wikipedia and, like many, believe history will prove it to be a world-changing institution of major proportions. Maybe it already is. Nodoremi 18:15, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jake

Now you see, I'd like to believe that, if it weren't for the fact that half the stuff I took out of the article because people opposed the FAC because of it, DaveOinSF just put back in the name of "improving" the article: as no-one can even agree on what should and shouldn't be in an FA article, it is a waste of my time, quite frankly, and I'm fed up with it. Dev920 (Tory?) 19:57, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Just because people are trying to be helpful does not mean they are going to be perfectly consistent. And just because people aren't consistent, does not mean they are not trying to help the project. But you can also ask if a given suggestion on FAC is consensus about how FA's should be or just someone's opinion. Others can weigh in and see if they agree. In any case now you have the things to go work on if you want to improve the article. Otherwise have fun working on whatever you want to. - Taxman Talk 03:54, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your suggestions for Demosthenes

I remember your suggestions in Demosthenes. The peer-review is not yet closed and I tried to initiate improvements based on your remarks. Further comments have also been made. Therefore, I'd like to have your opinion in Wikipedia:Peer review/Demosthenes. Thanks! Regards!--Yannismarou 16:08, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:Spongo

Hi Taxman

I have an account on de-wikipedia, commons and meta, all with the same name: Spongo. Unfortunely the en-WP has allready an User:Spongo-account, but this user has got no contributions since his creation in April. Is it possible to delete (or rename) this user in order to create a "new" account? --134.130.78.41 (de:User:Spongo) 15:23, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Currently no. If you read WP:CHU you'll see that usurping other user's accounts is not allowed, for a number of reasons including someone might just want to have customized user preferences, but not edit. With the single logon that is hopefully coming soon that shouldn't be a problem. Best advice is to choose a new name or create a similar one that's not too similar. Sorry. - Taxman Talk 15:53, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindi wikipedia adminship and main page

Thanks for supportting me for hindi wikipedia adminship. It is been pending for a while.

Your help is need for Hindi wikipedia main page update too. I noticed hindi wikipedia is missing additional formatting buttons. Can you provide any help in that direction too?

Thanks,

--Mitul0520 16:27, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure what formatting buttons you're referring to. And I can't edit the Hindi main page, you'd have to have someone act on your promotion or ask a hi.wiki admin to do it. Let me know more about what you're asking and I'll see what I can do to help. - Taxman Talk 16:42, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
I am referring to the buttons helpful in formatting above the text box, when you edit texts. Making it easy to make texts Bold, insert internal links to picture gallery and quoted text. Though all these formatting can be achieved by wiki style insertion like text enclosed in ''', these buttons are helpful for new contributors. In hi wikipedia there are 11 from bold to horizontal line. In English there are additional 11, from Redirect to block of quoted text.
Most of hi.wiki admins are not very active. Though the active ones support me, I guess they are unaware of the process to make me admin. Never mind, I just thought that you being bureaucrat could expedite the process.
--Mitul0520 21:36, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Your best bet for those buttons is either to ask on the village pump's technical page or if you want it quicker log onto #wikipedia or #wikipedia-in (tell them I sent you and User:BernardM, a Hindi admin often hangs out in the latter channel.) and they can tell you what pages need to be edited to add those buttons and translate the text description bubbles. You may have to be an admin to edit them, and if so, I'll see what I can do to get someone to act on your promotion. - Taxman Talk 22:42, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks a lot for your help and promoting me to hindi wikipedia admin. It really will help me to contribute more on hindi wikipedia.
--Mitul0520 15:31, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
You're very welcome, but all I did was ask a steward to make the promotion. Now you can go to work though :) - Taxman Talk 16:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:One featured article per quarter

I've hit all sorts of pages with the above idea, and thought, if you haven't seen it already, you might be curious. It's not exceptionally creative, but if enough people sign-up it could have some effect. Marskell 23:09, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Can you change my name?

Can you please change my name to Jagermeister, I already moved my user page, thanks. --Bluelist 00:46, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Please choose something that's not a trademarked name and meets the other guidelines in Wikipedia:Username. Also the best place to list your request is WP:CHU that way it can be changed as soon as the first bcrat sees it. - Taxman Talk 18:11, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kipling references

Hi, I only just noticed the rest of the talk page in Rudyard Kipling. We seemed to have had similar feeling about the citations (or the lack thereof) in the original article. I've been adding citations, rewriting, and copy-editing the article for over a week now. More than half of it is sourced, and I imagine, most of it should be done by the end of this coming week. (The legacy section will, of course, be a problem. We'll see ...) Sanjay Tiwari 22:33, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

That's great, keep up the good work! - Taxman Talk 04:08, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks for the congratulations, Taxman. My first edit was to include the news of the North Korean nuclear test on the main page, so I am enjoying my capabilities. My only question for you is, how do you close an XfD debate? is there a template? AdamBiswanger1 03:50, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

There's templates for just about everything these days. I can point you to the page that shows how to use them, but the path to finding them will be enlightening. Start with Wikipedia:Deletion policy and you'll soon find what you're looking for. :) - Taxman Talk 04:08, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Thiruvananthapuram

Taxman, Thanks for reviewing the article. I am trying to incorporate the points suggested by you. Can you list the points by numbering it in my talk page ? I will surely try my best to solve the issues.

Thanks in advance, -- Rajith Mohan (Talk to me...) :-) 22:19, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Please see the talk page of the article : Talk:Thiruvananthapuram
-- Rajith Mohan (Talk) 01:20, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RFA thanks

You probably get a lot of these, but it would be rude not to thank you for pressing the button (especially as I was just in the yellow). Cheers Yomanganitalk 22:43, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Well it wouldn't be rude, I like a clean talk page :) But the thanks is certainly not unappreciated either. :) - Taxman Talk 01:39, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:RfA

It has now been over a week since I suggested the wording should change from "Ending" to "Due to end". Concensus of those who discussed was that it be changed, here and here. May I change it now, or will it create a problem? Thanks. --Alex (Talk) 23:11, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

As mentioned, the biggest problem is with the bots and scripts that process it. It amounts to too much work for the importance of the change, sorry. I don't mean to sound rude, but anything article related is more important than the accuracy of RfA wording. But if you really want to, wait until you've gotten the ok from the people that operate the two bots that process RfA noms and User:Voice_of_All who wrote the bureaucrat helper script. Once they've all made their changes, then go ahead if you like. - Taxman Talk 01:39, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
It's not that important, but it sounds too complicated to bother with. Thanks anyway. --Alex (Talk) 11:30, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:ATT

In case you haven't seen it yet, you might want to pass by Wikipedia:Attribution. It's a good idea; merge several existing policies that all have roughly similar goals. However, people are trying to add a clause that weakens the standards of reliable sources for popular culture topics to allow self-published fansites and whatnot. See what you think. — BrianSmithson 11:30, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. That's about as damaging as it gets. - Taxman Talk 12:32, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reference standards

I was actually going to buzz you today, as I knew what your feelings would be... Bad, bad idea to make this allowance on a content policy page. Marskell 13:12, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Username question

Hi Taxman - Do you think my username "Rama's Arrow" is offensive to non-Hindu editors? Reading WP:USERNAME tells me that the names of religious figures should not be included, but I think that is subject to a username on the whole sounding offensive. The "Arrow" part doesn't help, but I'm a bit confused as I've never attacked anybody or any content based on religion. Would you recommend a username change for me, not simply out of prudence but to do your duty? Rama's arrow 14:36, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, I know that a bunch of editors tread as closely as me to the line, but are good contributors. Rama's arrow 14:38, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't find it offensive, but I guess I can see how some people would. I think the policy is geared to discourage creation of new names that could conceivably be offensive, and that's probably a good thing, but my personal feeling is it shouldn't be interpreted too strongly against longtime good contributors unless it causes a real problem. I don't think that's happened yet, unless I'm missing something. So I don't see an immediate need for a change just on reading of the policy, but if there's a consensus for it, I would recommend it. - Taxman Talk 17:23, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! (Phew!) The only person who had objected on this ground was Anwar saadat, which I considered a bad faith objection. Rama's arrow 19:36, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Consider the source, I guess, right? - Taxman Talk 03:35, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RfA thanks

Thank you for you sysopping, congratulations, warning, and advice all in one! --210physicq (c) 04:23, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] You have to keep your eye on this ball

Wikipedia:Attribution and a "Pop Culture exception". Here is my latest revert of it; I'm finding it a little frightening that such an innovation can be introduced so easily and hope that people keep this on their radar. Marskell 09:01, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks for the sysopping and advice! :) --Coredesat 16:41, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your comment about a hindi translation

Was very useful. I didn't notice that I did this kind of mistake. I'll keep this in mind in future. good to know that you are learning Hindi. Can you understand this? - धन्यवाद, कोई जरूरत नही है ।

Glad I could help, sorry if I was a little abrasive about it. And thank you very much for your contributions to the Hindi wiki too. You've really done a lot of good work there. I can understand literally what the above means, something like 'thank you, there isn't any need/necessity', but I can only guess if there is more of a real meaning. - Taxman Talk 12:35, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RfA promotion

thx - and I'll be careful - wow I see the protect tab on your talk page ;) --Trödel 16:41, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Heh, that's a fun one. I like hitting edit on protected mediawiki space pages for a real sense of the tools. Of course, I've not had much need to do it, but it's fun to be able to. :) But that's why we focus on whether people are trusted to use the tools, so keep up the good work. - Taxman Talk 16:48, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Optional questions (and the ensuing opposes when they aren't answered)

Hi Taxman. In the optional questions thread on Wikipedia talk:requests for adminship, you indicated that you disliked people being opposed purely because they didn't answer optional questions. So, as a bureaucrat, what weight do you put on opposes that read as "Oppose Didn't answer question 5. Example 22:08, 21 October 2006 (UTC)," and the like, when evaluating rfas you're closing? A small amount, or maybe even none at all? Picaroon9288 22:08, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Depending on the quality of the question, that can be a very bad faith reason for opposing, or with a high quality, very relevant question it could be a reasonable reason, especially when combined with other reasoning, so it depends. That doesn't give you a direct answer, but without a specific case there isn't a direct answer. More of what I was getting at is the quality of the optional questions matters and they shouldn't just be thrown up there without thinking through their benefits. - Taxman Talk 03:11, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I should've realized you couldn't just give a blanket answer. So in your eyes, is a question that asks "Could you explain this diff, [1], where you reverted Jimbo" more likely to lead to a valid oppose due to not answering than "What is you opinion on (insert obscure essay here)?" if the oppose reads solely as the example I made up above? Picaroon9288 03:22, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but RfA is a consensus gathering exercise so more reasoning is always better in helping to develop the consensus. A bare answer of oppose, didn't answer question X is borderline as to whether it is good faith if it doesn't offer other reasons as well. - Taxman Talk 03:31, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

For helping me out on Gedong Bagus Oka on all the lang pages.Bakaman Bakatalk 05:10, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

No problem, I can't contribute much there but I do what I can. - Taxman Talk 01:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hindi-Urdu grammar

Hello Taxman. I hope you are doing very well. Hindi-Urdu grammar is almost completed. I would say it is safe to delete the forked article, Hindustānī (Hindī-Urdū) grammar and its talk page. Thank you very much kind sir. AnupamTalk 21:17, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder, I forgot about the duplicate page. I though it was best to just redirect it though, so that the page history is preserved. There's no loss having an extra redirect to preserve the record of who did what work. Keep up the good work. - Taxman Talk 01:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
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