User:Raul654/archive3

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Contents

Bold is...

...good. BCorr|Брайен 03:07, Apr 1, 2004 (UTC)

fine

Just an April Fool's thing since you weren't letting me have any fun :) Hope you didn't take it too badly, I wasn't really mad at you. Dori | Talk 16:52, Apr 1, 2004 (UTC)

Could you please feature

Crushing_by_elephant on the main page, before April Fool's is over? The byz empire is so... byzoring. Leaving a main-page summary subselect on the feat Talk page. +sj+ 20:58, 2004 Apr 1 (UTC)

Now that it has a picture, I'd be happy to feature it, but not until midnight EST (the stanard time to change it). →Raul654 21:00, Apr 1, 2004 (UTC)

Terrorism

Hi - love the wikistress o'meter btw - should be several of these, for each mood- shrunk down to about 1/2 size... Terrorism, per discussion on the talk and the /Draft talk pages. I dont think its a big deal, yet - but please be keen to protect it if you see any fires breaking out. - Thanks. :)SV(talk) 03:02, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)~

Will do. Glad I could make you smile :) →Raul654 03:20, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)

Jew Googlebomb

What's up with the googlebombing (I can't pretend to understand how it works). It seems Wikipedia's Jew article is actually dropping (from 4 to 32....). Maybe Google is adjusting its algorhythms? -- Nunh-huh 03:40, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Google's system (which is actually a trade secret, so no one knows the exact parameters) works kind like this - by linking to a website, you are 'voting' for it. More votes means a higher google rating. Also, your vote is weighted - the more people that link to your site, the more value your vote has. If you get a lot of people to link to a site - especially if they use the same phrase to describe it - its rank will increase. Now, this particular case has drawn a lot of attention, so it would not surprise me at all if the google people tweaked the algorithm so as to disfavor wikipedia. I'd surmise it's nothing against us, but they would want to discourage googlebombing. →Raul654 03:53, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)
I'm just sort of wondering if every Wikipedia article is also going to be going down cause of this tweaking...it would be unfortunate. - Nunh-huh
Hmmm...now we're back to #4. Well, I suppose if we can't do anything about it, we needn't worry about it either... - Nunh-huh 04:07, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Yea, strange - we were 4th earlier in the day, then we dropped to around 40 (when I checked after seeing your comment) and now we're back up. Oh well - you're right though. We can't control it, so don't worry about it. Other than that, I'd just take a quick proofread over the Jew article to make sure it's good quality, should we happen to get a high google ranking for that article. →Raul654 05:05, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)

Unprotection

Hi, if you unprotect a page, please can you move the listing to Wikipedia:Unprotected page instead of leaving a message about it being unprotected at Wikipedia:Protected page. Thanks. Angela. 05:22, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)

I let them sit there a few days because I can't tell which one will flare back up and need to be reprotected. It doesn't make sense to me to be constantly shuffling the same articles back and forth between the protected and unprotected lists. Also, I move them in large blocks, like I did 2 or 3 days ago. →Raul654 05:24, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)

Accidental revert to older version

Was trying to add a see also, sorry about that! Must have clicked on the wrong version for it. - Hephaestos|§ 07:13, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Ok, phew. I thought that might have been the reason, but I wasn't sure, and I didn't want to revert you, in case had something in the works. →Raul654 07:40, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)
You'd have been within your rights to, that's for sure!  :) - Hephaestos|§ 07:42, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

FA

Was there something wrong with my #Feature_requests? --mav

Origins has not yet cleared the candidate process. Joshua Norton is tonight (I didn't want to feature 2 history articles back-to-back). →Raul654 14:27, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)
Coolness - thanks! --mav

Thanks Raul. I really appreciate the recognition. Maximus Rex 15:37, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Did you know and in the news

I checked out Talk:Main Page and it seems that 6 people prefer the other layout, while 6 people prefer in-the-news to be at the top. Since there is far more incentive to complain than to congratulate I'd say it was a big hit... silsor 14:08, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)

Operation Downfall

I think I could cobble together a decent map from PD maps and derivative use of the info that's there. I'll work on it tomorrow if I get time. - Hephaestos|§ 05:57, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer - I'm really flattered, BUT - I'd say hold off on that for now. I'm going to try Borders Press and see what they say. I've come this far, so I might as well try to finish it. If they shoot me down, I'll take you up on that offer. →Raul654 06:00, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)

Why did you omit some of the details I included? It was all based on sound research and now that section doesn't even make grammatical sense.Grant65 (Talk) 15:48, May 12, 2004 (UTC)

I changed it so it would read better. You had basically the same list repeated three times in three consecutive sentences. I rewrote it to make it sound better and fit better. If you can do better, please do. →Raul654 23:47, May 12, 2004 (UTC)


Stop supporting Exploding boy

Please stop supporting User:Exploding Boy for adminship. He makes innapropriate articles like Finger fucking and Collar (BDSM). Radical WiKi 13:23, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

danke (thanks)

thanks for your warm welcoming comments! It made me feel better. :-) I am sexy 00:39, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

PS. I like open-minded people!

I didn't mean to annoy...

Hi Raul -- I wasn't trying to imply that you didn't know ho to get them or that it would convince you -- but since sexy told people to look at them I figured I'd save them a page-load. Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 02:08, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)

Ah, ok - thanks for clearing that up. No annoyance taken. →Raul654 02:15, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)

Pump

Lovely job cleaning the pump. Thank you, and have an imaginary cookie on me.  :) fabiform | talk 17:15, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! Your kind words are appreciated. →Raul654 18:10, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)

re: DYK

Raul, I removed your article from DYK because it is still a stub. The protocol is to avoid links from the main page to stubs. If you have time today, fatten up that article, and once it is no longer a stub, put it again on DYK. Sincerely, Kingturtle 16:56, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

You shall receive ..

.. this barn star:

Barn Star

For your tireless work in making Wikipedia better, for keeping Template:Feature up-to-date, for doing the grunt work of cleaning up Wikipedia:Featured article candidates, for mediating in disputes, for adding lots of really nice pictures, and for still finding the time to work on articles! In a few months you've already become a highly valued member of the community. Stay with us and don't burn out, please.--Eloquence* 17:45, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)

Why thank you, Erik - I'm quite speechless. I put your comment on a plaque at the top of this page. It's good to know I'm appreciated. →Raul654 17:56, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)

Request

I'd like to request that you protect Sealand. One particular paragraph is being reverted back and forth between two versions by a handful of users, and none of them appears likely to stop. Nearly the entire first page history page is reverts. I'd do it myself, but I've participated in the talk page. Exploding Boy 14:20, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)

Done. →Raul654 15:42, Apr 11, 2004 (UTC)

Still Around

Mark, I'm still around, just not contributing as much. Honestly, I'm a little disillusioned with things, it seems like a lot of angst and energy is wasted on a few losers that are here trying to prove something or just disrupt things. Even more more depressing is energy that goes into articles detailing the fighters in video games and lists of dead porn stars, among other thigns. - SheikYerBooty 14:59, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

Hinduism on Featured Article

Hey- Thanks for your objection, as it forced me to try and make the page better. Please check the Hinduism article and see if my edits have rectified the caption problems, and perhaps countered your objection. --LordSuryaofShropshire 18:51, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)

Now that I'm home and I had the time to concentrate on the article more, I noticed the formatting wasn't what it should be. I did some fixing up to make it look more like a wikipedia article should -- subheadings (the ===) are your friend. Since you seem particularly concerned with the article, you might want to make sure the new look is consistent. →Raul654 22:35, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)
Hey Raul... thanks so much for your message. I really do appreciate it, especially what all the work put into the page. --LordSuryaofShropshire 15:53, Apr 24, 2004 (UTC)

Help!

You've contributed to it, so I'm wondering if you would mind looking at John_F._Kennedy_assassination? JFKtruth has really savaged the article, and it's in such desperate need of NPOVing, I despair. I think the user has made a few good contributions, but most of them serve to bias the article badly. Could you look at the talk page and the article....maybe think about how we can resolve this? I'm not out to revert all JFKtruth's edits.....but I personally believe most of them need pruning. A second opinion would be great. Thanks! Jwrosenzweig 00:05, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'd be happy to help, but I'm in the middle of 'surgery' on the village pump. Give me a little while, and I'll take a look and see what needs to be done. →Raul654 00:10, Apr 14, 2004 (UTC)

Inuse

I know inuse and I love in use, but I can't use it (can I?) on DYK because that would put a ginormous INUSE message on the main page wouldn't it? Kingturtle and I have just stepped on each others' toes before, and so it's mostly for him... jengod 18:23, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)


Augusto Pinochet

I have create a poll at talk:Augusto Pinochet on how to describe the CIA's role in the coup against Allende. Please vote and/or comment. --Uncle Ed 14:15, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Ed, I would vote, but I don't know enough about the topic to render an educated opinion. I'm only involved because I granted protection when it was requested. I'll leave it to you to get everyone to agree. When you think consensus has been reached, drop me a line and I'll unprotect the page ASAP (I don't think you're allowed to unprotect because you are involved in the conflict). →Raul654 18:48, Apr 16, 2004 (UTC)

So far everyone but 172 agrees:

  • the phrase US-backed shouldn't go in the intro paragraph, unless marked as POV.

But let's give it a bit more time... --Uncle Ed 19:15, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

MediaWiki:ITN

Why did you create MediaWiki:ITN? It's pointless. --Jiang 06:07, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Because it's a typo I make *at least* once a week and it was starting to get on my nerves. →Raul654 06:10, Apr 18, 2004 (UTC)

request for advice

Hi there, I've just blocked user:Angela is a bitch. Account appears to have been created expressly to harass user:Angela. I made this an indefinite ban. Before blocking the user I read through the policies again, but couldn't find anything that specifically addressed this type of situation. The user name is offensive, certainly. Also the user's only contributions were one on his or her own talk page (reading "ban her!") and one which replaced all the text on Angela's talk page to read "Bitch!." I've left a message on the user's page and talk page. Just wanted to check that I did this right. Thanks. Exploding Boy 14:10, Apr 18, 2004 (UTC)

---Was my first one so I just wanted to double check. Thanks. Exploding Boy 22:34, Apr 18, 2004 (UTC)


Corrupted image

Apparently the image was corrupted somehow. ImageMagick didn't like it, it probably was exiting with an error message. I downloaded the image and resaved it. That fixed the problem, and seems to have made it 5 times smaller with no loss of quality. -- Tim Starling 05:45, Apr 20, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks a bunch. →Raul654 05:46, Apr 20, 2004 (UTC)

Naming policy poll

You might want to put a proposed end date for he poll, say in two weeks or something. So the losers don't complain that there was no end date set, you know? Nohat 04:33, 2004 Apr 23 (UTC)

Good suggestion - I'll add it right now. →Raul654 04:34, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

Wigwag

Most of the images currently in the article are copyright violations. The author only has permission to use images created by Dan Furtado, the webmaster of the train images website. Even though the other images say "used with permission of webmaster", Furtado cannot legally grant that permission, especially under the terms of the FDL. So I object to featuring that article until permission is granted to use the other images under the FDL, or all images except the one by Furtado, who has granted permission, are removed.--Eloquence* 17:10, Apr 24, 2004 (UTC)

  • All set. The remaining photos are all Mr. Furtado's with the exception of one of my own. I hope this is satisfactory. - Lucky 6.9 05:15, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Re: Notations on Naming space poll

It seems there is a small project going on at the uk.wikipedia.org, organizing people to come over here and vote for Wikipedia:Naming_policy_poll. I cant read a thing, except the headline and the link at the bottom of this page. We'll see in a couple of hours, when the locals there go online during/after work. -- Chris 73 | (New) Talk 07:51, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC) on

I noticed that too, but it was only one message on a user talk page, not a "project going on" as such. Likely nothing to worry about. Angela. 08:10, Apr 27, 2004 (UTC)
In crypto class today, I'll ask Dimitrij (a Russian friend of mine) if he can translate that for me. I'm also considering imposing voting minima on the Naming poll -- the same ones we use at requests for adminship. →Raul654 13:14, Apr 27, 2004 (UTC)
PS - unfortunately, he couldn't make it out either. →Raul654 16:51, Apr 27, 2004 (UTC)
I tried translating it with some links on the list with translation tools, but couldn't figure it out either. However, it seems that there was no ukrainian rush on Wikipedia:Naming_policy_poll (yet). -- Chris 73 | (New) Talk 02:42, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Facebook

yeah :-) I fall on it a couple of days ago, and thought "yes, neat, I have some to add here". And then I reflected I could not edit your page probably, so made an extraction. Actually, I will remove the ones I do not know I think, and add others :-) That is a great idea you had :-). Will remove the user who do not want to be listed of course; Cheers. SweetLittleFluffyThing 17:52, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Battle of Euphrates

Apart from the fact that there is no such thing as 'merge and delete' I concur after re-thinking that 5 v 2 is rough (ish) consensus to delete. Give me a sec and I'll sort it out. -- Graham :) | Talk 22:45, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the support

All memebers of GNAA_(slashdot) are grateful

Congo Free State

Yeah, sorry about that, my bad. I don't normally protect pages, so I'm not as up on all that stuff as I should be. john 19:14, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the note

Hi, Raul. Thanks for your nice note about my book. FYI, John and I have a new one coming out later this month, titled Banana Republicans: How the Right Wing Is Turning America Into a One-Party State. You may be interested to know also that we operate a separate wiki from the Wikipedia, called a "Disinfopedia":
http://www.disinfopedia.org --Sheldon Rampton 05:33, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Chart

...was very useful and interesting. Much thanks. Meelar 06:54, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for the kind words :) →Raul654 07:05, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

Floppy Disk

Bear with me on this, but I can't figure out why you keep moving my nomination on the FAC. Please explain, I know I'm just missing some fundamental and obvious pint. -Litefantastic 11:21, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Simply put, that is the featured article *candidates* page. We use that page for deciding what is or is not good enough to be a featured article. Floppy disk went through the process, and was approved. It is now a featured article, and is listed on Wikipedia:Featured articles. Have a nice day. →Raul654 13:45, May 5, 2004 (UTC)

Manual of Style

The section in question was already in place when it was objected to, and was removed by Sam Spade when he raised the question. I am happy to continue discussion, but, honestly, until something resembling a reason to take it out beyond the fact that Spade's experience with usages of the terms (Which is both subjective and unverifiable), I think the weight of four style manuals is enough to put the burden of proof on the lone voice of dissent. If the situation develops to an actual deadlock or question, that's one thing. Right now, it's very, very far from that. Snowspinner 22:11, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

User:Gaz/Images#Great Ocean Road

I've been meaning to upload better versions for ages. Thank you for prompting me. Note that I have changed the image filenames slightly, as I intend to put a -Gaz suffix on all my images. Enjoy. - Gaz 14:44, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Featured article

As you seem to be the one who cycles the featured article on the main page most of the time (BTW: good work) I wonder why you don't update the list at Wikipedia:Goings-on in the same step. I did update that one quite often recently - no big deal, but maybe it's easier if both is done at once. Another question: As one of "my" articles (the Provinces of Thailand, actually it was the whole wikiproject which was nominated) is on the featured article list - what would you need to cycle that one on main page? I think the map in the article wouldn't scale well due to the letters inside, so I could make a special scaled-down map easily. There is no need to speed up the cycling of that article (I have still enough loose points I would like to add there, but I need to do more research for that), I just want the article to look good on the main page when it is chosen. andy 17:33, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

I actually do update goings-on occasionally, but since you ask, I'll try to do it more frequently.
As for the provinces, of Thailand, I wrote it up at User:Raul654/sandbox to see how it looks, and it came out nicely. I'll feature it tomorrow. →Raul654 20:19, May 7, 2004 (UTC)
It looks better than I expected. So I'm curious if the listing on the top page will attract more vandalism or more constructive edits... andy 20:27, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
More constructive edits than destructive ones, always. How many more depends on how much pop-culture appeal the article has. That is to say, when I featured Oxyrhynchus, it got only a handful of edits because no one knows what it is; compare that to how many Batman has recieved today. →Raul654 20:38, May 7, 2004 (UTC)
Of course, and so far it received just one bad edit, and two minor fixes of format. It is quite obvious a rather obscure topic, but that was also one of the reasons why I started it :-) And by coincidence, my newly created Siam Tulip was also chosen to be on the main page at the same day. andy 18:54, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Ban of NJIT proxy

Raul, I unblocked 128.235.242.51 because that is the proxy server used by my university. It has blocked me and at least one other person I know who is a valid contributor to Wikipedia. I'm not sure what steps we can take to stop vandals without blocking legitimate users. I'm adding the contrib list for that IP to my watchlist, and I'll see what I can do to deter them, but what other solutions are available to block users? --cprompt 19:34, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Japan general election, 2003

Hi Raul. I'm a bit confused about when Japan general election, 2003 became a featured article as it seems to have been taken in and out a few times. It's in currently, but should it be part of this week's Goings-on or last week's? Angela. 18:34, May 10, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, it is a bit confusing, and I certainly added to the problem. In short, it's been a feauted article for a while now (at least since February). However, recently, Kaishu decided to move it from politics to history, but he did it in a 2-part move - IE: delete, save, add, save. Since only the latest changes show up, to me this looked like he was adding it without going through the regular process, so I removed it. Then, a little while later, I checked into it and realized all of the above, so instead I simply put it back into the politics section (where I thought it belongs). So long story short, the featured articles page is as it should be, and don't add it to goings on. →Raul654 19:44, May 10, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. :) Angela. 23:27, May 10, 2004 (UTC)

thanks for greeting

Hi Raul, thanks for your kind remark re CCC. I do refer to the CCC often myself. 207.192.130.197 04:28, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Miss Moink?

You think you are knowledgeable on my marital status? Cite your sources, please.  :) moink 04:12, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

Whoops. I guess I had just assumed ;) →Raul654 21:26, May 16, 2004 (UTC)

What wrong with Face, Hand.png and Hand.svg? Kenny sh 15:54, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

re: Question

Take a look at Wikipedia:Press coverage#Searching for wikipedia in the press. Altavista and Yahoo are sometimes quicker than google. By the way, how'd you get asked for the interview, is it a local newspaper? Dori | Talk 23:42, May 20, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, they're my local paper. I approached them in January with a suggestion that they do a story on Wikipedia, and they said they'd get back to me. I did it again in March, and they put me in contact with Chris. He inverviewed me about two weeks ago, and I told him all about wikipedia. →Raul654 00:23, May 21, 2004 (UTC)
Congratulations on the interview, and good job on the publicity. Fuzheado 00:52, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Peacock.displaying.800pix.jpg

Do you agree with the version of that picture that is pointed to by the thumbnail image in Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates ? I'd prefer your original over that variation. - Bevo 18:55, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

I looked at them and I'd tend to say that Image:Peacock.displaying.sharper.800pix.jpg is probably the best, but they're so close I'm inclined to go with what everyone likes. →Raul654 19:00, May 21, 2004 (UTC)

You do not have the right

Raul, you don't have the right to propagate the slander on the vandalism in progress page. It is an illegal activity, and the site owners have been emailed about your participation in the matter. Personally, I think your admin rights should be revoked because you should've known better.

So you made sure Jimbo knows I'm doing my job? Thanks :) →Raul654 22:08, May 21, 2004 (UTC)
what you're doing is wrong, is clearly against the rules of this site, and is illegal.
  1. "Sysops may, at their judgement, block IP addresses that disrupt the normal functioning of Wikipedia. Such disruption is to be objectively defined by specific policies, and may include changing other user's signed comments..."
  2. I'll tell you what - if you promise to stop harassing other users (and just for the record, that includes make legal threats) and follow the rules (including Wikiquette), I'll unblock your 193.255.207.252 account. →Raul654 22:22, May 21, 2004 (UTC)
  • Raul, I don't mind you blocking my IP. The thing is, I do not think it's right that people are allowed to post derogatory comments and slanderous remarks about other people. The rules at the top of the "vandalism in progress" page state to post IP or username, since that's the only info you can find out about who posted what. But what happened here, is that some users are flat-out lying by stating that 'Shawn Mikula' has vandalized this site. 'Shawn Mikula' is not a username and is not an IP, it's a real person's name. And there is absolutely no evidence tying 'Shawn Mikula' with any vandalism here. The only sure things you can link up with vandalism are IP's or usernames. There is absolutely no basis for associating the person, 'Shawn Mikula', with any vandalism here. No-where in the rules does it say that you can do this. It can't, because it's illegal to slander people. Starx was the user who insisted on reverting the page after I edited it to remove the slanderous remarks. He had no basis for doing so other than the fact that he was upset with me because of an exchange we had earlier on his Talk board. I am not entirely happy with simply posting a comment above the slanderous remarks, pointing out that they're slanderous remarks. I have not emailed the site owners, and honestly, I doubt they would even consider my request high enough priority to deal with it. And so, I am requesting that you try to find a better solution. I mean, if you really feel the slanderous remarks are warranted and that they should remain on the page, then that's fine. I will stop harassing others, but I am requesting that you find a better resolution for this. Thanks.
    • Thank you Raul for what you did. And you have my word that I will not harass people, but only make positive contributions.
      • You're welcome. Glad I could help defuse the matter. →Raul654 22:56, May 21, 2004 (UTC)

Pinochet protection

Of course you made the right call protecting this page, but you should be aware that 172 reverted it one last time after the protection. I'm bringing this to you first as the person who did the protection. It's possible 172 did not do this deliberately, as it was before you posted the protection message. But this is a misuse of admin privileges and really shouldn't stand. VV 02:00, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

According to the protection log, I protected it at 17:53. According to the page history:
  • (cur) (last) . . 17:53, May 21, 2004 . . Raul654 ({{msg:protected})
  • (cur) (last) . . m 17:53, May 21, 2004 . . 172 (Reverted edits by VeryVerily to last version by 172)
  • (cur) (last) . . 17:53, May 21, 2004 . . VeryVerily (rv trolling)
  • (cur) (last) . . m 17:53, May 21, 2004 . . 172 (Reverted edits by VeryVerily to last version by 172)
It may or may not have been protected at the time he reverted it - I have no way of telling. Even if it was, it's *extremely* easy to miss that particular message when you are editing a protected page, so even if it was, I doubt it was intentional. In either case, I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one and leave the page as-is. →Raul654 02:08, May 22, 2004 (UTC)
I saw the "View source" link atop my version before the end. A developer may (or may not) be able to readily get second resolution to verify this. The issue I see is that being an admin is not supposed to give extra editing privileges in one's disputes, but 172 (intentionally or not) used that ability to get his preferred version up. I assume you see where I'm coming from. VV 02:24, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

Portuguese VS. British Empire

If the Portuguese Empire was the first to be created early 15th century, by the conquest of ceuta in 1415, and the last to fall, 1976. How can the British be the longest? or are you talking about small dependencies? That doesnt count as an Empire.--Pedro 20:48, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

I was counting the British empire from 1588 (defeat of the Spanish Armada) to 1948 (Indian independence) - 360 years. I didn't realize the Portugese "empire" lasted so long. →Raul654 21:12, May 22, 2004 (UTC)
In 1588, Portugal already had an extensive empire. Portugal lost its king in North Africa, and the Spanish one, became king of Portugal in 1580. Portugal rebeled in 1640, when Spain wanted to Portugal lost its autonomy, and the Spanish were not interrested in defending the Portuguese Empire that was being attacked by the Brits, Dutch, etc, former frendly nations, so a national Portuguese king was claimed. Portugal is a much older country than Spain. That why I'm in Wikipedia, people are not aware of the Portuguese History and past importance. In 1976, Angola became independent by the pressure of the USA and URSS, the first independentist movements where not even Angolans, it is believe that was a CIA guy the leader, he didnt even spoak Portuguese what was very strange to an Angolan, he spoke English! Not normal in that area. And there were found connections that lead to the USA, to a protestant church and CIA. Many Portuguese and native Angolans died in bombists attacks that came from Congo. The independence of Angola was painful because many Portuguese borned there, etc. So with the independence they came to Portugal with native Angolans that didnt accept to loose of their Portuguese nationality. Other Angolans and Portuguese Angolans fleed to Namibia and South Africa. That was a war between USA and URSS. And URSS won. Angola lost! --Pedro 12:37, 23 May 2004 (UTC)


Birmingham Page Protected

Hi Raul,

Please could you revert the page to G-mans last edit which icorperates his work and my own which took me ages to write, this is an important part of the discussion that will now take place and it is imperritive that G-mans last edit is sustained so as to ensure that all users on the page will engage in discussion untill this is ironed out.

Kind regards --User:Nick Boulevard

If you can protect it again once this is done

Welcome to Nickipedia... Andy Mabbett 21:54, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

What a cool idea man!... Andy don't bring disputes onto other peoples discussion pages please it's not nice! Thanks

--User:Nick Boulevard

According to policy, I can only revert to the "last stable version". I went ahead and removed the duplicated text, which I assume both you and Andy can agree was an improvement. As far as the other differences between the two of you, you have to work those out on the talk page. →Raul654 22:09, May 27, 2004 (UTC)
User talk:Angela#Nick; User_talk:Morwen#Birmingham_page; User_talk:G-Man#Birmingham. Andy Mabbett 22:12, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

Ataturk

Hi Raul654, You locked Ataturk's page, but Adam doesn't want to discuss it with anonymous users. That article really sucks as it is now, it is mostly political comments about Ataturk, and doesn't explain much of his life in detail. 128.111.200.162 07:12, 30 May 2004

He is supposed to be willing to discuss his changes with everyone, including anonomyous users. I'll leave him a message telling him so. →Raul654 17:16, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Categories: WW2 people

Adding this has made a mess to all profile pictures, so I’ve reverted it till I find a way to fix it.

Here's an example ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Paulus it really looks terrible with all that empty space.

It made an even bigger mess to Nimitz... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Nimitz

It looks like the only way to avoid this is to put a
after the category tag... as i did here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_G%F6ring

--GeneralPatton 14:35, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Tim Starling and Brion will probably fix the "prettyness" issues later, much as they did with the wiki-images. Until then, keep the pages as they are, even with all the white space. →Raul654 17:09, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
No problem, i wonder if i should add the
fix? --GeneralPatton 17:40, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Catagories

Convention dictates "WWII", could you please change the WW2 articles created to this. --Oldak Quill 18:43, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

While the thought did occur to me, the effort required to change the (roughly) 1000 articles or so in all the subcatagories is much greater than the reward. If someone else wants to come along and spend 3 hours changing articles because of a convention, that's fine, but I really don't want to (again...) →Raul654 18:46, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
I'd not mind to do it... but i think it could be better to call it "World War II" instead of the abbreviation, though WWII will do fine. It's grammatically the correct way. I wonder if we can add little images like say this one to Categories pages?

--GeneralPatton 21:08, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Articles with pictures in categories

With categories, having the image at the top invariably looks awful. Why stick to a "manual of style" convention that results in a terrible appearance for the article? Articles should be formatted for readers, and not for editors. If one can have the image coding at the top and actually have the image somewhere else, of course that's a different manner, but beyond my limited abilities with wiki code. john k 08:07, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

As I said to general patton above, "Tim Starling and Brion will probably fix the "prettyness" issues later, much as they did with the wiki-images." - generally, we try very hard not depart from standards just to compensate for temporary problems with the software. They can fix those problems with a few changes in the code, but changing the database back requires orders of magnitude more work. →Raul654 08:11, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

Except that there is nothing particularly wrong with having the picture even with the second paragraph. If the current issues are fixed, it is not as though there will be an urgent need to move pictures of people slightly higher in the article. At any rate, your general claim is surely wrong - pictures aren't always at the top of the article. Obviously this is true in cases where there are multiple images. I see no particular reason that the first image should somehow have to be at the top. john k 08:17, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

The manual of style says so, and it's by far the most common practice. Standards and consistency are a good thing. While they're aren't *always* at the top, more often than not they are. When they aren't, they should be fixed. →Raul654 08:22, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

But why? If it looks bad at the moment, and there's nothing particularly wrong with having it a bit lower, why should we stick with a way that looks bad? Even if it's going to get fixed, unless there's some compelling reason not to put it so it looks decent now, I don't see why we shouldn't do that. What was it Emerson said about a foolish consistency? john k 08:38, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

Off the top of my head, the compellings reasons are -

  1. Putting the picture before the text is (by far) more intuitive (which is why it's the most common practice)
  2. Putting the picture first makes it easier to find the picture in the markup/easier to edit the article as a result.
  3. Mr. Emerson not withstanding, we want our database to be uniform and consistent - that's the whole reason the manual of style exists in the first place. Unless you plan on changing the entire database, we want those few articles under discussion here to be uniform with the rest.
  4. (Corollary to the above) - because we want our database to be uniform and consistent, once the current problems are quashed, we're still going to want those articles to be uniform, which means changing them all back. →Raul654 08:52, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

I understand - but this seems like an issue where uniformity is, in fact, not especially important. I agree with your second point, and agree that this means that, when practicable, it is nice to have the picture first. I disagree with your first point - I see no particular way in which having the picture before the text is "far more" intuitive than any other way of doing it. I don't think that putting in pictures is at all intuitive to begin with. As to the third and fourth points, as I said before, I don't see why this is an area where consistency is especially important. Given the fact that Wikipedia is currently, and is highly likely to remain for the foreseeable future, extraordinarily inconsistent on major, major issues, both in terms of substance and in terms of format, I don't see why this issue, where the need for consistency is not, so far as I can say, particularly obvious (once again, especially given the fact that many, many, many pictures are not at the top of the page already, and for good reasons), should be one to be particularly uptight about. Going back to Emerson, he was not an enemy of consistency, per se, only of a "foolish consistency." That is to say, a consistency which cannot be justified on any grounds beyond the need for consistency (or, at least, that would be my gloss of what a foolish consistency is). imho, this is pretty clearly an instance where there is no reason for consistency beyond saying that consistency is important. But I'm to bed. I'd be interested to see what other people think about this issue. john k 09:04, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

John, just stop making those edits. This issue will be resolved soon. But what you are doing is far more damaging, you’ve de-standardized over 200 articles, it’ll take hours to revert this once the glitch is resolved, just have patience my friend.--GeneralPatton 13:39, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

...Exactly. →Raul654 17:56, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

Please explain why it is "damaging" in any way to have articles with the picture next to the second paragraph. Until this can be explained satisfactorily (which I do not believe it can be), I am not going to believe that I have done anything damaging, and certainly not anything justifying hand-wringing about massive damage to the project. (Also, where are you getting the 200 articles number? I don't even think I added 200 categories last night, and many of the ones I added either did not have a picture, or I did not bother to move the picture). This is utterly ridiculous. I will stop moving the pictures, but I am certainly not going to make the slightest effort to move them back. john k 20:01, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

John, don't take it personally, but when you decide to ignore the manual of style and start changing large numbers of articles to suit your own ideas, don't get upset when people say that you're damaging wikipedia - it's not hard to see where they're coming from. People expect our articles to be have a consistent look and feel (as it true of any reputable collection of information) which is why the manual of style exists in the first place.
If you want, we can take this to the village pump and ask there, but you'll get the same response - people will side in favor of having the articles render badly in the short term rather than have to go through and fix all those articles in the long term. As I said above, what you're doing will generate orders of magnitude more work than simply leaving it alone and letting our developers fix the problem from their end. →Raul654 21:10, May 31, 2004 (UTC)

Once again: how on earth is it problematic to have a picture even with the beginning of the second paragraph rather than the top of the article? Other than the fact that the manual of style says so. Given that there are already numerous pictures on wikipedia that are not at the top of the article, I fail to understand this. This is consistency for consistency's sake, and I'm not going to make any effort to "correct" the "damage" I've caused. As I said before, I won't do it anymore. But the idea that there is a need to "fix" articles because they look slightly different from other articles (and please explain to me again how other encyclopedias all have images at exactly the same point in the articles), is just ridiculous. john k 05:57, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

BTW, I've posted on this at the Village Pump and at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. john k 06:24, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Graduation

Congratulations on your graduation in Computer Engineering. I achieved this exalted status 38 years ago in 1966 with a B.Sc in Electrical Engineering from Bath University (England). So now I'm a real expert on wiring a mains plug!
Well done from Adrian - Adrian Pingstone 08:57, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words :) →Raul654 17:56, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

Back Up For Adminship

Hello and congrats on your graduation! Just letting you know that I am back up for adminship. It is at the bottom under the self nominations section. ChrisDJackson

Adminship

Well, you sure are persistent--in a nice way! Sure, I'll bite on adminship this time. Thanks again. Meanwhile--I've been gone for 4 days and I guess I missed a graduation announcement. Congrats! That's a lot of hard work. I just about floated the day I finished my last college final (many many moons ago). Elf | Talk 19:43, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Category:Dictators

You might want to check out [1]; adding these might inadvertently start a fight with 172, at least if you include anti-American dictators. If you're willing to devote hours upon hours to haggling and stating the obvious, then maybe we can get the category. VV 21:34, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Eisenhower V. Montgomery

Mark,

I disagree. Eisenhower still had the final say.

It was Eisenhower who had the option to either approve Montgomery's "Market Garden" plan, or the Bradley-Patton "Metz" plan.

It was Eisenhower decision on who went to Paris first.

It was Eisenhower who installed Patton and had final approval of "Operation Cobra".

It was Eisenhower who approved sending Patton (from the south) to Bastogne over Montgomery (from the north).

Eisenhower made all of these decisions, not Montgomery.

Don (63.191.41.106)

Eisenhower was the theatre commander, which is why he made all those decision. By your logic, then, he should be listed as the commander at every single western allied battle. This is not correct. The article says point blank - "In January 1944 General Montgomery was named as operational commander for the invasion ground forces". While Montgomery was still subordinate to Eisenhower, it was he who commanded the battle (the ground forces, at least), and therefore he's the one who should go in that slot. For another comparison, see Battle of Stalingrad - Zhukov (who had overall theatre command) is not listed; Vasily Chuikov, who had operation command, is. →Raul654 07:19, Jun 2, 2004 (UTC)

Mark,

Montgomery was GROUND commander until 14 August, after 14 August it went like this:

Eisenhower SUPREME COMMANDER

  • Montgomery - Commander Army Group 21 (North)
    • Dempsey - BRITISH SECOND Army
    • Crerar - CANADIAN FIRST Army
  • Bradley - Commander Army Group 12 (South)
    • Hodges - US FIRST Army
    • Patton - US THIRD Army

Eisenhower was SUPREME COMMANDER, before, during, and after...NEVER Montgomery.

Don

Right - but the fine point of it is, the supreme commander never gets the credit for any particular battle; credit always goes to the operational commander. In this case, that's Montgomery. If the opposite were true, then he would get credit for *every* victory, being that he is the surpeme commander over all the battles.
As I said before, you can look at Battle of Stalingrad for a prior example - Zuikov was the overall commander, but Chuikov was the operation commander. Chuikiv gets credit. →Raul654 08:01, Jun 2, 2004 (UTC)
Eisenhower was less involved in operational planning and more in administration and politics. His biggest skill was making the allies fight smoothly and like a team. Giving him the credit is like giving Keitel or Jodl credit for Mansteins victories, although Eisenhower did have vast control.--GeneralPatton 18:38, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Response from Kils

Hallo Mark! thank you for your message. I want to keep the copyright of the high resolution images. With the little fees I got for publishing I operate the web server. good luck Kils 14:30, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Censorship

First of all I'd like to state that what Morori said about me is a lie and that I make take legal action against him. My name IS Felix F. Bruyns and I have not copied any material from anyone. Second of all, you seem to live in that part of our society in which censorship is seen as the greatest evil, worse, you believe, than anything that could be said, written or pictured. It is rather ironic that you and others are attempting to censor censorship and ban the censor. User: Felix F. Bruyns

You removed the material because you feel it's lewd. While you are certainly entitled to your opinion, the material you removed is (a) true, and (b) not nearly lewd enough to warrant removal (not even close). Finlay, who told you to stop removing that information, acted exactly as he should have. On a side note, PC-pushing is something that most of us here despise (myself included), so I don't think you'll find much popular support for what you did. →Raul654 02:28, Jun 3, 2004 (UTC)
First of all, everyone on this site is a "censor". Editing is censorship. I have had numerous portions "culled" from my articles, and that is censorship, but I did not issue the slightest protest. Your argument, I take it, is that editing what someone else has written is okay so long as it is not on moral grounds. In that case, everyone making an edit on this site should have to make a sworn statement that they are making changes on non-moral grounds. Second of all, one user deleted the phrase "in spite of being superior to many white inductees" in my article on Newt Allen. That was undoubted political censorship (and based on racist beliefs), and political censorship is far more widely condemned than moral censorship. Furthermore, you have joined Moriori on tenuous legal footing. If you read a message I sent to Moriori you will find my refutation of his lies. Of course, I'm beginning to believe that neither of you are able to comprehend the simplest explanation, so I'll put it in terms that you can understand and that I recommend you relay to Moriori. If either of you accuses me of any illegal or unethical practices again in any public forum, you will see me in a court of law. Is that plain enough for you?
Please contact Jamesday to discuss the copyright problem(s). Further comments here will be ignored. →Raul654 03:36, Jun 3, 2004 (UTC)

Post new comment lk

It's not just for people who can't figure it out you know. I use it all the time. It's convenient as you don't have to load 140+ KB of text on dialup. Not to mention, it's less load on the servers, and prevents a bit conflicts. Dori | Talk 00:05, Jun 4, 2004 (UTC)

erm, reply? I just saw someone on the pump ask for such a link. Dori | Talk 03:31, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)
I have restored the link. The dial up arguement is what convinced me. →Raul654 03:42, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks

Obviously EB is pretty angry, and has assumed bad faith on my part. I think he is prob biased in favor of homosexuality, much as I am biased in favor of.. say.. God, or gun rights ;). That’s really not such a bad thing, were all biased in some way or other. I understand that people think I am opposing this because it is "gay", which is not accurate. If they wanted to put "gay" on the main page as a featured article, assuming the quality was there I wouldn't object. It is debatable about this being good for the front page if it was featured article quality, but it isn't, so we don't really need to distract ourselves w that debate (which I would prob lose, since clearly dubious topics have been featured there before, altho I was not the only one to raise an eyebrow at "prostitution" being on the main page…). To summarize: I find the article to be biased, mainly by omission of counter balance. I find the article to be less than "brilliant prose" generally. I think that I am an especially poor choice for editing this article, for allot of reasons. I think EB is a good editor, if a bit more favorable towards obvious topics than would be perfectly neutral. And... there is a meta-issue. I have edited 3 "gay" topics now (out of my thousands of edits, less than 100 have been to these), and each time I have been chased away by rabidly pro-homosexual editors, who make up the vast majority on these pages. I think this is a serious NPOV issue. Non-gay editors probably don't seek out to edit these pages anyways, but I can guarantee that if they do, and don't share the pro-gay POV slant, they will have a heck of a time of it. I gave up awhile back, and only got into this because of the featured article page. I really think some neutral, knowledgeable editors need to take a look at wiki-project sexuality, and step in where needed (I think it could use some outside help). All in all, EB is one of the easiest to get along w, and one of the more polite, so maybe you can get an idea of what I'm talking about. Thank you for any and all assistance, or simply for the offer, in case things don't work out ;). Cheers, Sam [Spade] 22:45, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sam is insisting on pushing for mediation rather than working this issue out on the article's talk page where the discussion really belongs so, fine. What do we need to do? Exploding Boy 03:13, Jun 5, 2004 (UTC)

For the record I in no way insist, request, or otherwise favor mediation. I will accept it if requested however. Sam [Spade] 03:18, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Fine. Either way, I've agreed to it, so what happens now? Exploding Boy 03:15, Jun 6, 2004 (UTC)
I have now requested him to say, with specificity, what he finds objectionable. →Raul654 03:21, Jun 6, 2004 (UTC)


Hemingway as a featured article

Is it possible for you to provide the log for Ernest Hemingway being voted as a featured article? I've try tracking it down but to no avail. Please answer at my page as this talk page is pretty long. I'm really curious to know who would support this garbage on the main page. It really is garbage (for a record, try to read it). Thanks. Mandel 13:56, Jun 5, 2004 (UTC)

Ernest Hemmingway was added to the featured articles on July 19, 2003 (page diff). This was before we started logging the nominations. I checked the page history for the candidates page (hist) and there is no record of it. IE, Hemmingway was apparently added to the featured articles without any discussion. →Raul654 18:25, Jun 5, 2004 (UTC)
So it is still a featured article? Mandel 11:07, Jun 8, 2004 (UTC)

FAC screwup

I'm really sorry about that. I went by the one week-no objections guideline and didn't think further about it. In my defense, I don't remember ever seeing it in the list of articles with unresolved objections (could you point me to an old revision/diff ?), and I don't think it had much business down there anyway considering that the only objections against it were the lack of an image (which was addressed) and an irrelevant comment about Vi being better. Thank you for bringing the issue to my attention and my sincere apologies for the trouble. - Fredrik (talk) 22:01, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

re last comment

Listen, I'm not trying to be childish here, but if you're going to remove my last comment (which was not a threat in the slightest; it was a promise) and put a potentially damaging summary out there to boot, the least you could have done is remove Sam's remark as well. We don't just remove other people's posts from talk pages; it should go back in. Exploding Boy 03:23, Jun 6, 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry - I didn't mean to offend you. I have reverted myself. →Raul654 03:25, Jun 6, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. Exploding Boy 03:27, Jun 6, 2004 (UTC)

Sound images (ahem)

Hey Mr sound-expert :) I've finally uploaded my first sound files. As you may know, I'm something of a "wikify the image page" fascist, and the way mediawiki seems to work it has all media (not just images) have their descriptions on :Image: pages (Ballblazer (ogg) | Ballblazer (mp3)). Everything works fine, but it's a bit offputting - am I doing anything silly here? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 17:01, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

No, you're exactly right. The image namespace is used for files of all types. →Raul654 18:00, Jun 8, 2004 (UTC)

Protection of Ingoolemo's userpage

To Raul654, If I were to type up the exact text of an edited version of my userpage, so that all you had to do was copy and paste it into the edit window, would you be willing to do that for me? Will it be too much trouble for you? (Note: I don't plan to do anything like that yet, I'm just asking in case I need the servise.) Thanks, --Ingoolemo 01:10, 2004 Jun 9 (UTC)

No, I don't mind at all. →Raul654 01:28, Jun 9, 2004 (UTC)

Harry Potter book covers

I like the covers you scanned in, and it would be nice if we could also get copies of the British versions. However, I wondered if you ought to credit the original artist on the Image pages? --Phil | Talk 08:43, Jun 9, 2004 (UTC)

I have added the credit information. As far as British versions, I can't help you there. →Raul654 08:51, Jun 9, 2004 (UTC)


Pro-Gay Bias?

To be honest, I am not sure I entirely follow. What is exactly is meant by holding a "pro-gay bias"? That I am in favour of homosexuality? This seems entirely nonsensical, and indeed strictly speaking to be "pro-gay" would mean you hold that it is a superior sexual orientation that all should aspire to. To be quite honest, I think the whole notion of a "pro-gay bias" is entirely homophobic, and used to paint those who accept different sexual orientations in a manner that suggests they desire to promote homosexuality. Clearly, the article has a distinctly homophobic bias. It portrays a homosexuality as abnormal and deviant, homosexuality as a "post-industrial" cosmopolitan lifestyle, and homosexuality as the social norm. These are all strongly homophobic POVs which are rejected by those who accept different sexual orientations (i.e., the majority of society in the West, and specifically progressives and social liberals). Those who hold such beliefs are indeed social conservatives who defend traditional morality and particularly heterosexual relationships. Stating the views of social-conservatives as objective facts, without even engaging with the beliefs of the majority of society who accept homosexuality, is clearly and irrefutably extremely biased. As is the implication that homosexuality has supposedly "increased" as a result of the "modern urbanity of the post-industrial age", when in fact it is irrefutably due to the increasing acceptance of people's sexualities that has occurred in Western society in the 20th Century. On these grounds, I intend to revert this article. Jonesy 10:00, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Re: spamming warning

Raul,

Thank you for informing me that I was spamming; I didn't realize that I was. I just found Wikipedia recently, and I wanted to add something to the articles. However, I didn't know how to go about it, and apparently, I did something wrong.

Can you explain to me what exactly I did that constituted "spamming" (because I don't think that simply editing multiple enties is spamming -- is it?) and how I can avoid it in the future?

Also, how do I get a user account on Wikipedia? I'd like to get one, unless it costs money or requires information that I'm not willing to give.

Thanks! (138.88.201.19)

If you want a wikipedia account, it's completely free and (unlike most sites) does not even require an email address. Simply click "Log In" at the top right of any page on the site, type in the username/password you want, and click "Create account". Viola - account created.
In general, "spamming" on Wikipedia means adding links to the same site from a large number of articles. The site you were adding links to is (with all respect) sub-par - summaries of books that are 3 sentences long. We tend to be very sensetive to it because (a) we get a lot of it and (b) most of us hold spammers in the lowest regard. Any anonomyous user (that is, someone who edits without logging in) who adds large numbers of links to the same site is going to send up a lot of red flags. As a general rule, we only link to content we wouldn't normally include ourselves.
I hope this has answered your questions. →Raul654 22:44, Jun 9, 2004 (UTC)
PS: Please sign all your comments by typing 4 tildes (~~~~) at the end of it.
Thank you for your help -- I've created an account. Do you mind if I ask you whatever questions about this site I may have in the future? (Of course, I'll check the help pages first, but I may not be able to find what I'm looking for.)
And yes, that is definitely an understandable definition of "spamming" for a site like this. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
Is there anything I can do to correct my spamming? Or has it already been dealt with?
And, last thing, I promise: How do you post a reply to a thread on a discussion page? The way I wrote this reply was to directly edit the comment; I'm sure there's another (easier) way.
Bbhtryoink 22:08, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Wikistress images

I've made an improved set: Image:Wikistress1.png, Image:Wikistress2.png, Image:Wikistress3.png, Image:Wikistress4.png.

-- Fredrik (talk) 20:31, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)


Please take a look at Talk:Psychohistory_(fictional). Does any of this ring a bell? RK 03:12, Jun 11, 2004 (UTC)

Why do you have me listed on the quick poll? Do you have any idea what's happening to me? Today I logged on and found that all the changes that I'd made from the day before were reverted by a user who just went through my user history and reverted all of my edits arbitrarily. So, I made one attempt to restore each of my edits; but VeryVerily reverted all of those changes automatically. I could've reverted his reverts, but today I just let VeryVerily stop me from editing articles (after joining the "harmonious editing club" around a week ago).

I did not break the 3-revert war today. That's why his version are on top of each of those articles. Don't you see what's happening? I'm getting banned for having a stalker and not doing anything about it this time. Please change your vote. 172 23:36, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Do you volunteer?

I think an admin needs to check out the following. Seems someone who knows their way around wikipedia is playing a game.

  • First, check Elizabeth Mytton Wilbraham which was posted by User:209.96.179.60. Check his talk page, where I left a message inviting comment. The page has since been blanked and the edit history shows nothing. I listed the article on the Vfd page earlier, but then, User:209.96.179.150 amended it (and obviously must have seen the Vfd message at the top).
  • User:209.96.179.26 then created an article Peter Harrison in exactly the same style and with outlandish claims as the Wilbraham article. It was subsequently edited by User:209.96.179.150.
  • I suspect User:209.96.179.60, User:209.96.179.150 and User:209.96.179.26 are the same person. Neither of them has a previous edit history.
  • You might be interested to learn that the Harrison in the second article "is largely responsible for America speaking English today and for India remaining in the British fold for 200 more years". Moriori 23:45, Jun 11, 2004 (UTC)
Since I know precious little about architecture, I can't really evaluate the claims on the their merits. As a layman, they do seem a bit suspicious. The proper thing to do would be to list them both on the VFD. →Raul654 02:34, Jun 12, 2004 (UTC)

Hemingway as a Featured Article?

Sorry to be repeating myself, you seem not to have seen my last entry. But is the Hemingway article still considered featured? There wasn't any reply last time round. Mandel 00:29, Jun 12, 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see your reply to my replty. Yes, Hemmingway it is still a featured article. Give me a couple days and I'll start proceedings to remove it. →Raul654 02:39, Jun 12, 2004 (UTC)

Quickpoll

If you logged on and found out that all the changes you'd made the previous time you'd logged on were reverted by a stalker, were you involved in the rampage or the victim of a rampage? I was the victim of a rampage and in order not to break the 3-revert rule, I let VeryVerily have the top versions of all the articles he'd reverted by not fighting to revert his reversions. The unfairness of the users voting to ban me along with VeryVerily is mind-blowing. 172 08:06, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Correct me if I am wrong, but did you not go through a large number of articles and search-replace the word "American" with "U.S."? (while, for the record, the manual of style explicetely says to use US over U.S.) This is the very same issue that came up at My Lai massacre over a week ago - I started discussion on that talk page about this issue, but neither of you participated. So by going and making the same controversial edit to numerous articles, VV's response was quite predictable. Now, I would like to say it is good to see you abiding by the three revert rule now - it does speak quite a bit in your favor. I noticed that you left a message on his talk page as well asking to settle the issue privately - this too speaks in your favor.
I would like to respectfully suggest that, had you tried talking about the issue when it came up before, this whole thing (or at least the current version thereof) could have been avoided. If the consensus was to go with "US" instead of American and NLF instead of Vietcong, then so be it. If VV refused to abide by group consensus, I would have started a quickpoll on him only.
Let me level with you - the rest of us are very, very tired of seeing you two constantly at war with each other. I'm sympathetic to your claim that he follows you around to start edit wars- I haven't verified it, but I trust that it's true. Even if it is, per se, there is no rule that you cannot follow someone around. (For the record, this can be a valuable technique. I did this to user:Plautus satire so as to keep him in check. He was a well-known troll who has now been banned by the AC for 1 year) I'd like to suggest that if you cannot settle your differences privately, that you get ask the AC to look into the case, and specifically get them to issue an injunction to prevent VV from following you. →Raul654 08:33, Jun 12, 2004 (UTC)
Just an update, we seem to have settled things privately. He has not been following me around lately. 172 08:51, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)
That's great news. I'm quite happy to hear it. →Raul654 16:27, Jun 28, 2004 (UTC)

Insult

I have not insulted you. If you feel I have, feel free to explain it. I don't agree w your reasoning regarding featured article promotions. I suspect EB is biased in favor of having his article promoted, and would like to push it thru based on what I hope are your unusual interpretations of policy. I definitely do not think you are impartial on this subject, but I also don't think you are tying to "cheat". I simply don't think your statement here shows proper regard for objections to any page. The fact that I think EB may like for you to excersize such a judgement in this case does not to me seem to be unreasonable nor insulting. Please discuss any theoretical insults on my talk page (rather than in public discussion). Thank you, Sam [Spade] 16:36, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I checked further, and my original statement that "As the policy is currently written, yes" was incorrect. The policy says If there are objections, a consensus must be reached. -- consensus does not necessitate unanimity. If there is suffecient support, one or two objections is not enough to derail a nomination. So my actions in the past have been in complete harmony with existing policy.
Second, while I am willing to admit that I *do* have an opinion on the article in question - from what I have seen, I happen to think it's well written (but I was trying not to read it so as not to form an opinion). On the other hand, I think I have been exceedingly fair in my treatment of both of you. I don't see what else I could have done to act impartially. Your statement ("I am aware of your attempts to ... push this article thru w the assistance of raul") implies that I am not acting in good faith as a moderator and that I am conspiring with EB. →Raul654 17:22, Jun 12, 2004 (UTC)
For the record I don't assume bad faith, nor do I suspect conspiracy on the part of you or EB. I will mention that on the talk page in question. Sam [Spade] 17:29, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)


Iridology / Alternative medicine

The last time alternative medicine was protected it was protected against User:RK [2]. And, that protection lasted only a few days. RK's editing resulted in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/RK as well as in a quickpoll on RK which was started by somebody other than me. RK's behavior in the current situation is exactly the same, in my opnion. I did in fact post RK on User talk:RK which he ignored [3]. Iridology has been protected since May 25, 2004. That is clearly too long. I did not protest your page protection of Iridology at the time, because I was not remotely interested in editing Iridology. If there was an edit war going on in Iridology, I a major player in this so-called edit war certainly was not aware of it. My only interest in editing Iridology now is to update the infobox and to remove the right margin from the image of the eye.

I would like the page protection removed from Iridology, now. And, from Alternative medicine in a few days per the above. -- [[User:Mr-Natural-Health|John Gohde | Talk]] 18:12, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree that iridology has been protected for a long time (not nessarily "too" long, but long enough). While there is some discussion going occuring on the talk page, I don't see a whole lot, so I have unprotected it.
As to alt. medicine, I suggest that you wait a few days and then request unprotection on Wikipedia:Requests for protection. →Raul654 18:17, Jun 12, 2004 (UTC)

Featuring "History of Scotland"

A while ago you asked me to "enpicture" History of Scotland. I've done so, and the copy has greatly grown on me in the process. I don't think you should feature it yet (I've asked User:Derek Ross, its original author, to give it a onceover first). Assuming he's happy, who writes the one or two paragraphs that are shown in summary on the main page? If you want, I'm sure Derek and I can cook that up too. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:51, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I'd be happy to feature that on the main page when you think it appropriate. The lead in section doesn't quite fit the main page though, so you might want to suggest the copy to use was well. →Raul654 23:18, Jun 12, 2004 (UTC)

User:Abigail-II

I have just sent Abigail-II an E-mail regarding her leaving - I gave a shot at convincing her not to leave. --Marcus2

Raul,

I seem to be the "bad apple" you are referring to. Your name rings a bell... I think we both tangled with Plautus satire.

Please take a look at the pre-blanking version of User talk:Abigail-II. There have in fact been attempts at discussion, but she is apparently objecting to the fact that it's taking place on her talk page rather than somewhere else.

-- Curps 00:34, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Hey Curps. Sorry, I didn't even know it was you. I just assumed she was referring to anon vandalims. →Raul654 00:20, Jun 16, 2004 (UTC)

Accidental deletion

Sorry, I have no idea. I can only assume it was a caching issue since I all I did was add <nowiki> to the page. Thanks for noticing it. --Angela. 01:29, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I am a vandal (curse those Romans!)

Please inform me on how I was vandalising Zionism... (Powerpleb)

Perhaps I mislabeled you, but a new account adding "controversial" content to the day's featured article (which for today, happens to be *very* vandalism proned), and marking it as minor is a very common type of vandalism. →Raul654 05:03, Jun 13, 2004 (UTC)
PS - please sign your comments by typing four tildes (~~~~)
OK, I understand where you're coming from and accept that I made a mistake. So if I add it again not marking it as minor it won't be vandalism?
I think that controversial content is what makes Wikipedia great. And if some facts don't fit with people's beliefs then that's too bad, we're here to educate. Thanks for your help. Powerpleb 05:25, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Yes, but the article is supposed to maintain a neutral tone. Your edits have been blatantly POV. →Raul654 05:27, Jun 13, 2004 (UTC)
OK, I thought it was neutral. If you're not satisfied add to what I say to make it neutral. Surely you're not endorsing the denial of facts in the name of "neutrality" Powerpleb 05:31, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Please tell me if my most recent addition is neutral enough. Thanks. Powerpleb 05:42, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

rights question

Could you please look into the source right issue for of Image:Alan Turing.jpg, which you uploaded? The issue is currently the only objection to upgrading Alan Turing to a featured article. -- Jmabel 04:30, Jun 14, 2004 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in. The photo appears to be AMT/K/7/9, from [4]. In general, it says "You are granted permission to view these images, and except where otherwise indicated to make a single printed copy of any image for your personal research. If a copyright or credit line appears on the page containing the image you are responsible for ensuring that the same information is reproduced on your printed copy. You are not granted any other rights to publish or reproduce material from the archive except those described above. Permission for any other use of an image from the archive (e.g. for reproduction on your web site) must be sought from the rights holder for that image.". But the page for that individual series of photos it says ""Reasonable attempts have been made to contact the copyright owner of this document." So the current "we don't know" tag on the image seems justified. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 11:46, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I think Finlay has answered this for me :) →Raul654 18:06, Jun 14, 2004 (UTC)

Rights on an Image

I'm wondering about the rights for the image Image:nader.jpg that is displayed in Ralph Nader, the only reason I'm asking is that it has no line about it on the image page and I was curious. Ilyanep 20:28, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

To tell the truth, I'm not sure. I added that one when I was pretty new here, so I wasn't as careful w/ respect to copyright as I should have been. →Raul654 20:34, Jun 14, 2004 (UTC)

Academia FAC status

Hi, see that talk page for my response to your helpful summary of objections. Thanks - Taxman 18:02, Jun 15, 2004 (UTC)

I'll post to the FAC about it. →Raul654 00:20, Jun 16, 2004 (UTC)


Bitching?

The Wikipedia discussion forum was setup for a peaceful debate purpose. It is a democratic setup where users can voice their opinion about issues. If you don't agree to what other people say, either you remain silent or present your views on the topic in a polite manner as Kevin Baas has done. There is no need to accuse people of bitching around. From what I have seen, your replies are a little vague. Nichalp 19:54, Jun 15, 2004 (UTC)

First of all, Wikipdia is not a discussion forum - it is an encyclopedia. Second, as has been said numerous times, Wikipedia is not a democracy; we do not have an adverserial system nor do me settle issues by majority voting. Third, I was, in fact, being polite - if you see, I prefaced my comment by saying "respectfully" - this was not idle chat. Fourth, every time you comment, you risk people telling you you are wrong. Fifth, Wikipedia's main page is not an international politics review - we can and do show individual nations' internal matters if we want. As I said, the litmus test is: is this important to a large number of our readers/contributors? →Raul654 00:20, Jun 16, 2004 (UTC)
The discussion forum was setup for a purpose, if it can't be used as a forum to the linked article, wikipedia would not be as sucessful an encyclopedia as it currently is. Second - if we were to have "edit wars", the page would surely get locked. Therefore, I mention it to be a democracy where all users can air their grievances or question authenticity & relavency of articles, so as prevent edits being done in an 'ad hoc' manner. Bitching as the dictionary says, means "saying mean things". I haven't said anything mean. Unless you intended "respectfully and bitching" to be oxymorons, the word bitching has strong connotations.

Next - No, I am not wrong, its only a miniscule (I'm sorry to say this - I don't wish to entice in ad homneims attacks on anyone) Americans (not all, thankfully) who object to my replies, probably because they are feeling insecure or see me as a threat. I have no qualms if the June 14 judgement was in the section "Current Events". As I mentioned, the ruling was minor (I'm sure by now all have scrutinised it), it didn't challenge the secularity of the USA. The jugdement has absolutely no consequence to anyone sitting in Europe, Asia, Africa or even Canada. There is no need to be condescending by enunciating "we ... feature internal matters...). If tomorrow, someone puts up a silly Supreme Court ruling of no consequence from Tibet (hypothetical), its not going to last very long. Also by your own statement "is this important... contributors?" you would be pleased to know that the opinion out here in Asia and many parts of the world, is that the article is "Not Significant" to us. Nichalp 19:43, Jun 18, 2004 (UTC)

As Mav said so eloquently: "When an item like this makes the front page of nearly every major newspaper in a nation that has a plurality of the world's native English speakers, then yes it does qualify for a mention on our Main Page". Once, I should say - this is the *ENGLISH* wikipedia - our in the news section reflects this, in that we report news primarily important to english speakers (but not exclusively so). You still have yet to actually challenge that on its merits. More to the point, since the objection is almost a week old now, this is all academic.

As to my use of the term bitching:

bitch (b¹ch) n. 1. A female canine animal, especially a dog. 2. Offensive. a. A woman considered to be spiteful or overbearing. b. A lewd woman. 3. Slang. A complaint. 4. Slang. Something very unpleasant or difficult. --bitch v. bitched, bitch·ing, bitch·es. Slang. --intr. 1. To complain; grumble. --tr. To botch; bungle.

You were complaining, and I told you to stop. →Raul654 22:17, Jun 18, 2004 (UTC)

  • I quote from my reply on the main page:

Any court would have ruled against a parent who doesn't have legal custody over their child regarding any case. The said judgement has token significance as I mentioned, not *great* importance as people are making it out to be. Also by referring to "English speaking people", hints, that you are referring to a specific country. I would like to point out that a lot of citizens of this planet do also speak English as their first language, if not their second -- fluently; and are also full fledged contributers to this encyclopedia. This encyclopedia was not setup to be of exclusive to a particular country, no matter how many users it has contributed or how big it is.

  • Although, it may be of academic interests, the greater picture lies in the idea of Wikipedia being as a specific tool in the hands of a single country. This is what I am *complaining* about. I find a bias here and I have every RIGHT to voice my opinions. It may seem like complaining, anti-US etc. to you, but I am striving for a wikipedia devoid of minor issues hogging the limelight. Tell me what is SO SPECIAL about the June 14 judgement that has to take up top billing? Most of the replies have been jingoistic rants rather than candid answers. By proclaiming that the secularity of USA was at stake is certainally far from the truth of that day's judgement! I would also like to know who you label native English speakers as it is clearly biased. Nichalp 18:00, Jun 22, 2004 (UTC)

Charter school

Yeah, I was curious about the "Charter school" thing. I even checked to see if it was some kind of reform school or insane asylum, but it seems like a perfectly august body (so I erred on not reverting him, incase it was you). What odd vandalism. Equally, a few days ago someone added a link to a (perfectly decent) travel site about Quito to my userpage. This can mean only one thing: surrealist vandals ! -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:03, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Actually, the "vandalism" was completely true - I did go there for high school (no, it's not an insane asylum or a "special" school - it's a math/science magnet school). But no, I wasn't the one who added it. It was to be someone who knows me, but I really have no idea who it is, though. →Raul654 00:20, Jun 16, 2004 (UTC)


Relevance is nice

from the pump

What or who determines the daily featured article? I wish they would select ones with a bit more relevance to todays problems/issues and entertainment.

For the things which have daily relevance we have the "Current Events" box, or sometimes also relevant things happen to show in the anniversaries box. The "Featured Article" however is supposed to show those articles we are most proud of. For most of the current event we don't have a very good article yet. andy 07:28, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Raul654 is the de facto administrator of the featured article box. -- Cyrius|✎ 08:35, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)
This point has been brought up before and effectively shouted down each time. The Featured Article box is, by definition, *not* supposed to be timely. That is what the current events box is for. The featured article is supposed to showcase the articles we think are good. In fact, I've generally avoided timely articles for just that reason. The only exception to this was European Union, which was featured on Europe Day by request from *numerous* people. →Raul654 19:03, Jun 14, 2004 (UTC)

bureaucratship

Hello. I noticed your request for bureaucratship and I had a couple of quick questions. Do you support adminship being widespread and generally "no big deal" or do you feel adminship should be more exclusive? As a bureaucrat would you give controversial user's and troll's votes equal weight to the votes of respected contributors? Best regards --"DICK" CHENEY 01:42, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

"Do you support adminship being widespread and generally "no big deal" or do you feel adminship should be more exclusive? "- My opinion is that: in theory, adminship is no big deal. But in practice, it is. Personally, I've been a bit conservative on the RFA lately because there are a lot of people coming up who I have never heard of.
"As a bureaucrat would you give controversial user's and troll's votes equal weight to the votes of respected contributors?" - I believe the main poll on this subject (which I wrote) showed that a consensus of people favored bureaucrats using their judgement (to assign relative weight to the votes). I originally voted against that because Angela said she didn't know in advance that she would be making judgement calls, but I changed my vote (to support) after she said she didn't mind making them. →Raul654 01:54, Jun 17, 2004 (UTC)
Thank you for answering my questions. I just have a little follow-up. You mentioned that you are "a bit conservative on RFA lately", however the only recent nomination you have opposed is that of Snowspinner. How would you be "conservative" as a bureaucrat? Another concern I have is that adminship is becoming an elite "club" where only the top 2 or 3 percent most prolific contributors are reasonable candidates, and the need for being that prolific could scare away candidates with private sector jobs. What scares me is the potential for an admin pool composed solely of youth on summer break, the unemployed, academics, and Europeans (who have much shorter work weeks than Americans). Furthermore, one of the admins I respect most (User:Jwrosenzweig) was elected with less than 500 contributions under his belt.
One of the strongest opponents of adminship being "no big deal" is presently a bureaucrat. On occassion, when there is disagreement whether a user should be promoted, bureaucrats need to build consensus amongst themselves. What would you do as a bureaucrat to help promote adminship diversity? --"DICK" CHENEY 15:30, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I think your fears are unjustified. If anything, the requirements have dropped significantly since I got here. Before, the suggested requirements were around 1000 edits and 5-6 months of editing. Now, it's more like 2-3 months of editing (albeit with approximately the same # of contributions).
You mentioned that you are "a bit conservative on RFA lately", however the only recent nomination you have opposed is that of Snowspinner. - True, but (IIRC) the only people I voted in favor of were Elf (when I nominated her) and David Gerard. If I see someone I don't know, I really don't think it's fair to vote one way or the other (unless, from their contributions history, they are blatantly unqualified).
How would you be "conservative" as a bureaucrat? - I never said I'd be a conservative beauracract. I said I'd been conservative there lately because of all the low-profile people (IE, people I don't know) being nominated. One the other hand, there are times when I have thought that the decisions made by the current set of beauracrats were too conservative (such as the non-promotion of Cecropia), and I would have done it differently.
"On occassion, when there is disagreement whether a user should be promoted, bureaucrats need to build consensus amongst themselves." - Actually, from what I have seen, I don't think this is true. Each bureaucrat makes the decision invidually whether to promote someone or (if after a while no one has promoted him/her) to remove the nomination. Since there are only one or two active bureaucrats, there really isn't much need for discussion.
What would you do as a bureaucrat to help promote adminship diversity? - I can't make blanket statements like that, I can only judge each case on its individual merits. Cases where someone has a lot of support are easy. I will say that in a case like Cecropia's, I probably would have gone ahead and promoted. →Raul654 19:19, Jun 17, 2004 (UTC)
Sorry to butt in, but User:Hcheney has a good point. Kingturtle I believe, consistently votes against anyone that does not have 3000 edits. That clearly keeps anyone that does not have unusual amounts of free time from gaining admin status in any period of time like the "2-3 months" you mention. This can easily lead to the types of concerns Hcheney has mentioned. - Taxman 23:16, Jun 17, 2004 (UTC)
Right, and he is entitled to his opinion, as is everyone else. Adminship is not something to be given lightly. It's not a reward for participation - it's not something you are automatically given once you have been here for so long. You have to earn it, and you do that by getting others to trust you. If that takes time, so be it. →Raul654 01:39, Jun 18, 2004 (UTC)
As Taxman has mentioned, some users are placing a very high quantitative barrier while ignoring qualitative criteria. Though these users are entitled to their opinions, I find their opinions to be anti-diversity, and against the ideal of adminship being "no big deal". I also agree with you that adminship should only be given to users that are trusted within the community, regardless of time. --"DICK" CHENEY 15:09, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Talk stuff

re moving answers to my talk page Cheers, mate --Phil | Talk 07:21, Jun 17, 2004 (UTC)

Glad I could be of help :) →Raul654 07:27, Jun 17, 2004 (UTC)

Half Million Pool

Raul, can you lock that page? It's already past 2 weeks from the announcement and I thought It had already been locked when I added my comments to the talk page. Thanks, - Taxman 12:51, Jun 17, 2004 (UTC)

Done. →Raul654 19:19, Jun 17, 2004 (UTC)

Do Not Use HTML

Re: outlets, and your edit: man, you swooped in while I was in the middle of trying to get the bullets to display, and added the image frames so sneakily, that I thought I'd discovered a bug. Well, I guess I still have, but the bug doesn't cause frames to appear around the images when html is used. Instead it makes the bullets in asterix-bulleted lists invisible to the IE browser. I believe this has to do with the second PNG being left-justified, but god knows why.

As for not using HTML, I was merely following the instructions on the Image Markup page. If div tags are no longer acceptable, perhaps you could edit that page accordingly.

Thanks for the attentive work - Clarknova 14:30, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The solution was simple enough - I moved the image to the right and now everything renders fine in IE (I wasn't sure what you were talking about because it rendered fine in Firefox).
As far as HTML, the page you cite is depricated - "For the new, extended image syntax, which provides image resizing and alignment, see Wikipedia:Extended image syntax". We much prefer wiki-syntax to html. You might also want to check out Wikipedia:Picture tutorial (which, for the record, I wrote). →Raul654 17:14, Jun 18, 2004 (UTC)
PS - I have modified the top of that page now so as to make the above more obvious. →Raul654 18:24, Jun 18, 2004 (UTC)

I would like to have alternative medicine unprotected.

I would like to have alternative medicine unprotected. It has been more than several days. The last time alternative medicine was protected it was protected against User:RK [5]. And, that protection lasted only a few days. RK's editing resulted in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/RK as well as in a quickpoll on RK which was started by somebody other than me. RK's behavior in the current situation is exactly the same, in my opnion. I did in fact post RK on User talk:RK which he ignored [6]. Just like last time RK also attacked traditional Chinese medicine. There were actually more reverts made in TCM than in alternative medince, but TCM was not page protected. I attempted to resolve the problem in Talk:Alternative medicine, see [7], but RK never responded. During this same time period RK managed to post in Talk:traditional Chinese medicine, however [8]. Therefore, alternative medicine should be unprotected. -- [[User:Mr-Natural-Health|John Gohde | Talk]] 08:22, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

There are already several sysops involved on that talk page, so I'll defer to their judgement. They would know when to (un)protect better than I. →Raul654 18:20, Jun 21, 2004 (UTC)

B'day wishes !!!

  • Hello Raul, wish you a happy birthday ! Jay 11:01, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Thanks! →Raul654 18:20, Jun 21, 2004 (UTC)

El Cid

I didn't think El Cid was quite ready to become a featured article. Also, there seemed to be a slight lack of consensus. (I am not talking about anthony's objections, just a general lack of support). El Cid could have stayed a week longer on fac to mature even more. ✏ Sverdrup 16:33, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. I got distracted by Anthony's objection that I failed to notice that part. →Raul654 17:48, Jun 20, 2004 (UTC)

FAQ: How do I count my edits?

This is really a FAQ, but I couldn't find it there, so I added it by using most of your comment at the help desk. I'm sure it's okay, check Contributing FAQ. ✏ Sverdrup 12:03, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Looks good. Glad I could be of help. →Raul654 18:20, Jun 21, 2004 (UTC)

Request

I had an argument (healthy one) this weekend with a friend of mine about the relation between the concept of Nazi and German (quite diferent). As half german it hurts a bit to hear the germans did this and that instead of the nazis did this and that. I was amazed with the general ignorance of people outside Germany of resistence movements against Hitler during WW2. There is an article in wikipedia, featured, called White Rose which tells the story of the Scholl brothers. Can you put it on the front page some day? It would be nice. Cheers, Muriel G 14:02, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sure. It's already been on the main page once (before we changed over to the new look) but we can have it on there again. →Raul654 18:20, Jun 21, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks, Muriel G 08:07, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Chornobyl

Hello. I would appreciate it if you would please not move the Chornobyl page to Chernobyl. The name of the city is Chornobyl. It belongs to the Ukraine and that is its name. Chernobyl is the city's old name in Russian, when it was part of the Soviet Union. This was done on concensus. See talk page. Thanks. --Cantus 22:56, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Your consensus is in violation of wikipedia naming policy. See wikipedia:Naming policy poll. →Raul654 22:58, Jun 21, 2004 (UTC)

Featured article heads up

Is there any place listed what article will next be featured on the front page, so that it may be gone over with a fine-toothed comb? - Centrx 21:53, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

No - several people have said they like being surprised. Also, I don't usually decide on it until about 1-2 hours beforehand (and in a few rare cases, only a minute or two before it has to be changed). I usually go through and fix egregious problems before it ever gets posted. →Raul654 22:14, Jun 22, 2004 (UTC)

Fuck

Why did the Fuck article appeared on a court case? I'm dying to know. Muriel G 07:53, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

A kid called his principal a "fucking fag" and got taken to court. His attorney cited wikipedia in the motion to dismiss. See this. →Raul654 16:06, Jun 24, 2004 (UTC)
Very amusing! Muriel G 16:44, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)
That's just funny Ilyanep 17:56, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Heavy metal umlaut

From what I understand, you are the one who chooses the featured articles that will appear on the main page. I think the flow and quality of writing in heavy metal umlaut has deteriorated somewhat since the time I nominated it to be a featured article (although more information has been added). In addition, I think we should've used a picture that is less edgy and counterculturish for the main page. At this point I think the article needs some major work before it is repolished enough to the point where it can be a featured article. It looks kind of silly on the main page now and I think we might want to take it down as an emergency measure.--Cow

Looking at the diff (June 19-now) it looks like straight improvement. →Raul654 14:02, Jun 26, 2004 (UTC)
PS - to follow up - no, I don't think any emergency measures are necessary. It is not unprecedented for an article to go on the main page and them be removed from the featured articles (fancy cancel, for example). →Raul654 18:24, Jun 26, 2004 (UTC)
For the record I strongly support your having placed this article on the main page, and find this objection unreasonable. Sam [Spade] 18:19, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Okay, the article reads a little better now (link) than it did when I saw it this morning (link) since so many edits have been made to it today. Although I still don't know if it's good enough to be a featured article now. You should see some of the comments that were made on the talk page today. --Cow 18:35, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Pruning on AotW

Here is my thought regarding this:

  • Prune after selection of new article, as this allows last minute voters. No pruning at any other time
  • Prune down to 20 aritcles
  • Least number of votes first, followed by oldest vote, and maybe size of article
  • Then comments which might effect things like Red Sky.

What you think? Burgundavia 06:49, Jun 28, 2004 (UTC)

I think you have to weigh both age and number of votes. I think if something's been there a week and it doesn't have a certain number of votes (say, 4 votes) then it needs to get axed. I think if it hits a certain age (say, 3-4 weeks) then it needs to be axed regardless of number of votes. →Raul654 06:53, Jun 28, 2004 (UTC)
Plus, later, you can always change those numbers up or down for more effeciency. That's what I do on the FAC w/regard to maximum length on the page. →Raul654 06:54, Jun 28, 2004 (UTC)

Washington

Thanks! I live in Charlottesville, but I frequently visit my grandparents who live in Northern Virginia (near Mount Vernon (plantation) (I also added photos to that article). I like to ride my bike from Mount Vernon into DC, although it takes a few hours to go there and back (about 45 miles). Perl 16:50, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

paperless archives.com spammer

Hiya.. just thought I'd let you know, the paperless archives.com spammer is at it again, this time from the IP address User:172.195.168.254. Just in case you want to block him or anything. —Stormie 07:03, Jun 30, 2004 (UTC)

New Version of Ingoolemo's user page.

Hello, Raul. I did decide that my userpage needed some work, so I edited it. I cannot edit it. I'm afraid you'll have to copy the source by editing it, because I can't find a way to display the exact source on your talk page.

Edited Source:

==Me<br>== <br> I am an obsessive wikiphile, entering the Junior year of high school. In my spare time, I run Cross-Country, which is basically my life. To keep in shape, I do Nordic Skiing (also very fun), and Track (pretty fun, but very serious). Outside of these activities, I am as obsessive a Tolkienophile as I am a wikiphile. Tolkien’s constructed universe captivates me. In fact, this philia is so profound that I have engaged in my own universe construction, writing novels in my spare time (complete with the construction of language and culture).<br> <br> Wikipedia appeals to me so much because it is a sort of ‘information democracy’. Any person can contribute to it, allowing a vast range of information to be included in it. Because of the open-source nature of Wikipedia, it has the potential to be more comprehensive than any other encyclpædia.<br> <br> An explanation of my username: it comes from an [[epithet]] I have given myself in [[Quenya]], ''Mánandil Mizimon Ingólemo''. The first name is meant to mean ‘friend of goodness’. The second is a translation of my own first name, Karl. The last is the word for ‘wizard, one of deep lore’. In retrospect, this is a rather arrogant name, and Ñolmo ‘man of lore’ would be more suitable. But it’s too late to change my username. Anyway, if I ever achieve my dream of being a [[sysop]], Ingoolemo/Ingólemo is a fitting name for a sysop.<br> <br> ==Contributions<br>== <br> *[[Boeing XB-15]] — Created article<br> *[[Chiniquodon]] — Wikified<br> *[[Dresden]] — Rewrote article completely (and it really needed it)<br> *[[League of Nations]] — Added link<br> *[[Mammalia]] — No edits to article itself, but I have made some effort on its proper taxonomy; see under '''Pet Projects'''<br> *[[Marsupial]] — Did a small amount of work<br> *[[Monotremata]] — Rewrote article, added directory for [[User:KTDykes|KTDykes]]’ contributions of articles on extinct monotremes<br> **[[Kollikodon]] — Created and wikified<br> **[[Monotrematum]] — Merged with [[Obdurodon]], wikified<br> **[[Obdurodon]] — Wikified<br> **[[Steropodon]] — Created and wikified<br> **[[Teinolophos]] — Created and wikified<br> *[[Platypus]] — Rewrote article completely. Added new picture, because of loud complaints about the current one.<br> *[[Quenya]] — Corrected some errors in the philology, elaborated sections of text<br> *[[Tribosphenic molar]] — Created article<br> *[[United Nations]] — Rewrote some portions of the article<br> *[[Zofiabaatar]] — Wikified<br> <br> ===Pet Projects<br>=== <br> One pet project of mine is discussing how to break up (taxonomically) the class [[Mammalia]]. The page [[Placentalia-Marsupialia or Eutheria-Metatheria?]] describes in detail the potential taxonomic systems. Unfortunately, voting stopped after four people, but I feel that wikiusers should continue to cast their opinions, so please cast a vote there; any input would be awesome.<br> <br> ==My recommended Policy on Wikipedia<br>== <br> As noted above, Wikipedia’s open-content nature gives it the potential to be a far more informative and thorough source of information than any other reference. Unfortunately, its greatest strength is also its greatest weakness, because any fool can try to pass of the information they have available as true. This means that Wikipedia may not necessarily be as reliable as other sources. Steps can be taken, though, to reduce its liabilities and enhance its strenghts.<br> <br> One of the most important ways to do this is by promoting responsibility. I feel that Wikipedia should actively recommend using user accounts in all edits. That way, anything I person does is their responsibility, and other users can communicate with them about errors. I always try to edit under my username. This has embarassed me sometimes, but I live through it. The point is, by using usernames, Wikipedians can be more easily kept to an encyclopedia-friendly course of contribution.<br> <br> A simple thing users can do is include mention of new pages they have made on their userpage. This will allow others to easily find that page and give it whatever TLC it may need. Perhaps a special page similar to the [[Wikipedia:Village Pump]] could be set up. Another way to try to get people involved in editing is by recommeding to every user that they include the <nowiki>{{opentask}} template on their userpage and user talk page.

Most importantly, Wikipedia must have reliable information. The classic mantra of citing sources hold true here, because without sources and references, the information is difficult to confirm. I believe Wikipedia has a manual of style somewhere; perhaps a link to the manual should be included in the navigation box on the left. Proper citations are very important.

</nowiki>

Opentasks


[edit]

Here are some tasks you can do:


Thanks a lot, and I promise editing through you won't become a habit.--Ingoolemo 05:05, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Done. PS - you can get it to display the wikipedia markup by using nowiki tags. I have put them above so you can see how they work. →Raul654 05:22, Jul 1, 2004 (UTC)
Actually, I tried doing that, and then copied the text from the preview into the sandbox, but for some reason it didn't work. Of course, I certainly can't claim to be an expert with the system, but I didn't want to burden you with trying to fix my mistakes.--Ingoolemo 03:12, 2004 Jul 2 (UTC)


More Pruning on AotW

Hey Raul,

I think we should wait until the new article has been selected to prune, to allow the most number of votes and the most chance. Cheers. Burgundavia 07:23, Jul 4, 2004 (UTC)

The ones I removed had all been there for more than 2 months, had less than 9 votes (thus putting them around 9th or 10th in line), and hadn't gotten any new votes in a long time. In the future though, you're right - after selecting a new article, it might be a good idea to prune. →Raul654 15:16, Jul 4, 2004 (UTC)

Penal interest

Hi there! I noticed that you deleted my redirect to Penal interest. I put it there because I couldn't find an article on Penal interest either, and wrote one. Could you give some hints on what the statement against penal interest is? Thanks! Mark Richards 01:16, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

It's a legal term - an exception to the rule excluding hearsay. I don't know much more about it than that. →Raul654 01:23, Jul 6, 2004 (UTC)

Traditional counties of England

I just promoted this to FA thinking it had been a week. It had been six days. Then Morwen pointed out six days really is stretching 'approx two weeks' ... I shall put it back if you like - David Gerard 17:30, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

For promoting (not removing), the rule is "at least a week" - so technically, yes, you should put it back. But unringing the bell is pretty hard, so don't worry about it unless someone complains. Just for future refernece, be aware that promoted articles have to stay there at least a week. →Raul654 17:58, Jul 6, 2004 (UTC)
Oh, I'm keenly aware now! Even Morwen, who nominated it, was iffy ... - David Gerard 23:30, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Just wanted to say "Good job"

Your dedication to featuring articles on the main page is great, and I appreciate the care you use in selecting them. Today, I noticed that http://www.theonering.net (probably the major Tolkien site on the web) was thrilled that Wikipedia was featuring McKellen, and just now a friend of mine emailed me and added a postscript wondering if I had anything to do with McKellen's appearance (he knows my involvement here and my Tolkien mania well :-). I told him it was actually the dedication of Raul654 that puts those articles up. I figured I'd let you know I appreciate what you do, and tell others. :-) See you around, Jwrosenzweig 20:17, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Stop removing my nominations

anthony (see warning)


Thanks. But...

I hate intimidations/warnings for silly things - if you had meant that way! I did not ask you to do it. I do not post my responses in my talk page. So, please don't be misled looking at my talk page. I am not a newbie - fyi. And just like everybody else, I too consider all other human beings are dumb idiots :) --Drbalaji md 01:20, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Congratulations

Congratulations on being the one to add the 300,000th article (Rene Gagnon). I see it has had 12 edits already, probably as a result of being listed on the Announcements page. What is strange is that you apparently added that to the Announcements page 8 minutes before you created the new article. How did you manage that trick? Prescience? ~ Nanobug 12:33, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I posted to announcements about an hour or two after I made the article. You might want to turn off your UTC-offset and recheck the timestamps. →Raul654 15:27, Jul 7, 2004 (UTC)


Thanks for being civil!

Thanks for acting in a civil manner on Checks and balances. Naturally I think you're utterly utterly *wrong* ;-P but at least you're being civil about it, and that's great. There's plenty of people who see red when discussing political topics. (Um, maybe me too sometimes.)

(Note: I won't do any discussing here, since I think that should be kept to the relevant article talk page :-) .)

Have a nice day! Kim Bruning 21:44, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

You are correct that it's a matter for the talk page, and not here. However, everyone is supposed to be civil - see Wikipedia:Wikiquette. →Raul654 21:47, Jul 9, 2004 (UTC)

Yup. and actually I meant to post this to User:Roadrunner which I'd better do now.Whoops! But you're a very civil person as well. And hmm, you're actually right, not wrong :) Kim Bruning 21:54, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Ha! Now you made me smile :) →Raul654 21:57, Jul 9, 2004 (UTC)

Promoting FAC — consensus

Hi Raul, just wanted to raise a small concern about the recent promotion of two Featured Article Candidates, namely Charles Graner and Fractal (noms archived at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Featured log). I don't think these had reached a consensus to promote; Charles Graner in particular had (by my count) one vote of support and one objection, and a neutral vote (in addition to the nomination). While consensus certainly isn't unanimity (and I'm very happy with the process of e.g. Great Mosque of Djenne being promoted), equally, consensus isn't simple majority, either. Anyway, I hope I haven't come across as just moaning (because I think you do a great job overseeing WP:FAC), but I thought it important enough to mention. — Matt 17:19, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I was going to bring this up on the talk page - the problem on the FAC is that people are no longer supporting articles very much - just objecting. It makes guaging consensus quite difficult. I have to assume that answered objections are supports, for example. Fractals had few votes at all, and most of those (as best I could tell) were resolved. For Graner, all of the objections had been addressed except two of yours, "too much quoting" and "overwikified" - relatively minor ones that will be flattened out should it come up on the main page (which, given that he is a current-events topic, probably won't be for a while). Anyway, I think you can see the problem - with people only voting object, I have to guess what people are thinking (otherwise, we'd be stuck only promoting unanimious/uncontested noms, and those are fairly rare). →Raul654 18:40, Jul 12, 2004 (UTC)
OK, I can see the difficulty, and thanks for explaining. Some thoughts: 1) There seem to be some people who don't realise that an article can be promoted even with objections; accordingly, perhaps they don't bother to "support" when they see it tagged as "contested". Perhaps we can be slightly more explicit about consensus in the "instructions" section? Currently we have "If there are objections, a consensus must be reached."; perhaps something like, "If there are any objections, a consensus must be reached (for example, if the large majority of reviewers express support, then the article will be promoted)." 2) I would be cautious when assuming that "answered objections are supports". There's a difference between not objecting (which is often a silent vote, although some people explicitly write neutral), and supporting. People sometimes list objections in "phases", going through an article again much more carefully once gross problems are sorted out. Personally, I'll object to an article if I can see any obvious flaws, but only actively support articles which seem "excellent" and well-written (in some vague sense). I guess that others may work similarly. 3) If an article is unable to inspire more than one person to vote "support", then I think we should be careful in promoting it. For this reason, I might even suggest — and I'm aware that we should be wary of introducing further complexity to the FAC process — a requirement of two or three "second support" votes before promoting. — Matt 23:54, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Drbalaji's point

(copied from User talk:Drbalaji_md)

Drbalaji does make a good point, which you have not made any counterargument to: if a single person selects the featured article, his/her choice will be guided by the information that s/he is exposed to, thus limiting the cultural diversity of the choice, and failing to proportionally represent the information that s/he is 'not' exposed to, by no fault of their own. It might be feasible to have a voting mechanism for featured articles. This would diversify the base of information that determines the selection of the featured article. Drbalaji argues, furthermore, that he is aware of a feeling among people that wikipidia is not international enough in certain areas, specifcally and problematically the selection of the featured article. He states that he is aware of a representative population that do not use or contribute to wikipedia for these reasons. He concludes that if such areas could be made to more proportionally represent the cultural distribution of the world, more people would use wikipedia, and it's reputation would improve. He puts forth the opinion that this may be ample reason to find a practical and feasible method to put a system in place which provides a better solution to these problems. In this, he has addressed all of what you purport to be "lacking" in his argument. He did this in his first posting, before you claimed that these things were lacking.

And btw, please don't bite the newcomers. Kevin Baas 02:56, 2004 Jul 13 (UTC)

As I have said twice already, there *is* a mechanism for voting on featured articles - it is Wikipedia:Featured article candidates. And (as I said once before) Drbalaji is aware of this too, because he has voted there.
Now I'll tell you the same thing I told Andrew (Fuzheado) in IRC - if the main page article selection is biased, it is because the selection of articles I have to choose from (at wikipedia:featured articles) is biased. If anything, non-western featured articles have been disprortionately favorably represtented on the main page - virtually all of them have been featured compared to about 50% of western articles.
If our non-western writers don't like this, the solution is simple - write more articles of featured-article quality, nominate them, fix objections as they are raised (which, during his last outing on the FAC, Drbalaji made no attempt to do). Once they become featured articles, I will happily put them on the main page, as I have done with the rest of the articles. →Raul654 03:26, Jul 13, 2004 (UTC)
Cool. You should tell this to him. Perhaps on his talk page. I'm just making sure you two understand each other. Kevin Baas 15:05, 2004 Jul 13 (UTC)

Regarding Drbalaji, he's on WP:RFC. If you have anything to say about the allegations toward him (I'm asking for your opinion as I see you have a history of prolonged interaction with this user), would you mind expressing yourself there? Thanks. Johnleemk | Talk 15:01, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Praise

Since you seem to be getting flak about the featured articles you're putting on the main page, let me offer some compliments on your work to counterbalance that. Jwrosenzweig said it well above, and you deserve kudos for doing such a fine job. Of the four sections on the main page that rotate, I think featured articles have consistently shown the best balance in choosing a variety of subject matter - prominent and obscure, Western and non-Western, techie and artsy, ivory tower and pop culture. I wish the pool of featured articles was itself more balanced, but that's not a problem you can solve singlehandedly. Thanks for your dedication to that corner of Wikipedia. --Michael Snow 17:53, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for the kind words. It's good to know that my efforts are appreciated. →Raul654 08:50, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)

Evidence of trolling?

Can you please provide evidence of trolling on the Trolling Poll page. If you read the comments, many people including myself, SecretLondon, Sam Spade, and Mark Richards do not think that the Missing Wikipedians list is evidence of trolling. If you really wish to get rid of trolling, then I request that you provide evidence of it. Thank you. Jrincayc 13:10, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

  • Wait, let me get this straight - you want me to prove that trolling has tangible, negative side effects? →Raul654 16:48, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)

Yep. See Wikipedia:Trolling_poll#Question_3 and Wikipedia talk:Trolling poll. Sam [Spade] 16:51, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don't need you to prove trolling has tangible, negative side effects. I want you to provide evidence that trolling has created harm on wikipedia. I believe that the definition of trolling (or disruption if you want to name it that) will cause disagreements and arguments and will make some people unhappy. So, I believe that the trolling policy you are proposing will cause harm. What I want to know is that not having the policy will create harm. To do that I want to see links to edits that are currently acceptable, but under the trolling policy would result in action. I want to know what is slipping through the current policy that requires a change. I want to see a case that harm is happening in Wikipedia due to trolls and that the change you are proposing will help. In short, I request that you provide evidence that trolling is harming wikipedia. Thank you. Jrincayc 01:27, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I have created User:Raul654/Trolling effects which will hopefully answer your questions. →Raul654 01:39, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)
yay, thanx raul. Cheers, Sam [Spade] 02:10, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Troll Poll

Hello, while I personally don't entirely agree with your troll poll for reasons, I do think you're being bold and doing a great job. If you do some more work on how to deal with trolling, I might even be persuaded to change my mind. Maybe I'll help too ... if I can think of how :-P.

But take home message of today is that I appreciate your work, and please don't take comments by people (espcially by me) personally, just because we happen to disagree with a particular version of it. :-)

Have a nice day! Read you soon, Kim Bruning 20:53, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

How to get images permission

Hi Raul654. Last month you contributed to a discussion on the Wikipedia:Village pump about How to get images permission (see [9]). Since there were lots of people with questions, I created a Wikipedia:Finding images tutorial with some tips and hints. Let me know what you think. Thanks -- Chris 73 | Talk 00:09, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Help for a confused newcomer

Hi Raul, I have been wandering around this site for two days now, looking for a friendly face with whom to dialogue directly. I wonder if you would have the patience to help me? I posted a question on the help page, but wasn't sure that anyone would take the time to look there and answer me.
I work for a Information Technology software company, and we want to integrate Wikipedia's content into our software. I found the download page http://download.wikimedia.org/, but wondered if you had any more in depth suggestions for how to integrate the Wikimedia database into external software. Thank you very much in advance, Hannah 11:18, 15 Jul 2004

Featuring Olympic Games

Hi Raul,

Recently my self-nomination at the WP:FAC page, Olympic Games got promoted to featured status. As I wrote in my nomination, it would be great to have this article featured on August 13, the day the 2004 Olympics open in Athens. Do you think this is possible? Jeronimo 07:23, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Sorry - current events topics are specifically reserved for in the news - the featured article is *not* supposed timely for just that reason. If you want, I can run it sometime before then (but we just had Olypmic flame on the main page recently, so it won't be for a couple weeks). →Raul654 07:29, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)

Images in WikiProject Pokénav templates

As I said in my Edit Summary, please go to the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pokénav page before removing any more images from this WikiProject's templates to support your view there. Thanks,
--Fern 13:08, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I have responded there. →Raul654 15:21, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)

Protection

Please remove your protection of Template:Feature. Wikipedia:Protection Policy clearly states that admins should "not protect a page [they] are involved in an edit dispute over." anthony (see warning)

Is it your intention to continue to remove the image, despite the fact that our policy clearly says otherwise? (That fair-use images are discouraged, not prohibited, from the main page) →Raul654 18:29, Jul 19, 2004 (UTC)
My intention is to either remove the image or replace it with another since there is no such policy. Even if there were a such policy, we arae clearly not at the point where we must use this image, so we should remove or replace it, even if it's only discouraged. anthony (see warning)
The same policy applies to the main page as to all other articles - we prefer free content images to fair use ones. Where none are available, fair use is ok. If you have a free image to replace it with, that's fine - I'll lift protection and you can replace it yourself (make sure it's in Jim Henson first). Otherwise, I have no intention of removing protection just so you can remove the image and continue the edit war. →Raul654 18:37, Jul 19, 2004 (UTC)
The same policy (which I'm still not aware of) may or may not apply, but the situation is different on the main page. There are a whole host of alternatives to using this image. Are you saying you're going to remove protection, or not? anthony (see warning)
I'm saying that until someone else shows me an alternative (free) image to use, I do not intend to remove protection solely to allow you to continue the edit war. →Raul654 18:47, Jul 19, 2004 (UTC)
I won't edit war if you don't. How about we just use a different article, like Galileo, while this issue is sorted out? anthony (see warning)
Replace the article? Absolutely not - the one time that was done was when there was a massive effort to POV the article (by a well known POV warrior). I didn't like it then because of the precedent it set, and I am certainly not going to remove this one now over a relatively trivial issue like this. Regardless, if there are a "whole host of alternatives" then simply add a free one to Jim Henson. Once I see it added, I'll lift protection. →Raul654 18:59, Jul 19, 2004 (UTC)
The alternatives involve featuring a different article. By the way, I'm not asking you to remove anything. I'm merely asking you to stop abusing your admin powers by protecting the page and editing it while protected. anthony (see warning)
Anthony, if you want the legalistic interpritation, fine: The article was put on the main page (with the picture) in full adherence to policy - no alternative has been presented, therefore fair use is OK. You have repeatedly removed it (and been reverted by multiple other users). Removing information like this (after being told that our policy explicetely allows it) is "indisputably bad-faith deletion" which is (according to policy) vandalism. Vandalism does allow an admin to protect an article which he is involved with. Furthermore, your recent blanking of the Jim Henson image (Image:Jimhensonmug.jpg) is another instance of vandalism (especially after you said above that there were a 'hosts of alternatives' - were you wrong then or are you vandalizing now?). →Raul654 19:10, Jul 19, 2004 (UTC)
The image was removed in full adherence to policy. Removing inappropriate images is not bad faith, and is not vandalism. anthony (see warning)

Perseus

Hello Raul, I could help but notice that you have moved Perseus (mythology) to Perseus, the latter being a disambiguation page since User:Looxix moved it there on April 2003. I think you meant well, but I suggest you check this What links here to get an idea of what now remains to be done. All the links that pointed to the former Perseus (mythology) page have to be adjusted (more than 60). And the interwikis in all foreign languages. I personally think it would be wiser and simpler to revert both pages, and adjust the few links (less than five, if you forget User and Talk pages) that point to Perseus. Sometimes, we have to adjust to what has been done and used. If you don't agree or if you want someone else's opinion, it can always be discussed on the the Talk pages Talk:Perseus or Talk: Perseus (mythology). In the meantime, let me know if you need any help on that matter. Robin des Bois ♘ ➳ ✉ 05:13, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

A bot can fix the link problem, or (if need be) I'll do it manually. But the name "Persues" can refer pretty much to one of two things - the hero or the constellation. Since one (the constellation) is obvious derived from the other (the hero), the naming policy says that the article (Perseus) should refer to the hero. Basically - just because we have lots of links doesn't mean we should continue to support a bad name. →Raul654 05:18, Jul 20, 2004 (UTC)
I already knew about the two meanings. The naming policy And the disambiguation policy give many options. Yours is one. The other, which used Perseus as a disambiguation page is another. I personally don't think Perseus (mythology) is such a "bad name" to justify the change. Then why not do the same with every article that has the affix (mythology) (like Andromeda (mythology)) ? Again, it is a waste of time to change things that were not a problem or a mistake. Don't you think that this change causes more problems than it solves? Even if a bot can fix them (and they often lack judgement when it comes to disambiguation), does it fix the other users watch lists ? Robin des Bois ♘ ➳ ✉ 15:52, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Feature

I'd like to have the issue of whether or not you are allowed to forcibly control template:feature mediated. Let me know if this is acceptable to you. anthony (see warning)

  • Hahaha, hey Raul, just got done with an edit war with anthony over the feature template. He kept changing the whole thing to Galileo. Kids. Anyway, the whole thing ended with Danny protecting the template and blocking anthony for 24 hours. Just thought I'd fill you in. blankfaze | (беседа!) 12:10, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
    • I saw Danny message's on the mailing list first. All I can say is that I'm glad I wasn't involved. →Raul654 15:42, Jul 20, 2004 (UTC)

Copyright FAQ

I've done some very extensive editing of Wikipedia:Copyright FAQ. In general I rearranged things to cover legal principles first and tried to avoid getting into Wikipedia policy as far as possible, because that's a discussion for other pages. A good thing for you to do as followup work is to integrate the fair use portion into Wikipedia:Fair use to move forward on transforming that from the largely ignored prior restraint system to a comprehensive guide to help people work out what is fair use here. I've been strongly disagreeing with Erik over the prior restraint aspect of the proposal, so I'd rather not go ahead with that directly myself - at least, not yet. Ideally I'd like Wikipedia:Fair use to contain something like the summary at Copright FAQ and then go into extensive detail on each factor in their own sections, with the summary as the opening to the section and extensive examples of court decisions and past examples from Wikipedia:Copyright problems. Then a recipe book of things which are fine and why. Jamesday 15:31, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

  • Good work. I think I need to go in there now and dumb it down a shade ;) →Raul654 15:42, Jul 20, 2004 (UTC)

FAC promotions

Hi again, just wanted to query the promotion of Oceanic Whitetip Shark. I think it would be a stretch to conclude that there was a consensus to promote. I counted 4 objections compared to two "support"s (excluding the nominator) — moreover, a glance at the article shows six typos in the lead section alone — I'm happy to go and fix these, but I think we should only promote when there's a clear consensus. — Matt 23:19, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Do not Revert

Do not revert honest attempts to make Wikipedia better. I am not vandalizing a page and I deserve more respect than that. I'm just as important a contributor as you are - Marshman 17:23, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The manual of style is not your personal soap-box. If you to express your opinions, then do so on the talk page, which is made for exactly that. →Raul654 17:26, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC)
If you would explain your move in the edit summary instead of reverting, you might gain respect around here. Reverting is for vandalism. I do not appreciate that aspproach, even if I agreed with your aim - Marshman

subpages unprotected

I have unprotected subpages of your user page (along with several user pages of other users) because they do not have a history of vandalism. While I can understand your desire to protect the pages, Policy (talk) does not permit pages to be protected unless a history of vandalism justifies protection. UninvitedCompany 20:03, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Guess what...

I very belatedly noticed the dust-up over User:Energybone. A little bit of looking, and guess what I realized: we've seen him before. Energybone was our good friend User:Plautus satire. Same style, and same weird theories. A sad day, because I just used him as an example of a ban that was actually effective. Sigh... Isomorphic 03:09, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don't have enough evidence to convince folks like Mark Richards, but in my gut I couldn't be more certain. First off, there's the style: twisting everything anyone else says to him into an attack, and then aggressively counterattacking. There's also his use of all caps, which I seem to remember Plautus doing a lot. But the kicker is his interests: plasma cosmology, tornados, and conspiracy theories about current events. Those are exactly the subjects (and in some cases the pages) that Plautus liked to edit, and he's inserting the same kind of material. I don't believe in coincidences that large. I will do the block myself, and will defend my action if necessary. Isomorphic 03:35, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I banned him (energybone) once for 24 hours for being abusive after he was repeatedly warned. If he is abusive again, I'll up it to 2 weeks this time. →Raul654 03:37, Jul 22, 2004 (UTC)
I'm quite sure it's Plautus, so I blocked him for a year as a reincarnation (only the third or fourth time I've used the block feature, I think.) I'll worry about assembling evidence only if someone comes after me over it. If no one does, then I won't worry about it anymore. In the mean time, I sincerely doubt anyone will miss him. Isomorphic 04:10, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Make an edit to User:Plautus satire to indicate your suspicions. That way, someone who comes along later will know that he is suspected to have ignored the ban. FYI - Platus was lasted spotted on Disinfopedia - http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=User:Plautus_Satire →Raul654 04:12, Jul 22, 2004 (UTC)

Rondo alla Turka

I see that you have contributed an "ogg" file of the music to Wikisource. This is currently an orphan; I presume that you have bigger plans for documenting the music, and insuring that performance copyrights have not been violated. Please reply at wikisource:User talk:Eclecticology

I can agree that full musical pieces have a place in Wikisource. My concern is with having a lot of undocumented orphan sound files dumped into Wikisource. It's easy enough to deal with a single experimental entry, and to be advised of its copyright situation in talk page, but if this type of file were to become a regular feature I think that some kind of documentation page should be designed for each one.

Of course we have not yet had time to discuss the details of such a documentation since this is such a new idea for Wikisource. My first guess is that it should at the very least identify the composer and performer, and show enough information to allow a re-user to do his due-dilligence and verify that he is not infringing copyrights. - Ec

I'll need to give some thought to how we can best cope with this. I suppose that composers can be treated as "authors" for Wikisource purposes. :-) A Mozart "author" page could list the works that are included in the project. The Wikisource:KV 545 page could include an infobox with the necessary information as well as links to the ogg file for the separate movements. Please see the draft that I have done.
On the copyright side their musical renditions appear to be electronically generated by a computer, so the performance copyright issue is no longer a factor. Our infobox should include that our version is from the Mutopedia version, and that that is based on the "Urtext" or whatever other source they used. The only concern that I had about their disclaimer in the block letters is the reference to "non-infringement" at the very end. They appear to approach copyright with a fair degree of strictness, but are not prepared to warrant that they have done so. - Ec

Thanks for reverting my opinion

Of course you left everybody else who agreed with you, but when I create an alternate heading you immediately revert. Of course - we couldn't have anyone going against you. You should move to the US, you might like it there. You don't have to worry about people expressing ideas openly, because these people are immediately shot down and branded terrorists. In fact i'm sure you would already have been there if most of their jobs hadn't been outsourced to you. -219.88.75.247 01:15, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I removed your opinion because your user contributions show you to be a troll/vandal (I'll let you choose), and several others have said they suspect you are User:Michael. If you want, I'll restore your comment, but I'll add a note saying as much right next to it. →Raul654 01:19, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)

RFC

Sorry, I hadn't realized there was a rule that two people should have tried to discuss the matter with you. I thought I was just signing that the events listed had happened and weren't entirely frivolous. Thanks for being so polite with me. moink 17:44, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Is Wikipedia a cult?

Hello Raul, do you think that Wikipedia should be on the list of purported cults? Please read this article Wikipedia:controversial issues. Thanks in advance Andries 14:54, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Silver star

Thanks, Raul. But PolishPoliticans says I'm a Nazi, how can I now have Soviet rights? :) RickK 05:38, Jul 26, 2004 (UTC)


Request

Could you move alternative music to alternative rock? It seems that there's no objection to my message on the talk page.

Cheers,

Acegikmo1 14:19, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Done. →Raul654 14:38, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks! Acegikmo1 14:51, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hi. Did you get my email? If not, let me know where I should have sent it, and also whether Word format is ok or if you need something else. Angela. 08:40, Jul 28, 2004 (UTC)

dishonour

I know that I have never had any problems with you, but still you said that my nomination should be moved to BJAODL. I don`t think it was very kind of you. Avala 16:13, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I have reconsidered that statement, and I admit it was insulting and I apologize. I still oppose the nomination, however - it's early and I think the complaints that some other people have raised are valid. →Raul654 16:34, Jul 28, 2004 (UTC)
Thank you.[[User:Avala|Avala|★]] 16:51, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

MIT Museum on Saturday

So it looks like, as BCorr said, the museum opens at noon. You should be able to make it there by then; both Central Square & South Station are on the Red Line. Do you think you'll be able to find the museum ok, or do I need to meet you at the subway or something? Do you need a phone number for me? We can meet at the museum at noon. moink 20:25, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I was planning on taking a Taxi from the station to either S&S or the musuem, unless you have a better suggestion (being a poor college student, cheap = good). I was thinking we could meet outside the musuem, if that's OK with you. And yes, an exchange of phone numbers would probably be a good idea, "just in case". →Raul654 20:30, Jul 28, 2004 (UTC)
A taxi is fine, but the subway is much cheaper and pretty convenient, depending on how much you're carrying. If you take a taxi you'll definitely be there before it opens, perhaps I can show you around the neighbourhood or something. I'll e-mail you my number. moink 20:51, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I'll have a backpack. If you think the subway is a good idea, I'll use that. Should that be the case, then (if it's not a big bother) I think I'd prefer to meet you at Central station - from your message, I assume this is where I would want to go. Meeting you there would cut down on the chances of me getting lost wandering around Boston :) →Raul654 21:17, Jul 28, 2004 (UTC)
Sounds good. Here's what you do.
  1. Call me from the train station so that I know whether your train is late, on time, whatever.
  2. Ask someone where the subway is, or follow signs. You shouldn't even need to go outside to get from the train to the subway. There's only one line that leaves South Station: the red line.
  3. Take the red line towards Alewife station. I'm a little unclear whether that's called inbound or outbound at that point, but it'll say to Alewife via Harvard. It costs $1.25.
  4. Get off at Central square. That's the stop following Kendall/MIT. According to www.mbta.com that should only take you 9 minutes.
  5. Follow the signs to the Pearl St. Exit. You'll come out on the East Side of Massachusetts Avenue, at a 7/11 and the Harvest Co-op. I'll meet you there. If one of us is waiting more than a few minutes for the other, there's some benches in front of Pearl Arts & Crafts, one store South of the Harvest Co-op.
Unfortunately, I don't have a cell phone, so if I've left home we may have some trouble getting in touch. It's possible that I can get my friend to be with me around that time, and he does have a cell phone. moink 21:35, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Here's a map of the streets around the station, so you can pick a place to meet more easily :-) BCorr|Брайен 21:52, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Sounds good. Look for the guy wearing a red button down shirt and a blue UD engineering hat. See you there. :) →Raul654 02:30, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)

FAC

Thanking you for your compliments, I apologize for the unfortunate occurrence at the featured articles page. It was most likely caused by the edit conflict in which I was involved. -- Emsworth 02:03, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

An idle question

To answer your question, no. -- [[User:LGagnon|LGagnon Talk]] 05:44, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Two FACs

I am going on vacation today but I giving you something to think about. I think that there should be two lists of Featured Article Candidates. Voting and Proposing. On the proposing list users could propose their ideas for the FAC and after the article is cleaned and all users are satisfied it would get to voting list where only support or oppose will be the option. Anyone would have a chance to say what does he think is wrong with the article in the first round. And it would make real FAC list much smaller. I would like to hear from you about my idea. [[User:Avala|Avala|★]] 17:09, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Another request

Hello again "Raul",

Could you check out Example (talk • contribs)? I was going to list the IP on Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress, as its last edit erased a {{User:Michael/Dispute}} tage from a page and included the charming summary, "nice try but, Guanaco still loses, I win! - i'll bash you good in the face, Guanaco!"

However, I checked the edit history and found that the user had actually made some good contriubtions in the past (along with some bad ones; it seems to be an AOL IP). I'm not sure what the proper response would be, so I'm hoping you can take care of it.

Thanks,

Acegikmo1 22:25, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Sounds like you've met long-term wikiwacko User:Michael. He generally uses AOL proxies (which we really can't block, as each proxy IP has millions of decent, honest AOLians behind them) - and he has a particular "fondness" for Guanaco. If you have time, the best course of action is probably to undo his changes (the bad ones you describe). You can of course list him on ViP, but as he'll never be back under the same name, it's questionable if doing so is worth your while (frustrating, huh?). And you've noticed a characteristic of such anon-vandals - their IPs are often shared with decent contributors (something to remember when leaving anons a nastygram telling them to quit it - it's too easy to discourage some subsequent decent contributor who has the misfortune to share the same ISP). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:38, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I second everything Finlay says. However, Michael tends to stick to music articles - his MO is to add subtle factual errors to them. If you see suspicious looking AOL IPs editing music articles, revert them on sight. →Raul654 22:55, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)

edit conflict

Sorry for the impending edit conflict on the FAC page - I opened that section from a bookmark directly to it. Thus I did not see the inuse header. --mav 18:56, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

It's all right. I was done with that page about 5 minutes ago. I just hadn't gotten around to taking down the in-use message. →Raul654 18:58, Jul 30, 2004 (UTC)

Featured Article

Hey, I thought I was supposed to update that. :-P Snowspinner 04:05, Jul 31, 2004 (UTC)

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