User talk:Dragons flight

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During the next three weeks I will be focusing on a research project on location in Denver. I expect to have sporadic internet access, but I am likely to be mostly inactive and be delayed in answering inquiries. Should be back around the start of April.
Dragons flight 20:34, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Welcome to My Talk Page

Some items of note:

  1. In almost all cases, messages left for me here will be replied to here.
  2. I do not archive my talk page. Refer to the history if you really need to find old comments.
  3. Please sign and date your comments by inserting ~~~~ at the end.

Leave a new message.

Contents

[edit] Protection Bot thanks

The Mediawiki patch is obviously extremely welcome. However, I would still like to thank you for taking the time to develop ProtectionBot and your dedication to protecting Wikipedia from the concerted efforts at vandalism the main page FA has endured. 185 users supported the Bot at RfA and I'm sure had it continued it would have ended up as an example of WP:200. I hope you enjoy your break and return rested after the frustration some of the process has clearly caused you. Thanks again, WJBscribe (WJB talk) 02:08, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Also, please check mail. Regards, Newyorkbrad 02:11, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I would also like to extend thanks on behalf of the community. Though this particular project did not come to fruition, I greatly respect the amount of time and effort you have put into it, and your hard work and dedication will doubtless continue to better the encyclopedia in other ways. I hope you enjoy your wikibreak and having some time off, Dar-Ape 03:05, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I, FWIW, join in this as well. Joe 05:01, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Heartfelt thanks from me too. I enjoyed giving feedback, and I hope my comments were helpful. Have a nice break and come back refreshed. I was reading Wikipedia:AfD 100 days the other day. Time for another run? Carcharoth 21:21, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ProtectionBot

A WikiCookie for you!

Thank you for the time you invested in developing the ProtectionBot and putting it up for RfA; without a doubt the actual MediaWiki patch would not have been developed and implemented if it were not for your hard work raising and arguing the issue with the community. - Mark 04:19, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the time and effort, you have a difference. 65.102.35.249 06:02, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Seconded. Enjoy your break, and IAR more often, to get the taste of process-induced stupidity out of your mouth. --Slowking Man 06:08, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. Looks like it would have been successful, and you did make a difference. Sorry if I made it any worse. I just went with what I thought was best, and it appears it would have worked. In any case, enjoy your time off, and come back refreshed. We need talented people like you. - Taxman Talk 07:19, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Let me add my "thank you" to that of others. It's immensely frustrating to spend large amounts of time on process (if the editors who fought about the bot would have spent the time improving articles .... ). I hope you do feel a sense of accomplishment that the goal of the bot was (more or less) accomplished because of what you did. If you hadn't put in the time (excessive as it seems), the problem wouldn't be fixed. John Broughton | Talk 14:00, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Dragons flight, many thanks for your hard work on ProtectionBot. Even if it wasn't put into service, it was instrumental in enabling the now MediaWiki built-in cascading protection feature by Werdna. I don't think it was easy to implement what Werdna did, so I doubt there would have been such a drive and energy in seeking a solution without your work. So please don't be frustrated about that pathway. Your work was a prototype for cascading protection (not unusual in software industry). Enjoy your wikibreak and replenish your batteries :-). --Ligulem 10:53, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your dedication to ProtectionBot's RFA. I opposed it, since I don't like the idea of bot sysops of any type, but you were very gracious throughout, and made many good points. I hope you weren't driven away from Wikipedia for too long. However, saying that 500kb was wasted is a little strong: several RFAs, RFBs, and ARBCOM elections have gone over 200kb, including several that failed, and they haven't been called a waste of time and disk space. But congratulations on being a major indirect force behind the creation of the patch.--Grand Slam 7 | Talk 13:33, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you for your spot-on observations

Your assessment of the 'bot approval process matches my opinion precisely. I too, spent much more time in the 'bot approval process than in actually conceiving and implementing it. The same resistance exists on en.wiktionary.org. There are rather different reasons/concerns for the onerous process, but the same end result. It is sad, that one can make all the same edits from a regular account, without any of the bot approval hassle. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 06:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "140 pages at a standard 12 pt font"

Hah! approximately 85 pages of comments and 55 pages of signature code! :) Thanks for your efforts on this. People like you make the internet not suck. - crz crztalk 11:51, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] To cheer you up...

Knights who say Ni! barnstar awarded for Dragons flight, for his uphill battle at ProtectionBot's RfA

Shrubbery barnstar awarded for Dragons flight, for his resilient attempts to bring shrubbery to the Knights who say Ni

Catch-22 barnstar is awarded for editors caught in a Catch-22

Duja► 15:06, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Re Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/ProtectionBot: I just wanted to say thanks for working hard toward a solution to an issue that has mostly led to admins sniping at each other, which gives me great sadness. I admire the inventiveness of the idea and appreciate very much your effort. Chick Bowen 22:21, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I applaud you

I applaud you for your grace and behaviour throughout the whole ProtectionBot RFA and most especially the eloquent, good natured speech you made on withdrawing the RFA. We need more like you. Steve block Talk 16:56, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I applaud you for your grace and behaviour throughout the whole ProtectionBot RFA and most especially the eloquent, good natured speech you made on withdrawing the RFA. We need more like you. Steve block Talk 16:56, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
On this 6th anniversary of the founding of Wikipedia, I am awarding you "My Barn". You are one the Wikipedians that have made the most exemplary contributions to my "home" areas of Wikipedia in the past year. Congratulations! Royalbroil T : C 12:48, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
On this 6th anniversary of the founding of Wikipedia, I am awarding you "My Barn". You are one the Wikipedians that have made the most exemplary contributions to my "home" areas of Wikipedia in the past year. Congratulations! Royalbroil T : C 12:48, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Phanozoic_Creativity

This is a comment on the two figures Phanerozoic_Biodiversity.png and Extinction_Intensity.png from the Wikipedia Biodiversity entry. It seems to me there is a natural third graph on creativity. Ive made a rough copy from digitized data,and posted it at

http://mysite.mweb.co.za/residents/mwjane2/phanerozoic_creativity.jpg

Source data is at

http://mysite.mweb.co.za/residents/mwjane2/biodiversity.xls

My graph it is much dirtier than the other two because it contains errors (a) of digitizing, (b) matching bins from two graphs and (c) assumptions about how the Extinction_Intensity graph was normalised. It gives no more than a hint of what might be gleaned from a graph drawn from the original data. An example of dirty data is the occasional "impossible" negative creativity data point.

What I read this graph as suggesting is that:

(a) There has been a steady decrease in proportional appearance of new marine genera, from a chaotic time in the Cambrian.

(b) The recoveries from mass extinction events have been driven largely by a reduction in extinction rates compared with elevation in appearance of new species. This appears from the mass extinction events as shown on the graph not corresponding to obvious nick points. Unlike their startling appearance on Phanerozoic_Biodiversity.png

I think a clean "creativity" graph drawn from the original data would be most interesting

[edit] Category tracker doesn't track copyright problems

Perhaps I'm missing something, but the category tracker doesn't seem to include Category:Possible copyright violations. That category is used for articles which have had a (large, hideous) template on them warning of copyright violations and stating that further editing of the article is not supposed to be done. And it has a backlog (as far as I'm concerned, since the template implies that some action will occur within a week, while the actual queue is over a month old.)

Any chance of adding this to the category tracker? -- John Broughton | (♫♫) 03:04, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Newyorkbrad's RfA

I just left a note on your bot's talkpage, but it is probably in order to thank its absentee owner as well for the "automated support" you provided on my RfA, which closed favorably this morning. I appreciate the confidence the community has placed in me and am looking forward to my new responsibilities. Your having been one of the first people to suggest that I consider adminship several months ago, and the time you took to actually write a bot script to register a support !vote for me even while you were away, both mean a great deal from me. I look forward to your return to editing and to working with you. Best regards, Newyorkbrad 17:45, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Backlog tracker bot

Hi, I just noticed at Wikipedia:Backlog that you don't have listed there? Could this be added or is it not there for a reason? Cheers, Localzuk(talk) 12:48, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

I have worked so much on the clean up (All articles needing copy edit) backlog yet it doesnt seem to update even after 24 hours, in the summary tracker? (respond here) --Parker007 05:37, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

It is working correctly and updated 21 hours ago (with a net increase of 10 articles in that cat). Dragons flight 05:55, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Could you add this to the summary tracker: Category:Articles lacking in-text citations 24 +sum-backlog --Parker007 06:59, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Thnx for adding it; so I guess I have to wait for 24 hours before it actually shows up on the summary tracker? {{User:Dragons flight/Category tracker/Summary}} --Parker007 07:12, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reports

The bot doesn't intentionally ignore RFBs, but it only looks for RFAs, so I guess the answer is yes :) The toolserver script (Arabic translation of Milestone tool) does, however, accept both RFAs and RFBs, so that tool can be used to find duplicate voters. Cheers, Tangotango (talk) 14:38, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I was just looking over my old comments, and noticed I'd copy-pasted the wrong text into my message there :P "Arabic translation of Milestone tool" should read "http://tools.wikimedia.de/~tangotango/rfa.php"... Cheers, Tangotango (talk) 11:59, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mediation

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Steel359&diff=104015378&oldid=104015264

Could you please take a look. thnx. --Parker007 07:48, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disclaimer free version of {{GFDL-self}}

Could you please comment on the tag I created at {{GFDL-self-no-disclaimers}}? Jesse Viviano 21:19, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] CSD chart

Could you please make a version of your CSD chart that doesn't include that lone outlier? It's really throwing off the scale of the graph, making it hard to see the actual trends in the data. Thanks. --Cyde Weys 17:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't have time right now, but here is the data, so feel free to roll your own. Dragons flight 18:50, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Mediocre"

I think that mediocre is generous, but this impression may be due to what I wind up looking at. I suspect that if we deleted every "fair use" image that we didn't have verifiable copyright holder information for, we would wind up with a lot less arguing over the other criteria; there would be a lot fewer corner cases. Jkelly 20:34, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GFDL image tag migration?

Hello, Dragons flight. While poking around Wikipedia I happened to stumble upon this, where you said that all instances of the {{GFDL}} tag were to be migrated to {{GFDL-with-disclaimers}}. I'd like to know if this is still intended, as I am planning on making a proposal over at the village pump to see if there is consensus to having a bot migrating the instances of {{GFDL}} to {{GFDL-no-disclaimers}}, which I am planning to add as a task to VixDaemon if it seems like it will be a sure thing. I just wanted to ensure that was what you intended before I continued any further. I hope you have a most wonderful day, and happy editing. Kyra~(talk) 21:38, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Ideally it should procede, yes, though I basically abandoned it when I got distracted with other things. The key part is that one can't actually change the text appearing on anyone's image without their permission. So everyone that currently has {{GFDL}} with the unorthodox "Subject to disclaimers" note needs to first be move to {{GFDL-with-disclaimers}}. Once GFDL is depopulated, it's text can be changed to match {{GFDL-no-disclaimers}} and everything using that tag can be migrated to the new {{GFDL}}. This would standardize usage with Commons and other projects, who never fell into the disclaimers trap. Dragons flight 17:45, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Last updated timestamp to the Category tracker?

Hi there. I love your Category tracker. I was wondering if you could add a simple timestamp to each of the entries indicating when they were last updated by DFBot. Would that be feasible? Thanks! BuddingJournalist 13:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This is a automated to all bot operators

Please take a few moments and fill in the data for your bot on Wikipedia:Bots/Status Thank you Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 19:44, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] you're.. kidding, right?

Hmm. wonder if thats vandalism.. ---Lazylaces-Helping Wikipedians since.. um.. for almost a year! Lazylaces (talk • contribs Riddle 21:03, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't look like you were intentionally vandalizing my adoptee's page, but please be aware that what you did could easily be taken as vandalism. There is no rule against that box, so please don't remove it again. Thank you for your cooperation. -- The Hybrid 22:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Many people feel that all spoofing of the user interface should be forbidden. I am not going to revert, but I strongly feel that it reflects poorly on Lazylaces to insist on having such content. Dragons flight 22:46, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Consensus has not yet been established. You may feel that spoofing should be forbidden, but as of yet it isn't. I appreciate that you will not be reverting Lazylaces, but your pre-consensus edits to another user's page was rude and uncalled for. Please be more careful in the future, -- The Hybrid 22:24, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removal joke "new message" banners

Greetings, you are performing actions that have no consensus in removing joke banners. Would you kindly refrain from that? Thanks. (→Netscott) 18:38, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Again, kindly refrain from removing banners until such time as there is an established consensus about doing so. Thanks. (→Netscott) 18:53, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I encourage you to invite the given users to remove the banners themselves on their talk pages rather than operating without consensus as you are now. (→Netscott) 18:55, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Any user can edit any page. I explained my reasons in the edit summary. They are free to respond to them or not, as they wish. Dragons flight 18:56, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Greetings again, I've made mention of your non-consensus actions on an ANI post. I invite you to join the discussion there. (→Netscott) 19:03, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
User have asked you to refrain from your actions. If you engage in edit wars or other uncivil behaior over these, you may be temporarily blocked. While it is techincally possible, it is generally frowend up to edit other users pages. Unwanted edits of other editors pages can also be considered vandalism at times. Please refrain from these actions. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 19:05, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Per ANI posting - endorse removal. Someone should have dobe this sooner. Guettarda 19:07, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

this is not the proper venue for endorsing or disagreeing. I am just commenting that his actions against current consensus could be seen as disruptive and possibly lead to a block should the actions not cease. Please follow the link at WP:ANI to discuss your feelings on this situation. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 19:18, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
What? You are here attacking Robert's actions, but you scold me for supporting them? Since when is Wikipedia a bureaucracy in which people are only allowed to comment using the approved forms, in triplicate??! Not to mention, if you feel that way then don't post your disapproval here...based on your own standards. What utterly amusing nonsense. Robert, do I have your permission to post on your talk page? Please? LOL Guettarda 19:23, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I have no strong feelings either way. I am just enforcing what I believe to be the current best course of action in light of current straw polls and other discussions that are currently attempting to build consensus. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 19:27, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
And yet, with no consensus or precedent, you are here telling me that I can only post messages approved by you to Robert's talk page? Guettarda 19:37, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Oh, no, thats not what I was saying. i was just trying to be friendly and point you in a direction where it would be heard and appreciated more. I have no problem with what you said! -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 19:52, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't think anything said on that page will be heard. Regards, Ben Aveling 20:29, 15 February 2007 (UTC)


Robert:
While I agree that the hoax banners should be removed, I ask that you please stop for the time being. Netscott and I agreed to neither remove nor restore them at the present time (in the interest of preventing further disruption), and it would be very helpful if you would accept these terms. —David Levy 04:09, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] {{Wikipedialang}}

Hi, I was wondering if you could check out a suggestion of mine? At Template_talk:Wikipedialang#Cut-off_point_change, thanks :) Jack · talk · 22:04, Thursday, 15 February 2007

[edit] RABot

Hi. Are you still running User:RABot? If so, would you mind going over Wikipedia:Requested articles/Mathematics which your script hasn't touched for a couple of months? If not, could you please consider giving the script to me so that I can run it? Thanks. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 23:39, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I stopped using RABot a long time ago because I found it was taking too much of my time. The edits have to be checked by hand because there are simply too many ways that people legitimately add blue links to those pages, and the number of RA pages also kept growing. And worse, people had a tendency to make radical changes to the way different RA pages were laid out. If you give me an email, I'll send you the code, if you would like to try running it yourself. Dragons flight 05:23, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

That would be great. I sent you a message using the Wikipedia email function so that you have my email address. I'll have a look how hard it is to get it running again. Cheers, Jitse Niesen (talk) 05:59, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] editing user page

Its okay that you do edit the user page but at least leave a comment. how did you find out about this user (this user being me) Let me know regards jesselp 17:05, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Figure on Carbon Flux in Wikipedia Greenhouose Gas

I note that the legend on the Carbon Flux figure is reversed. Fossil fuel burning is in blue and total flux is in red. Obviously the greater flux must be the total flux.Truman Williams 17:17, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

No, the labels are correct. The flux due to uptake by the oceans and forests is negative. Net flux is less than greenhouse gas flux. Dragons flight 17:22, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Articles with unsourced statements

Hi DF. Thanks for the info. I had assumed that the higher-level category Category:Articles lacking sources naturally had due to the inclusion of the this category. I think this may help uncomplicate matters somewhat as to the DRV and, if applicable, the CfD. Thanks, I'll get back to noting it in the DRV a bit later, so as to avoid any further unnecessary confusion by those reading it. ... Kenosis 20:39, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Automated message to bot owners

As a result of discussion on the village pump and mailing list, bots are now allowed to edit up to 15 times per minute. The following is the new text regarding bot edit rates from Wikipedia:Bot Policy:

Until new bots are accepted they should wait 30-60 seconds between edits, so as to not clog the recent changes list and user watchlists. After being accepted and a bureaucrat has marked them as a bot, they can edit at a much faster pace. Bots doing non-urgent tasks should edit approximately once every ten seconds, while bots who would benefit from faster editing may edit approximately once every every four seconds.

Also, to eliminate the need to spam the bot talk pages, please add Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard to your watchlist. Future messages which affect bot owners will be posted there. Thank you. --Mets501 02:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks. Aaargh. Studyandbewise isn't a bad editor in general, I really don't know what got into him tonight. But's he's really gotten on my nerves tonight. Guettarda 06:01, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Category Tracker : request for information, and possible cloning

Hi!I would be interested in how your category tracker works, and if it would be possible to either clone or run a copy of it on the Hungarian Wikipedia? Regards, --Dami 21:34, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion runs

Just because I'm curious, have I ever done a run? I know I'm a pretty delete-happy admin, but I think that my insistence on leaving talk page messages must slow me down.

I find the current AN discussion fascinating. Some of those numbers are simply unhuman. -- Merope 21:36, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

No. Only 39 without a 1 minute pause. Dragons flight 22:07, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Early closures

Just a bit of information, to utilize as needed in normalizing the statistics you have run. I tend to be the one do a lot of the early closures, and I adhere to a strict formula when doing so: Until the RFA reaches 75% oppose (the exact opposite of the minimum for promotion), I won't close it. There are probably one or two out there that were 27% or something, or where I discounted "moral support" when doing my calculations, but for the most part, it's 25% and under that get early closure from me. I'm not sure how prominently I'll factor in your figures, but if you're finding a lot of results from me, this may be a relevant point to know. Essjay (Talk) 22:53, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RFA closes

Is it possible to create an alternate image that makes 100% and 0% a different color (both white, maybe?) to better show where a case of 99% or 1% exists? Ral315 » 05:41, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Ejaculation_sample.jpg

I honestly believe the uploader is not telling the truth. I just find it hard to assume good faith if this user had many copyright issues before. I am looking for the photo, if it exists online anywhere else and see what happens from there. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 08:51, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

That's a very reasonable concern. Dragons flight 11:21, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bot is malfunctioning

I manually had to to put CSD = 129 at the summary table; It has not been listing that for the last 3 updates? --Parker007 02:26, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

More bot malfunctioning: see this revision of the category tracker. There are three categories with a negative number of entries; and Category:AfD debates (Not yet sorted) seems to be missing the (Not yet sorted) on the end, making that row look misleading. --ais523 09:46, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

The missing category problems are being caused by an intermittent Mediawiki bug and are outside my control.
The names of the list are placed as [[:Category:X|]], which chops off the parens when saved. Who's idea was it to used disambiguation style parens in a category name? Dragons flight 09:56, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Still not updating, I regret to have to say.--Anthony.bradbury 16:26, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Energy portal & future selected articles

Hi! Over the past couple of months I've been spending much more time than I should developing the Energy portal, and intend asking for a portal peer review within the next day or so.

The portal provides a showcase for energy-related articles on Wikipedia. One of the most prominent ways is via a the selected article that is currently changed every 6 weeks or so. It would be good to increase this turnover, and with three Wikiprojects dedicated to energy-related topics and a good number of articles already written, I'd like to suggest that members of each Wikiproject might like to use the 'selected article' to feature some of their best work.

With this in mind, I'd like to suggest that your Wikiproject bypasses the normal selected article nomination page and decides collectively which articles are worth featuring - or these may be self-evident from previous discussions (or from here) - and add short 'introduction' to the selected article at the appropriate place on page Portal:Energy/Selected article/Drafts, which includes further information. Your personal involvement would be welcome!

Please make any comments on your Wikiproject talk page, my talk page, or on Portal talk:Energy/Selected article/Drafts, as appropriate. Gralo 15:56, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Now Commons discussion for CSD I 8

Do I understand correctly that people have uploaded images of yours to Commons (allowable presumably based on the license), and you don't want to delete the now duplicated image on Wikipedia? Why don't you automatically upload to Commons and if you don't want to watch there, use your preferences to activate "E-mail me when a page I'm watching is changed"? Doesn't seem much point to have the images in both places. If an image is uploaded to Commons, presumably under the licence you can't request its deletion - how do you watch for vandalism there? Just my two cents / earnest seeker after knowledge / not quite clear what the problem is ... --Golden Wattle talk 23:02, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't watch for vandalism there. I ignore most things that occurs there. I also don't need a fistful of emails to deal with vandalism, and while I can ask others to watchlist my images here, I doubt it would be reasonable to ask them to deal with emails either.
I also have another complaint about Commons, that creating multi-language descriptions unnecessarily complicates their use on Wikipedia. Personally, I often see Commons as an unnecessary impediment to creating the best possible encyclopedia by making things harder to maintain. Many of my images are charts with English language labels and these labels ought to be replaced for other Wikipedias (which has already been done in many cases) so having English charts on Commons is not even all that helpful to other sites. Dragons flight 23:36, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for explaining. --Golden Wattle talk 23:50, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Possible compromise: 1 week unless the nominator for speedy deletion was the original uploader - what do you think?--Golden Wattle talk 10:17, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] X axis on Image:Hurricane Intensity Shift.png

I hope you have been well. Image:Hurricane Intensity Shift.png has an axis going from large to small instead of small to large, left to right. James S. 15:42, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

You do have a point. I copied the orientation of the original presentation without giving it any thought. Dragons flight 18:03, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template:PD-Art/lang

I noticed that you created Template:PD-Art/lang in January while copying information from Commons, and that it is now orphaned. Is it still necessary? --Iamunknown 05:20, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

No. Dragons flight 05:23, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Essjay scandal

Hi,

I noticed you were angry over the Essjay scandal. I am too, probably angrier than you, so I tried to do something productive and came up with the following. I want to get an endorsement from some admins(the only other talk page I'm posting this is at Doug Bell's) and put it in the correct forum so that it can be debated and modified. Thanks. CowardX10 00:14, 6 March 2007 (UTC)


New Policy on User Pages:

In consideration of the 2007 scandal regarding the false credentials presented by the user Essjay, new guidelines will now be enforced regarding the nature of the information a user/editor/administrator and all higher positions(all of which will be referred to as users below) may put on his or her user page or claim in any discussion.

I. In consideration of the need to protect one's privacy, a user/admin can have false information limited to the following:

  • 1) His/her name
  • 2) His/her address or general location
  • 3) His/her age within 5 years

II. The following are things for which it is unacceptable to falsely claim:

  • 1) Holding any educational degrees such as BA, BSc, MA, MS or MSc, Ph.D., etc., J.D., etc.
  • 2) Holding any professional licenses such as PE, MSCE, etc.
  • 3) Claiming any years of experience in a profession or hobby
  • 4) Claiming any special access to knowledge or material such as an engineering library or government archive
  • 5) Claiming years of experience with anything in a discussion where said experience would influence a decision (e.g. Saying you have owned a cat for 5 years when engaged in a discussion about cats.)

Other things may fall out of the scope of these rules(e.g. Claiming owning a cat may be acceptable if you never edit articles about cats), so there will be some discretion on the part of the user. It is asked though, that he/she emphasizes accuracy as much as possible.

If a user should violate the above, the account will be immediately treated as if he/she were a vandal who puts false information into articles. Depending on the degree of abuse of false credentials, corrective measures may be a simple request to that the user modify his/her page such that it removes anything under category II. or permanent blockage in severe cases like the persistent claiming of category II. information.

These new policies were put in place because the use false credentials was not specified before leading many to think that it was acceptable to claim them even in article discussions. These rules are a statement that false credentials are never acceptable.

Accuracy in Wikipedia can no longer be limited simply to what is put in the article but now has to extend, to a larger degree than before, to the identities of the members of the community. Note that these guidelines are not a choice between anonymity and full disclosure, but simply an insistence that no false claims are made other than what is listed in I.. This is also consistent with the rules the news media uses in protecting the identity of sources while not putting forth any knowingly false information.

I think you are probably overthinking this. Good rules then to be simply expressed, and (at least on Wikipedia) tend to avoid getting specific about the consequences of breaking them so that cases can be handled on an individual basis.
Someone has already suggested adding "False claims to academic or other professional credentials" to the list of things not allowed on user pages (WP:USER). There is also a proposal on the mailing list for creating a system of "verified" credentials [1]. Forums such as those (and the Wikipedia:Village pump) are good places for further discussion (and there will undoubtedly be further discussion), but I think you need to distill your proposal more clearly to its core virtues if you hope for it to get some traction. Dragons flight 01:05, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm moving this to the discussion pages for WP:USER. You are probably right that I should pare it down, but I'm used to being very verbose when it comes to rules/contracts/legal documents. CowardX10 01:48, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RE: Banner

Three reasons to why you gave me the heads-up

  • You had nothing better to do
  • You get tricked by these things
  • It violates WP:User

I'm going to say all of the above, but since I don't want to violate anything I'll change it.--ROASTYTOAST 14:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for analysis

You did a wonderful job creating Image:RFA Probability Plot.png. I wonder if it would be possible to create another graph, along similar lines. For this one, it would analyze only those RfAs that were closed beyond the 7 day normal limit (say, six hours, or some other arbitrary number of hours, just to offset the dataset from "regular" closes). I'd like to see if there is a particular trend with these RfAs; do they lose ground significantly after 7 days compared to their progress in the last couple of days before close or...? It's relevant to the discussion that has currently been happening at WT:RFA, which you have been involved in. What do you think? I don't know how you culled the data for the original graph, but...wow! --Durin 15:18, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

In my sample, the average RFA left open had gained 0.33 +/- 0.34 % support at 7.5 days over its total at 7 days. Uncertainty is the standard error in the mean and basically says that the data is consistent with extra time having, on average, no significant effect. Looked at individually, there were more RFAs that increased support by being left open than lost support, but the ones that did lose support generally had larger changes. Dragons flight 15:52, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Excellent! That trashes my thoughts on what happens :) Would it be possible to constrain the sample set to those RfAs that, say at 6 days were between 60 and 85% support? And, 75 and 80? Maybe there's a different effect for marginal cases. --Durin 16:02, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Ryanpostlethwaite

Just a short note to thank you for the effort you've put into this discussion. - Richardcavell 03:33, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] /ad/

If you add

img[src*="/ad/"] { border: solid red 10px !important; }

to your CSS file (and use a recent Firefox or IE browser) it will add a bright red border around any image in the /ad/ directory. I find this very helpful in recognizing the 0.4% of images that have this problem. (PS. It was not originally my idea, but I don't recall who told me about it.) Dragons flight 10:04, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much! That will come in handy (though I don't understand why the developers don't fix this problem by eliminating the /ad/ directory). —David Levy 16:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your comment on Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Autograph books

  • Comment on User Page Policy'. Independent of Cyde, but motivated by the same AN thread he also participated in, an explicit prohibition against guestbooks was added to WP:USER on the same day this MFD was posted. I have removed that prohibition as I feel it confuses the issue to create a new prohibition in the midst of a deletion discussion, as doing so provides one side of the discussion with the appearance of having settled consensus on their side even while the issue is still being discussed. As I am arguably not a neutral party (see vote directly above), I wanted to call attention to this action. Dragons flight 14:04, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I fear you have horribly misunderstood the text on WP:USER which I had inserted. You stated that "an explicit prohibition against guestbooks was added to WP:USER on the same day this MFD was posted." First off, the guideline did not state that they should be prohibited had you bothered to read it. It stated, firstly that it was discouraged, not prohibited, userpages and sub-pages that were used to extensively spam or distract editors from editing the encyclopedia (and an example used is guest books or autograph books). Despite consensus on whether to have autograph books at all, this guideline is to emphasize that the spamming of them and the total focus of them over the encyclopedia is wrong and I know you would even agree to that. And I thought I would also let you know that I made the first changes to WP:USER prior to MFD starting, so calling my edits premature was simply wrong. — Moe 22:13, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
The MFD started sometime back in January, so it's really unclear. But this re-emerged after I made the changes, not before. — Moe 22:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Moe, I'm not accusing you of anything malicious. You added the guideline in good faith, but I still believe you did so prematurely because relevant discussion was continuing (even though, through no fault of your own, you were unaware of the discussion forum being used). I believe if you look at the timeline carefully, you'll see that MFD discussion actually got restarted a couple hours before you started adding material to WP:USER. While not a prohibition per se, your text explicitly discouraged the mere existence of guestbooks as an example of content that "distracts" from writing the encyclopedia. While we both agree that spam is bad (i.e. WP:SPAM), I would disagree with you that content like a guestbook is inherently bad for Wikipedia. Within bounds, there is something to be said for helping people feel comfortable and part of a larger community. I feel the discussion, both at AN and the MFD, show that there are a variety of feelings regarding guestbooks, and would dispute that a consensus for discouraging them has been shown to exist. Dragons flight 23:13, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I am by no means trying to discourage guestbooks, but the way they were used. Maybe renaming the title on WP:USER would furthur help clarify this. I said any userpage or sub-page that distracts it's editors or if theres spamming involved, yes it's bad. And if editors are spending more time in the userspace than writing the encyclopedia is bad as well. It's just a autograph book, which have been subject to both used as spam and a distraction, makes it a prime target. Rewording my previous entry on WP:USER should help. — Moe 23:19, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Benthic Oxygen

First, thanks for the great graphics! Should this not be in parts per mille permille, not 'per mil'? The latter can be confusted with ppm. e.g.Image:65 Myr Climate Change.png Kbk 18:45, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your rfa sub page

Somehow my genius at creating an info box in my sub page has accidentally placed some info on your RFA page - I do hope I have not damaged anything on such an intrusion - I am hoping a simple reversion hasnt affected any of your data - my apologies SatuSuro 09:46, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WT:RFA

Sorry, that was an accident. I tried fixing the threading but may have been editing a stale copy. It seems you put everything right anyway. —dgiestc 18:36, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Works for me

re: this change and on your summary -- what browser RU using? (Glad you made the update before I spread this to other sisters!) And do you think should go with the Meta colors, than this bronze-tan whatever color from the commons version. This is now more or less the combo of the two, but several sister's are using white backgrounds. Though don't think it matters much other than here, Meta, and the Commons. Not many local Whatlinkshere anywhere else. Best regards // FrankB 23:05, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A distinguished public service

I've seen your climatology graphs in many contexts, but didn't realize until now that all of these are your work.

I've just spent an hour browsing User:Dragons flight/Images. This is really, really nice work. Thank you for a distinguished public service. Bravo!

Cheers, Pete Tillman 08:55, 14 March 2007 (UTC) Consulting Geologist, Arizona and New Mexico (USA)

[edit] Re: RFA consensus

Thank you for the clarification. I know I acknowledged "extrenuating circumstances" where the traditional customs would be broken, but I didn't know almost all RFAs in the 75-80% corridor passed. I knew there were circumstances where RFAs in those percentage corridors have failed. And I definitely knew about Carnildo; I regret not mentioning him! Remember, I ran on the premises of being a dispute resolver (RFAs are not exactly disputes but there are nonetheless disagreeing parties) and not as an obsessive RFA nerd. —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 00:09, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Dragons flight - I saw your note on MessedRocker's page and wanted to follow up with an obsessed RFA nerd per above you. Who is the third person, besides Carnildo and Ryulong, who was promoted with under 75% support, and who was the second person, apart from Kafziel, who was not promoted with more than 75%? Thanks, Newyorkbrad 00:18, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Sean Black passed at 71.6%, Badlydrawnjeff failed at 75.7%. Dragons flight 00:25, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the info. I remember badlydrawnjeff's RfA, though didn't realize the percentage was quite that high; Sean Black was before my time. Newyorkbrad 00:35, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can you revise a graph?

Someone at Talk:Greenhouse gas asked how the fossil fuel CO2 flux in [Image:Carbon_History_and_Flux-2.png] could be greater than "total flux, all sources." It might be clearer if the red curve were re-labeled as "net flux, all sources and sinks" or similar. Don't know if you can easily change this but it would be helpful. Thanks! Raymond Arritt 03:55, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User:Dragons_flight/Category_tracker

I noticed that your bot is giving "-1" instead of "0" for categories that have no entries. Are you able to fix that? --Sigma 7 18:22, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It also gives "-1" for categories that do have entries. If that happens very often, perhaps the bot should say "unknown" instead of "-1". Especially nice would be to list C:CSD as "unknown" on the tracker summary instead of dropping it as "not backlogged" when it says -1 (and in reality is above 200). Nothing urgent, though. Enjoy your time semi-away from Wikipedia, Kusma (talk) 10:56, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Muller Paper in Nature/Possible Impersonation

Hi DF. Are you the Robert A. Rohde who published a paper (with Richard Muller) in Nature on extinctions? If yes, congrats! You might be interested in this: User talk:William M. Connolley#Help_please and, of course User:Richard A Muller. Take care! --Stephan Schulz 08:57, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Consensus achieved on proposal for menu change

I'm contacting you because you know how to add items to the main menu. The proposal to add "Contents" to the main menu, right under "Main page" has reached approval consensus at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposal: add "Contents" to Wikipedia's main menu.

Would you do the honors and add the item to the main menu?

Thank you.

The Transhumanist 21:13, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Need for a bot

Hi Df. I know you've got a pretty good handle on bot writing, and an interest in RfA. With that in mind, I thought you'd be the best person to approach for a new bot. If you look at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Nomination data/All RfA nominations, that table contains data on every RfA nomination over time, beginning from WP:RFA inception to September 9, 2003 and then a gap to June 22, 2005 and coverage through January 12, 2007. Every single one of those entries in the table was generated by hand, by me. This was, um...well, um...insane :) The amount of work it took to generate this was prohibitive. If I'd had it to do over again, I would not do it. What I'd like is for a bot to conduct this work instead. In particular, the process I imagine it would need to follow is this:

  1. Begin with this diff.
  2. Move forward one diff.
  3. If date on next diff is less than eight days in the pass, do nothing and stop.
  4. If diff adds a validly formatted RfA, proceed as follows:
    • Create new record at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Nomination data/All RfA nominations, and add data as appropriate; editor name, RfA address, nominated by (first nom only), begin time, end time (as in when stamped as failed/passed with rfaf or rfap), closer, # support, # oppose, # neutral, % support, successful, unsuccessful, withdrawn (criteria being ended more than a day before 7 days was up from begin time), total edits at time of RfA begin, total mainspace edits at time of RfA begin, first edit, months active.
    • Note: To get edit counts, could access talk page of RfA to see if table of edit counts is there in the "normal" (now) format like Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Alison. If not, then calculate. If code is needed for calculating, see [2].
    • "Validly formatted" means title of the page is correct, as example "{{Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/BigDT 2}}".
  5. Go to step 2.

Options:

  • Alert someone on improperly closed RfAs, still record on the data table but with an alert (allowing maintainers of that data to manually correct it)
  • Ignore RfBs for now.
  • Other?

What do you think?

This data has proven to be tremendously useful for a broad variety of charts and tables in support of discussions at WT:RFA. Maintaining it is a royal pain in the fingers for a Mk.I. Homo Sapien. --Durin 15:23, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I may be crazy enough to pursue this, but not for a while. Dragons flight 03:45, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Works for me

re: this change and on your summary -- what browser RU using? (Glad you made the update before I spread this to other sisters!) And do you think should go with the Meta colors, than this bronze-tan whatever color from the commons version. This is now more or less the combo of the two, but several sister's are using white backgrounds. Though don't think it matters much other than here, Meta, and the Commons. Not many local Whatlinkshere anywhere else. Best regards // FrankB 18:30, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question about Global Warming

Why does the phenomenon of Global Warming ONLY have to be observed? Can it not exist (in history, currently or in the future) even if not observed? The requirement of "observing" it makes it something that only exists when observed. There are other problems as well (well, mainly.. and oddly, bias). --Blue Tie 16:15, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Observability is the underpinning of science. If there is no evidence of a thing then there is no point in discussing it. FYI, I changed "observed" to "observable" which I think covers the hypotheticals (future and past). I feel that emphasizing the observable nature of recent global warming (the undeniable focus of the article is recent) is of greater benefit to the reader than the epistemological question what to say about global warming if no one knew it occured. Dragons flight 16:36, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Oops, and I changed it back. I do see your point. But in the context of the article I think it's important to state that the warming was "observed" (yes, we really did measure it) rather than "observable" (implying we could have measured it, but didn't necessarily do so). Raymond Arritt 16:45, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree that observability is an underpinning of scientific research. But does that make it the same as the underpinning of a natural phenomenon? We are not writing an article about a process of scientific discovery but about a phenomenon of physics and nature. I also think that the "undeniable focus" of the article being recent may be true but that is actually one of the arguments that the article is biased. I do not think this is epistemological. I think it gets to bias in the article.
Incidentally, so you might know my bias, I happen to think that global warming is real and that the influence of man is not insignificant. I think denial of the first is hard to imagine and the influence of greenhouse gasses is well documented. Certainly we create substantial greenhouse gasses. So, if you think that my edits are somehow luddite, you would be mistaken. On the other hand, the "recent" global warming does not go past the historical norms of prior periods, if you look back far enough. As a result, I think it is possible that the real climactic change over the next few hundred years is not going to be heat, but cold. I believe a reasonable case could be made for that. With that perspective, I consider the focus of the article to be too narrow and limited, and the emphasis on recent trends magnifies that. --Blue Tie 05:31, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] B.R.I.T.T.A.N.I.C.A.

Please replace the article. Here is my reasoning.

1. If you delete that article, you must also delete this one: Wikipedia:Primogeniture, which was the basis of the B.R.I.T.T.A.N.I.C.A. article.

2. B.R.I.T.T.A.N.I.C.A. is not a wikipedia competitor, it is an evil organization.

3. The encyclopedia Britanica is spelled with only one letter "t", while B.R.I.T.T.A.N.I.C.A. is not a word at all, but an acronym consisting of several words.

4. The article was clearly marked as humor.

5. There is no Cabal.

Sue Rangell[citation needed] 17:46, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to discuss it at WP:DRV, but I continue to believe that this is not at all appropriate content. Dragons flight 20:01, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
I did as you suggested, but I don't see why we can't just move it to user space, or change the acronym or something...Sue Rangell[citation needed] 21:54, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Ok, it looks like all is well. The article ended up being moved to my user space. I basically walked away from the process and trusted the wisdom of you admin-types to take care of it. I just wanted to let you know that I really DO appreciate what you (did/were trying to do), and appreciate how professional and impartial you have been in this. I know we disagreed, but it was cordial, respectful and freindly. It's a good thing when so many times people don't behave that way, you know? I wanted to thank you for that. Next time tho, I hope we are on the same side ;) Take care and be well. Sue Rangell[citation needed] 02:27, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] DFBOT...

,,,has not posted in about 10 hours, just in case you are not aware of this, your being busy and all. Cheers, NoSeptember 22:54, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

If it offline, then it will stay offline at least until I get back home on Saturday. Dragons flight 23:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Then I guess we're lucky it ran as long as it did in your absence :). NoSeptember 23:34, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] TfD nomination of several templates

Several templates, Template:PD/lang, Template:PD-USGov/lang, Template:PD-old/lang, Template:PD-self/lang and Template:Copyrighted free use/lang have been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Iamunknown 02:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Thanks. Sorry for not just asking you first. --Iamunknown 03:02, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My RfB

Hey there. Regarding your comment on my RfB, if you feel I haven't addressed certain points in answers, please do ask me further questions. Thanks. Majorly (o rly?) 16:14, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

You can be sure I'm aware of RfAs being closed with less than 75% – see User:Majorly/RfA stats. I actively follow the results. I did expect more than two optional questions, particularly regarding Carnildo, Ryulong etc. I just didn't think it was necessary to write it unless it was wanted. I really, really want the questions to be asked, since I know the answers well enough. As for discussing in public, I feel that's always the best way to do it, whether that's happened in the past or not. Please do ask me necessary questions, and please do reconsider your opinion of me. Thanks. Majorly (o rly?) 13:00, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps you missed this thread, but I'd really appreciate some optional questions if you're concerned over my answers. Thanks. Majorly (o rly?) 23:10, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Your RFB is going to fail, and with respect, I have a long list of more pressing things to worry about. Dragons flight 23:14, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
I do like a positive approach to things, but it may be your comment that is the causing factor if it does not pass. Please at least give me a chance. Opposing for inadequate answers without even giving me a chance to answer questions more efficiently for you is just unfair to be honest. Majorly (o rly?) 23:23, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Uncategorized...

Hello! The Category tracker summary doesn't seem to list uncategorized pages any more. I suspect that this is down to Category:Uncategorized having been renamed to Category:Uncategorized pages and me missing something somewhere that should have been updated. Any ideas? Angus McLellan (Talk) 09:45, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Solar System

Hi. I noticed a recent edit by you to Solar System where you removed an uncited statement you thought was false. It followed recent edits I made trying to limit speculative statements. Did you notice that cutting that sentence makes some of the surrounding sentences seem out of place? Perhaps you could edit further to make the paragraph a little more sensible. I'd try myself, but I'm not an expert on the solar system. Thanks, Gnixon 03:25, 3 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Quantitative data vs. iconography

Do you think the graph on page xii of the Stern Report executive summary would be better to include than graphics where color shades could be confused with numerical data? (Ref.: Meinshausen, M. (2006): 'What does a 2°C target mean for greenhouse gas concentrations? A brief analysis based on multi-gas emission pathways and several climate sensitivity uncertainty estimates', Avoiding dangerous climate change, in H.J. Schellnhuber et al. (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.265 - 280.) James S. 06:13, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

First and foremost, thank you kindly for your long and considerate oppose. Ultimately it is a difference of opinion, but I do have a quibble. My goal in pushing an RfC format is to encourage discussion and, by extension, participation. I don't view simple !voting as paticipation, not to the same extent anyway. I don't envision my role is any more autocratic/dictatiorial than that of any other bureaucrat, although you may be right in suggesting that people will view it that way. Yours, Mackensen (talk) 02:38, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Years for warming estimates?

In Image:Global Warming Predictions.png, do you think you could key each of the eight estimates with the year they were published, please? James S. 08:07, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

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