User:Raul654/archive5

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[edit] Betamax

Have I made Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios too long, do you think? I always find the opinion and dissent in these things full of fascinating stuff... Evercat 23:38, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Looks good to me. (Good work, by the way). →Raul654 03:38, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Quick question

Do you know should I tag a .gif file that I created and uploaded? I know I can't put the GNU tag on it. Is Fair Use good? Thanks. --NoPetrol 03:31, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't understand - why can you not make it GFDL? Is this related to the patent (which I believe is now expired)? →Raul654 03:37, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)
Why There Are No GIF files on GNU Web Pages <--- This says that Unisys and IBM patents on the compression algorithm do not expire until 2006. Oh, and by the way: (in case you were wondering). --NoPetrol 04:38, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
You're misunderstanding how copyright law works. You own the copyright on the file, not Unisys or IBM. You can license it under the GFDL if you want. The patent only affects people who want to read the file. →Raul654 04:54, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)
Okay. I'll put the GNU tag on it. Thank you. --NoPetrol 05:02, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] reasoning behind removal of npov from Traditional Values Coalition

Heyo,

Just curious: why did you remove my NPOV notice from Traditional Values Coalition? The article was unchanged from when I put the NPOV on it, and imho still needs balancing (viz. "religious freedom"). Care to explain? tnx. -- — I. Neschek | talk 18:45, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Neschek - the NPOV tag is not for permanent (or semi-permanent) use. I was removing it from a number of pages where it was added a while ago and where there has been little or no discussion in a while (a week or more). →Raul654 03:33, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] A Message to my Fellow Candidate

Friend,
The Arbitration Committee elections are almost here. I humbly ask for your vote in this election cycle. I have been a user of Wikipedia for over a year. I was here before the Community Portal, categories, or {{stub}}. I know how Wikipedia operates, and I am prepared to do my part to deal with problematic accounts. I wish to cut out the bureaucracy that makes our website stagnate. We need solutions to our problems now. If you want an arbitrator who believes in action, frankness, honesty, and fairness in every case, I am your arbitrator. Thank you for your time. You are under no obligation to answer this message.

--Paid for by Mero. for ArbCom

[edit] Probably a mistaken reversion.

Raul,

Double-check this reversion you made. [1] If you don't see it, click on the image.

– Quadell (talk) (help)[[]] 02:46, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

LOL. I thought the person removing the picture (who said it was goatse vandalism) was lying. I didn't even look at the picture that carefully. Most amusing... →Raul654 03:31, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Odd edits -- sorry

This edit (which was not discovered until over a dozen edits later) took a *LONG* time to clean up. →Raul654 08:50, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

I do not know what happened there. I got a server down error the first couple times I tried to post it, then it posted OK. -- Smerdis of Tlön 02:08, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Unprotect featured article blurbs after day has passed

I stongly agree with you on protecting main page templates, but could you periodically unblock them after the day has passed? Some people feel that any protection is harmful, so this is the least we can do. Cool Hand Luke 21:49, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and unprotect all the templates prior to today's. →Raul654 22:02, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Proposal to expand WP:CSD

Just so you know, I removed your votes on this page, since voting has not yet started. -- Netoholic @ 07:58, 2004 Dec 5 (UTC)

Fair enough. →Raul654 08:01, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)
I just wanted to say, thanks for your support, albeit early. A user has suggested we not start the vote so soon (I had hoped to start it in a few days). If we don't, I'm afraid we'll have to hold it until after the holidays, for people generally don't like things going during the holidays. Might I have your input? BLANKFAZE | (что??) 08:14, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I promise to personally shoot the next person who starts a vote on anything ;) -- but seriously, we're having waaaay too many votes lately. →Raul654 09:21, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Urgent Request

This is a copy of a request I posted on Fred Bauder's talk page, but peperhaps you can help first.

Could you please take a look at [2] right now? I understand that requests for arbitration require time, especially to guarantee due process. But I am immediately concerned with CheeseDreams' continual re-insertion into the talk page of archived material. This was actually discussed on the talk page some time ago [3]. Wesley, John K., and I all agreed that older material should be archived; CheeseDreams is the only one who insists on taking the material in archive & and putting it back in the article. She just summarized her edit as "revert 1" which I take as her attempt to goad me into a revert war in which I will necesarily violate the 3 revert rule. Please consider that the talk page is over 160 kb, and that the only issue I am asking for immediate attention on is CheeseDreams' reverting the archiving of old material. Thanks, Slrubenstein

[edit] Facebook

Have you considered creating a profile on www.thefacebook.com? It is teh r0xx0r. If you do decide on it, search me up. See my user page. Mike H 08:21, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for adding me. I searched with your full last name and I'm sure that's why I couldn't find you. Mike H 08:36, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Protecting clitoris

I'm all for protecting clitoris but are you planning to note on the talk page why and when you expect to lift it? You know that the issue in dispute is unlikely to be resolved? Robert doesn't do resolution.Dr Zen 05:33, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

'done. →Raul654 05:35, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Lir

  • Don't you feel in the least bit obligated to explain how you can classify as "vandalism" a one-time incident of what could only plausibly be construed as an accidental inserting of "da", which occurred over a month ago and was not seen as a problem until you realized that I made it?
    • I mean really Raul, don't you have any kind of nagging conscience letting you know that your personal grudges against me are causing you to overstep the moral bounds of your authority? Lirath Q. Pynnor

Lir - given your history here, I am not inclined to believe it was an accident. Nor am I willing to take your word that it was ("Lir has repeatedly been discovered to have lied to other Wikipedia users, and cannot be trusted to tell the truth" - Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Lir). I think it's much more likely that it was intentional vandalism. And about your claim that I have a grudge against you, well all I can say is that my heart bleedith and my cup runneth over. →Raul654 23:34, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

  • Raul, it was very rude not to respond on my talk page. Your case falters on four points: A) I didn't cause any vandalism or even edit any articles B) You have no evidence that not logging in was not an accident. C) There was no ruling that accidentally not logging in was unacceptable. D)The sole reason you know I forgot to login, was because I told you I forgot to log in, because I took time to sign my name.
    • Shouldn't you have one tiny piece of some kind of evidence before you rule against me? You claim not to have a grudge, but obviously you do. Lirath Q. Pynnor

[edit] Meetup

Are you driving up from Delaware to the Meetup in New York this weekend? I'm thinking of doing the same and thought we might split the driving if you're going to. If you're interested, drop me an email via the automated system (I'd rather not post it here.) Isomorphic 23:38, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Herschelkrustofsky

Hi Mark, I'm writing about a decision made by the Arbitration Committee regarding activism on behalf of Lyndon LaRouche in Wikipedia; see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Lyndon LaRouche/Proposed decision.

If you have time, would you mind taking a look at Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Lyndon LaRouche/Proposed decision? Herschelkrustofsky, who is one of the LaRouche supporters the decision involved, has initiated a query of the Arbitration Committee for clarification of their ruling (under Regarding this Arbcom ruling, as it applies to the dispute between SlimVirgin and HerschelKrustofsky).

I agree that clarification is needed, because I feel the wording of the ruling has left loopholes that the LaRouche supporters are exploiting. I have therefore written up a long response to Herschelkrustofsky's query and have requested clarification from the Committee on three specific points, as I feel this is an opportunity to put the matter to rest. I wondered whether you'd be prepared to comment on the page. If you don't have the time or inclination, however, don't worry about it. Many thanks, Slim 05:22, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

Slim - the Lyndon LaRouche decision was just being finalized when I was elected, and because of the large number of issues in that case (and my unfamiliarity with them), I decided to abstain from involving myself. As such, I think it best that I let those who made the decision also make the clarification. →Raul654 09:47, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] User pages protection

Hi, quick question: Can the option to protect my user pages be made available (in the likely case I elect to resign indefinitely from all WP activities, that is) ?

Thanks in advance for your time. El_C 22:02, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, you could request to have your user page protected. However, when this has been done in the past for users whose pages did not have a history of vandalism, some adminstrators have gone through and lifted protection. Policy in this regard is a bit unclear. →Raul654 09:45, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Admin noticeboard

Just thought you might want to know about an admin noticeboard I've created. I'm only telling admin friends because I got blocked for "spamming" already by User:Silsor, so this might be unfair only to tell a few select people but I don't want to risk getting another block. See Wikipedia:Administrator's noticeboard. - Ta bu shi da yu 06:43, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Image:JD Rockefeller Jr.jpg

Hi! Thanks for uploading Image:JD Rockefeller Jr.jpg. I notice it currently doesn't have an image copyright tag. Could you add one to let us know its copyright status? -- Sundar 08:41, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Thousands of images have no copyright tags. You can help sort this out by clicking on this link!

It was taken in 1915, making it public domain. →Raul654 08:48, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

I didn't know that. Thanks. -- Sundar 09:02, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Saturn V on main

Hey Raul, the current Saturn V blurb on Main is really quite long, would it be possible to shorten it a tad? On another note, I get the feeling that in the past weeks the Main blurbs have gotten longer than before, not sure if that's intended but it often makes the left column on Main too long, for my taste at least. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\talk]] 11:32, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Done (sorry for intervening). Fredrik | talk 13:48, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Good work. →Raul654 15:39, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Unverified images

Hi! Thanks for uploading the following image:

  • Image:Iwo_Jima_Flag_Raising.jpeg

I notice it currently doesn't have an image copyright tag. Could you add one to let us know its copyright status? (You can use {{gfdl}} if you release it under the GNU Free Documentation License, {{fairuse}} if you claim fair use, etc.) If you don't know what any of this means, just let me know at my talk page where you got the images and I'll tag them for you. Thanks so much. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk, automation script)]] 22:43, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

P.S. You can help tag other images at User:Yann/Untagged_Images. Thanks again.

Uh, I don't want to be insulting, but are you actually reading the images pages before sending these messages and tagging them as unverified? Not only does the image page contain all the source information (which means it should never have been tagged as unverified), but it has a verbatim copy of the copyright terms (public domain). I've gone ahead and tagged it as {{PD}} but in the future please make sure to look for things like that before asking the uploader. →Raul654 23:44, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Unverified images

Hi! Thanks for uploading the following images:

I notice it currently doesn't have an image copyright tag. Could you add one to let us know its copyright status? (You can use {{gfdl}} if you release it under the GNU Free Documentation License, {{fairuse}} if you claim fair use, etc.) If you don't know what any of this means, just let me know at my talk page where you got the images and I'll tag them for you. Thanks so much. [[User:Poccil|Peter O. (Talk, automation script)]] 03:52, Dec 11, 2004 (UTC)

P.S. You can help tag other images at User:Yann/Untagged_Images. Thanks again.

[edit] Image help

Hello Raul.

Thanks for your warm welcome.
Please take a look at Image:Hydnjo.JPG and let me know if I need to do anything to protect or establish it as authentic (I took the picture of us myself). [[User:Hydnjo| Hydnjo\talk]] 02:40, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Nope - we trust that you are who you say you are. And if someone comes along later and replaces it (by uploading a picture with the same name), it's trivial to revert it. →Raul654 02:43, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Special Thanks To ... (from Hydnjo)

Flockmeal for your kind welcome. [[User:Hydnjo| Hydnjo\talk]] 04:07, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
→Raul654 for your help with templates. [[User:Hydnjo| Hydnjo\talk]] 04:07, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
David Iberri for your help in finding THE template list. [[User:Hydnjo| Hydnjo\talk]] 04:07, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Catherine for your help with uploading images and making my signature look like I know what I'm doing. [[User:Hydnjo| Hydnjo\talk]] 04:07, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
and →Raul|654 (again) for watchlisting HIS talk page and taking the time to respond. [[User:Hydnjo| Hydnjo\talk]] 04:07, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Special Thanks To ... (from Hydnjo - again)

Flockmeal for your kind welcome. [[User:Hydnjo| Hydnjo\talk]] 04:10, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
→Raul654 for your help with templates. [[User:Hydnjo| Hydnjo\talk]] 04:10, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
David Iberri for your help in finding THE template list. [[User:Hydnjo| Hydnjo\talk]] 04:10, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Catherine for your help with uploading images and making my signature look like I know what I'm doing. [[User:Hydnjo| Hydnjo\talk]] 04:10, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
and →Raul|654 (again) for watchlisting HIS talk page and taking the time to respond. [[User:Hydnjo| Hydnjo\talk]] 04:10, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks mate

Just saw the message on my user page. I appreciate the encouragement :) your comments mean a lot to me! - Ta bu shi da yu 20:18, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Test anomaly

During the test, did you deliberately block user:user:Cyrius instead of user:Cyrius? The username link is red, but the contributions link actually points to where it "should." Was that deliberate? Out of curiousity, did it work?  :-) SWAdair | Talk 04:37, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In the box, I entered "user:Cyrius", to which the software prepended "user:", making it "user:User:Cyrius". And apparently yes, it worked. →Raul654 04:39, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)
Mental note - in the future, just enter the user's name.

[edit] One Question

In most legal situations, policemen whose conduct is undergoing criminal investigation tend to be temporarily suspended from duty.

Since Fred Bauder is currently undergoing arbitration himself as to his neutrality or accurate reportage, should he actually be allowed to take an active part in other cases?

CheeseDreams 18:30, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

(A) Since Fred Bauder is currently undergoing arbitration himself as to his neutrality or accurate reportage - incorrect. Fred himself brought the arbitration case (Fred Bauder vs Shorne) because of Shorne's edit warring. Fred's "neutrality or accurate reportage" is not a consideration in the case. (B) should he actually be allowed to take an active part in other cases - Yes, so long as he can set aside his personal opinions and judge the other cases fairly. →Raul654 18:46, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] CheeseDreams and Historicity of Jesus

Firstly, thanks for kind comments on my user page. They were toally appreciated... I'm in a much better state now so I'll be reverting back. It's good to know that people are very kind on this site though :-)

Anyway, back to the point (I've posted this to WP:AN): Can I please get advise on how to deal with the extensive changes that CheeseDreams is making on this article? She's running roughshod over everyone on an extremely controversial article. It's already been stuffed up due to this user's edits and had to be protected by RickK (in it's highly POV and badly structured form: at one point there were essentially TWO articles on the one page). Now CheeseDreams is making a massive change without using the talk page, and it adding sections that don't even have any content in it! I've reverted back and have requested that she bring her changes to the talk page. I would appreciate advise on how to procede with this, I don't particularly want to engage in an edit war with her. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:43, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Fair Play

According to the RfAr against me, these are the arbitrators

so why is James F voting on the proposed decision? CheeseDreams 19:09, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Even if he did not vote to accept your case, he can still vote on it once it is accepted. The only time he can't would be if he recused himself and didnt "unrecuse" himself (and those are very, very rare). →Raul654 21:35, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)
PS - it is considered rude to post the same message to a large number of peoples' talk pages. This is not the first time you have done it. In the future, if you want to address the arbcom as a whole, please post it to talk:Requests for arbitration.

[edit] PNG version of Image:4 bit counter.jpg

Could you consider on making a PNG version of Image:4 bit counter.jpg? It'd be a lot lighter and cleaner. Thanks. — Kieff | Talk 08:11, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

All right, I'll add it to my list of things to do, but I'm swamped for the near future so I don't know when I'll get around to it. →Raul654 08:13, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)
Take your time, man :) — Kieff | Talk 08:18, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Clitoris

Hi, I noted your recent revert to Clitoris. Please read the talk page on this; some of us are temporarily agreeing to a period of linking to the image as part of trying to reach an agreement that satisfies all parties. There is no intention to permanently remove the inline image; this agreement expires first thing Monday am. Please take this into account when viewing edits on that page. --[[User:Tony Sidaway|Tony Sidaway|Talk]] 00:02, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] quiz bowl

hey there raul first off i want to say good luck in the upcoming election. second i just wanted to check in and see how that quiz bowl trivia contest was going. if you have any updated information i'd like you to post it to your previous comment in the department of fun. i look forward to seeing how it will turn out! --Larsie 16:46, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Due to my being swamped with end of semester work, the project has been on hold. However, today I picked over the brain of a friend (he's a unix god) and I came up with a dirty but innovative work around. Theoretically, I have everything I need to make it work now. →Raul654 04:42, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] photo deleted

Hi Raul,

Due to a hate site which has been put on the web featuring photos of my little girl, I am trying to remove as many of them as I can to prevent more of this happening in the future. If you need a copy of the one from the Boston meetup (which I just now deleted), please let me know, as I am happy to give it to you -- I saved a copy on my computer.

--Jimbo Wales 18:12, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Jimbo - that's perfectly acceptable to me. →Raul654 20:37, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)
I'm really sorry to hear that, Jimbo. There are some pretty huge losers on the internet. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 05:16, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Soda can stove

Hi Raul, a while back you noted that disclaimers/cautions had been removed from pages in favor of a general disclaimer linked to each page. And disclaimers have been removed from the Soda pop can page ever since.

Now there is new discussion on the talk page, and my question is along the lines; ...if we have an operation section, do we eliminate mention of safe operating procedures? I would think not. Unfortunately, every time someone makes a safety related addition it tends to be a large, Disclaimer type section.

I would be interested in your input at the talk page. Duk 02:58, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have replied there. →Raul654 05:32, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] AndyL and Don

If the purpose of the injunction is to halt the activity leading to the matter being arbitrated what is the purpose of including articles which are not the scene of dispute (or even activity) by both parties? Don's only interest in wikipedia has been in flag-related articles. What then is the purpose of including articles which do not relate to flags in the injunction particularly when I have now said that I will not engage Don during the course of the ArbComms deliberations no matter where he edits? The current injunction proposal has a greater impact on the activities of the complainant than it does on those of the respondant. How can that be justifiable?AndyL 13:32, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Removing UK and Ireland from ITN

You can't justifibly remove UK and Ireland from ITN and leave Canada there. Kiand 20:27, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Where's Canada? I would have removed that too had I seen it. →Raul654 21:23, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)
Its been removed already, by someone else Kiand 22:11, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Plautus satire

Raul, those Jimbo Wales links were pointing to the wrong pages, I was correcting them. Why are you reverting???

Whoops. Sorry, I checked one of them and it didn't look right, so I reverted. I apologize - my mistake. →Raul654 00:02, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)
That's fine. I've finished now.

[edit] What's on

Why did you kill it on Wikipedia:Recentchanges? Dysprosia 02:07, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Because it really shouldn't have been added in the first place. It's redundant with goings on. Messages on recent changes were origially only for important stuff, but lately they've been abused to announce stuff that wasn't very important. When I cleared it out, pretty much every item there had been there for weeks. →Raul654 02:11, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)
Well, I wouldn't say it's redundant wo. goings on, but regardless, I hope you ensure RC is clear of these unimportant things in future. Dysprosia 06:05, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Ciz

The main evidence page is now completed. Ciz has been told (Dec.17) [4] he is expected to add evidence or a statement. FT2 05:04, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)

Noted, but it may take some time to gat around to it, as the arbcom is currently backed up and the elections have effectively paralyzed the committee for the last month. →Raul654 05:32, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Congrats

Thank you both very much. →Raul654 11:13, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)
  • Raul -- I have no idea how you can have endured the last six months and come back for more. :-) Congratulations on your reelection, and hey, get this batch of rookies in shape, all right? ;-) Good luck and best wishes, Jwrosenzweig 22:29, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Congrats - you can whip me into shape anyday ;-) Theresa Knott (The snott rake) 00:11, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] American vs. Britsh spelling

Why should an article use the bastdard version of the English language unless it relates to American matters?

I find American spelling hurtful to the eyes, and as such, I reserve the right to make whatever changes I see fit. --TintininLisbon 11:17, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If that is the attitude you are going to take, I suspect you will find your time here short and unpleasant. →Raul654 11:19, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)

Well, it could have something to do with 300 million people using the American spelling and only 60 million using the British spelling. Most International (non-American, non-British) classes of English use the American spelling as well. The United Kingdom was important in the late 1800s, but we are now more than 100 years into the United States' dominance of the English world. The population gap between the American-spelling sphere and the British-spelling sphere widens every year. Uris 22:59, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Really? In Sweden we learn the British spelling, in Canada also, if I'm not mistaken, and I assume that in the old colonies of the UK, with the exception of USA, they use the British spelling, which we were taught in school also was the international spelling. In the Swedish universities, it's also the British spelling that is seen as the international one. In the most used dictionary at the universities, Oxford English Dictionary, which also less known dictionaries often are based on, has British English spelling in it. I don't see any problem with articles being written in American English, but then the whole article has to be written with that. The same with those written in British English, the whole article should be written with that then. I see the importance in consistency, especially as the English teachers frowned upon mixing the spellings, and insisted on using the same spelling for the whole school work. // Starman 1976 12:29, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)

[edit] Ruy Lopez - arbitration case

Congratulations on your re-election! Could you please take a look at my comment [5] before the arbitration case gets closed? Maybe I'm wrong, but I believe I found a mistake in the sentence. Boraczek 14:10, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitration Committee term

As the second-highest vote-getter, it's now your turn to decide how long you wish to serve. Theresa Knott has picked a 2-year term, which still leaves one 1-year term, one 2-year term, and four 3-year terms to choose from. What's your preference? --Michael Snow 00:49, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Oh, I guess Ambi has the information and has put you down for a 3-year term. So never mind, unless that happens not to be the case. Also, congratulations and good luck! --Michael Snow 00:56, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I had said previously that I was going to take a 3 year term should one be available. After multiple elections in as many months, I don't want to have to repeat the process anytime soon. →Raul654 01:11, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)
With less than 50% support, you want a 3 year term?????? Lirath Q. Pynnor
Only one candidate got 50% support. What do you expect the other 6 "winners" to do? BLANKFAZE | (что??) 17:53, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I expect them to serve 6 month terms, and then allow elections -- what kind of tyrant sits on a three-year term that he knows he doesn't deserve? Lirath Q. Pynnor
Well, crackerjack, the man that founded and owns this website sets the term lengths, not Lirath Q. Pynnor. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 19:26, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Which dosen't remind me, the article titled crackerjack is in need of expansion. On behalf of (probably!) WP founder, Jimbo Wales, I am hereby, commissioning you, user:Blankfaze, for making it a feature article. Looking forward to it! El_C

Jimbo should resign, and Raul should know better than to take advantage of Jimbo's boundless goodwill. Lirath Q. Pynnor
Nice job spin-doctoring the election - you couldn't convince people to vote for you, so you try to convince people that the others didn't have enough support to serve full terms. A better job of muddying the waters I have never seen. Sigh, I guess I'll just have to join the ranks of those other obviously unqualified people who failed to gain a majority in their elections - John Adams, Woodrow Wilson, John F. Kennedy, and Abrahamn Lincoln.
Oh, and as a side note -- I suspect the only reason you are still allowed to edit here is because of Jimbo's boundless goodwill. You are always free to run again during the next arbiration committee election next year, assuming you aren't banned by then. →Raul654 05:41, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)
But a few weeks ago The Wikipedia foundation asked the public for $50,000 saying it was needed to keep the site going. He (abusive goader "jimbo"), now at least should respect the public that come here. And this site should be run according to norms that normal citizens expect. Apparently only 520 people voted (one presumes that's what they mean, although with the usual foolishness of the people who run control the Wikipedia they said there were only 520 votes) out of 200,000 or more users. If you look here you will see an example of the most extreme way in which The Wikipedia guidelines can be broken. How disgusting.WikiUser 20:06, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
El C, as your talk page doesn't have te facility for me to post I'm asking here, please show basic manners and restore the proper order of posting. WikiUser 21:47, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
My talk page does, in fact, facilitate posting. As for basic manners, that it a rather courious comment – my comment stands out visually in the threaded discussion, I am surprised you have neglected to notice this. El_C

cogratulations on your election. sorry i couldn't vote, but i have just reached 90 days membership. Xtra 13:41, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes indeed, congratulations! I know continue to serve well. I have filed a Friend-of-the-ArbCom briefing for you to read at your leisure. – Quadell (talk) (help)[[]] 17:59, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)

Thank you both :) →Raul654 05:48, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Spam protection filter gone haywire?

recently recieved the following:

The page you wanted to save was blocked by the spam filter. This is probably caused by a link to an external site.
See m:Spam blacklist for a full list of blocked sites. If you believe that the spam filter is mistakenly blocking the edit, then please contact an m:Administrator. The following is the section of the page that triggered the filter:
http:// www zephyrgraffiti com (had to break the link so filter wouldnt scream)

This was in response to an edit on FAC where i commented that i had asked Zephyr, whom i then linked to, to come comment. It was not link spamming, as far as I know he has not link spammed the site, and I did not gain this spam notice when I included his site as a link from the main Graffiti page last night.

Can you please figure out whats going on? Thanks Alkivar 13:44, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Here's the skinny on the spam filter. As you can imagine, we often get spammers in here pushing products and websites. Occasionally, they keep coming back despite repeated blocks. When that happens, they get added to the spam filter, which prevents anyone from saving a page with that term. However, if the term is added and then someone tries to save a page on which the term already exists, then they will be prevented from saving, even if they are not spamming. You can get to (and modify) the list of blocked terms at m:Spam blacklist, just be careful not to break the formatting. →Raul654 05:56, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification, this helps immensely. I was totally lost as to why this was occurring, and when the server went into read-only mode yesterday i was sorta stuck for a couple hours scratching my head. Alkivar 06:01, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Urgent request

Hi Raul, how's that temporary injunction going? Cause my user page just got vandalised by CheeseDreams. See [6]. She added disputed tags and dubious tags to the page. She is well aware that this is not allowed. I also feel under attack from this user due to my difference in world-view. Also she is attacking me for asking for her articles to be tightened up, something I feel is very fair to do. - Ta bu shi da yu 21:46, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

IMHO, that's pretty clear cut vandalism. I suggest you ask an uninvolved sysop (who is not arbitrating the case) to look at it, and if (s)he feels the same way, (s)he should block Cheese Of Dreams for a nontrivial amount of time (1-7 days). →Raul654 05:47, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Help!

I seem to be having a bit of a problem with an abusive user, namely User:Fvw. This individual has taken it upon himself to be the ombudsman of what is and is not a speedy delete candidate. He's reverted my edits and left some snide remarks on my user page and the edit summaries. I've listed him on RfC as well. - Lucky 6.9 23:43, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Today's featured article

Raul, I just noticed a couple of typos in the "today's featured article" spiel for the 21st and 22nd. WP:MOS is specific in punctuation (and as I understand it, featured articles should comply with it). In Free will, the punctuation should (per the MoS) be "up to us". That is, the full stop should come after the quotation mark. On Holy Roman Empire, the full stop should, likewise, come after the quotation mark for "Emperors-Elect". Thanks, jguk 00:07, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Award for Tireless Effort on the Wiki(s)

Image:Wikicookie.jpg I award you a cookie for all your great and tireless service to this and other projects. Got Milk? :D Arminius 07:11, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hmmm...cookie. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality/talk]] 07:12, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Btrieve

Hi Raul, thanks for helping with this! The article is Btrieve and it isn't actually complete but I'd like to know if I've got facts glaringly wrong and whether my style is OK. Also, it's getting pretty big! I'm not entirely sure how to split it up... in fact I'm not sure that Btrieve is the correct name to call the article title now. Any help or feedback would be very much appreciated! - Ta bu shi da yu 10:28, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I gave it a once over but it looks fairly good. →Raul654 02:25, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks mate :-) I've actually split it as it was getting pretty large. Nearly done! - Ta bu shi da yu 05:08, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Edit

You removed the edit link from Template:Endocrine system. What is the real problem? It's otherwise fairly hard to add articles to ASBs. JFW | T@lk 13:45, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I removed the edit link because (in general) you're supposed to avoid cross namespace links - IE, don't link to a Wikipedia: page from the main namespace; don't like to the template page from the main namespace. That's (more or less) meta data. →Raul654 19:40, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Today's featured article

Popped this on the Main Page talk page, and someone suggested I tell you direct. So - can I suggest that the text 'Recently featured' be bolded, to distinguish it more noticeably from the text of the article above it? Dan100 22:23, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Posthumous Nobel Prizes

You said recently:

<Austin> The peace prize can't be awarded posthumously.
<Raul654> Austin - not exactly true
<Raul654> it *can*, and in 1948, they seriously considered doing it
<Raul654> but it has never been done

You were correct in saying that the prize can be awarded posthumously, but incorrect in saying that it had never been done. The 1961 prize was awarded posthumously to Dag Hammarskjold.

Respectfully yours, Dominus 05:46, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I stand corrected :) →Raul654 05:47, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)
You type standing up?  :-) --Baylink 22:56, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Please vote

Raul, could I get you to vote on WP:IFD to delete Image:Ok magazine 89 cover.jpg? It's a picture of a child on a paedophile magazine. It needs to go. Now. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:05, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Main Page

Hi Raul - have you seen the discussion on Talk:Main Page? Quite a lot of people liked the new, simple, unclutttered version of the main page. I'm not going to get into a revert war about this, but I just wondered where the comment "this version is awful and I think everyone agrees" comes from. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:28, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • Al, I think Raul was talking about the old wordy version he'd reverted to after the admins went a bit made making their own individual changes to the new one. Raul, there seems to be a good consensus on the Main Page Discussion page for the 'original' new intro as proposed and installed by Tom. It would be great if you could RV the Main Page to that version. Thanks Dan100 18:11, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)
Ok, I've gone ahead and reverted to Rdsmith's version (the polished new interface), although I did incorporate one change (moving the multi-lang icon to the template). →Raul654 19:52, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Lirpedia

I was informed that you intend to vandalize Lirpedia, you have been banned for one year. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Actually, I believe I said that I didn't want to admin status on Lirpedia because the temptation to vandalize it would be too great. There's a not-so-subtle difference. →Raul654 19:36, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)
PS - Last I checked, Lirpedia is blatantly violating the GFDL by not giving the license or citing a source. →Raul654 19:36, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] multilang icon

Hey there - notice you just moved the language icon into the other template. I experimented with that but found that the location (in the included lang template) makes it's position look a little awkward. Also, quite oddly, it seems to need "font-size:92%" to show the bottom line of the image. Good luck with the "always wrong" changes! violet/riga (t) 19:55, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Congratulations

Hail to Raul - the first ArbCom member ever to be re-elected! :) --mav 02:53, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] The photo that wouldn't die

I see from User talk:VeryVerily that VV has been banned, so I'm picking you almost randomly on no better basis than that you were a message-bearer: could you please weigh in at Talk:Nicolae_Ceausescu#Death_photo? Ratza again wants to include the death photo of Ceausescu, and VV was one of the (few) people watchlisting this page. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:55, Dec 25, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Unverified images

Hi! Thanks for uploading the following image:

I notice it currently doesn't have an image copyright tag. Could you add one to let us know its copyright status? (You can use {{gfdl}} if you release it under the GNU Free Documentation License, {{PD-self}} if you wish to release your own work to the public domain, {{fairuse}} if you claim fair use, etc.) If you don't know what any of this means, just let me know at my talk page where you got the images and I'll tag them for you. Thanks so much. Peter O. (Talk, automation script) 05:04, Dec 25, 2004 (UTC)

P.S. You can help tag other images at User:Yann/Untagged_Images. Thanks again.

Image:Margaret Mead.jpg needs a source and tag too. Cheers, -- Infrogmation 07:01, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tucson, Arizona and more

Hi. I saw that you voted on the RFC regarding Tucson, Arizona, and I thought you might be interested in commenting on a broader application of the formatting to other city articles. The discussion (for now) is at Talk: Tucson, Arizona#Other Arizona and nearby cities. (It might get moved to WikiProject Cities, if there's interest in doing so.) Thanks! kmccoy (talk) 02:43, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Blocks are not expiring

I'm posting this message on every admin who has made a block in the last few days. The title says it all really: because of a bug in the new software blocks are not expiring when their time is up. Until this is fixed can you get in the habit of manually unblocking a few everytime you block one. If everyone does this we'll be able to keep on top of things until the bug is sorted out. Note also that another bug is displaying indefinite blocks as expiring at the current time and date. obviously you don't want to unblock those. If you want to reply please do so here Theresa Knott (The snott rake) 09:45, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • This was MediaZIlla'd on bug 1204, and brion says it's fixed. --Baylink 01:32, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What is wiki's policy on MOD files?

As far as I can tell there is no copyright encumberment on .s3m, .xm, .it, or .mod files. Do we have a policy regarding them? I tried uploading a public domain .s3m file but Upload tells me its not a recognized file type. I cant convert it to Midi (doesnt use the instruments right), I cant convert it to Ogg (theres no converter), am I just outta luck? Alkivar 00:19, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The mediawiki software automatically scans uploads with the unix 'file' command and if it comes up as anything but a certain handful of file types, the upload is rejected. This acts to prevent the use of wikipedia (a) to spread virii, and (b) as a host for pirated software. Midi's are currently rejected as well, but Ogg is not. →Raul654 00:24, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)
And if worse comes to worse, you can always plug the stereo out from one computer into the stereo in of another computer (yes, I have done it before to get around the above limitations) →Raul654 00:25, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)
then the problem becoms your recompressing an already compressed file! aka it ends up sounding like total shit. Guess I go without till Jimbo pulls his head out of his ass and allows some other file formats. Alkivar 01:04, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Forgot to set /away

Got your message, and I do appreciate you doing this :-) Ta bu shi da yu 02:47, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Urgent assistance needed

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Grunt%AD is a user with a non-printable character on the end of his/her username. It's a GNAA member and they have been uploading goatse images. They need to be blocked IMMEDIATELY but I am unable to do this without block User:Grunt.

Ta bu shi da yu 08:26, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Christmas tree

Hi Raul - hope you won't mind, I've removed your pic from there as for some reason it was not loading properly (even crashed my computer, I don't know why) - MPF 08:58, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Images weren't loading properly across wikipedia earlier - it wasn't a fault of the picture or the article. I had some other people look at it, and it worked just fine for them, so I suspect the crash was just some random windows burp, and not the fault of the picture. →Raul654 13:16, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks; it was because the other pic loaded OK I thought there was something wrong. It is working OK now. Mind if I swap the positions of the two to have the more traditional one at the top? - MPF 16:09, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Go right ahead. →Raul654 17:15, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Two trolls

grunt and lotusleaf. They are impersonation on IRC. - Ta bu shi da yu 09:19, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Mailing list

Where have I contributed to the mailing list - XED.talk.stalk.mail.csb 22:07, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Donation link on main page

Hi Raul654,

I appreciate your comments on the donation link issue.

So, are you in favor of restoring the donation link for the tsunami disaster relief on the main page?

I find it rather shameful that large corporations such as Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Apple are all setting aside more space on their web site than Wikipedia. (I'm especially shamed by the Microsoft page.)

Although those other sites have set aside big chunks of their main page to helping out, we had a single line link, and now it's been removed.

A single line link, temporarily appearing at the top of the page. Not too much to ask.

No need to make precious little "slippery slope" arguments at a time like this.

Dante once said something to the effect that the hottest place in hell is reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of peril.

I'm not an Admin, so I can't do much to contest this edit, but I'm hoping more Admins will realize how selfish it makes the users of this site look, that numerous commercial sites are being more generous with their web pages than we are.

We can go back to our petty squabbles later. Please restore the donation link if is within your power to do so.

— DV 23:33, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Alchemy is not a belief

Per Wikipedia_talk:Featured_articles#Alchemy. Alchemy is not a belief nor a religion, it was an early form of science. I would like to reach an agreement on this point before I start rv your rv of my changes. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 22:43, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Can I assume you have no objections to my argument? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:32, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Question about emailed featured article

A while ago, I saw a link to get the featured article of the day wmailed to you. I went to look for that link and I cannot find it anywhere! Was the geature removed for some reason? Or could you point me to where I can get it? Sorry to bother you, but I could not find an appropriate place to ask the question and I noticed you edit the featured article frequently. Hope you can help me or point me to the correct place. Thanks. -- FrankH 04:05, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The link was removed because nobody is sending updates to that list anymore. Once/if that changes, then the link will come back. --mav 05:10, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
In a nutshell - Kate set that feature up, and she's the one who maintained it. Since her departure, there hasn't really been anyone to take it over. With the holidays and whatnot, I haven't really had the wherewithall to try to find a replacement, but within the next couple weeks I'm going to advertise the reason and see if someone wants to take over. →Raul654 05:17, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Purple Heart award

Mark, I would like to remove the Purple Heart award from Wikipedia. Please see the discussion here.

I do not propose to remove it from those users who have already been awarded one, but I do not want to see it awarded in future. Thanks for your comments. Axl 11:42, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Malicious edits by admins to the Main Page

Since you started locking the featured article template on the main page, Neutrality has started reversing the quoting style from logical to conventional, in breach of the Manual of Style. I used to watch for such malicious edits and reverse them, but I cannot do so any longer. Do you have any suggestions about how to solve this problem? Any attempts to reason with the user himself are either ignored or deleted. —Wereon 17:53, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

So that's why all main page featured articles suddenly get written up into American English and all the AD/BCs converted to CE/BCEs! So much for Neutrality on an International encyclopaedia! jguk 18:04, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Quite frankly this is nonsense. I've changed the grammar (quoting style) on the Johnny Cash article to American English because Johnny Cash is American. Likewise, I've left only the perfectly proper British English on the House of lords blurb. This bogus complaint stems from the strange British English fixation of a few users. Neutralitytalk 19:04, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitration thought

You commented on Ciz/Proposed decision:

I'm a little worried about how much the word "closely" could be stretched. I can only think of one other article that this ban should probably cover, and that would be furry. So I'd be willing to ban him from those two articles, but I don't think we need to ban him from "its closly related articles".

I can see the sense in that. However, the concern is that Ciz attacks zoophilia and furry in articles which are not "closely related", for example, animal abuse or animal behaviour. So the intent isn't a ban on specific articles, so much as specific topics and subjects. In fact he's already POV edited Homosexuality in animals this way, which was clearly motivated by a link from Zoophilia and a contribution by FT2.

What about a ban on "Zoophilia or furry related articles, and any edits in other articles related to these subjects." And then leave it up to admins in any given case, which shouldn't be too hard. Can I suggest that? FT2 08:26, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

(Please move to the relevant Arbitration page if it should be there and not on your personal talk page. Apologies, Im not clear which is the right way to say it. Either way I hope it makes sense. - FT2)

[edit] Thanks for...

... picking up the ball on "Space Race".Sfahey 20:26, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Unverified image

Thanks for uploading Image:Marconi.jpg. Seeing as he died in 1937, I assume that the photographer died before 1955, meaning that the tag should probably be {{PD-old-50}}, but I wasn't sure. Right now, it's {{unverified}}. Thanks, ugen64 01:23, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Meetup

Not to be overly mean or anything, but you didn't exactly give me much notice, if any. I already have plans this weekend so I will not be going. Mike H 16:09, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)

Perfectly understandable. I emailed Jimbo about it a couple weeks ago, but he was in Israel and apparently never got my email; so the planning didn't really happen until this week. →Raul654 16:20, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)
You're perfectly welcome to meet me alone, when I'm not having plans. I have class from 12 to 3:30 on Monday. Mike H 00:10, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)
I would take you up on that, but I'm going home Monday at the crack of dawn. →Raul654 06:02, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dr Zen

I could be seriously misreading Dr Zen's motives, but it seems to me that his current spate of edit warring on Clitoris may be a deliberate attempt to force a protection of the page. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:56, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I know. I saw it last night as it was happening. When one person takes it upon themselves to do that, it's better to block the individual than to protect the page - something which I was seriously tempted to do last night. If he does it again, I'll seriously consider blocking him. →Raul654 15:08, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

Um, Schneelocke vprotected it anyway. Could we have it unprotected, please? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:45, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

I've done my best to comply with your request. Have a look. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:22, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)


Thanks for your comment on my photography. Adam 08:39, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Link images

Thank you for pointing out the issue of Link's images in the Link article. I'm having problems editing the image pages right now (keep getting the 'we have a problem' page, etc...) but i'll fix those ASAP. I might have to replace one image (one I didn't do myself) because I am unsure where I found it Phils 21:34, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Image:WWII memorial wide.jpg

Hello Mark. You uploaded Image:WWII memorial wide.jpg, but it doesn't have any copyright tags. Could you add one? Thanks, – Quadell (talk) (help) 23:46, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

It's one of mine - now GFDL'd. →Raul654 23:56, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Image tagging

On the subject of image tagging, I appologise for tagging one of yours incorrectly. --nixie 02:24, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Apology accepted :) →Raul654 02:36, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Welcome back

Thanks! Just needed some time for other stuff (and the holidays). Jeronimo 11:38, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Image:L'Origine_du_monde.jpeg

Some people are arguing for the inclusion of this picture to accompany L'Origine du monde in the "Did you know"-section. I think it will break some policy. What is your view on this and can you point me to policy on such images on the main page? (MacGyverMagic not logged in) 131.211.210.157 12:12, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Uh, I don't know if there's a specific policy against it, but common sense would say not to. I'm totally against censoring articles in any way (as my actions and comments on penis, clitories, vagina, 'etc have shown), but that doesn't mean we should go out of our way to put images we know will offend some people on our most visited page. →Raul654 18:03, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Johannesburg

Mark, why have you made Johannesburg a featured article? According to the criteria it should not be one. If you are about to reply that the voting was for featured status, then my rejoinder is that the vote isn't good enough on its own: The criteria must be met. The vote is a necessary precondition but it is not a sufficient pre-condition for featured article status. Paul Beardsell 18:05, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Paul - Ambi's minor objection not withstanding, everyone besides you seems to think that this article meets all the criteria to be a featured article. →Raul654 23:13, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think they can honestly believe that and they do not claim that: They support the featuring of the article but it seems to me patently obvious that they have not reviewed the article against the criteria. I had thought that whoever actually did the promotion to featured status would also do that review. The implication of your response is that you based your action on a vote count alone. We could write a bot for that. Paul Beardsell 23:27, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I do skim the non-unanimous ones (reading all of them in their entirety would consume far too much time) and nothing struck me about this article as being particularly flawed. The prose is fairly good, it seems stable and comprehensive; it includes pictures where appropriate, and it has references (albeit it's a bit light on those), 'etc. I can't comment on factual inaccuracies as it is far outside my expertise, but on the whole it seems a good article. →Raul654 00:59, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

"Seems", possibly. One of the documented criteria for a featured article is stability. In the day or two before you promoted the article to "featured" large sections of the article had undergone a re-write. The votes could not have been on this greatly changed article. Another is accuracy: On the talk page the stats in the article were being disputed. I had had to fix some, others were dubious. Since the article has become "featured" many of the stats have been deleted as no source could be found (citations being mentioned as an important criterion) and another source has been shown to be questionable. The article is not comprehensive: Most of the suburbs listed in the suburbs section are predominantly white - this in a predominantly black city. Lenasia, Alexandra, Wynberg etc missing. In my view the article does not meet the criteria and a quick review of the Talk page and the edit history (50 edits in the 4 days prior to promotion) would have identified the "stable" and "accurate" issues. Paul Beardsell 01:30, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Mark, I was wondering if you had yet given the above remarks any consideration. Paul Beardsell 23:00, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes. I looked at the diff, and there have been some changes, but not so much as to make it "unstable" in my eyes (I wrote the requirement specifically to combat the current-events type nominations of articles that change 100% daily). It looks like normal post-FA turnover (even featured articles change after they have been promoted). If you really think it's below the featured article standard, you can nominate it on the featured article removal candidates in a few weeks (you're not supposed to nominate recently promoted articles), but, respectfully, I don't think you've made a compelling case for its removal. →Raul654 01:34, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

Well, respectfully, there is more than a bit of post hoc justification going on here. The guidelines, written by you or not, do not read that way. Indeed, the guidelines themselves are more than specific enough to support my point. It was not stable enough, according to the guidelines. And the talk page noted areas of concern which were not being addressed, something to be checked, according to the guidelines. The article was not comprehensive enough, according to the guidelines. (Admittedly you were not necessarily in a position to recognise this last point.) The article is now somewhat improved but at the time you promoted it it was not good enough. That is my point and why I am addressing this on your Talk page and not at the article's own pages and FAC page. The process is flawed. Maybe not as documented but the documented process is NOT being followed. That the article is better now should not be cause for complacency. Had I not gotten involved we would now have a featured article which would be significantly flawed. Now, I have annoyed others with my sometimes intemperate attitude and maybe I annoy you now. I have even been criticised for claiming to have saved the article - the closest I have come to this claim is in this paragraph. And I recognise that improving the articles is what we are supposed to do - I recognise there is always room for improvement - perfection in a featured article is not what I am arguing for. BUT you are demonstrably complacent about what has happened here: A significantly flawed article was uncritically voted for featured status seemingly WITHOUT REFERENCE TO THE GUIDELINES and it was promoted to that status AGAINST THE GUIDELINES, not following the process as documented. Either the guidelines must be changed or they must be followed. Not a controversial point, surely? Paul Beardsell 09:31, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This is your Talk page. I am prepared to let you have the final word. Here. Paul Beardsell 07:22, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The guidelines say that a nomination needs consensus on the FAC to be promoted. I judged, when I promoted it, that the Johannesburg nomination had consensus (remember, consensus is not unanimity). At that point, the guidelines are satisfied. There are some cases where judging consensus is hard, but (if memory serves) this nomination was not one of them.
You say the guidelines were not met because you judge that that the article was unstable, inaccurate, and not comprehensive, but (at the risk of reiterating myself) most everyone else disagrees with you. I personally do not think it unstable (the changes you mention effectively amounted to a handful of paragraphs out of the entire article); your claim of inaccuracies was disputed on the FAC nomination page itself; and as I said above, I cannot respond to the claim of inaccuracies for lack of expertise - I do concede that this is possible, though.
Regardless, I think this case can be summarized simply by saying that the FAC regulars (the people who regularly comment on nominations) are highy reliable and accurate in their article appraisels - more so than I by myself. So when a large group of them support an article, I rarely go against that. Remember, consensus (as reguired by the guidelines) is not unanimity - there are times when I promote articles despite a few objections, and this case was one of them. As you yourself said, a featured article does not necessarily have to be 100% perfect, but representive of the high quality of articles we shoot for on Wikipedia.
And lastly, no, you do not annoy me - on the contrary, I welcome it when people question the process - it keeps me honest and on my toes. →Raul654 07:50, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)

But you annoy me because you reply but the issues I raise continue not to be given proper consideration and you misrepresent what occurred. You are seemingly unwilling to properly consider what I have been saying earlier in this section and I assert strongly that this section on your Talk page demonstrates that clearly. I ask that you re-read what I have said. But to address your latest points:

  • No. Consensus might not be unanimity BUT for a reasoned consensus to be reached a discussion must be entered into - the raised issues must be addressed. They were not being addressed. This is obvious from the Talk page and the FAC page at the time you promoted the article. I cannot believe on the evidence that consensus was properly "judged" by you to have been reached. If I am right the article should not have been promoted.
  • No. "Inaccuracies" were being claimed but it was not necessarily for you to determine the validity of the claims but merely to note that they existed and that there was a prima facie case to answer which was not being answered. This was, I think, a trivial thing to determine. That should have been enough for you to delay article promotion. (What was the rush, anyway?) In other words: You need not be able to say whether something is inaccurate: Merely noting a number of material inaccuracies were being claimed is enough to prevent the article being promted.
  • No. You say a "large group" disagreed with me that the article was unstable, inaccurate and not comprehensive. I did not raise the issue of stability with the group as stability was not then an issue: The article became unstable after the vote but before you promoted it. Nobody disagreed about the factual errors I found. A non-large group voted in favour of promotion before my vote. I identified inaccuracies only after most people had voted. Despite this the article was promoted by you. After my vote a few people took umbrage at the way I said things rather than the accuracy of what I said. Any re-reading of the FAC page bears this out. It is not true for you to claim that "most everyone else disagrees with me" unless you take their silence to mean that. I could just as easily take their silence to mean they support me. Neither point is true: They neither agreed not disagreed with me on the ISSUES I raised. They did not disagree with me. They supported promotion, I did not. That does not mean we differ on the factual inaccuracies. If so they must be dissatisfied that many of these have now been fixed! But note the timeline: Many vote for promotion. I then vote against and identify inaccuracies and a lack of comprehensiveness. Some comment on my intemperate attitude and a poorly judged edit by me but other than that nobody disagreed with what I actually said. 50 edits ensue over two days immediately prior to your promotion of an OBVIOUSLY inaccurate and unstable article.
  • No. That the FAC "regulars" are highly reliable is a circular argument put forward by you. I say that (on this case at least) they screwed up. You say this you find unlikely because they are highly reliable. I say this begs the question. If you were to examine the evidence then you might conclude that the "regulars" are less reliable than you think.
  • No. Johannesburg was not, at the time you promoted it, an article "representive of the high quality of articles we shoot for on Wikipedia." Identifying it as such does Wikipedia a disservice.
  • You say that "The guidelines say that a nomination needs consensus on the FAC to be promoted. I judged, when I promoted it, that the Johannesburg nomination had consensus (remember, consensus is not unanimity). At that point, the guidelines are satisfied."' No, nonsense. At that point, if consensus had been reached, all you have shown is that ONE of the set of guidelines had been reached. The guidelines do not say that only one or some of the criteria need be met. It says ALL must be met. On this occasion you neglected, it seems to me, to check some of the criteria.

To precis my argument: The documented procedure for promoting this article to featured status was not followed. Had it been followed then Johannesburg would not have been featured.

Paul Beardsell 11:17, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC) and Paul Beardsell 11:54, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] User:Gzornenplatz

Gzornenplatz is still on parole, right? (Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gzornenplatz, Kevin Baas, Shorne, VeryVerily) He was reverting the addition of a disambiguation link, marking it as minor, giving a wrong edit summary (format), and not commenting on it on the talk page a number of times related to Einstein (disambiguation) (e.g. [7], [8], [9], [10]). I put a notice on his talk page, but did not block him. Just though you might want to know, as you were on the arbitration comitee. Happy editing -- Chris 73 Talk 01:16, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

Well, yes, he's on revert parole and I guess he shouldn't have reverted your additions the 2nd time, but I don't think he should be banned for this. He would do well to discuss it first. →Raul654 01:02, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Featured article candidates

Given the extreme trouble saving Wikipedia had for a few days (which finally seems to be over today), I was wondering if you have/would consider giving some of the candidates that may not have had there objections addressed as quickly as normal due the saving problems a few extra days of consideration? Niteowlneils 20:12, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

All right, I'll be a bit more lenient when archiving failed nominations for the near future. →Raul654 23:14, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Battle of Hampton Roads

Hope you had a nice break in the Sunshine State. As a coincidence, yesterday afternoon, I was visiting a family member at MCV Hospital in Richmond, which virtually surrounds the former Confederate White House and the Museum of the Confederacy. While walking past, I paused (in the snow!) top clear off the bronze plaque and touch the anchor of the C.S.S. Virginia which is prominently displayed out front. I am a transplanted northerner, and maintain NPOV on the subject of the Civil War. However, with health issues at home, I don't get out too much these days, so tangible history (literally) felt kinda neat.

I spotted the improvements you made in this article. However, there were 2 resulting errors in the lead, which I took the liberty of revising. You may want to tweak further, but I felt sure you would be concerned about factual content.

1. The original name of the Confederate ironclad was Merrimack (with a "k"). This probably derives from the Merrimack River in New England near Boston where she was built in 1855. I have written a fair amount about the naming confusion. By the time of the Jamestown Exposition in 1907, it had been revised to lose the "k". However, during its existence, the ship apparently never had the name Merrimac.

2. Sewell's Point is on land. Hampton Roads is used to label both the water area and the surrounding land (talk about disambiguation!).

One a different subject, I spotted a box on someone else's User Talk page which makes it easy for visitors to enter a new message at the bottom of my talk page, where it is easier for me to find, and where it is less likely to alter earlier messages. It was easy to copy and edit for my Talk page. You might find it helpful. User_talk:Vaoverland

I hope the server (??) problems are corrected. I have been enjoying Wikipedia a great deal, and miss it when I can't get in. I have had good interaction with other editors/users and want to help continue to help make it grow. I like working on content for articles I am working on, but I try to make time to look over Peer Review and FAC areas, and comment where I feel it would be helpful, especially topics I have some understanding of. My financial resources are very limited, but I do spend a lot of time on-line. Please feel free to leave me a message if I can help in anyway. Yours in Richmond, Mark Vaoverland 22:57, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

Mark - good work on the Battle of Hampton roads article. I always like having someone check over my writing to make sure inaccuracies don't creep in. I expanded the introduction because I'm going to schedule it for the main page (it should be up in about a week) very soon.
As to the server issues, our devs are working on it. You can track their progress here. →Raul654 23:08, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

I see the article is scheduled for January 26. One thought: would an internal link in the lead to the U.S.S. Monitor be a worthy enhancement, or it it aleady too late? On a separate note, I wish that the featured articles candidate page had a section for listing the recent promotions/failures. Its really hard to keep up with dispositions, and would make helping with the reviews, etc. a little easier and more pleasant. Perhaps this could be done easily, just a simple list, as I realize that this activity is already a great deal of work to review and maintain. I have marked January 26 on my calendar! Snow and freezing rain here, hope we don't lose power. Mark in Richmond. Vaoverland 22:44, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

I have made the appropriate change both in the article and in the main page blurb. Also, you can find lists of recently promoted articles either on Wikipedia:Goings-on, or linked to from the top of the featured articles page ("Consensus must be reached in order to be promoted to featured article status. If enough time passes without objections being resolved, nominations will be removed from the candidates list and archived.") →Raul654 22:56, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for both the quick enhancement of the Battle of Hampton Roads lead section and the headsup on Wikipedia:Goings-on. I jumped into contributing content so quickly that I have failed to learn some of the WP basics. BTW, the IeSpell program suggested by other Wikipedians has been a godsend for me, as i have a typing transposition disability. I am going to try to cover some of the red internal links in the Hampton Roads article before Wednesday. Vaoverland 02:16, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Half-million pool

A request for unprotection for this page has been listed at: Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. I just thought to let you know. -- AllyUnion (talk) 08:38, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wrong guy

Whoops! Looks like you got the wrong guy (see Special:Log/block). I think you blocked User:User:Vacuum, not User:Vacuum, so I've unblocked. If you want to block again, go ahead. -Frazzydee|✍ 01:57, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It's actually because where it said username I typed "user:Vacuum" instead of just plain "Vacuum" - however, the way mediawiki works, I still blocked the right guy. If you check the block log, you'll see that about 5 minutes later, he got bounced. →Raul654 02:00, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Email

I sent you an email. RickK 07:31, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] vandalism on Johnny Carson page

FYI, There seems to be a vandalism battle going on the Johnny Carson article. I copied the following from the talk page. Yours in richmond, Mark. Vaoverland 01:30, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC) Something should be done about the persistent vandalism by 68.32.2.128. I don't know if we should protect the page, or what, but something should be done.--Fermatprime 01:24, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Saddle-billed Stork

Will do, but probably not for 24 hours, got to go out now. Incidentally, I reverted your images for Sacred Ibis and (I think) White Stork since they were not in fact the species claimed. the first one was an American White Ibis Jim

I noticed. The white stork revert actually took place on stork (where any stork picture is acceptable), but that's all right. Thanks for writing the article. →Raul654 07:39, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, The stork wasn't you anyway, I've now restored the image for that with the correct caption jimfbleak 07:41, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Gone

Why was Image:Lips-Moustache.jpg deleted? Just wondering, -- Infrogmation 20:08, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It was one of mine, and I really, *really* didn't like it. So I removed it from the two articles it was present in and replaced it with two celebrity photos instead. →Raul654 20:13, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. Cheers, -- Infrogmation 00:55, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Afanous

You're so much more tactful than I am.  :) RickK 00:23, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Duck

Your image is of an adult White-faced Whistling Duck jimfbleak 06:55, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Advice

Hi. I've been contributing to a series of articles along with 3 other users. The articles are out of control. Several of them have been protected on more than one occasion, but to no avail. RFCs and RFAs against at least one of the users, and attempts at mediation with the same user, have also gone nowhere. Repeated requests for neutrality and cooperation on the appropriate talk pages have gone unheeded. The edit histories are a mess of reverts that light up my Watchlist every day.

In my opinion, the only solution is to remove all but the most basic, undisputable facts from the articles, lock them, and then have the users hash out any other additions on the talk pages, providing credible unbiased sources, before adding anything else to the articles. The articles would, of course, then have to be watched carefull to ensure that the same type of crap doesn't creep back in as it always has in the past.

My question is, does this seem reasonable or feasible, and how can this be initiated given that I'm a frequent editor of the pages and involved in a dispute with one of the other editors? There are at least three articles that would need this treatment, which I suggest since every other attempt at solving these problems has failed. Any suggestions? Thanks. Exploding Boy 21:38, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

It is not uncommon in situations like this to protect the page, and then work out a compromise version on a subpage, and then copy the subpage over the article once everyone agrees to it. To intiate it, if you want, I can look at the pages in question and revert to what I deem to be the last stable version and then protect them. That would give everyone involved incentive to discuss rather than revert. →Raul654 00:05, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for the delayed response here. That would be great. I've asked for the pages to be protected, and one of them (Foreskin) has been. The other two (Male circumcision and Foreskin restoration) have not, though warnings have been placed on their pages.

The only thing is... I can see the subpages just becoming the same type of battleground the article pages are now....

Exploding Boy 18:36, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Director

How did you become featured article director? Mgm|(talk) 11:38, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

Believe it or not, it happened sort of by accident. In December, 2003, I came up with the idea of putting featured articles on the main page, and it was implimented in January, 2004 - as a simple list. About the same time, I became involved in the FAC process and reorganized the FAC page, trimmed the instructions, 'etc. The process became more organized and streamlined.
In February, 2004, the main page got the face lift and suddenly the featured articles were the most prominent articles on wikipedia. When it started, people were changing the article hourly, and I thought that that was insanity, so I went in and declared that it wouldn't be changed more than once every 24 hours, and I started doing the changes myself. At first, it was sort of a casual thing, but as the months went by, I guess I became the de facto director.
In August 2004, a certain troublesome user decided to challenge my de facto authority (he was temp-banned for it by Danny for edit warring on a main page template), and so someone else (I cannot remember who) called a vote to ratify my position. The result of the vote was almost unanimous, and I was ratified. And that's how I got to be featured article director. →Raul654 19:46, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, that's another mystery cleared up. Odd that I can find no reference to it whatsoever anywhere. Mgm|(talk) 10:02, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
Apologies for eavesdropping. Wikipedia_talk:Today's_featured_article/archive_2. HTH. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:57, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] FA by email

I'm not sure if this is what you need, so I didn't add it to the subpage, but if you need somebody to send the emails manually, I'd be happy to send it daily, provided I have kate's script. 0:00 UTC is a convenient time for me, so I should be able to send it within the first 1/2 hour of the day consistently. -Frazzydee|✍ 00:53, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I can get unix version of the script if you don't mind running it on a unix machine. Or, I asked, and Kate said she could probably modify it to work by itself (so presumably all you'd to do would be to copy and paste it into a web browser). →Raul654 00:59, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)
Please don't laugh :P, but I'm using windows. If it only runs on unix, then I have a spare computer that I could install it on, but it would be much if I could just run it off my main computer. -Frazzydee|✍ 01:02, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I figured as much. So assuming she gets it working, all you would have to do is copy it from a web browser into an email client. →Raul654 01:03, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)
Ah, sorry, looks like I missed that. If she gets that working, then I'd be happy to send it manually every day. Of course, there will be times that I'll be unable to (i.e. vacations), but I'll leave a message somewhere.
PS: Do you know Kate has any plans of getting her tools to work again? -Frazzydee|✍ 01:15, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Jimbo and I discussed this in Tampa. Long story short - Kate's tools are written in Java. There are two Java virtual machines we could use - Sun's proprietary (IE, not free) JVM or an open source JVM. For philisophical reasons, we cannot use Java's JVM. Currently, the tools work on the open source one but they're "1000 times slower" than Sun's JVM. Jimbo thinks it might be a bug, so we're contacting the open source people to see if we can get them to fix their JVM. →Raul654 01:24, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How to

Ok, I talked to Kate. Here's how to get the script working and start sending them to the list:

  1. Download Sun's Java virtual machine (15 megs) and install
  2. Download Kate's script (6 kb)
  3. Open up the command line by going to start->run->command.com
  4. Go to the directory that the script is in (in my case: cd desktop)
  5. Run the script, and dump the output to a text file (java Mkfamail > mail.txt)
  6. Copy the contents of the text file (mail.txt) into an email and send it to the list (daily-article-l at wikimedia.org)
  7. Emails to the list have to be approved. You have to log into the mailing list software and click OK. I can explain this more later.

After the first time, you can skip steps 1 & 2. →Raul654 01:34, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

Excellent, the txt file looks perfect :). Will my email be publicly shown if I send it to the list? I've been able to avoid all spam thus far, and I want to make sure it doesn't start. -Frazzydee|✍ 02:41, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Your email address will be visible to everyone on the list. It will also be visible in the daily-l archives, but the archives are design to resist spam harvesters (by not using @ or the mailto tag)
Also, I'll have to give you admin powers on the daily-l list so that you can approve your emails (step 8). Daily-l-owner (which is already CC'd to my email address and presumably will be to yours) does get some spam - quite a bit less since it got taken off the main page. I can talk with the devs about setting up some kind of filter.
Also, one more thing I just noticed. Be careful when running the script if your computer is not on UTC time. My computer is on US eastern time, so when I run the script after 00:00 UTC but before 00:00 EST, I got the old featured article instead of the current one. It's also possible if you are ahead of UTC that you could get a newer featured article (IE, tomorrow's featured article before today's has been taken down). →Raul654 02:50, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Standing orders/Anthony#Six_month_review

I'd rather not have anything to do with Anthony. RickK 05:17, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

I certainly understand where you are coming from (trust me, you're preaching to the choir on this one), but I'd still like to keep the standing order in place, which means any evidence you can provide would be helpful. →Raul654 05:22, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Darwin's finches

I never mind requests, but in this case the only pictures I have are those in Finches and Sparrows by Clement, Harris and Davis, ISBN 0-7136-8017-2, which are obviously copyright. Sorry, jimfbleak 06:21, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

D'oh. →Raul654 06:22, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)
On second thoughts, I have a book about the old naturalists that might have something, but it will be this evening (UK) before I get a chance to look - i'll get back to you if i find anything. Jim
All I have is a book with a J&E Gould hand-coloured lithograph of the extinct Darwin's Large Ground Finch, Geospiza magnirostris. I'll scan and upload if you think it might be useful. jim
Yes, that sounds good. →Raul654 18:31, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] In case you wanted to know...

"The free encyclopedia" in Dutch is "De vrije encyclopedie." Scott Gall

Ok, I've added it to 50,000 category area on www.wikipedia.org page. →Raul654 10:38, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Small FAC page changes

Hey there. I've had a little play with the WP:FAC page, adding a resubmission procedure. I've also reworked template:fac (contested) for use with failed nominations. Now I know the resubmission procedure is quite ugly worded at the moment (I hope you can look at it and sort it out) but I think it needed mentioning. The procedure itself should work well enough, I believe. As for the placement of the failed tags I'm hoping that myself and Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus can deal with them. violet/riga (t) 13:48, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wik

I don't understand why, if the evidence is clear, that Wik should still be running around, but I will abide. Now, will 172 once the decision comes down? RickK 21:42, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

Appeals to Jimbo not withstanding, Arbcom decisions are final. Unblocking someone blocked by the arbcom (and not pardoned by Jimbo) is an abuse of admin powers. →Raul654 21:46, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)
PS - a very, very serious one. →Raul654 21:46, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)
Well, Guanaco got a COMMENDATION from the arbcom for doing it. RickK 05:44, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] question

Dear Mark, as a member of the arbcom and a person well informed about dealing with problem users, i wonder if you can answer a question. Lately, in wiki.pt, we are having votes that some people suspect being from sock-puppets. Although its nothing really dramatic, my wikipedia is growing fast so this kind of problem will become a problem sometime in the near future and i would like to be prepared. I understand that only developers can prove sock-puppets and i ask you: under what conditions (if any) can a user or group of users ask a developer to investigate such matter? Cheers, muriel@pt 00:23, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC) (i thought your name was Raul until i saw the signature!)

Believe it or not, that's actually a very touchy question. I'm currently not happy with the developers because Jimbo has said that such checks should be automated in the mediawiki software (that is, done via a page along the lines of special:compareIP), and that the arbcom has the right to make them. The developers have a strawman arguement that they are guarding privacy rights, and basically they don't trust the arbcom (remember, this is coming from an unelected group who choose not to interact with the community).
However, generally, a developer will run a check for you if you can give suffecient reason, and your search terms are specific (e.g., that it's not a fishing expdition). Tell them that you want to know if address a.b.c.d matches any IP addresses used by user:troublemaker. The best place to ask is on IRC in #mediawiki.
However, if you ask the developers to run these searches every time an anon votes on the pt wikipedia, you're going to go nuts. On the German wikipedia, they have rules about who can or cannot vote. On en, votes of new users are typically moved elsewhere on teh page so they are not counted as part of votes. →Raul654 00:33, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your quick reply. You are very right, we need at some point a rule on who can vote what on wiki.pt. I'll take a look on the german.wiki to see how they work there, but i guess it should be complicated and bureucratic like everything in Germany (i was actually asked for my Primary School diploma in order to enroll as a *PhD* student and since i did all my basic school in England, everything had to be translated!). Anyway, when researching to have an answer to my question, i came across the lastest episode on the wiki-soap and i think i understand why youre not happy. I also see the developers point about privacy. Like in everything else in life, the solution must be found in good sense and sensibility. Regards, muriel@pt 21:05, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Evolution

Sorry, Raul. I specifically meant to include your edits in "rv; stein, u did not rvrt anon".--Pharos 02:18, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

That's all right, I figured it was an accident. No harm done. →Raul654 02:19, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] q:Wikiquote:Quote of the day

FYI - I created a queue for quotes of the day at Wikiquote. It should go live in a day or two (meaning that the daily quote will update at the same time as FAs and SAs). My evil plan to replace humans with a bot to send out Daily-article-l posts is almost at hand. >:-) --mav 22:19, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Triggerhappiness

Hello. Congratulations on your Adminship. I know that most people who become Admins like to display good administrator qualities to their peers, and this can, at times, result in triggerhappiness. I believe your quick page protection reaction on the Bahá'í Faith page is one such case. Please unprotect the page, so that I can incorporate both the new contributions of the other guy as well as include the photo of the prophet of that religion in the article. Thanks. Martin2000 04:40, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Martin - no need to congradulate me on being an admin - I've been one for longer than most wikipedians have been around :)
I've gone ahead and unprotected the article -- however, this does not mean you should go right back and start the edit conflit up over again. Please try to work the issues out on the talk page and come to some kind of amicable agreement. →Raul654 04:45, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
OK, will do. Thanks for unprotecting it. I will try to reason with them in the discussion page. It seems they are a group and they think Wikipedia was created as a medium for promotion of Bahaism. But anyway, we'll work it out somehow. Thanks. Martin2000 04:50, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)


[edit] 216.249.6.26

you've got the wrong guy here. Must be someone sharing my IP add. 216.249.6.26

Yes, I left that message at that IP address months ago in September, when it was used to vandalize 51st state. It wasn't intended for you - please disregard. →Raul654 06:51, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Votes for deletion

Raul, you seem to know how most things work around here. I'm trying to add a page to Votes for Deletion. I've created it as Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Jewish ethnocentrism, and I added it to the list for Jan 31, but for some reason it's not "taking". It has produced the text I wrote on the page, but has not given it a title and number. Can you help if you're around? SlimVirgin 08:00, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

Raul, panic over, Grayscale helped me. Best, SlimVirgin 10:23, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Possibly_offensive_images

Hi Raul654. I don't mean to spam your talk page, but I thought you might be interested in this. Cantus created Category:Possibly_offensive_images. I nominated it for deletion. It seems quite POV to me. Any thoughts? Thanks, TIMBO (T A L K) 06:01, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Uh-oh

Today when I tried to run Kate's script it didn't work. I tried to copy what it normally generates by hand for today...hope I didn't screw up ;)

Here's the error I got:

C:\Wikipedia>java Mkfamail > mail.txt Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "b sp"

       at java.lang.NumberFormatException.forInputString(Unknown Source)
       at java.lang.Integer.parseInt(Unknown Source)
       at java.lang.Integer.valueOf(Unknown Source)
       at Mkfamail.HTMLDecode(Mkfamail.java:266)
       at Mkfamail.main(Mkfamail.java:102)

Thanks in advance. -Frazzydee|✍ 00:52, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

By the way, I noticed a language option in the administrative interface. Why don't we offer FA by email for other languages? I wouldn't mind sending a few more emails, and it would be a nice gesture for us to offer the service to a couple other wikipedias (I think that de.wikipedia doesn't). If you think that would be a good idea, maybe you can pass it by Kate? -Frazzydee|✍ 01:07, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] WikiUser RfC

As one of the various people abused by WikiUser, you may be interested to know that I've started a Request for Comment on him - he's threatened mediation against three people and started proceedings against two, which is one idiocity too many as far as I'm concerned. Please take a look at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/WikiUser and feel free to add to it as you see fit. -- ChrisO 01:33, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Noah Peters

VFD Please see what I have added. And apollomelos2 is a sockpuppet created by Noah Peters to further attack me. I question his assertion to quit attacking wikipedia. Today we received multiple vandalisms on gay-related articles from ip addresses originating in the same exact area of Virginia. Apollomelos 03:50, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Disputing what wikipiedia is not. Am I allowed or not?

I am sorry but I dispute the neutrality of "what wikipiedia is not" article. Is this forbitten? If so I am sorry...I wont do it again. I just want to add that wikipedia is not a football squad. Can I edit the article to add it?Faethon 06:28, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Faethon, there are some pages where you can make toungue-in-cheek comments like that, but What-Wikipedia-is-Not is definitely *not* one of them. →Raul654 06:36, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)
I see. A better idea is to lock that page, otherwise an newby may be confused on that. Faethon 06:43, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
That would be un-wiki like. On Wikipedia, we have a tradition that we only protect pages when it is absoltely necessary, and only then for only the strongest reasons. →Raul654 06:48, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Image:Red ribbon.jpg

Mark, um, have you been getting enough sleep lately? Image:Red ribbon.jpg is already source. :) – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 13:57, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't see it below the tag. Typically, you want to put it in source-license-tag order. →Raul654 17:06, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Featured articles

I counted and only came up with 499. To make sure, I checked again twice and still came up with the same results. --Michael Snow 08:38, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The quickest way to count them is to paste the list into excel and delete the column headings (takes about 2 minutes). I did this and you're right - we definitely have 499. Someone must have miscounted by one at some point. →Raul654 09:38, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pic of the day

Hi Raul,

Just to let you know that your photo Image:Camouflage.jpg is up for Pic of the Day on the 7th Feb. If you like, you can check and improve the caption at Wikipedia:Picture of the day/February 7, 2005. -- Solipsist 12:23, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] History of Russia

Hi. Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/History of Russia has gone through as of 08:05, 6 Feb, but still hasn't been archived. 172 22:04, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

There's a good amount of support, but (IMHO) not quite consensus yet. Taxman still has an outstanding objection which I'd like to see addressed, so I thought I'd leave it up for a few more days. →Raul654 22:29, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)
Taxman just posted his objections after I wrote my comment above. A coincidence-- but now the article is not ready. 172 22:49, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bloody Mary

Hi. I see you've just added a comment to Mary I of England that "Bloody Mary" is a synonym of "witch". Really? I've never come across it -- a drink, yes, a witch, no! -- Arwel 11:17, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's a children's thing. "Bloody Mary" is also a name for a ghost or witch who appears in children's folklore; other very similar tales use different names." --Bloody Mary (person). (Look for that article on the main page soon). →Raul654 17:57, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] large ogg and mp3 files

See User:Raul654/bigogg. Jamesday 23:25, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A matter of personal attacks

Maybe I'm being too sensitive, or I'm tattling (if you will), but a recent conversation I've had with Alkivar seems to me a serious breach of civility and wikiquette. Since I have never dealt with these issues before, I have no idea how to proceed, or how serious the offence committed really is.

The conversation is as follows:

My apologies if I'm being to critical, but I feel that many of the comments made in the Fruit Brute VfD debate were far from reasonable. There had to be a more diplomatic way to disagree with Bart133's assertion on the initial sentence than don't lie, it makes you look even more juvenile.... Learn to face up to when you've goofed, it will go a long way in your life The attacks do to his age certainly border on a personal attack. Were Bart133 forty, sixty, or eighty, would you have included the comment on how 'juvenile' he is?

I don't expect you to apologise to anyone, but I want to make it clear that I consider your comments in this VfD debate inappropriate, and I think their are many members of the community who would agree with me. →Iñgōlemo← talk 06:46, 2005 Feb 7 (UTC)

On a vfd which is caused by the user's lack of experience due to youth your damn right i would continue to make this attack. I've seen users REGULARLY make worse comments and have nothing done to them. As for other people , I'm not here to make people happy. People dont have to like me, merely tolerate my presence based on the quality of my edits. ALKIVAR™ 07:52, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I must object to the assertion that regular use of worse comments justifies those kinds of comments. Furthermore, even users (example: RickK) who are infamous for excessive harshness have not, to my knowledge, made attacks even close to that which I noted above. I maintain that regardless of what prompted the VfD, this attack was inappropriate. Dialogue does not benefit in any way from blasting people for being "juvenile". →Iñgōlemo← talk donate 03:42, 2005 Feb 8 (UTC)
and I quote "What utter juvenile pretentious crap. Delete with extreme prejudice. RickK 00:54, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)"
and I quote "Bite me asshole. RickK 05:11, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)"
yeah i'm so much worse than others. when you yourself are out of high school and college and have as much experience as I do, then you can talk to me as an equal. Til then if you have a problem with me ... in the immortal words of RickK "bite me asshole" ALKIVAR™ 03:57, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I still fail to see the connexion between these quotes and the justifiability of the comments you have made. →Iñgōlemo← talk donate 04:11, 2005 Feb 8 (UTC)

For further background see User talk:Alkivar and Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Fruit Brute.

All righty, I'll have a look into the situation. →Raul654 06:26, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Space Race

Hi Raul. I spent muchas horas revamping this recently failed FAC for another shot, but can't seem to get it on the FAC page correctly. This may relate to its having been briefly renom'd three weeks ago by someone who apparently didn't realize it had just failed. The article therefore has two archived FAC/talk pages, and I keep getting redirected to them when I try to put it on the FAC page. If you can find the time (away from the above bickering), could you please re-nom it for me, copying the following nominating "speech":

This article had too much good material to die. It fell short of FAC some 6 weeks ago, and then was re-nominated by someone unaware, who hadn’t changed a thing. Since that abortive effort, it has been revamped greatly per reviewers’ requests. Innumerable redundancies have been removed, the time-sequencing has been improved, and the bizarre “Funding” section (which compared 60’s NASA to the current RSA) has been eliminated. The main objections were that a quarter of the article covered “recent developments”(which occurred well after the “race” ended) and that the spinoff ramifications of the race were glossed over. These too have been fixed, though I think mentioning the possibilities of future such “races” under “Legacy” is a reasonable inclusion.

and adding my "Sfahey" signature . If you're too busy, chat me back and I'll seek out another expert. Thanks. Sfahey 06:15, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I can do it, don't worry. →Raul654 06:17, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)
All done. →Raul654 06:25, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)
I got up earlier today than usual, and decided to take another whack at ferreting out and "moving" those old nominations, and ... voila! ... you'd already come through. Much thanks. Let the judging begin. Sfahey 14:34, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
p.s. Noticed your photo on the way out. How much did the orthodontically perfect smile cost your folks ... or is it just good luck?

[edit] spambot URLs

Hi Raul654,

First of all, thanks very much for your support and your kinds words in my recent RfAdm.

Second, I've compiled a list of URLs used so far by the spambot that is attacking PHP and some of the pages linked to it (DBpp, CCVS, Cybercash, DBM) and their talk pages, and have listed them at m:Talk:Spam_blacklist. Since you are also an admin on meta, could you consider adding these to the filter list? Thanks. -- Curps 19:38, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Actually, Silsor seems to be involved in updating the spam blacklist on meta, so I'll pass that request to him instead. Sorry about that. -- Curps 20:16, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bahaullah's pic

Hello Mark. I see that someone managed to convince you that the foto of Bahaullah is right after his release from some dungeon. I just wanted to let you know that this is a lie. That foto if from Adrianople and the hat he is wearing is a so-called Turkish or Ottoman hat. I corrected the line. Also, there is no reason for two versions of that article -- it is just that a few Bahais make coordinated efforts to "shape" the Bahai articles to suit their prefered perspective. There is no excuse for them for this sort of manipulation and lack of respect for the open nature of Wikipedia and the Internet in general. --Amir 11:22, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Your bot

I debugged and improved on your bot, you can access it here: http://pig.berlios.de/wikiupload as proof of concept it uploaded this file.

I rewrote it in bash, see [11] ;) Actually i just couldnt be bothered debugging a csh script, try adding -x to /bin/bash like #!/bin/bash -x, works wonders. It also only gets the cookie or sends the confirmation form if it needs to, which speeds it up and spares the servers, oh, and the settings and other data it makes are saved in a directory /tmp/uploadbot/ which means that it won't clutter your filesystem if you run it recursively in the future. --Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 11:22, 2005 Feb 10 (UTC)

[edit] Upload script, based on pywikipediabot framework

Raul, do a cvs download to get the newest pywikipedia bot. Then the steps to get the bot running is:

  1. Create a user-config.py
  2. Login in by typing: python login.py
  3. Edit upload.py to include the #!/usr/bin/python (or where ever you place it)
  4. Make upload.py executable
  5. Upload an image by typing: $DIRECTORY_OF_PYWIKIPEDIABOT_FRAMEWORK/upload.py -keep $IMAGE_FILENAME $UPLOAD_COMMENT
    -keep indicates to keep the file name the same.
    I am uncertain whether the script can resolve filesizes larger than 5 M. If it can not, submit a bug report on the framework site.

A few suggestions for changes, this makes certain that the bot uses the login-data in the directory for all the scripts:

In config.py,
_fns=[sys.path[0] + "/user-config.py"]

In login.py,
    f = open(makepath(sys.path[0] + '/login-data/%s-%s-%slogin.data' % (site.family.name, site.lang, user)), 'w')

In wikipedia.py:
        fn = sys.path[0] + '/login-data/%s-%s-%slogin.data' % (self.family.name, self.lang, u)

In wikipedia.py:
            fn = sys.path[0] + '/login-data/%s-login.data' % self.lang

[edit] Housecleaning

To all those on the ArbCom: Man, you guys cleaned house! Great work. My number one hope for the 2005 ArbCom was that the backlog would shrink due to prompt decisions, and you all surpassed my hopes. My hat's off to you. – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 20:46, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cantus

If I may ask, what was his explanation that prompted you to unblock? --Michael Snow 16:52, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes, please explain at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Cantus violation. He had ample opportunity to discuss his edit, but made no effort. He better have a really good reason. -- Netoholic @ 18:59, 2005 Feb 11 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. It's what I would have done if Cantus had asked me, although I really wish some of our hardened edit warriors would get the clue that it's not the other person's sole responsibility to initiate a discussion. --Michael Snow 22:12, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] from Nug

I just wanted you to know that we all think you are doing a great job on the arbcom, way to be reasonable and objective. With less than 50% of the community voting for you, its awesome that you were willing to volunteer for a three year term. Nug

Hi Lir. Are you enjoying your year off? →Raul654 21:07, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)
PS - I know I am. →Raul654 22:18, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Minus-signs (a comment for your Bugzilla report)

Re: your Bugzilla report [12] on en-dashes and em-dashes, it would be nice to support &minus; as well.

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dashes) approves the use of &minus; and says it is supported in almost all browsers. The minus sign is the same width as the "+" sign and is much wider than a hyphen. Compare - and −.


I wanted to enter the following comment at Bugzilla, but unfortunately Bugzilla does not support anonymous contributions. If you agree, could you submit the following on my behalf? Thanks.

It would be nice to accomodate minus-sign as well, and could probably easily be done.
The Unicode minus-sign character is approved in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dashes).
In addition to the three rules already proposed, anything of the form ' -[0123456789]' (space followed by hyphen followed by a digit) should get converted to &minus;


-- Curps 03:49, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Featured article February 21

Hi, I noticed in the FA archive you put the link to Liberal Party, not Liberal Party (Utah) in the first sentence. Don't know if this makes a difference. --[jon] [talk] 14:24, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Katharine Graham

Thanks for reverting my mistake in categorization. I've fixed it now. Thanks. --JuntungWu 14:30, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Help!

See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ta bu shi da yu. I think that speaks for itself! - Ta bu shi da yu 20:21, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] No violation

Hello Raul654. You posted a message in my Talk page saying I had violated my ArbCom decree by reverting the Autofellatio article twice in 24 hours (you didn't specifically say 24 hours, but I will assume this was what you meant, as otherwise I wouldn't be violating the decree). This is false, I'm afraid. On this 03:49, Feb 13, 2005 edit I removed an external link to a pornographic site showing a man autofellating; I never touched the image in the article. On this 07:59, Feb 13, 2005 edit I reverted the article (for the first time) to Jimbo's approved version which linked the image instead of showing it inline. In conclusion, I never reverted the article twice in 24 hours, so there's no reason for you to worry about blocking me :-) —Cantus…☎ 02:23, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)
Well said Cantus, Raul is a mature fellow and I am sure that he will address this matter with the utmost judicial propiety. Have no fear, if I know my man Raul, he will not let his personal grudges interfere with his duty to be reasonable. Hug

I disagree with your recent edits to the article on obesity. It may be your personal POV that obesity is widely accepted and "ok" -- but the article should more prominently address the concerns that obesity has with regards to health, and the fact that many people see obesity as a sign that someone is irresponsible. Hug


[edit] How to stop vandalism? Possible?

Dear Mark (Raul654):

I am trying to restore facts in the article about Karabahk. However, I am having troubles with two users: User:Tabib and User:Cantus, who keep reverting the page without any discussion.

Here is what the facts are. According to the Soviet population census (as of 1979), the population of Karabahk was 162 000, from which there were 123 100 Armenians (75,9%) and 37 300 were Azeri people (22,9%). That's why it is correct to say that this autonomous region was predominantly Armenian populated, even before the conflict.

Based on the above (well-known) facts I wrote the following:

This predominantly Armenian populated autonomous region had been placed under the jurisdiction of Azerbaijan by an arbitrary decision of Stalin in 1923. Karabakh has declared independence from Azerbaijan on December 10, 1991 and established Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR). The NKR's sovereign status is not yet recognized by any country in the world.

They ( User:Tabib and User:Cantus ) keep reverting this to the following:

The region is now predominantly ethnic Armenian and effectively under Armenian control. The local Armenian separatists declared independence from Azerbaijan on December 10, 1991 and established Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR).

As you can see, their statement is very different, and it is not neutral. According to them, Armenians have never lived in the region before the conflict. The term "separatists" also does not look right.

I have made several attempts to negotiate and discuss this subject with them. However, they have never responded to any of my messages.

I strongly believe, this is a violation of the very basic principles of Wikipedia. The Wekipedia should present only facts without any political propaganda.


As a user, I am more active in Russian part of Wikipedia, where I wrote some number of articles on the subject of Russian phylosophy, theology and history, and I have never had problems with any kind of vandalism. I hope we can improve the situation here too. You, as Administrator, can help!

Thank you, Rovoam 18:12, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Developer assistance

Thanks whoever's been updating the numbers of articles in the 50,000+ category on www.wikipedia.org. I have one thing to ask you or another developer. I have noticed that although sl: is in the 1000-10000 category on the same site, it recently reached 10,000 and has been given that recognition in other language WPs, even ours, maybe that error could be fixed up on www.wikipedia.org. Scott Gall 18:37, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Done. But Scott, FYI, the portal page is m:Www.wikipedia.org portal. It's a wiki page like any other (albeit protected). Also, I'm not a dev :) →Raul654 00:54, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)
So that's how the "international page" is changed? I thought a developer went there and played with the HTML code for a while. Scott Gall
Nope, it's as simple as that. Check on the talk page - there are two designs currently being considered. The current version was more ad hoc than anything else. →Raul654 02:26, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)
I get it now. But I'm not an admin, so I can't edit protected pages. Scott Gall 06:25, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Adjust the portal page (again)

Thanks again whoever's been updating the numbers of articles in the 50,000+ category on the portal page. I have one thing to ask you or another admin (I'm not an admin on Meta and I've just been rejected for adminship on Wikipedia, so I can't edit protected wiki pages.) I have noticed that although be: (the Belarussian Wikipedia) is in the 100-1000 category on the same site, it recently reached 1,000 and has been given that recognition in other language WPs, but not ours, maybe that error could be fixed up. Also, br: (the Breton Wikipedia) has just gained its 100th article and should be put on the portal page. Scott Gall 07:03, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Plurality v. majority in Iraq

Mark --

Could you please take a look at my suggestions on Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page/Candidates regarding the phrasing of this headline? There are media outlet headlines that say the Shiites won a majority (meaning the seats in the Assembly) and failed to win a majority (meaning a plurality, 48 percent, of the votes cast). I'd like us to be more precise. Thanks. Chris vLS 20:42, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Done. →Raul654 00:54, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks!! Chris vLS 22:40, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] FAs

A pleasure - I figured something was up, couldn't believe you'd stopped halfway through by design. Also, FYI, you put the FAfailed notice on Space Race, which I took to be a mistake, so have changed it to featured status in line with your edits to the featured log. Kind regards, jguk 21:28, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't put FA failed out it - that's been there for some time because it has failed the FAC twice previously. →Raul654 01:54, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] ArbCom

I am not certain how much the arbcom does. Could you tell me whether something like this: [13] would be part of their jurisdiction?? Thanks in advance, Zwischen

[edit] Glacier

Sarah suggested I examine your edits to Glacier. I could not figure out how to view previous versions, could you help me out? Pellegrini

Oh Lir, I was just reading your University's Computer acceptable use policy. I found a couple of interesting things you aren't allowed to do:

  • Accessing, or attempting to access, equipment or networks at UNI or elsewhere via UNI resources, without permission.
  • Sending anonymous, deceptive, fraudulent, or unwelcome electronic communications, such as chain letters.

It'd be a shame if Jimbo were to send them a complaint about you, telling them how you've spent 3 years trolling this site, gotten yourself banned from it repeatedly, and that we might just have to block the whole university if you keep it up. I expect they probably would't be too happy. →Raul654 22:35, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wired fame

There's a spooky line-drawing of you in the March WIRED. congrats... :-) +sj + 22:27, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Link me! →Raul654 22:36, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Question about policy

OK, this is going to sound odd, but in all my time here I've never suggested a single policy or policy modification. The reason is: I've never been able to work out the process! How would I go about doing this? - Ta bu shi da yu 22:41, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's a very fuzzy, misty process, that no one really understands very well because no formal mechanism exists. Ask me on IRC and I'll give some specific suggestions. →Raul654 22:45, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Revert

I reverted you at History of Music -- I hope you will agree that it was better before. BestBuy

[edit] Raul654 2.jpg

Raul there isn't a copyright tag on this picture! Brookie 20:17, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Good call - I've fixed it. →Raul654 20:19, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Protected featured article pictures

Hi Raul,

I notice you generally protect the "Today's featured article" about 10 days in advance. What do you think—would it would make sense to protect the associated image (and add {{ProtectedMainPageImage}}) at the same time? I've been protecting the images one day in advance, but I'm worried one might slip through the cracks.

dbenbenn | talk 00:39, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks! Hyacinth 23:24, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Wrong Road.ogg

That file is playing at very high speed for me (in XMMS and mplayer). The original MP3 works fine. None of your other OGGs have that problem, so I presume it's with the file and not my player.--Eloquence* 12:09, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)

Really odd error. The only time I have seen that is with files I encoded at <128 kbits/sec. But the other file I uploaded at the same time works fine. Odd. Anyway, I have reencoded using a different encoder and it came out fine, so I overwrote the old song. →Raul654 14:25, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] wired too

You are the second person to mention the article, but as of yesterday it had not yet appeared in Northern NM. I enjoyed my time with Daniel Pink and was wondering how it would translate into ink. Since I live an hour away from the nearest potential copy . . . . . Anyway, I'll pre-pave a congratulations to you too, both for your work on wikipedai and for your recognition. Carptrash 18:15, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Suffice it to say, you are featured fairly prominently in the introduction. The article should be available on wired's website within a couple of weeks. If you want, I can scan it in the beginning and send it to you by email. →Raul654 18:28, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Today's featured article

I'm sorry, but I wasn't quite sure what to do. The first few times the image was replaced, I simply blocked the IP, but apparently it was dynamic, and this did nothing to stop the vandalism. I won't protect in the future, but what should I have done? Thanks, Meelar (talk) 19:49, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Today's John Vanbrugh article

Raul654, this is Sodwiki (Steve) and I was not trying to vandalize the article. I was only trying to fix what SYSOP had done with the redirect although unsuccessful. Your fix for SYSOP was not working either. Regards and keep up the good work.

Looks like L33tminion was able to make the correct fix.

Uh, no. What happened was - (a) Sysop vandalized the template. (B) I reverted it, and then banned him. (C) You blanked it again, and (D) I reverted that and warned you. The database is being a bit weird now, so it shows events as ABDC (which is why it says "(Reverted edits by Sodwiki to last version by Raul654)" before you edited it). →Raul654 14:46, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Solar energy

In any case Raul you were right it came out to about 1.83 HP (per hour per square meter at 1 AU) from a highly variable average. Looks like I will have to think about this at closer than 1 AU to be practical in any way. Thank you. -- Dbroadwell 15:14, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think your units are a tad confused there. It should be 1.83 hp/square meter. →Raul654 16:53, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)
True; I pulled them out to use the google calculator; 1.83 hp/m^2 (at one 1AU). I was also wrong on the highly variable part. This was based on luninosity, not the solar wind, so I had that fact as a holdover. And again, Thank You for bearing with me. I'm not in the EE classes yet and am still trying to study what intriuges me. For some reason, it's the sun as a ~4billion year energy source. Numbers at User_talk:Dbroadwell -- Dbroadwell 17:57, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Standing order

I have withdrawn my agreement to the standing order. anthony 警告 16:55, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding protection of featured article

Hi, I was hoping you could give me some advice on the situation in which highly visible and offensive vandalism is repeatedly performed on "today's featured article". What should I have done in the Brolga situation? Yours, Meelar (talk) 07:22, Feb 27, 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Please reply on my talk. Thanks very much.


[edit] Buckingham Palace

Please could you explain why the above article failed FA when it had 4 votes of support (5 if you count me the nominator) only one objection, and one neutral? Giano 18:19, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

After a very long time on the FAC (11 days), there were 4 supports (Bishonen, ALoan, Worldtraveller, Zerbey), 2 objections (Markalexander100, Dinopup), and 1 neutral (Morwen). Further, I think Markalexander's object has merit. →Raul654 23:44, Feb 28, 2005 (UTC)
There was not one unqualified statement in that article, but - some you win, some you lose! End of story. Giano 07:19, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Quick question

Hello, Raul!

I just need some quick advice: the article chemical warfare was given featured article status on January 2, and it hasn't yet made it to the main page. However, I notice that other, much more recently "FAS'ed", articles have been given this honor. For example, ammolite and Buddhist art which, while both are indeed excellent, only became FA's on the 24th and 27th, respectively.

Is there something in chemical warfare that needs revising before it's acceptable? Naturally, I would be willing to do the work necessary to make this article into a true gem, worthy of a Main Page presentation. Many thanks for your input. – ClockworkSoul 06:26, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Oh no, quite the contrary, it's a good featured article. It's just we have a glut of some categories of articles (war-related featured articles, for example) and a dearth of others (art-related featured articles). So newly promoted art articles tend to make it to the main page faster. →Raul654 14:16, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)
  • Gee, Raul, why do you always have to go and make perfect sense? ;) – ClockworkSoul 14:42, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 3, 2005

I'm not sure I understand why you chose the strongman photo for the FA summary. I feel that the strongman photo represents out-of-date stereotypes that I would prefer would not be used to represent the subject as a whole. (That's why I chose a female model to demonstrate the exercises.) I put the dumbbells photo at the top of the article because I though it was the most generic representation, but if you don't like it then please choose any of the other photos. (Or am I allowed to change it myself?) Just not the strongman. Please? GeorgeStepanek\talk 06:29, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Just go ahead and change it yourself to whatever you think would be appropriate. However, as a general rule of thumb, split pictures, maps, and graphs do not make good pictures for the main page. →Raul654 14:11, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks! I put the dumbbells photo in there. GeorgeStepanek\talk 21:58, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Helen Hogg.jpg

Hello Marc. I was image tagging, when I came across Image:Helen Hogg.jpg, which you uploaded ages ago. Could you add source information and an image copyright tag to it? Thanks, – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 15:23, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

Done. →Raul654 17:00, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Blocking War

I invite you to comment on my actions (see [14] -- Uncle Ed (talk) 19:14, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] why is the main page featured article not protected?

why is the main page featured article not protected?209.162.205.24 01:19, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The featured article is supposed to represent what makes wikipedia great. This includes being editable by anyone. →Raul654 01:42, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Policy for April Fool's Day articles

Hi. Does Wikipedia have a policy regarding gag articles on April 1? As FA editor, do you have any plans to run gag FAs on the main page this year? If you do, do you accept user FAC submissions or have you already earmarked the articles? When should such an article be submitted for FAC? Is there (or do you plan to have) a separate section for such articles on that day, so that they don't interfere with existing articles? -- Brhaspati (talk, contribs) 02:56, 2005 Mar 2 (UTC)

I said before that if anyone wants to go into Wikipedia:Unusual articles and bring an article there up to featured article standard, I'd be happy to feature it; or alternately, I'd like to see someone bring Mortimer Adler up to featured article status as my personal way of razzing britanica. →Raul654 04:06, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)

Nihilartikel seems to be agood choice for that! -- Sundar 05:16, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)

It would be hysterically funny to feature nihilartikel on April 1st. Of course, this would leave users wondering if it is self-referential ;-) Isomorphic 21:49, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitration Committee case merged

Your request against Anthony DiPierro has been merged into the existing case against him. Please bring evidence to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Anthony DiPierro 2/Evidence. Thank you. -- Grunt  ҈ 17:41, 2005 Mar 2 (UTC)

[edit] Sockpuppet checks

Who is available to run sockpuppet checks these days? A certain long-time misbehaver and sockpuppeteer is back to his old tricks, and I think it may be time to have the Arbcom look into it. He's getting more sneaky, and even used a (not especially obvious) sockpuppet to nominate himself for adminship. Isomorphic 21:54, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The developers are the only ones who can do it, and refuse to share it with anyone else (despite Jimbo's orders to the contary). On the other hand, the arbcom itself can request it, or you can ask them to run the check for you in #mediawiki on Freenode. →Raul654 22:04, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)
I just wanted to post here quite clearly that I do not agree with Raul here at all. I have not ordered anyone to do anything, and no one has refused to do anything. I have expressed an opinion: it would be good if the arbcom could do sockpuppet checks without the assistance of the developers. They need this ability and they should have it. This is not an order to anyone. The developers are not my employees, they are not my servants. "The developers were made aware that Jimbo wanted this, and have pointedly refused." I don't know what this refers to, but if it refers to you telling them that I ordered, then hurray for them. If I start ordering volunteers around they can and should tell me to just fuck off, it's absurd.
Now, we are starting to pay Brion (but in simple point of fact he has received no money yet), and so it is possible that in the future I will ask him to prioritize some things over others, and then because he is being paid, I would expect him to listen to that of course. But even that would not amount to me 'ordering' someone to do something -- ordering people around is simply not my nature.
The thing that concerns me about this discussion most is that had I not seen it, my reputation and relationship with the developers might have been seriously damaged and even as it stands, I intend to go around to talk to all of them to make sure they understand that this came entirely from you.
To summarize: I did not order the developers to do anything, they did not refuse to do anything. As a group they have always been very responsive to user needs and to my requests. They are volunteers who do an amazing amount of work to keep this place running, and they do not deserve to be treated as flunkies or slaves.--Jimbo Wales 11:44, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)


What I really mean is, how do I get a request filled? I'm not on IRC, and I don't know anywhere to talk to the developers as a group. Would I need to actually make an arbitration request before I can get anyone to do it? I'm trying to avoid making a big show of this, since Mike thrives on attention. He's been running a puppet show off and on for well over a year, and it's getting tiresome. A couple of us have tried to keep an eye on him, but as long as we don't have any sold proof of his dishonesty, he just ignores us, complains that we're on a vendetta, and gets a new account or three. Isomorphic 18:49, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
You could try emailing Jamesday. He's usually ok about doing that. →Raul654 18:51, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)
Specifically what did Jimbo order, and when? -- Jeronim 02:27, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
At the tampa meetup (and several times on IRC since), Jimbo said that the arbitration committee should have the ability to check IPs, independent of the developers. He did not, however, specify how to see it implimented, but he made it very clear that the arbcom should not have to depend on the developers for such checks to be made. →Raul654 02:40, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure how many developers were at the Tampa meeting, but I certainly wasn't told about this. It's a little ridiculous and more than a little rude to say that we "refused" to do something when "ordered", when the reality is that no-one refused anything because we weren't even told about it. Don't you think? Please try not to make everything you have to do with the developers into a conflict. Kate.
I have mentioned it in #mediawiki numerous times - at least 5, probably more, as well as mentioning the ways people have suggested implimenting it. Mav and David Gerard have done the same. Brion and Jamesday both participated in those discussions, as well. →Raul654 03:18, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)
I'm not really sure that you asking something in #mediawiki is equivalent to Jimbo "ordering" us to do something. In fact it pretty clearly isn't. (ps. I don't trust you (plural) either, but that's besides the point.) Kate.
Don't distort what I said (especially since you claim you weren't there). The developers were made aware that Jimbo wanted this, and have pointedly refused. One (Brion, I *think*) said we could code it ourselves. And I'm not even going to get into the issue of trust, considering that the developers are unelected and by James's own admission intentionally avoid interacting with the community. →Raul654 04:55, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)
Kindly cease misreprresenting the substance of my comments to you. What I said was that developers in general seek to avoid contentious situations on the wiki so that people are less likely to think that they have a personal interest which may affect what they do. Jamesday 05:29, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Excuse me? Who is talking about "ordering" and "refusing"? I am not distorting anything, that is exactly what you said. "The developers were made aware" = "Raul654 told some people in #mediawiki". Please provide actual quotes from Jimbo if you are going to say he has or has not done something. Spreading FUD about both us and jwales is extremely non-helpful, and if interacting with the community means having you throwing accusations around (which is most of what it involves recently), it's not exactly surprising that people find it less than pleasant. Kate.
Jimbo's exact wording was (and you'll excuse me if I don't get it verbatim, but I was not carrying a tape recorder at the time) 'this is something the arbitration commitee needs and should have'. That doesn't sound like a request to me, but perhaps 'order' wasn't the right word either. Regardless of that, when informed by several arbitrators that this is something Jimbo would like us to be able to do, several developers (explicetely) refused to consider it. James went so far as to question the trusthworthiness of the arbitration commitee. So you tell me - who is spreading FUD? →Raul654 05:44, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)
And, for the record, Jamesday's response was effectively 'we don't trust the arbcom to do it, but I'm more than happy to do it when you ask me'. →Raul654 03:19, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)
There is personal data in the database sufficient to compromise online banking sites used by users. We also have an obligation to protect the security and privacy of users of the site. Given the interest of arbcom members in investigating issues, a checks and balances approach is the best way to address this while minimising the potential for problems. Also, much of the checking is simply not of a nature amenable to simple checks but requires knowledge of the systems and how they interact. The sysadmin developers have absolutely no choice but to have access to that information but good security principles require keeping the group as small as reasonably practical. Most developers, on the other hand, do not have access to that information either. Jamesday 05:29, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Right, so there's a request for some developer or other to implement a way of doing sockpuppet checks for arbitrators. The order was your fantasy. I trust you'll be going to those people who you misinformed and setting the record straight. -- Jeronim 04:22, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Let's try to calm things down a little. We are all friends here, and we are all working on the same side, so everyone take a deep breath. To the developers - the reason the AC needs access to the logs is because, if I understand it correctly, they are temporary. If they are not checked quickly (a week?) they are lost to us. There have been cases where a request for a sockpuppet check has not been carried out by a developer quickly enough and so we have not been able to properly do the job that we were elected to do. I don't think that the developers understand how difficult arbitration is. We are constantly being critisized for doing a thankless task, that takes up huge amounts of our time, and we are being hampered by our having to wait for a developer to get around to doing something that we could do for ourselves. Of course security is an issue. And it makes perfect sense to keep the number of people with access down to as small a number as possible. It's not, as far as I'm concerned, necessary for every member of the AC to have access. Two or three would be fine. As for trustworthyness- I was elected by the community and I undergo regular police checks because i work with children, am I not trustworthy enough for you? And who should get to decide, you or jimbo? Theresa Knott (ask the rotten) 07:41, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I understand that the arbcom needs this information, and that it's a pain waiting for a developer to do it. It's unfortunate for both of us that it was like that. I understand Tim has now implemented something to allow the arbcom to do this themselves, so maybe that particular problem won't be an issue anymore.
What I dislike is Raul's constant whining (for want of a better word, but that's really what it is) about everything we do/don't do. I don't know where he gets some of his opinions from, but claims like "google is subsidizing our devs" seem to suggest they aren't based in the same reality as us. Brion (only - no-one else) is being paid a tiny amount of money to implement something for GuruNet (which is nothing to do with Google); from this, Raul extrapolates that "[...] when you say 'unpaid volunteers'[,] that's only about half right". I certainly won't be seeing any of that money, and nor will any of the other developers; and if Raul thinks that's "payment" worth the effort Brion has put into Wikipedia over the last three years, I'm certainly glad I don't work for him. He claims that Special:Asksql should be re-enabled because we have "10x more servers than we did"; since we don't even have 10 database servers, that's pretty unlikely to be the case. These aren't isolated incidents; most of the discussions Raul has in #mediawiki are along the same lines.
And now, on top of that, he's spreading this FUD to other people when they ask questions. And since Raul is a respected member of the en: community, people are quite likely to believe him. It's time-consuming and stressful enough just to keep the site running, let alone deal with users' requests; having people try to breed a culture of resentment against us is really too much.
I'm not and never have been an arbitrator, so certainly I don't know what it's likely. I'm sure it's not easy, and I know it's something I wouldn't be able to do. On the other hand, I don't know how many users appreciate the amount of work it takes to run the site. I regularly work 8-12 hours per day on the site, mostly doing things that aren't directly visible to users, for no reward. I don't want a reward for it; I'm happy to know that what I'm doing is worthwhile. So when Raul starts throwing around accusations about things he really has no clue about, says we "ignore users" and "take away useful permissions" out of nothing more than spite, and then propagates his opinion to other users, it's more than a little hurtful. I'd like to think we are all friends, but that's not the impression I have from some people. Kate.

I'd first like to say how much I deeply appreciate the efforts of all the developers. They are as responsive as I could expect to all the requests of sockpuppet checks I've been involved with. So while it would be nice to have the ability to do this ourselves (or via a steward), I don't think this is something that is so pressing as to need immediate action.

Furthermore, I was at the Tampa meetup and was involved in the conversation Raul talks about. My impression was that Jimmy (along with everybody else in the room that expressed an opinion) wanted the ArbCom and/or stewards to have the ability to check this type of thing. I did not get the impression that there was any timetable to this or that Jimmy was 'ordering' anybody to do it (Baylink and Chad were both there - so there was an opportunity to do so through them).

All this seems to have been a case of miscommunication. So in the spirit of WikiLove, let's have a virtual group hug and move on. :-) --mav 19:14, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Some of the most productive users are "sockpuppets," and would prefer to remain that way. :) -Cheezewizard 01:35, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why did you revert the arbitration page?

Surely you could see how apropo the "hubris" comment was. Neutrality did not recuse himself, when he had been confronted with his posting on 172's talk page where he sympathized with 172 and blamed "some idiots" for 172's decision to leave. Considering that the incidents leading to 172s leaving were the very topic of the arbitration request, it was hubris for Neutrality to refuse to recuse himself.--Silverback 08:31, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

While you are entitled to your personal opinions, you are not entitled to make them on the requests for arbitration page. Furthermore, I suggest in the future you think very long and hard before reverting an arbitrator on that page. →Raul654 17:01, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)
Why an arbitrator in particular? If you are an arbitrator, it is a little surprising that you would be deleting something from an arbitration document. --Silverback 21:16, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
(A) Yes, I am an arbitrator, and (B) there's nothing surprising about it at all. It's standard practice for arbitrators to remove irrelavant comments (like your hubris comment) from arbitration pages. (Notice, at the top of every evidence page, it says Be aware that the Arbitrators may at times rework this page to try to make it more coherent.) You would be well advised not to edit war over such removals. →Raul654 21:22, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)
As Raul says, it's common for us to remove comments that are unhelpful, off-topic, misplaced, or otherwise distracting, from the arbitration pages. That's part of our job in maintaining the arbitration pages and ensuring that things progress as smoothly as possible. If an arbitrator removes something from a page, then it is because they feel that is the best action to take in the interests of the arbitration. If another arbitrator disagrees they may replace the comment, but it's not helpful if someone outside the arbitration committee does so. Of course, you are entitled to make comments and raise concerns about the process and our actions, but please do so on the talk pages. -- sannse (talk) 22:20, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Thanx, I appreciate your explanation. An edit summary on the removal would have helped. Raul654's "think very long and hard", and "well advised" language suggests an attitude problem, as if he is threatening to abuse the community trust, because he might be unable to discipline his temperament. 172 should find a sympathetic ear with him. If, despite this injudicious language, he is a good arbitrator, then I have nothing to fear.--Silverback 22:29, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Hmmm, Field Marshal, that explains a lot. Thanx for the interesting User:Raul654 page. I'm an eNTp.--Silverback 23:11, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Baha'ullah's article and photograph

Hi, I think it would be a lot better if you would discuss your edits on the talk page instead of appearing from time to time and reverting what others have done without taking note of ongoing debate. The two pictures on the article are there on purpose until a consensus about the appropriate position has been found. This consensus is not there. Contrary to a previous remark by yourself, the style guide does not seem to stipulate a position for a picture. Refdoc 09:59, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It is inherently stupid to have the same picture in the article twice. Furthermore, "Articles with a single picture are encouraged to have that picture at the top of the article, right-aligned" -- Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Pictures Generally, in cases of multiple pictures, you put one at the top, and spread the rest through the article. →Raul654 17:05, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • The current "2 picture" situation is not meant to be a solution but a base for discussion and to let the remainder of the article continue to develop while the picture situation remains deliberately unclear.
  • to call the current situation "inherently stupid" is pretty close to personal attack on those who suggested it for the time being, wouldn't you agree?
  • "Are encouraged" is not the same as "compulsory", which in turn means there is a range for discussion and possibly deviation. The Baha'is (of which I am not one) have brought valid argument. Your rather abrasive way of dealing with this is not helpful nor friendly nor "encourageing". Refdoc 23:10, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia in WIRED magazine

The March issue of WIRED magazine has an article about wikipedia titled "The Book Stops Here"

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki.html – Dennis (talk) (Wiki NYC Meetup)[[]] 15:38, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Stupid Drug Child

Hey, Raul. I'm glad you caught the jerk who changed postdlf's name. Why would somebody do that? The only explanation could be that postdlf is (maybe) a stuck-up, overly controlling jerk who likes blocking innocent schoolchildren. Maybe Mr. Foompla 18:01, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Calcutta -> Kolkata name change

Hi there. I noticed you voted in the Wikipedia:Naming policy poll to keep the Wikipedia policy of naming an article with the most familiar English name. You may not be aware that another attempt has begun to rename the Calcutta article to Kolkata, which is blatantly not the most common name of the city, whether it's official or not. If you want to vote on the issue you can do so at Talk:Calcutta. Cheers. -- Necrothesp 13:25, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Baobab pics at Wikimedia Commons

Hi Raul - nice pics there, which you note as "Taken at Disney's Animal Kingdom" - I presume this is the Disney park in Florida? If in Florida, it must obviously be a planted tree, in which case, is there any information on when it was planted? - Thanks, MPF 14:29, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC) . . . come to think of it, are they real baobabs, or just man-made models? MPF 14:32, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The baobobs are definitely real (I had a park engineer with me when I visited. She would have told me if they were cement). Since the animal kingdom opened only in 1998, I'd say they probably aren't much older than that. →Raul654 15:57, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks; they're older than that! By how much I don't know, but they must be at least 50-100 years old, maybe much more - so probably dug up in Africa and shipped in - MPF 17:17, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] You vote on Kolkata rename

Hi Raul, I saw you have voted Against and respect your opinion. The annotation say that move by a wikipedian was a blatant violation of policy. May I know if that is your reason for the against vote. Can I know your real position on the issue? Are you pro familiarity in lieu of accuracy which has been clearly articulated in the use of Kolkata by many leading global institutions including the BBC. Could you please let me know you position / opinion. I am trying to understand people's view points, after all it is not just about a vote. Best regards Arunram 12:10, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

My position is very simple - Calcutta is what 95% of the english speaking world refers to the city as (if not more). Wikipedia's policy is that we go with the most common english name, which is clearly Calcutta. This poll is a blatant attempt to violate that policy. Also, your claim that it's more "accurate" to call it Kolkata is false -- it simply means that any time a city wants to change it's name/transliteration, we'd be hostage to whatever that government wants to call it. That's not a desirable policy to have. →Raul654 17:43, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)
"Calcutta is what 95% of the english speaking world refers to the city as (if not more)." Did you see the citations given in the requested move? The CIA World Factbook, Encyclopaedia Britannica, CNN, and many other English language media now use Kolkata. This is what English speakers in India (who are quite numerous) call it. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, and I respect it, but I don't think the proposed move would be a "blatant" policy violation. Jonathunder 20:18, 2005 Mar 6 (UTC)
Hi, I am the one who proposed the name change at Talk:Calcutta, where you left the comment "blatant attempt to violate policy with this move" with your "oppose" vote. I take exception to this characterization, although I was hoping that you meant that the proposed move or renaming would be a policy violation, and not the proposal itself. However, based on your comments above, it appears you feel that I have attempted to violate policy simply by proposing this move. I disagree, of course; I think that if I had simply moved the page myself (Kolkata is just a redirect), that could be a clear policy violation; or if everyone except me voted against it (I didn't even vote), that would be a sign that I had proposed something that clearly was not a good idea. However, the number of editors who have voted for in support of this proposal, including some administrators and long-time Wikipedians, I think, attests that this issue is not as clear-cut as you imply. Given the degree of divisiveness in this issue, I feel it was unfair of you to characterize me as attempting to violate policy. I have no desire to influence you to change your vote, but I realize that there has been a lot of discussion and many bad arguments, so you might have missed the reasons why some of us thought this made sense. I was influenced by Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) which states parenthetically, "As a reminder, all national standards of English spelling are acceptable on the English-language Wikipedia, both for titles and content." Another convention (policy?) is to use local varities of English on country-specific topics regardless if more English speakers around the world use another spelling. It seemed to me that Kolkata was the current name in Indian English and so it seemed appropriate to me to suggest a name change. Also, since as I mentioned, other encyclopedias like Encyclopaedia Britannica and Encarta have updated their articles to "Kolkata", it looked odd to me that our encyclopedia was the one lagging behind. Now you may disagree with the relative importance of these points, but I hope you will agree that it is not clear-cut that this proposal was an attempt to violate policy. — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:38, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I agree with you, that the act itself of making the proposal was not against policy; I apologize if my statements implied otherwise. On the other hand, what you are proposing to do *is* against policy - a very specific policy, which pointed specifically at the Calcutta article as an example for how to name articles.
Now, your explinations WRT the manual of style specious. The entries in the manual of style you cite were put in place to allow different styles of english (particularly British and American) to coexist on Wikipedia; these policies address spelling differences in non-proper words (think color adapter vs colour adapter); they are not meant to be used for proper names (Mecca/Makkah and Kiev/Kyiv just to name a few of potentially hundreds). It is a misuse of these guides to justify trying to a page move when another policy specifically and directly addresses it.
Further, if you want to try to convince people that Kolkatta is more common (and thus, under policy, the page should be moved), that's fine with me. I would disagree with this assertion strongly, by the way, because (anecdoatal evidence aside) I don't think you can point at a single quantitive measure to indicate that Kolkatta is more common. The one quick quantitive measure, google, seems to indicate that Calcutta is still winning by quite a bit. →Raul654 06:44, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)
Mark, thank you for your explanation. I just wanted to make sure that you didn't think I was trying to do something sneaky or such. I did not realize that the English differences applied only to common nouns, but I understand. Also, I think that the direct reference to Calcutta is on a talk page poll (which I've now become aware of) and not directly on any of the policy pages, unless I've missed it. If I had seen it, I certainly would not have proposed a move in defiance of a specific policy. In any case, thank you for clearing this up, and thank you for your vote. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:10, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The poll which put the policy in place can be found here Wikipedia:Naming policy poll. →Raul654 18:50, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/South Africa

Is this nomination still active, or is it closed? It's listed in the current nominations as well as the closed ones. --Michael Snow 01:47, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I failed it, and Pzfun renominated it. →Raul654 01:51, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Threatened ban

Do it. You want to block me for editing an article, you do it. You will still be wrong about the picture, no matter how you bully me and other editors who don't agree with you. I won't be scared off by a rogue admin.Dr Zen 02:34, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes...he does blank his page. I would not interpret him as the sole problem. Rather, I would asume the nonsense at Autofellatio has overshadowed this issue (it did for me and other clit regulars if you look). As discussed on the talk page, once-per-day reverts are not terribly disruptive. Certainly not enough to block him. Cool Hand Luke 05:11, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I would not interpret him as the sole problem.
That is your interpretation. On the other hand, when confronted with the fact that the problems ended after Dr. Zen left, most reasonable people would come to the conclusion that yes, he is the cause of the problems.
Rather, I would assume the nonsense at Autofellatio has overshadowed this issue
Being that no policy has actually come of the autofellatio situation, this is a red herring of the first magnitude. As a matter of fact, Jimbo specifically pointed to the picture on clitoris as an example of what he considers OK. The multiple polls have also shown this, and yet it doesn't register with Dr. Zen. Several past arbcom decisions have held that users are expected to abide by consensus, which he is apparently unable to do.
As discussed on the talk page, once-per-day reverts are not terribly disruptive.
Wrong. They are the same "sterile edit wars" that got Cantus in trouble on that same article, for the exact same actions. Futher, I'll say, once again (since it does not appear to have had an effect the first time I said it) that the three revert rule is not to be interpreted as implicit approval to edit war at a lower rate. Or, in other words, just because you aren't violating the three revert rule doesn't mean what you are doing is acceptable.
Certainly not enough to block him.
Again, wrong. There is ample precedent that users who commit the above misdeeds can be banned.
Finally, as to your 'counterthreat' to unblock him - if need be, I will take this to the arbitration committee. Being that this is *exactly* what they sanctioned cantus for - literally the same edits on the same article - the case will be short and the outcome predictable. If you insist on unbanning him, over the objections of the several other admins who have already threatened to ban him, the case I file will be against you as well. →Raul654 06:24, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)
I do not imply autofellatio has any precedence (talk about red herrings). What I mean is that that debate has distracted all of the usual suspects who make noise on clitoris. At any rate, as I said on his talk page, this is a matter for comment/mediation/arbitration, not a clear-cut ban. Cool Hand Luke 07:33, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Raul, if it true that this user is the problem you say, please file an RfC an follow the Wikipedia:dispute resolution process in its fullest. Unilaterally applying a ban won't work, it seems, and taking this right to Arbitration is an empty threat since previous steps haven't been fully explored. -- Netoholic @ 06:33, 2005 Mar 7 (UTC)

I have asked Raul to mediate. He didn't bother to reply to that. It is not a "sterile edit war" because I have continued to discuss the issue with the protagonists of the image retention hardline. Raul has refused any discussion and has abused his powers to try to push his POV. I have suggested a compromise and have argued hard for it, and I have not been alone in doing so.

Raul is welcome to go to the arbitration committee with this. If they do not censure him for it, given his total lack of attempt at resolving the dispute, they will show that they do not treat all fairly. I am not convinced they will be fair but I am willing to risk it.

If the other side in a dispute simply will not discuss an issue, will not look to compromise, try to use polls to browbeat the other side... is that the way Wikipedia is supposed to work? What is this "consensus" I'm supposed to abide by? Consensus is not something you abide by! It's something you are brought into. It's the welcoming arm of accord not the jackboot of the law, the tyranny of numbers.Dr Zen 08:32, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

After 6 months of debate, numerous polls (all of which favored the status quo), and an arbcom decision sanctioning someone for doing exactly what you are doing - the issue is settled. You are the only one who persists in trying to remove the picture. You are not going to get any compromises out of me or anyone else (note the number of people saying they will revert every edit you make to that article), and I have no desire to mediate over a dead-horse issue - the picture stays, end of story. And as I said before, if this goes to arbitration, then the case will be short and the outcome predictable, and I promise you will not like the result. →Raul654 18:01, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Featured article on coming April 14

Hi Raul. A suggestion: It may be appropriate to feature Tamil language on April 14, the Tamil new year day (if you didn't have any plans to feature it earlier).

An unrelated suggestion: Given your current Wikistress levels, can't you think of sharing the FA responsibility with some trustworthy and seasoned wikipedian(s)? That would mean more stability, more diversity and less wikistress for you, of course. -- Sundar 06:51, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Stub tags

Thanks for reminding. I know about the rule of no more than two tags. However I don't think under very special circumstances the rule has to be strictly enforced. — Instantnood 09:12 Mar 7 2005 (UTC)

Well, respectfully, you're wrong. Articles should not have more than one stub tag, ever. There's absolutely no point to it, and it makes the article look horrible. →Raul654 23:41, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Anne Frank on the Main Page

Hi! Just wanted to say thanks for the swap you did to get Anne Frank on the Main Page today. And, while I'm here, also a big thanks for your work in keeping Tomorrow's Featured Article going. There. I think I've used up my quota of Wikilove for today. :) Cheers. --Plek 09:49, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright?

Hi Raul, I'm told you may know the answer to this I want to upload the photograph of Benjamin Mountfort from this site here [15]. However, it says it is copyright, as the photo is at the very least 107 years old can this be so, and is it OK to upload it anyway and if so what tag should it have Giano 16:43, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If it's 107 years old, and has not been "creatively modified", then it's clearly in the public domain. →Raul654 20:04, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll upload it, as it looks like an untouched photograoh to me Giano 21:22, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removing offensive image

I am going to continue to edit as I see fit. I don't believe that I should compromise what I feel is right because you threaten me. I've offered to enter mediation. I'm taking it that your threat is a "no". I will point this out to the arbitration committee if you insist on trying to take it there. If you have a dispute with me, you can try to sort it out. If you are simply trying to impose your will, there's no way the arbcom will support that. I have faith in the other members.Dr Zen 08:14, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] FAC: Franklin B. Gowen

I've reworked the lead section based on feedback on the FAC page. I'd appreciate a re-appraisal; thanks. slambo 18:31, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] San Jose photo

Thanks for the heads up; I noticed it when someone put the protected message on the photo the day before, so there's another reason to put a Watch on all the photos that one uploads. :-) Thanks so much. Elf | Talk 17:33, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Muscle schematics

Photographs of the drawings I made are available at

  • Image:Muscle_schematics_1.jpg
  • Image:Muscle_schematics_2.jpg
  • Image:Muscle_schematics_3.jpg
  • Image:Muscle_schematics_4.jpg
  • Image:Muscle_schematics_5.jpg
  • Image:Muscle_schematics_6.jpg

I hope this helps. Rama 19:15, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Oink vandalized

Raul, someone vandalized the "Oink" article. How do you do automatic reverts?

see Wikipedia:How to revert a page to an earlier version. →Raul654 05:29, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Muscle pic suggestions

Here are a few suggestions regarding Image:Skeletal_muscle.jpg

  • The proportions of actin v. myosin should definitely be fixed. Myosin's diameter is 3x larger than actin.
  • The Z-line isn't actin
  • THe myosin filaments are anchored and don't move. It's the actin filaments that slide inwards and the width of the sarcomere narrows. That should be better represented.
  • The structure of actin filaments is pretty well established. G-actin, which looks like spheres, chain together, and a pair of these form a helix, with sections of tropomyosin intertwined in it. Thus,the actin filament can be better represented by a helix
  • The bridge heads are found all along the myosin fiber, up until the H-line, not just at the ends. It would be nice if you could add a label for the eyes / circle things on the bridge heads, which I assume are the binding sites?

--jag123 06:21, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)


I've uploaded Image:MuscleContractileUnit.jpg that I think may be of use to you. I've added enough bleeding around the objects for you to select them and move them around if you need to. Hope this helps. --jag123 10:41, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

And I have done the same with Image:Muscle_schema_8.jpg. Cheers ! Rama 18:13, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

Hallo Raul. I uploadet the following pictures to the Commons. See [16] and [17], [18]--195.14.202.189 10:32, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)-->Factumquintus

[edit] Featured Article protection

Today's Featured Article was vandalised for a few minutes in a dreadful way. It looks as if Comet Hale-Bopp was redirected to a (for me) very offensive image file. I'm glad I wasn't with my young children when I saw it. I see there has been a lot of discussion over protecting the Featured Article and I don't want anyone to over-react but what happened today was, sadly, a dreadful thing for Wikipedia. Thincat 15:43, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

From a utilitarian approach, virtually all featured articles are improved by their time on the main page. If yon don't believe me, compare some diffs and you'll see that it bears me out on this. Protecting them means we would lose out on all kinds of improvements. Also, don't forget that wikipedia's low barriers to entry are one of the best ways to attract new editors, who wouldn't otherwise register an account. From a pragmatic point of view, if we protect the featured article, we only drive the vandals 'underground' to less watched articles. And, most importantly, from a philisophical point of view, the featured article is supposed to represent what is best about Wikipedia. This means that that anyone can edit it.
Vandalism is a shame, but it's the nature of the best and the price we pay for being open. →Raul654 17:56, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
I know we have discussed this before Raul, but would it be so very against the Wikipedia principles to protect the main page article for just one day - I really don't think it would. What about all the prospective new editors who look in (unwittingly at the vandalism) and click straight off thinking they've stumbled onto a porn site? Giano 19:04, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Significant vandalism (page moves, redirecting to an offensive page, 'etc) of the featured article is fairly rare and gets cleaned up quickly. I'd guess it averages out to less than 15 minutes per week (although I grant that this week has been worse than usual in that regard). I think though, in this case, the benefits clearly outweigh the costs. →Raul654 19:42, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
I may be wrong, but aren't the images in featured articles on the front page protected these days? (I must admit that I can't remember ever seeing a case of this kind of vandalism live, although many are reported - I think the Felix the Cat case last November was the most infamous - presumably because lost of people are watching the articles on the front page.) But I agree: the text of featured articles is almost invariably improved (at least, it is in my articles, if not User:Giano's impeccable prose) by being on the front page. -- ALoan (Talk) 20:27, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The main page protection occured this way - last november, someone uploaded goatse over the felix the cat image. While there had always been some vandalism since we started using unprotected templates last february, this one lasted a while, and caused all kinds of problems (PR and otherwise). At that point, I started protecting the featured article write ups and others told me they would start protecting the images (which prevents them from being overwritten). Those other people started slacking off though, and within a few weeks, while the featured article write ups were still being protected (by me), the images were not. In January, it happened twice again - goatse, being used to overwrite images on the main page. At that point, others decided to clamp down, and all templates and all images were protected. The main page is now, for all intents and purposes, vandal proof. →Raul654 20:32, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
Ah, but the images in the article on the main page are not protected? -- ALoan (Talk) 20:51, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Except for the one that happens to be used on the main page, no, none of them are protected. →Raul654 20:55, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

I'm lost here, why then if the images are protected did this very horrible occurrence [19] happen last Friday while I, was helping its author, watch H.D. Don't know about you Raul but I felt small and wretched for the rest of the day! Come on it's time to protect the main article if only for 24 hours. Giano 22:44, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

When we say that an image is protected, that means that the image page cannot be edited, and you cannot upload an image of the same name and overwrite the picture (eg, to replace a picture of HD with autofellatio). On the other hand, there is nothing stopping you from editing the article so it uses a different picture. →Raul654 23:13, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
I see. So you can replace poor old Mrs HD with a man enjoying his own company, but not add a fig leaf to autofellatio. You are obviously not going to change your mind on this, and I don't think I will either, so we'd better leave it there. Regards Giano 07:22, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yesterday the Featured Article was redirected to another page. It may be technically difficult or impossible stop this but the Featured Article NEVER legitimately needs to be redirected on the day it is featured. Second, the Featured Article was redirected to an image file. No article (of any kind) needs to be redirected to an image file. I raised this topic yesterday and I have in the past edited the Featured Article on the day it was featured so I have no dispute with anyone who supports the ability to do this. Thincat 10:18, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitration Committee case opening

The Arbitration Committee has accepted the case against Dr Zen. Please bring evidence to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Dr Zen/Evidence. Thank you. -- Grunt  ҈ 22:24, 2005 Mar 10 (UTC)

[edit] Chris LeDoux

Lucky 6.9 recommended I talk to you about clearing a copyright vio from the page history of the Chris LeDoux page. I re-edited over the top of it and now it's a part of the page history. Thoughts? Dave C. 22:52, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It's more or less accepted that copyvios will end up in our page histories. Only a developer can purge an particular version from a page history, and they are very reluctant to do so unless presented with exigent circumstances. →Raul654 23:15, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm satisfied that I cleared the vios, but I'll get Lucky_6.9's opinion. Thanks for the speedy reply. Dave C. 00:55, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Seattle, Washington

Wow. Over 70 sections on a user talk page--I don't remember seeing that before, altho' given some of the roles you've adopted, I guess it shouldn't be too surprising. You've left Seattle as an FAC during your latest archive/promotion of candidates. I can understand why it's a tough decision. I've put enuf work into it that I now have a vested interest in seeing it featured. However, I could use some advice from you as to which remaining objections are actionable and keeping it from being featured. I've made the Utilities section a sub-header, instead of a main head that it was when Jiang opposed. I have also figured out since then that I could remove the headers for it and Street layout, and make them 'see alsos', but I think that makes it less useful/readable. Conflicting opposition is tuff to respond to. Any expansion, and it's back to being 'too big'. Minor re-org or expansion, I am happy to do--a major reorg doesn't seem to me to be do-able within a reasonable time-frame. On a completely separate note, User:Vaoverland has suggested to me multiple times that I nominate Wikipedia:Annotated article as an FAC. I am not aware of any precedent for something outside the article namespace being an FA, so I figure I should run it by you before nominating--yeah, giving extra exposure to new editors about how articles should be constructed is probably a good thing, but is FA the way to do that? Niteowlneils 17:04, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I am getting a lot of messages on my talk page these days (every time I log on nowadays)- that's why it took me so long to respond.
On the FAC, I don't see any inactionable objections to Seattle. On the other hand, I'd like to see which ones have been addressed and if they have I'd like to see comments from tbe objectors withdrawing them. I read the history section, and the prose was fine to me, so I suspect that one has been adequately fixed. As to the size - the 32k limit as a technical problem is a thing of the past; on the other hand, people don't want to read obscenely long articles. Don't fret if it's 34k or 38k - use your good editorial judgement.
As for Vaoverland's susggestion - no, featured articles is only for main name space articles. We don't feature wikipedia pages. →Raul654 05:40, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] South Africa

Hey Raul654, I see that you took South Africa off the FAC page, but left it as a candidate on its talkpage. I added the references to the sections we talked about on IRC, so it should be all set. Or is there anything else I'm missing? Páll 21:54, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Minor oversite on my part - I *did* add it to the featuerd archive, and to goings on, and to Wikipedia:Featured articles, but I forgot to tag the talk page. →Raul654 01:42, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Anthony's recent behavior

We need evidence regarding any recent disruptive behavior by Anthony in order to determine whether any ongoing editing restrictions are appropriate. (Other than the recent VfU incident) Fred Bauder 22:52, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mediation

Regardless of the outcome of the arbitration case, or even while it's still ongoing, I'd like to enter mediation with you. Let me know if you accept, or leave a message on requests for mediation. anthony 警告 02:50, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Nomination?

Raul, what happened to my nomination of 1896 Summer Olympics? It's no longer on the WP:FAC, but isn't featured either. Jeronimo 09:37, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Whoops, I thought I promoted it but apparently it got dropped somehow. I have rectified the situation. →Raul654 17:21, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Press release

You'd left IRC by the time I woke up: yes, I release my paltry minor edit into the public domain. :-) Mindspillage (spill yours?) 23:45, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A tip

If you want to protect an image on the main page that is from commons, you don't have to upload it to en; just make an edit to the "go to commons" page and then protect it. See Image:Cannabisbud.jpg for an example. The only people who can upload it now are admins. →Raul654 05:21, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)

That isn't quite right. A vandal could still log in at the Commons and upload a new image there. It isn't clear how likely it is that anyone would think of that, but why take chances? We didn't think people would notice the unprotected templates included on the Main Page, either. dbenbenn | talk 13:26, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I think at some point commons will need a "temporary protection requests" page where admins from the wikipedias can request an image is protected while its in a sensitive location. Plugwash 14:28, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Possibly. In the mean time, though, uploading here with an appropriate upload summary works fine. dbenbenn | talk 14:34, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Raul, I notice you've deleted the image. I don't understand why. There isn't much chance that someone will vandalize it tomorrow, but again, why not make sure it's impossible? dbenbenn | talk 14:33, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
'Doh - you're right. It never dawned on me that someone could vandalize commons. Just go ahead and disregard my tip ;) →Raul654 15:26, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Corpus cavernosum

On Image:Male anatomy.png, could you correct "Corpus cavernosa" to "Corpus cavernosum" please? Thanks! --Angr 13:40, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Done. →Raul654 07:50, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] TFA Request

Did you see my TFA request? :) --mav 17:47, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No, I had not seen it, but I have now. It's scheduled for March 24. →Raul654 08:52, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Main page change

Can you please change www.wikipedia.org so that the Ossetian, Breton, Armenian, and Georgian WPs are in the 100-1000 article category? Thanks. --Scott Gall 19:31, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't know which ones those correspond to. Take the text from m:Www.wikipedia.org portal, edit it to reflect the changes you want, post it to a temp page somewhere, and I'll copy it over. →Raul654 08:52, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)
I copied everything here. But it's actually the m:Www.wikipedia.org template that shows up when you go to the international page, so you should copy it all to the template page (which is an HTML page.) --Scott Gall 03:34, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] More changes

It's not actually the portal which shows up when you go here. The m:Www.wikipedia.org template, which is an HTML page, needs some major work (most of which has already been done on the portal but hasn't shown up on the international page.) Here's what needs to be done to the m:Www.wikipedia.org template:

The following need to be moved to the 100-1000 category:

<a href=http://br.wikipedia.org> Brezhoneg </a> - <a href=http://os.wikipedia.org> Ирон æвзаг </a> - <a href=http://se.wikipedia.org> Sámegiella </a> - <a href=http://ka.wikipedia.org> ქართული </a> - <a href=http://hy.wikipedia.org> Հայերեն </a> - <a href=http://bn.wikipedia.org> বাংলা </a>

  • This needs to be moved to the 10,000-30,000 category:

<a href=http://sr.wikipedia.org> Српски </a>

I've already done the HTML coding for you, so just copy-and-paste them to the template. Thanks. Scott Gall 23:20, 2005 Mar 26 (UTC)

[edit] finders keepers

I've set up the first links to your finders keepers article. RJII 02:29, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! →Raul654 08:52, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Re:Darwin

It's not nonsense, the subject of matter of genetics is more crucial to evolutionary theory than the discovery of one of the mechanism of evolution, after all it lays the playing field open. True, Mendel, is also accredited with the discovery of genetics in general, but I don't believe that should overshadow his contribution to evolution. As the article highlights evolutionary theory is the combination of Mendel's theory of genetics and Darwin's natural selection. My change may be petty, but it is not nonsense. User:154.20.206.190

It's not petty, it's completely, factually wrong. Darwin is the one who first theorized speciation by means of natural selection - this is evolution. Mendel's discoveries relate to the underlying mechanics, and even then, it would be 70 years before anyone made the connection between mendel's work and evolution. So, to put it simply - Mendel is the father of genetics and Darwin is the father of Evoltuion. End of story. →Raul654 10:42, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

Thanx. Adam 10:48, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Jello Biafra

Wasn't Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Jello Biafra supposed to be given one more day before being removed from the list? If I remember correctly, it's supposed to be 7 days before removing a candidate, and that's only if objections are unresolved. -- LGagnon 19:15, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

It used to be a week, but because of increasing traffic (the page isn't good at handling more than about 20 or 25 noms) I've been using a 5 day cycle since late november/early december. →Raul654 05:42, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia press release - 500,000th article

The height of the stack should be also given in meters (66 feet = 20 meters). It seems that I am unable to edit the report. Thanks. --Eleassar777 19:20, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hi, Mark. I left a note on the press release talk page requesting this also, but I haven't gotten a response. Since this is an international project, and the release is distributed to international media, we should use metres as well as feet. Jonathunder 01:57, 2005 Mar 22 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and made the change. →Raul654 02:17, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sound

I don't know if it's been discussed somewhere; if it is, I can't find it easily.

Why are we converting MIDIs to OGG? This seems like a huge waste of bandwidth to me, especially if we're going to convert the Mutopia MIDIs, which are crap and only suitable to get an impression of how it could sound if something not completely ignorant of the structure was playing it.

I've yet to see a platform that lacked native MIDI support, so I don't see why we're hopping on the "OGG it all" bandwagon. Have I missed out on some discussion? JRM 22:42, 2005 Mar 21 (UTC)

The primary objection is that a midi can sound different (sometimes vastly different - a clarient on one computer becomes a gunshot on another) depending on what sound palate your computer uses. →Raul654 23:12, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)
As regards to simple "difference", that's a feature, not a bug. :-) I dispute the validity of the "sound palate" argument, though—there may be issues with some MIDIs, but the General MIDI standard was drafted exactly to address these problems. You'd be hard pressed to find a MIDI with a clarinet patch that sounds like a gunshot on other hardware—barring misconfiguration of the hardware, which no format can protect against. There may be issues, but no more than those you need to solve anyway to allow proper conversion to OGG.
Of course, I don't expect Wikipedia to become my primary source for MIDIs, so I don't exactly feel strongly about the issue. :-) I do think the least we should do is make the original format available, whatever it may be, when we auto-generate content. Wikipedia is not Wikisource, of course, and where the MIDI came from a publicly accessible source like Mutopia, the issue is moot. But still. JRM 10:38, 2005 Mar 22 (UTC)

I would just like to say that what you have done with the creative commons sound files is really frelling awesome!! Keep up the good work! Jacoplane 00:39, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] My user page

Thanks for reverting the vandalism on my user page. Best, SlimVirgin 00:51, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome :) →Raul654 00:53, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What's wrong with several stub tags in the article

I noticed you removed stub tags from the Battle on the Irpen' River article, leaving only hist-stub and deleting ru-stub, ua-stub, by-stub. I thought these stub notes would attract editors , specialists in different fields, to edit the article. Why do you think placing several stub tags was not a good idea? Thanks! Irpen 01:49, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

Off the top of my head - (1) It's ugly, (2) it serves no functional purpose (3) it's pure instruction creep (4) it pollutes the articles needlessly with metadata and (5) it's redundant with categorization. →Raul654 18:12, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Image move

Thanks in advance Raul. Seems I cant spell Renaissance right :) ALKIVAR™ 01:12, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Image:The Rennaisance Portal.jpg -> Image:The Renaissance Portal.jpg

All done. →Raul654 13:54, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wishlist?

What copyleft requirements would this music need? I have a decent digital recording studio, and some talented friends excited about digital immortality...all they want is their name attached as the performers. Contact me at (remove the letter m, except where obvious) (oh, and can you edit that off when you've got the email, thanks) Tired01 22:22, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cookie

WikiCookie!

A WikiCookie for you. Thanks for being so dedicated and hardworking! - Mark 13:53, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Many Thanks

Salve, Raul654!
Thanks so very much for featuring Julia Stiles on tomorrow's main page. I put a lot of work into it, aided by User:Niteowlneils especially, and am most grateful. It is only my second featured article and I'm delighted by this recognition. Ave! PedanticallySpeaking 20:55, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitration Committee ruling

The case against Anthony DiPierro has closed. Please see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Anthony DiPierro 2#the final decision for details. -- Grunt  ҈ 23:50, 2005 Mar 26 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitration Committee ruling

The case against Dr Zen has closed. Please see the final decision for details. -- Grunt  ҈ 00:31, 2005 Mar 27 (UTC)

[edit] FAC for B-36

The Convair B-36 article has recently been promoted to Featured Status. If you can just drop me a line when it goes on the main page, that'd be great. Thanks, →Iñgōlemo← talk 00:59, 2005 Mar 27 (UTC)

[edit] BOT2K3

Hey, Mark, could you look the BOT2K3 article over? Is this a notable project? I'm no judge of these things. RickK 09:38, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

At best, to me it looks marginal. I don't think instant messanger add ons are particularly notable. →Raul654 19:33, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bash.org

http://bash.org/?479182 have anything to do with you? It's pretty funny.--Etaonish 16:14, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it's me :) →Raul654 20:09, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tkorrovi vs Psb777

I note you have given an indication that you intend to make known your opinion in the Tkorrovi vs Psb777 dispute. I find myself in the position that should you decide in some way in my favour I can keep quiet but that if you find against me then I will, in my own mind at least, point to a recent disagreement between us over the Johannesburg featured article debate where I criticised you. I ask therefore that you simply do not voice an opinion - I believe any juror would excuse themselves in your position. Paul Beardsell 00:03, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It has been well established that criticizing an arbitrator is not suffecient grounds to cause the arbitrator to recuse himself -- wikipedia is not large enough to expect arbitrators to have had no interaction with parties. I'll recuse if I think I'm prejuiced in favor of or against you, which I do not believe I am. →Raul654 01:02, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)

I cannot find where that has been well established. Perhaps you can provide a reference. Wikipedia is large enough. It isn't whether an arbitrator is prejudiced but whether the appearance or suspicion of prejudice is possible or reasonable. Whatever has or has not been established it should matter to you most of all whether I will be happy with you sitting in judgement on me. Paul Beardsell 01:39, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No, you are wrong. The appearance of impropriety is *NOT* the standard used for recusals -- wikipedia is not large enough for that. Arbitrators *do* interact with the community, and it is not uncommon for us to have interacted with the parties before. You have no choice in who will be arbitrating your case, nor does your happiness about it matter in the least -- the matter is entirely up to the arbitrators themselves. Arbitrators are expected to judge for themselves whether or not they are prejudiced. Previous cases that established this were (off the top of my head) the Lir cases, the first Netoholic case, RK, and 172. I do not intend to apply any special standard to your case. →Raul654 02:07, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)

Once before I have seen you unable or unwilling to address an argument cogently put. I have no confidence in your ability to judge fairly the dispute I am involved in and so I ask you to withdraw. Paul Beardsell 02:30, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Some of the underlying reasons of that "conflict" [20].Tkorrovi 03:25, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Advanced Wikipedian

Hi Mark,

I don't know if you've noticed, but coincidentally, mav has opened a discussion on putting POTD on the main page at Talk:Main_Page#Picture_of_the_day.3F

Also, I'm guessing that you are a guy who knows how to write Iambic pentameter, in which case you might be able to improve, correct and extend meta:The Advanced Wikipedian. -- Solipsist 22:34, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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