User talk:Tony Sidaway/Archive 2006 01 06

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Contents 1 St Michael's Grammar School 2 I may well have been wrong about Agriculture/TheChief 3 An invitation 4 Wooster Greeks 5 Haukur's RFA 6 Will work for......wikiburgers 7 Poll: Micronation Infobox 8 Rangerdude 9 Rendalls House and Bradbys House 10 Dispute 11 Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rendalls House 12 Question 13 Request for Intervention 14 Sorry 15 Article on the Memphis Mafia 16 Kelly's RfB 17 Thank you 18 FYI 19 Thank you 20 Request for arbitration 21 Question about deletes 22 Vietnam Veterans Against the War 23 Its all.... 24 Eek, WP:RPA 25 Cystic Fibrosis 26 Stacy Armstrong 27 Elvis Presley 28 Erased you as being notified 29 global warming 30 Will work for........wikifriedchicken 31 Inquiry 32 Unprotecting Oleg of Chernihiv 33 Delete for POV? 34 Results of mediation? 35 My rarely given award 36 My RFA 37 Thanks! 38 Arbitration accepted 39 Will work for.........wikibombs 40 Maoririder 41 WP:GRFA 42 Intelligent design 43 Thanks!! 44 Will work for.......wiki.....aw....forget it 44.1 OMG 45 "As Jimbo has suggested..." 46 Arbitration for User:TDC 47 Biloxi, Mississippi 48 Hey.... 49 Kurdistan 50 Hey...(again) 51 just noticed comments about cool cats rfa being opposed so quickly 52 Rajput Article 53 Rajput 54 Debate on Rajputs 54.1 Rajput-muslims?? 54.2 Middle path 54.3 Final thoughts 55 re nick 56 Mark's RfA 57 Image:Srbi.jpg 58 The damn IRC 59 "When in doubt, don't delete" 60 Pleased and amused 61 Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion 62 Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress/IP Severe 63 rfa 64 Your Block Decision 65 Webcomics evidence 66 toolserver 67 Mary Welsh Hemingway 68 Proofread 69 George W. Bush 70 I'm vindictive..? 71 Mary Welsh Hemingway 72 "Regarding Webcomics", Bad Faith, and You 73 Apologising 74 IAR edits 75 AfD on Brian Walters 76 re:deletions 77 Pigsonthewing 78 User:WikiWikiWiki 78.1 User:IgnoreAllRules 79 WP:NPA 80 User:TheOrgy 81 Talk:Iori Yagami 82 Michael J. Skindell 83 Wikipedia:Speedy deletion patrol 84 Reaching concensus 85 Charles Pellegrino 86 Nicole (DOA) 87 Thanks, by the way 88 Pornstar 89 re: Georgie Dubya Bushy 90 Aggiman 91 Checkuser 92 Wikification 93 request 94 Album infobox 2 95 George W. Bush 96 Oops 97 Meatpuppetry 98 User:BGC 99 User:GreekWarrior 100 Usernames 101 Blocked without warning 102 Becoming a party 103 Another odd-looking block 104 User:Roger55 indefinite block 105 Complaints 106 requested move 107 MegamanZero Mk-II 108 Thank you 109 SOVIET GEORGIA 110 Hey.... (2) 111 Undeletion request 112 Proposed ban from Karmafists Userspace 113 Merry Christmas 114 . 115 Various blocks by Brian0918 116 Scrotum article 117 Please help 118 Happy holidays 119 WOW!!! i didn't think anybody would notice! 120 Meatpuppetry? 121 Best wishes 122 Merry Christmas! 123 Merry Christmas 124 More racist rants by User:GreekWarrior 125 Wikipedia:Catholic Alliance of wikipedia 126 re: your message. 127 revert war, interested in options 128 Your belief that I am personally attacking you 129 Mutual Assured Snarkiness 130 Theodor_von_Hippel 131 Test time! 132 Confirmation for Kate 133 New article 134 User:Battlefield 135 Afd process 136 More wishes 137 Removing CSD tags 138 Results in AfD 139 Happy New Year 140 Out of process deletions 141 Happy New Year! 142 Have you seen this wikipedian..? 143 Systematic rape 144 Template:User evolution 145 Userboxes (again) 145.1 WP:DRV discussion 146 Barnstar 147 Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Tony Sidaway 3 148 Tony, could you take a look at 149 WP:RFC/KM 150 Userboxes on TFD 151 WTHell??? 152 Userboxes and factions 153 User:Cyde

[edit] St Michael's Grammar School

Hi Tony. Since you were very helpful resolving a dispute over at J.T. Vallance recently regarding a merger, I wounder if you could help me again here. A small group of vandals continue to try to post an attack on the school ([1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] - all the same, and there might be more from the past), and have taken to berating me on the talk page for continually reverting. I can't handle the pressure of this daily fight any longer, and am looking for some assistance from an admin. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Harro5 07:00, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Looks like Carnildo got there before me. I've added the article to my watchlist. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 08:23, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I wonder if you'd weigh into this AFD. It and the St Michaels article led to me facing a RFC in the last few days, but that's over now and has vindicated me (I think you may have voted to support Bishonen's views), but this AFD remains to keep or delete a piece on a school principal. It has some value, but like the J.T. Vallance piece discussed in this section, I feel it shouldn't be setting a precedent to allow school principals to have bios on Wikipedia. I like the idea of a merge, but have a look and maybe a vote too. Thanks. Harro5 04:42, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] I may well have been wrong about Agriculture/TheChief

See WP:ANI#Double-checking_DG - five minutes between two IPs that are remarkably unlikely to be in the same physical place. I'm still sure there's some strong links between the two, but this breaks the IP match. - David Gerard 12:23, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] An invitation

We have not had a good relationship over the past few weeks, but I want to let you know that I bear you no ill will and know you believe you were always working for what was best for the community. In the spirit of helping to heal differences and answer lingering questions I would like to extend an invitation to join me on my talk page for a discussion of what has taken place, any concerns you may have, and suggestions you may have on improving my relations with you and other Wikipedians. TheChief (PowWow) 17:35, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wooster Greeks

Since I normally reply on your talk page, I thought I'd let you know that I replied on mine this time. I'm going to see how it works out. -Splash^talk 23:34, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Haukur's RFA

Thanks, Tony, I really appreciated that. Your appraisal came at a time when I was feeling very depressed about the whole thing and it set me on the way to recovery. - Haukur Þorgeirsson 21:45, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Will work for......wikiburgers

Hey Mr. Sidaway, I've made a MAJOR overhawl to this article. Mind taking a look at it and telling me what you think of the quality..? Thanks.

- MegamanZero 6:04 6 November 2005

Pretty good, but you have to explain your terms. A general reader not already familiar with the game will not know what the Reploid Resistance is, or a Cyber-Elf. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 03:36, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Poll: Micronation Infobox

An info box template has recently been created by myself and O^O for use in Wikipedia articles about micronations and other unrecognised entities, to address longstanding concerns and edit wars that have resulted from the inappropriate use of the standard country infobox in these types of articles.

This new info box has so far been successfully incorporated into the following articles: Sealand, Republic of Rose Island, Independent State of Aramoana, Empire of Atlantium, Avram and Province of Bumbunga, and it is intended to incorporate it into most of the other articles in the [category] in due course.

However, one editor, Samboy has suggested that the micronation infobox should be excluded from Empire of Atlantium on the grounds that the article is "not notable" and because only 22% of micronation articles in Wikipedia currently have the info box (ie because the info box project is not yet complete).

As someone who has contributed to similar discussions in the past, I thought this might interest you. I have instituted a poll on this subject here, and invite you to review it if you are so inclined.

Thanks. --Gene_poole 06:11, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

My personal issue with Gene Poole's action is that there is a conflict of interest here. One of the first micronations he added this infobox to is, conveniently enough, his own micronation. And, while he sets up a poll about whether we should add the template to the article, he did not mention the poll in WP:RFC, which is the best way to make the poll visible to people who have never been involved in the issue. Instead, he posts the existence of the poll on the user pages of a number of users who he feels are symphathetic to his micronation. You have felt that this kind of campaigning is dishonest. Samboy 07:23, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rangerdude

There is an active arbitration case concerning user:Rangerdude at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rangerdude/Evidence. I have presented evidence of Rangerdude's attacks about other editors, and I included a negative personal comment he made to you. The ArbCom is seeking greater involvement in their cases. -Willmcw 07:21, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rendalls House and Bradbys House

Thanks for your comment on my talk page. However for some (unknown, peculiar and totally illogical) reason the school filters block me from editing my own talk page so I hope you don't mind if I reply here. The Rendalls site information, including the housemasters list is taken from the house intranet site which I wrote. The housemasters and house history on there were taken from the school archives, which is the definitive place to look for these sort of things, as, surprisingly, up to date published lists are rare. Old Rendallians are from the same source. Unfortunately the consensus on the VfD page seemed to say that the policy was that sites for individual houses were unnecessary and unencyclopedic. However I feel you have found the right solution in the Houses of Harrow School page, and will add to this when I have a chance. Thanks for taking the time to leave me a message for me on this. --Oli 08:13, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dispute

Hi Mr. sidaway, MegamanZero here again. Me and user Wolf o' Donnel have a dispute issue over which version of the List of Mega Man Zero characters is more formated to stay in Wikipedia. I believe that I asked you to look at the new article a few days ago and asked what you think of it, an article i had put a lot of time and work into. User Wolf O donnel has reverted the old article, which would be fine if it were competent- the current version, while imformative, seeks to inform the reader about the characters in a game-style element; ie. it explains the characters from a gameplay viewpoint. The article is NOT a place for how to beat the game. Now I won't say I'm outright wrong, or he's outright wrong, so I would like you to act as the in-betweener for our little dispute. While the old revision is competent, it focuses too much on a gameplay standpoint. That's what gamefaqs is for. While I appreciate him leaving some of the links I created for the characters, I believe its somply rehashing what's already been said. Anyway, I'd like you to look at the 12:04, November 6, 2005 revision and the 11:17, November 7, 2005 revision and respond to me which one is more competent for wikipedia. Thanks. - MegamanZero 1:11 7 November 2005

• The situation seems to have solved itself out Mr. Sidaway. I believe I got over irrational about the situation- The new page is back, and new content is being introduced- I guess I needed to do was explain my revisions. - MegamanZero 8:17 8 november 2005

Please call me Tony. I'm glad you managed to sort it out on your own--being able to discuss what you've done, listen to criticism and respond courteously, is a very important skill in Wikipedia editing. If you do a good job of that you'll be welcome anywhere on Wikipedia, and you'll find that most editors listen to and respect your opinion too. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 07:33, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• I'm curious however...What happens in wikipedia if situations like ours aren't resolved...? Do the administrators step in, or what..? --MegamanZero

We may do if you aren't able to disagree in a civilised way, for instance if you got into an edit war depending on the seriousness of the situation we might protect an article for a few days to enforce discussion (Wikipedia:Protection policy), or block one or more editors for a short time to stop disruption (Wikipedia:Blocking policy).

And of course as experienced editors we're usually happy to lend a hand with advice. But if disagreements start to get seriously difficult to handle, our dispute resolution policy should be followed. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 09:07, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rendalls House

There was clear consensus among the AfD participants that the articles had no useful information to be merged anywhere at all, so I don't see how deleting them was a problem. With about half voting 'delete' and the other half 'redirect', I though delete and redirect was a good call. Keeping the articles with 'no consensus' would have been a bit silly in my opinion, since the AfD made it absolutely clear that nobody wanted to keep them. - ulayiti (talk) 16:51, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

There were a significant number merge or plain redirect votes, both which imply keeping the history, and of the redirect votes the plain redirects were the substantial majority. I agree that it's a judgement call, but I follow the dictum of our deletion policy: if in doubt, don't delete. I still don't see what encyclopedic purpose was served by deleting material in this instance, since it will only be reimported into the wiki. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 17:15, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Question

Do I get send userspace pages to regular deletion or to another location...I want to vanish this User:MONGO/RFA, especially since Agriculture appears to be gone anyway.--MONGO 04:48, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

You just ask a friendly admin to delete it. Done. Let me know if you ever need it back. I still think you'd make an excellent administrator, and there are no shortage of people who want to nominate you. Just say the word when you're ready and I'll be glad to do the honor myself. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 05:30, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm going to be doing a lot less editing for the next couple of weeks as my home computer is in the shop...maybe after that. Also...can you vamoose this for me? Appreciate your help.--MONGO 01:56, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

• I'm sorry to hear about your friend. My condolances.--MONGO 02:18, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Intervention

Remember the editing war/dispute over The Black Dahlia Murder band page? The opposite user seems to be back (this time under a registered name "Gofur") and he seems to be forgetting about the neutral concensus the three of us reached on the talk page on the band's genre. He also seems to be doing a bit of namecalling/insulting - if you have time to intervene later, I would really appreciate it. Thanks. Danteferno 09:58 08 November 2005 (UTC)

Why do you think it's the same editor? Please discuss the situation with this chap and arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. Don't edit war. I'll be watching. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 12:27, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry

I am sorry to hear of your loss. My condolances. TheChief (PowWow) 20:19, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Article on the Memphis Mafia

I do not understand why User:Ted Wilkes has now deleted a perfectly well hyperlink to a website by the Memphis Mafia members from the Memphis Mafia page. See [7] He also deleted a passage that Elvis Presley "reportedly supplied the Memphis Mafia members with alcohol, illicit drugs, and prostitutes" from the same page. See [8]. He seems to suppress information which is not in line with his personal view. Onefortyone 20:29, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

The edit war continues. See [9] and Talk:Memphis Mafia. Onefortyone 18:43, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Users Wyss and Ted Wilkes are still working together in repeatedly deleting my contributions to the article. They again removed external links to websites they do not like. See [10] and [11]. This behavior is unacceptable.

[edit] Kelly's RfB

Jimbo can vote for Kelly if he likes, that's Jimbo's decision. I don't really care that he's apparently the God of Wikipedia. Even though his approval is definately a positive feature, I have to make my decision upon my perceptions, not someone elses'. Karmafist 22:05, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you

I am indeed honored that you find my editing of such significance that you have me on your Special:Watchlist. I guess you noticed I do a lot of articles that are on a Wikipedia Most Wanted list etc. With more than five hundred and fifty articles there is a lot of reading. Right now I am doing articles on Wall Street and its bankers and brokers, an area sorely lacking at Wikipedia and on which I am eminently qualified. Its too bad that another user has deployed certain tactics that have disrupted my work but I'll get back to Wall Street et al ASAP. I hope you enjoy these. Thank you again for such a compliment on my efforts. - Ted Wilkes 01:45, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

It's okay, I'm not going to lean over your shoulder. What happened was that (if you look up a couple of headings you'll see) someone else suggested that you were removing information from an article, and so I took a look to see what was up. Your explanation is plausible, so it's just a content dispute as far as I'm concerned. Just work it out with the other editors and all should be okay. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 18:05, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] FYI

Note the following comments, I don't appreciate Tony unprotecting articles I have protected without consulting me, for the second time. As User:172 pointed out, I've been following this dispute and I protected the article for a reason. --Ryan Delaney talk 21:02, 8 November 2005 (UTC) [12] By the way, as a word of constructive criticism, you frequently convey the impression, at least from my observations, that you find it appropriate to talk to adults, even accomplished ones, on Wikipedia like children. Ryan's comment (and mine earlier) may be a sign that you may want to work on conveying the impression that you actually intend to listen to and consider users who disagree with you. At any rate, I'm not expecting a response or a reversal of your actions on the criticism of communism talk page. 172 | Talk 04:26, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

It's okay, Ryan and I sorted it all out in email. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 05:38, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you

I just wanted to thank you for your support of my RfA which finally passed! I greatly appreciate it! Ramallite ^(talk) 04:37, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Request for arbitration

Though I may mention that I did a Request for arbitration on Winter Soldier Investigation. I mention you and Sasquatch as neutral parties. Travb 10:59, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Question about deletes

Is it possible for an administrtor to abuse his delete ability?

Is over 300 deletes on one and 400 deletes on another page normal?

If so, who can I report this too and where? Travb 10:59, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by "delete ability" in this context. You mean one administrator has actually deleted a single article 300 times, or used his rollback capability to remove inserted text 300 times? Or what? 300 of either on one article by a single administrator would be extraordinary, but whether it's abusive would depend on the context. Administrators may revert hundreds of instances of vandalism, for instance. However it would be normal to use other techniques long before the count got to 300. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 17:25, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

it is just strange. I am new to wikipedia (less than 2 months) but have never seen 421 deletes on one wikipage and 323 deletes on another wikipage. I don't know if this is normal or what. I know they both have to do with what one user sees as "copyright violations"Travb 17:41, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

He's talking about this --Duk 18:09, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Oh I see now. Those are very special cases. What happened was the introduction of a substantial amount of copyright infringing material some time last year, which wasn't properly dealt with at the time. Recently it was decided that the only legal option we had was to delete everything since the introduction of the infringing material, and revert to the immediate prior version. Drastic, but a fact of life that just had to be faced up to. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 18:15, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your time. Travb 13:05, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Vietnam Veterans Against the War

The anon and TDC are at it again on Vietnam Veterans Against the War with revert wars. I don't know how closely you are monitoring this, so thought I would give you heads up. Travb 10:59, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I warned TDC to stop a few days ago and he doesn't seem to have resumed since then. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 17:26, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Its all....

...Coming together. Mr. Sidaway. The new page is looking great and even more expanded than before, Wolf and I are making edits and discussing like friendly, civil people, and I plan to even make a in-depth page on Megaman Zero Geography. Its amazing what happens when we editors come together and work for a common goal for the readers of wikipedia. I look foward to my stay in the community of wikipedia for years to come. --MegamanZero 13:54 9 November 2005

I'm glad to hear it. It's great that you were both able to reach agreement. That's what it's all about!

Please call me Tony. :) --Tony Sidaway^Talk 17:28, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Eek, WP:RPA

Isn't this pushing the line of what's an attack quite a bit? I'm not objecting to you removing it per se as tensions are high and some of the parties seem a bit fragile. It's just that calling it an attack seems too rough. Notify the offender that you've done so to let them re-phrase? - brenneman^(t)(c) 23:59, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it's possible to interpret the edit as other than a personal attack--imputing as it does an extremely malicious intention to Kelly. I accept that it may not have been wise to remove it; RPA is like that. So I find my interpretation diametrically opposed to yours--yes obviously it was an attack, but removing it wasn't perhaps the best thing to do. Kelly is a big girl, she can deal with this stuff. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 00:09, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

I hope that I am not alone in finding the humour in us not even being able to agree on what we agree on. But what do you expect, I'm antipodean. - brenneman^(t)(c) 00:27, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

That was not intended as an a personal attack.(Although in retrospect back it is borderline) it was intended to notify Kelly of Durin's leaving. Prodego ^talk 16:56, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cystic Fibrosis

Hello Tony, I was sorry to read the edit summary for your latest user page edit, and I hope you're doing well. Redwolf24 (talk) 09:43, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I second this. --Merovingian (t) (c) (e) 09:46, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

So do I, it is very hard to lose a friend. -Greg Asche (talk) 04:55, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Me too. --MegamanZero 2:00 13 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Stacy Armstrong

Hello,

I noticed you voted to recreate the Stacy Armstrong article so you might be interested to know that an article for her exists as Stacy Kernweis her apparant married name. The same person who listed the original Armstrong article, fiend, has listed this one and he is misrpesenting the issues even though he knows that she worked as Stacy Armstrong he is using the low google count for Kernweis as a factor that this person is not of note. I think this is bad behavior for an admin to mislead people.

Anyway, I thought you might like to vote on it. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stacy Kernweis Plank 13:18, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Elvis Presley

The Elvis Presley article has been protected for three days. Is there a good reason for doing so?

[edit] Erased you as being notified

On the arbitration, since you are not the person being complained about, I erased you as being notified, but your comments are still on the arbitration page. I only notified the central players (anon and TDC) and the two "neutral" players, you and sasquatch. If this is incorrect, please re-add this information back--if I am supposed to contact everyone mentioned in the page, let me know.Travb 23:22, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I marked myself as notified because I've added myself to the case. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 23:28, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] global warming

Dear Tony, If I'm not mistaken, you're an administrator. Would you mind protecting the global warming article from editing? There are some schoolkids using it for a message board, and it's getting annoying to keep reverting it and warning them. Thanks--Alhutch 07:11, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Somebody else beat me to it! :) --Tony Sidaway^Talk 08:13, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah sorry :) Thanks anyways,--Alhutch 17:15, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Will work for........wikifriedchicken

(Takes a deep breath) Mr. Sidaway, I've got an presssing question, and as an amindistrator whom has gotten me up to speed when I first joined the community of Wikipedia, I believe only you can answer it. After looking at my edits and reviewing my discussions, I've begun to contemplate on weather I am fit to become a Administrator for Wikipedia. I've decded i'll think about it after I have become more experienced in the community (maybe a few more years), and I think that I can contribute to the needs and wants of the users..... What do you think..? And do you think I'd be qualified..? This has been occupying my mindset for awhile now...

--MegamanZero 21:08 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Please call me Tony. You obviously have a lot of interest in the project and have been making good contributions and learning how to work with other editors who sometimes have very different opinions from your own, and your instincts on how to proceed when that happens seem to be sound. You usually express your differences politely. If you keep progressing as you have done, you will become a highly respected Wikipedia editor.

If you are interested in administrative work, you should become more involved in articles outside your immediate area of interest. As you become more confident in your abilities, you may try to help to resolve disputes in which you are not personally involved, perhaps by guiding the participants through the steps of dispute resolution and discouraging them from edit warring. You may start to read the discussions on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard, and in time you may become involved in those discussions. You may start to get involved in Recent changes (RC) patrol, watching recent edits, spotting errors and vandalism, and fixing them. After a few more months, if your progress is good and your interest is still high, come back and I may want to nominate you as an administrator. --Tony Sidaway[[User talk:Tony Sidaway|<small>^Talk</small>]] 03:37, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. I think coming to comprises on our articles is one of the best things we wikipedians can do for our readers (and ourselves). I think that people should take a firm, yet polite stand on thier beliefs, but should admit comprimise when proven wrong.

I also like the idea of people coming to my talk page and discussing things to me; I like to help in anyway I can, as well as the feeling of getting to comunicate with my fellow wikipedians. I suppose that's why I thought about the sacred title of Administrator, as i see how you help many different people, as well as have engaging conversations bristling with intelligence. Not all of them may be well-intended; but Its still nice to try to comprimise with people in the situations and attempt a better standing. I can only improve upon myself and hope to gain such a standing where I, too, can speak and comunicate with others and thier situations. --MegamanZero 13:00 15, November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Inquiry

I still believe in a "SHAVE THE WALES" campaign ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3AJimbo_Wales%2FWikiProject_Wikipedians_against_Jimbo%27s_beard%2Fto_do&diff=28485712&oldid=28341966

The (Beard) page(s) were recently undeleted, per my IRC request. Hence they were not there for quite a while... I may probably be over reacting but stuff like this kinda bothers me... --Cool Cat ^Talk 12:23, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Unprotecting Oleg of Chernihiv

Hi, I read your advise above and want to thank you. I'm frequently too busy writing new articles to defend my previous contributions. But I truly believe that unprotecting Oleg of Chernihiv and Mikhail of Chernihiv will do nothing good but instigate endless revert wars.

User:AndriyK rigged up the move vote by asking to vote a bunch of his adherents from maidan.org.ua, who never edited Wikipedia before or after that. As a result of this rigged vote, the article sits at Oleg of Chernihiv, which is incorrect in both Russian and Ukrainian, as the proper Russian (and Old East Slavic) spelling is "Oleg of Chernigov", and the proper Ukrainian spelling is "Oleh of Chernihiv". Moreover, his actions long discouraged me from starting Mstislav of Chernigov, which used to be on my to-do list and which I finally started today.

Actually, for ten months between my starting these articles back in January and AndriyK's first assault in October there was no editing at all, except one picture added at my own request. So there is little harm in the articles remaining protected for a while.

Also, as the time goes by, the trolls get bolder and more inventive. After having been blocked a number of times for breaking 3RR, they devised several ways to eschew the rule [13], e.g, recruited supporters from ua.wiki whose only contribution here is reverting one after another.

They also devised an ingenious procedure for moving articles in three steps: 1) move the article; 2) go to a redirect with an older name and damage it by adding a typo (such as brackets); 3) correct a typo back. You may check AndriyK's contributions: all of his moves since October 24, 2004 (Severyn Nalyvaiko, Ivan Bogun, Southern Bug, three subway lines, Oleg of Chernigov, Mikhail of Chernigov, Vsevolod Svyatoslavich, Mongol invasion of Rus, Igor Svyatoslavich, Russian architecture, Petro Mohyla) are done is such a bad faith so as to require move vote for the article to be moved back. And they believe that any move vote can be easily rigged up, as was the case with Oleg of Chernihiv and Mikhail of Chernihiv.

Most recently, his revert tactics grew more sophisticated. For instance, when Irpen suggested moving Polkovnyk to Ukrainian colonel, AndriyK at once created Ukrainian Colonel and Ukrainian colonel, both in two steps, to make a move there impossible. When accused on his talk page of vote fraud, he proudly replied: "I learned it from you: to use different rules in different cases. As you mentioned above, I do learn fast". They also indulge in copyright violations ([14], [15]).

I don't know what new fraudulent strategies AndriyK and his cronies could devise as the time goes by, but can you at least advise me whether the case is far gone enough to be submitted to arbitration? --Ghirlandajo 12:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Delete for POV?

Hi Tony. I just found out that User:SimonP deleted my short entry on Abdellatif Laabi[16], which mention who he was, and a quote of his:

"Everything which the Arab reality offers that is generous, open and creative is crushed by regimes whose only anxiety is to perpetuate their own power and self-serving interest. And what is often worse is to see that the West remains insensitive to the daily tragedy while at the same time accommodating, not to say supporting, the ruling classes who strangle the free will and aspirations of their people." --Abdellatif Laabi (Moroccan writer), Jeune Afrique magazine, September 5, 1990, cited by Adel Darwish and Gregory Alexander in "Unholy Babylon, The Secret History of Saddam's War" (Victor Gollenz Ltd London 1991): p. 71

...for being POV. From what I understand on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion page that POV is "Problems that don't require deletion". What can I do now? Was SimonP incorrect? If he was incorrect what can I do? Travb 16:51, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

You're right, it should have been reformatted to make it more obviously about the person rather than merely being a vehicle for his words. It was a marginal speedy deletion candidate because it doesn't really provide enough context to understand the entry. If you rewrite this to be about the person, his life and works, and why he said these words, it should be fine. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:05, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

thanks again Tony. I will rewrite. Travb 17:46, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Results of mediation?

What happened with the mediation between you and TDC? I just found it today....[17]

Also unrelated, just stumbled on your Khmer Rouge mediation. You are really good at mediating I see...

Since I can't figure out where wikipedians keep all of those recognition pins and awards, let me be completly unorginal and be the second person to give you the same recognition:

When you get time, let me know about the mediation between yourself and TDC--nothing ever seemed to come of it... Travb 08:35, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Nothing ever came of it. Mediation was a little broken at the time, I think, and no mediator came forward to address our case, which was at any rate not particularly serious at the time. I was just trying to work out what TDC was up to and how he viewed things. I've gained more experience since then and seen more of TDC's pattern of working. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:37, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Kewl, thanks, once again TDC. Travb 07:35, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] My rarely given award

I hereby bestow upon you this "Barnstar" for your patience with an ogre like me.--MONGO 11:13, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] My RFA

Thanks for your support. I've now been made an administrator. I'll do my best not to let you down :) --Sherool (talk) 02:43, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks!

Thanks! Your valient efforts at turning Wikipedia into Dikipedia are greatly appreciated! Keep up the slams and general jack assery! - Your Biggest Fan Dubya

Ah Tony, your plan has been rumbled. --Doc ^ask? 16:12, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitration accepted

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Winter Soldier has been accepted. Please place evidence at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Winter Soldier/Evidence. You may make proposals and comments at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Winter Soldier/Workshop. Fred Bauder 20:44, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Will work for.........wikibombs

Q and A time again, Mr. Sidaway:

A) Is 1000+ edits a good "benchmark" for becoming an administrator..?

B) How do i install a info box (w/watchlist,etc.) like the one you have on top of your userpage..?

C) Could you take a look at my "Projects" on my userpage and give me your humble opinion..?

D) Do you think I'm being too submissive when I comprimise with people..? Some users say I'm too "soft" or "easy". -MegamanZero 22:20 20, November 2005 (UTC)

Some people think of 1000 edits as a good benchmark, yes. Far more important is the quality of those edits, and a good deal of variety is often thought a good thing, too.

A quick way to get a navigation is to put something like the following on top of your user and talk pages:

{{Users/TopNav|username=MegamanZero}}

The navigation is my own design.

The infobox is also my own design. I'll help you to make a copy in your userspace, if you like.

The list of projects is impressive. I think your progress shows that, whatever some people may say, you're doing something right. Compromise works very well on a wiki. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:55, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

• Thanks, I'll accept your offer- i'd very much so like to have a info box like yours at the top of my page.-MegamanZero

• Where's the info box..? I don't see it.-MegmanZero 16:27 21, November 2005 (UTC)

Copying the code that I cited above, the top navigation would be as follows:

user

talk

watchlist

watched

sandbox

user links

deletion

more links

When you referred to the infobox I assumed you meant the right hand sidebar that I have on my article. This is a personal design that is at Template:User Tony Sidaway/User. I'll help you to copy it if you want to make something similar for yourself. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:20, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah..Thanks. I've been looking at that infobox of yours for awhile, wanting it all for myself...I even once tried the special Zero magic (SZM) to will it off your userpage on to mine, a thousand gigs north. Anywho, thank you for it, and I daresay you and I have the most informative (and colorful) user pages on the site. For that, I present this Copy Zero award for having such a great userpage like myself.-MegamanZero

Thank you! --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:37, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Maoririder

Hello, Tony. I have something interesting that you might take a look at, regarding a case you're currently Arb-ing. This just happened today, and when I backtracked to the user I found his ArbCom case. I don't know if this has any relevance or not, but I thought it might as well be mentioned. [18] --Martin Osterman 21:36, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, he can do some strange edits occasionally. My favorite recent one is his request for an image of God in the God article. He's harmless, just a little odd. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:35, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Alrighty! Just wanted to make sure that you were aware since there was an RfA ongoing with him. Take care! --Martin Osterman 02:22, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] WP:GRFA

I've set the ball rolling for a WP:RFC survey to start, discussion is on the GRFA talk page. Please comment. Borisblue 04:14, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Intelligent design

Thanks for your effort on the intro. Your edits were a major modification of a hotly disputed and massively discussed portion of the article (as indeed all of the article is.) I have reverted your change to the consensus version and posted on the talk page concerning this. While I appreciate your motivation, such an edit is guaranteed to cause a great deal of controversy, if not a revert or edit war. I hope you will take the time to read the talk page, and take this revert not as a summary dismissal of anything you may be able to contribute (because it definitely is not), but rather as it is meant. Should you feel after reading the talk page that your edits should be made, in whole or in part, please post your proposed changes and reasoning on the talk page and obtain concensus prior to making changes. Thanks so much - KillerChihuahua 16:02, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks!!

Your support, as it is always, was deeply appreciated by me, especially over the past week. I will ensure that I do the best job I can. Thanks, Tony, I really mean it.--MONGO 02:49, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Will work for.......wiki.....aw....forget it

We've got to stop meeting like this, Mr. Sidaway. I see once again, fair anons have invaded wikipedia with a healthy dose of vandilism. And when that happens, administrators have to block IP addresses. This is understandable (and the amount of rightful concesus is noted), but when it blocks users who have only the viewpoint of improving wikipedia in mind, then it becomes irksome. Such a situation befell me when I attempted to edit at school again. I request that the IP address(204.218.244.11.) be unblocked. Also, the point of vandalism happening at my school is unacceptable- I feel, as an wikipedian who frequently contributes from the school, I should pick up the slack when such things befall wikipedia. Please respond on my userpage.-MegamanZero 18:48 24, November 2005 (UTC)

• Speaking of anons, I noticed some have started putting various comments and questions on talkpages; I just don't understand why they don't do such things in forums and whatnot; is there a polite way we get get people to not do actions such as this on the articles (I was making overhalls to various DOA articles last night only to have anons revert it 5 times in a row, all in the course of 5 minutes.)...? For now, I guess, all I can keep doing is turning the other cheek and continue hoping for the best.-MegamanZero 13:21 25, November 2005 (UTC)

I don't tend to respond to queries on other people's user talk pages because it fragments the conversation. I did check the block log but I couldn't find anything for the IP number you mentioned. I could have screwed up, so if you get a block message from school again do come back or ask another administrator to double check.

I don't know what you mean by people "putting various comments and questions on talk pages". Do you mean like asking questions about a character? I don't think you can really expect people to stop that kind of thing because for the most part it's casual users and new users who haven't yet worked out how all the bits of Wikipedia work. I think the best thing it to be polite, answer the question if you can do so easily and refer them to a forum that you know if you cannot do so. And if you don't know a forum, well, just don't say anything, perhaps someone else will know the answer.

On people reverting your edits, when that happens always go to the talk page and ask why the edit is being reverted. Never get into a war, because in the long run you cannot win and you just end up being frustrated and maybe blocked.

On the question of anons, do remember that the only thing you can say about an anon edit is that it was made by an editor who for one reason or another didn't log in. It could be an experienced editor (some are university professors) who either never logs in or just didn't log in on this occasion. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:38, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

• Ah, my deepest aplologies, Mr. Sidaway. I didn't know your outlook about posting back and forth between talk pages; in the future, I'll remember, and respect that fact on your behalf. About the anons, yes, I will continue to be courteous to them, as well as referring them to a respective forum. The only point I'm trying to get across is that this is an intelligently written source of information for people, and talkpages aren't meant for random comments and nonsense. I am paticular about this fact right now because, as of late, its been a literal invasion, and we need people to help with articles not hinder us- its already time-consuming as it is. Also, take a look at my talkpage and tell me if you notice something at the bottom =).-MegamanZero 16:03 25, November 2005 (UTC)

• Oh, and you said: "I don't know what you mean by people "putting various comments and questions on talk pages"." This has been happening on various pages, and this one is an example from the Star Wars article; and I reproduce it all below:

[edit] OMG

-Star Wars are like the best movies eva! I love themk soooo much!

-Cool. I agree. But, no offense, but, I suggest you go back to the chat rooms with that language. ;) The Wookieepedian 20:04, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

-That anons been nothing but trouble. Keeps posting patent nonsense on "Talk:Bantha"--Kross 21:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

• And, for a more serious case of (admittidly humorous) malicious vandalism, take a look at this: [[19]]

--MegamanZero 16:12 25, November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "As Jimbo has suggested..."

[your comment on Dunc's RFC] Just curious as the where that was. Thanks. Guettarda 02:06, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Jimbo commented on this case on his talk page, in response to a query by Silensor. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:21, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Guettarda 02:22, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitration for User:TDC

Hi, you don’t know me but we have had contact with a mutual person, User:TDC.

I got your username from the Requests for comment/TDC-2[20] or the Requests for comment/TDC[21]

Currently there is arbitration pending on User:TDC. [22]

I welcome and encourage your comments on the arbitration page.Travb 01:57, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Biloxi, Mississippi

Hi Tony. I moved Biloxi to Biloxi, Mississippi, but subsequently noticed that you'd recently moved it the other way. Is there some reasoning behind naming the article Biloxi that I'm not aware of? Regards, CLW 19:02, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hey....

Mr. Sidaway, may I ask why you didn't respond to the edvidence I presented above..? After I reproduced an example of what you didn't quite understand, you didn't reply....I was wondering why you left me hanging...-MegamanZero 21:32 27,November 2005 (UTC)

Well it looked like it was just people saying how much they enjoyed the Star Wars movies. It's a wiki and there's no way to stop people making comments like that. I recommend forebearance and, if the talk page gets too cluttered with such comments, just quietly remove them with an edit summary such as "Removing fan comment not directly related to the article." --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:08, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, but did you see this...? That' more that just saying "they enjoyed a movie"; that's pure nonsense, ie. vandalism.-MegamanZero 21:50 27,November 2005 (UTC)

No, it's just some kid goofing off on the talk page. No harm done. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:22, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• I see. If you say its fine, then I guess its fine, Mr. Sidaway =). I have to admit, it was humorous nonetheless.--MegamanZero 6:16 27,November 2005 (UTC)

If you want to see a seriously screwed up talk page, look at the history of Talk:Urban75. There is some kind of troll war going on involving people trying to intimidate others who edit the article, by speculating about their identities and threatening to ban them from Urban 75 if they edit the article. Or something. :/

That's about where I draw the line. If it's just a guy who is bored and types a bit of nonsense onto the talk page, then at least it's better than if he used the article itself. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 05:31, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• On another note, though, may I ask your opinion on the subject with the talk:Bantha vandalism..? You say he's "simply goofing off", but after being asked 5 and 6 times to stop such useless and disruptive behavior,and it continues to happen, then it no longer is considered "goofing around"; if someone asks you to stop, you stop. Another example of such blatant misuse of articles is anon 138.217.237.100; all of his contributions have been strictly vandalism; what does that tell you..?-MegamanZero 9:15 28, November 2005 (UTC)

• Just a note, but seeing as you didn't answer my post last time, user 138.217.237.100 just vandalised again.-MegamanZero 9:20 28, November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Kurdistan

I really think that article needs {{POV}} or {{totalydisputed}} and {{cleanup}}. But if I do that Karl Meier will revert me without reading diffs. In the best interest of the project that article needs attention, but in my best interest I want to stay away. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 19:45, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hey...(again)

Mr. Sidaway, I'm beggining to express concern for your soundlessness lately...usually when I make a post, you respond to it- but lately you've been kind of quiet lately...Is anything wrong..? Can I help if there is..? Because this usually isn't like you; when I post something, I am expecting that you answer or at least make some comment or something in response (like per usual). In my last two posts above, you never answered, and the ones before that, I had to furthur devolve into the subject to give you the hint that I would have liked a response....I don't know what to say..maybe its me and my love of intelligent conversation has finally began to annoy you; or my posts were'nt really important enough, but...if so...I deeply apologize. Its just you're the best person I can turn to for advice. And when you tend not to answer all the time, it sorta makes me anxious...I'm trying to learn as much as posible from an experienced admin so I can one day perhaps be one. Anyway, thanks for your time...-MegamanZero 10:22 28,November 2005 (UTC)

I'm a bit busy with other stuff--off wiki. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:09, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• Thanks. I understand. There's other things besides wikipedia (unfourtunetly) , like an annoying thing I have to go to called "work", "school" and women vying for my affections. S' all good.-MegamanZero 11:22 28,November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] just noticed comments about cool cats rfa being opposed so quickly

I am not certaint on all of the wikipedia rules but I think that you are ment to wait for a RFA to be accepted before you vote on it. --Adam1213|Talk 07:57, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

It's pretty much ad hoc, but Davenbelle's response was evidence that he wasn't disengaging from Cool Cat. Could you please fix that horrible signature? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:29, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

What is the problem with it? --Adam1213 Talk 10:38, 29 November 2005 (UTC) Do you prefer --Adam1213 Talk 10:38, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Both were extremely distracting, and rendered the nearby text unreadable. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:58, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rajput Article

I am afraid that un-protecting the "Rajput" article might not be a good idea since the main point of contention is still far from achieving a consensus among the editors. Actually I will not say that we are any near to the resolution as we were before protecting that article. I would suggest that we keep it protected until a conclusion has been reached by the editors since each time the article is unprotected, new areas of divergence emerge instead it being the other way around. خرم Khurram 17:04, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Oh I think you'd be surprised. We learn a lot more from watching the editing process than the discussion. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:08, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Then let's give it a shot :)

خرم Khurram 17:52, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rajput

If you're going to unprotect the article, do you think that you could use your vast admin powers to keep Shivraj Singh from using socks and anonIPs to give himself unlimited reverts and veto power over the article? His unilateral, unwavering refusal to allow any view but HIS is what's blocking any progress. I think the Muslim editors would allow his view to exist if theirs were allowed too. Not that I think the Muslim editors there are all sweetness and light ... Zora 21:33, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Resolving disputes, but I promise to have a chat with Shivraj Singh and see what's going on. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:56, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

 : I tried a rewrite of the article at Talk:Rajput/Temp that presents two POVs re Rajput identity -- caste and lineage. That's the usual Wikipedia solution, step back and outline both positions. However, Mr. Singh, so far as I can tell, doesn't like that solution, because he is convinced that his POV, caste, is the only true one. IF you can get him to allow the other viewpoint to exist, as a POV without being presented as "truth", we'll be able to move forward. I hope. Zora 01:21, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Debate on Rajputs

Hi,

I write to you since you (apparently) are on the arbitration board, and will presumably work towards ending the rajput dispute. My interest is in Indian history, not Rajputs per se, and I have made no contribution at all to that article or its madhouse talk-page. However, I have run into Shivraj Singh on other Indian-history related articles. The fact that I have differences with him which I hope to work out amicably is evident from the detailed message I recently left him, which you can access here.

[edit] Rajput-muslims??

That said, I concur with him on what appears to be the main dispute on the "rajput" page. I must affirm that the position taken by certain muslim editors, that a person can be both muslim and rajput at once, is utterly untenable both in Islam and in Hinduism. Hinduism recognises the concept of "castes"; it traditionally assigns different social status to different castes, as also different duties, professions and privilages. Thus, the rajputs are the martial and land-owning caste, lower in social hierarchy than the priestly brahmins and higher than the tradesmen who make up the vaishya caste. Islam recognises no such system; the Koran certainly makes no mention whatsoever of caste or any similar system; the very idea is alien to Islamic culture.

An analogy: Although my knowledge of Judeo-Christian culture is limited, let me try to provide an analogy (a bad one, but this is all that I can now think of) that you may grasp: A person from the tribe of David, say, converts to Christianity. After he is baptised, can he still claim to belong to the tribe of David? More to the point, can his descendents, after 3-4 generations of inter-marriage with christians from all over the world, then suddenly again claim to be of the clan of David? The muslims who claim rajput status do something akin to this. In fact, according to Hindu tradition, if a rajput person marries a person of a different caste (whether higher or lower), the couple both "lose caste" and their children / descendents become "outcastes". When this is the result of caste-miscegenation between people of the same religion, where does the question arise of according caste membership to the children of muslims?

My case is based on the traditions of BOTH religions: Hinduism and Islam. No Islamic cleric or scholar will countenance the retention of caste-identity by a convert or his distant descendents, any more than a Hindu traditionalist will accept a muslim as his brother-in-caste.

Actually, that's not quite true. Muslim polemicists present Islam as being caste-less, but this article [23] is quite persuasive in saying that this is fudging the truth. In any case, you're assuming that Rajput identity is defined by caste, which is precisely the point being argued. Zora 01:28, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Middle path

Even so, an effort to accomodate the vociferous fringe that claims to represent "rajput-muslims" is in order, in the interests of peace, if not encyclopaedic accuracy. I suggest the creation of another page entitled "Rajput-Muslims", connected to the main "Rajput" page by a link created in the "See Also" section of the latter page. The "rajput-muslims" can fill up this page, and its associated links, with whatever information they want to present about that community. They could perhaps explain why, given its rich mixture of Turkic/Iranian/Afghan/other blood, the community (allegedly) chooses to define itself by a tenuous strain of rajput blood.

[edit] Final thoughts

Shivraj singh may not be the most urbane or diplomatic contributor to Wikipedia, but he has had grievous provocation. Furthermore, it takes two to tango, and Shivraj's opponents seem equally guilty of impenetrable obduracy. Shivraj should not be penalised for having given up on efforts to penetrate the "blindness of those who WILL not see"; nor should his recent lack of response to incessant baiting be construed as intransigence. His alleged use of anonymous IP's etc could also be condoned on the grounds:

• of grave provocation and arguably malicious thwarting;
• that adoption of my separate-pages formula will separate the two parties from each other; hopefully this will be the end of Shivraj's occasional waywardness

I also commend your attention to the talk-pages of his opponent, which may reveal, as Zora's talk-page does, that they are immersed in partisan POV arguments regarding their own culture/sect/religion. It is remarkable that these people (I include Shivraj) seem to have few interests apart from their religion/culture. Are encyclopaediae to be written mainly by bigots? Is there any way to reverse that trend?

ImpuMozhi 01:17, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Um, what, do you think I'm a MUSLIM? I'm a Buddhist -- which, by some Hindutva definitions, makes me a member of the Hindu community. I definitely have interests outside Buddhism <g>. Zora 01:28, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not a member of the arbitration committee. Please follow the dispute resolution process and avoid making personal attacks. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:57, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] re nick

"TheChief (PowWow)" look at that nick.... no complaint from you my nick is a lot like that so if I drop the box would it be fine

Adam1213 Talk+ 01:41, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

That nick is pretty crap, too. Yours was even worse. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 04:49, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mark's RfA

You sly blackmailing old so-and-so! Still, I don't think I've broken anything yet, so it looks like you were right. Thanks for your support, your nomination, and your netfriendship. I'll buttonhole you on IRC when I need help ;-). fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 14:24, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Srbi.jpg

Please, can you protect this picture again. Antidote doing vandalisam again. Best regards, --M. Pokrajac 16:34, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The damn IRC

I request your assistance Mr.Sidaway. I've gotten IRC, and Cool Cat mentioned you were on there... he also gave me server info, but i'm still confused as to how input the information. May I ask that you give me step by step instructions how to find you and Cool Cat on your respective servers..? Starting from when you open the program, please. :) -MegamanZero 11:21 4.December 2005 (UTC)

Oh I was there but not looking here so I missed you!

I don't know what IRC client you're using. If you can tell me that I can give you detailed instructions. If you have instant messaging of some kind (AIM, Yahoo, MSN, whatever) I can talk you through it in realtime. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:28, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

• I got my IRC client from here, and other messaging programs I have are Skype and sametime. -MegamanZero 11:21 4.December 2005 (UTC)

• Is that enough info..?-MegamanZero 14:21 4.December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, you have mirc, which is the best IRC client for Windows. Here is a page explaining how to set up mirc first time you use it.

http://www.new2chat.com/setup.html

Choose a suitable nick. Megaman_Zero is probably okay.

For server (after you highlight "Servers" in the Category box) you need to select FreeNode from the list. In the unlikely event that FreeNode isn't in the list, you need to add it. If you follow the rest of the instructions on that page, when you finally press "Connect" you should see a load of messages from the server as it connects you. When they stop, go to the Server tab on the window and type:

/join #wikipedia

This will open a new tab named "#wikipedia". On one side there should be a list of names (about 100-200 of them at any one time on #wikipedia). On the other side a scrolling area where text appears--the IRC chat. At the bottom is a text entry area where you can type stuff. If you scroll down the list of names you may see some that you recognise, if they're online at the time. I'm Tony_Sidaway, Cool Cat is sometimes Cool_Cat and sometimes Kawaii_Neko.

--Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:40, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "When in doubt, don't delete"

Tony, it's well-known that you and Aaron don't see eye to eye. I'm dismayed to see that the edit war over the old chestnut "When in doubt, don't delete" has now spilled over to the webcomix RfAr.

In an AfD debate the merits of an article are discussed. If there is consensus to delete it will be deleted, these are the mechanics. If there is doubt, the debate will be closed as the dreaded "no consensus", and the article will stay.

The sentence is not even a corollary of the deletion policy, it's a distortion. It would be more appropiate for the deletion policy to ask the closing admin to exercise restraint and good taste.

I can't see why removing the "don't delete" phrase (and a cursory inspection of the edit history of the deletion policy page shows that it had been absent in a fair number of revisions) will turn "Wikipedia into a free-fire zone" for articles. It rather seems that you are pushing a viewpoint unilaterally. Pilatus 03:58, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely not. If in doubt, don't delete is a very, very old principle, and has been in our deletion policy for a very long time. To claim that it's a distortion (pace Encaphalon's attempts at revisionism) is simply incorrect. We've already seen many attempts to justify the deletion of articles on quite insupportable grounds; all that stands between Wikipedia and that free-fire zone is that we don't delete an article unless we're very sure that it needs to be deleted. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 04:06, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Encephalon's historical interpretation makes sense. To return to article deletion, the requirement for consensus ensures that content will not be deleted for indiscriminate, "quite insupportable grounds". "IIDDD" is not policy, it's a result of policy. Pilatus 04:22, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Encephalon's historical intepretation doesn't negate the principle. There's a perfectly good non-technical reason for "If in doubt, don't delete" and that's because deleting material when you're not sure whether or not to do so is a steamingly silly thing to do. And you're wrong to claim that If in doubt, don't delete is not policy. It's part of the deletion policy --Tony Sidaway|Talk 04:39, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

The experience with Authentic Matthew and (on a smaller scale) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ceraphite should have taught anyone to proceed with caution. If the policy gets into the way of writing an encyclopedia, trash the policy. Pilatus 18:04, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Having said that, I still don't see how removal of the debateable phrase will influence long-established policy. Pilatus 04:34, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

It would hand an open goal to those who are engaged in active attempts to subvert longstanding policy. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 04:40, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I am concerned about this edit of yours. Before IIDDD had been an exhortation against repeated, disruptive listing of articles on AfD. "If an article is repeatedly re-created …, this may be evidence of a need for an article. Conversely, if an article is repeatedly nominated for deletion, this is not in and of itself evidence that it should be deleted …. (Cleanup may be appropriate.) In some cases, repeated attempts to have an article deleted may even be considered disruptive. If in doubt, don't delete!". After your edit it became an exhortation to admins: Particularly now, administrators are always reminded: "If in doubt, don't delete!" That is an attempt of subverting longstanding policy. Pilatus 18:04, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I didn't mean it as an exhortation. It shouldn't be left resembling an exhortation. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 04:32, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

The proper forum to discuss this in is Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_policy. Pilatus 13:46, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pleased and amused

I was greatly pleased, and a little amused, to read this on the mailing list:

"The belief that certain verifiable, neutral, or potentially verifiable and neutral, articles must be deleted from wikipedia is one of the most seductive, most destructive siren calls on Wikipedia. All that stands in its way is the principle that we actually need a concrete reason to delete something: if in doubt, don't delete.

There is a move, mainly by a single editor but with some apparent support, to remove this pivotal phrase from our deletion policy, or to sideline it as a historical curiosity.

Please let us keep this. We don't delete stuff unless we have a bloody good reason to do so. Otherwise what's the point?"

Is this a recognition of past errors in any sense? Could I possibly expect you to take an initiative towards undoing some of the deletion you contributed to in the past? Much content has already been restored, but there remains the thorny issue of things that were deleted through VfD and now need to be undeleted. Everyking 09:05, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

In my first three months or so of editing on Wikipedia, when our paths crossed, I was a strong deletionist by most standards. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:31, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, my question was whether you'd like to do something to help fix all that deletion you took part in. Everyking 13:05, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Sure. If you have a concrete suggestion, please let me know and I'll see how I can help. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:29, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I appreciate the kind reply. OK, for starters, there was an article, Ashlee Simpson U.S. tour, 2005, which was deleted in Feb. after failing a VfD vote; I hope to get it undeleted. (Once it's undeleted it will need to be moved to a new title and substantially updated.) My hope is that if someone who fought me in those inclusion/deletion wars of the past was to argue that it should be undeleted, that would make undeletion much more likely to succeed than if I was to nominate it myself. Everyking 05:07, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Looking at the original deleted article, I think I can see a good path for you. If you've already written up this tour in another article and you want to split it out, do so, but you may want to do it first under the original title of the deleted article, or else move it there after creation. The tour has no doubt progressed and most likely concluded by now, whereas the original article was talking mainly about then-future events.

Once you have a completely new article, you may want to undelete some significant revisions from the original, for reference purposes. This is why I suggest that you first create the new article under the old name.

Finally you can move the completed article to the new title. If someone makes a big deal about undeleting revisions from the old article, just delete them again.

Since the new article will be started from scratch, you don't need to worry about it being deleted as a re-creation. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 05:19, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Tony, I've been reading more of your arguments and I have to say I am just shocked, and I don't know what to think. I mean, it's great you've changed your mind about things, definitely, but you also have to realize you caused me a lot of problems and stress back then—a lot—and contributed to the deletion of a lot of information that could have helped people out. I think it's kind of callous to change your mind about it and never take any step towards making amends for it, or any further comment about it at all. It would go a long way towards putting an end to any hard feelings. Everyking 07:07, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I apologise for being a nasty deletionist swine in the past. But I still think that your conduct on the Ashlee Simpson article was over-proprietorial, and that's why I supported the first arbitration case against you. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 07:18, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion

Replied on my talk page. - brenneman^(t)(c) 12:19, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Since you appear to have ignored my response, I'm left to wonder why you bothered to put anything on my talk page to begin with. - brenneman^(t)(c) 04:28, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I wanted you to know that I regarded your comment as both unjustified and extremely uncivil. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 04:30, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Did you even look at my response? - brenneman^(t)(c) 04:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

As it happens, I haven't yet gotten around to it. If you'd like a more prompt response, plonk it down here and I'll see what I think. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 05:09, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Bah, damn you for having a perfectly good excuse. I'd make the rash assumption that since you had the time to make extensive additions to the Webcomics Arb, you'd have found the time to look at the talk page of its subject. The response is long and somewhat conciliatory, but my mood is tempered by the fact that I'm way behind on my day's quota of imputations of bad faith.
brenneman^(t)(c) 05:17, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Vandalism in progress/IP Severe

* 204.218.244.11 (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log) -- User has been banned 7 other times. Is now back online vandelizing other articles, stating blatant lies; Hubble Telescope, Pamela Anderson and other, see talk page, which he/she seems to revert and impersonate an admin. JedOs 08:47, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

• I see. This has been the user that has been blatently vandalising at my school. If its any corelation, He's the reason why I've been blocked on several occasions when I try to make (constructive) edits. I wish there were a way to stop him so that editors like myself could continue to edit in good faith without being blocked.... May I make a suggestion..? How about I add all his "contribution" pages to my watchlist..? That way I can revert his vandalising and other editors can continue to edit in good faith without being blocked. -MegamanZero 22:49 5,Deacember 2005 (UTC)

Sounds like a very good way of doing something constructive about the vandalism. Also you could talk to Cool Cat, he may be able to help you to track vandalism from that IP, because he has a vandalbot written to run on mirc. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:21, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

• Sounds like a plan; I'll talk to Cool Cat concerning your bot advice.-MegamanZero 0:34 5,December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] rfa

Might be interesting to look at...:)' I wonder how it'll turn out...? -MegamanZero 3:37 6,December 2005 (UTC)

It isn't a bad idea to get feedback. This will give you a direction to aim for should you still want to become an administrator in the future. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:37, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

• I agree, however users Nightstallion and Merrovignan (sp?) simply voted oppose with out any consensus regarding why, which is discontenting, since I can't understand what they find so negative about me. It makes it seem almost more like they have little reason at all. If I'm being opposed, I'd like critisim as to why , so I can approve and better myself in that respective area.-User:MegamanZero 20:14 6,December 2005 (UTC)

Why not say something like this on their talk pages?

Thanks for reviewing and voting on my Request for adminship. Since you opposed, would you care to comment further on my general suitability? I hope to improve as an editor and apply for adminship some time in the future and if you could give me something specific to focus on, that would be very helpful.

I don't see why they shouldn't respond politely and helpfully if you ask. And if they don't, it doesn't matter. We should just accept that some people on the wiki aren't that communicative. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 07:15, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

• I hope so...sometimes I wonder if these things are more of a popularity contest than a viewpoint on someone else's abilities..?-MegamanZero 8:21 7,December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Your Block Decision

I've replied on my talk page, and i'm not going to make a big deal about your circumvention of Titoxd's decision (since the beginning of October, he's been blocked 11 times, short blocks aren't deterring his trolling) in the hope that the arbcom finally steps in and ends this, which would be appropriate since POTW doesn't respect the arbcom enough to even show up at his rfar. karmafist 14:24, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Webcomics evidence

Our evidence sections are getting redundant - I just added the spamming to an almost identically named section. You should, perhaps, scan through your evidence and remove redundancies so as not to waste arbcom time? Phil Sandifer 05:17, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. I removed the spamming evidence with an appropriate edit summary. It will not be ignored by arbcom in any case, because of the discussion under Playing to win on the workshop. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:13, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm puzzled by this comment. I certainly didn't ping you to go to WP:WEB, yet somehow you were "aware" of that. And I'm not sure how a simple statement of fact "Neither Snowspinner or Tony Sidaway complained" somehow becomes a "false accusation". Falsely accusing someone of making "wild" accusations is an ad hominem attack, in an amusingly recursive way, and really should be avoided. - brenneman^(t)(c) 08:03, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

It becomes a false accusation because it carries the presumption that I was aware of an abuse and deliberately refrained to comment on it. I don't know what Sjakkale thinks he's playing at; that was one of the most poisonous and difficult to refute accusations I have encountered on Wikipedia since the days of Robert the Bruce. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 08:20, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure how I first became aware of the debate on WP:WEB. I just checked and it isn't on my watchlist, which means I've almost certainly never edited there, but of course I've examined lots of what was going on there as part of my research on this arbitration case. I've no idea how I could be expected to have become aware of 172's recent activities. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 08:25, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] toolserver

hi. please mail me (keturner [at] livejournal.com) an SSH key and username for the toolserver, and make an edit to this page to confirm it's yours. thanks, kate.

Done. With thanks. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:45, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mary Welsh Hemingway

Hi Tony, you don't know me, I don't know you, that said, can you look at the above article. It was listed as a CSD as not asserting notability, I removed it and it's now on afd, and it's the creation of a new user. I think it's worth keeping, it just needs cleaning up, surely. I've also started a debate on CSD A7 at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Speedy criteria A7. Anyway, thanks for your time. Steve block talk 12:10, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proofread

Trying to get this to FA status. Been adding a lot over the past couple of days and will work on the biology, recreation and a couple other sections in next few days. Anywho, if you are interested, don't hesitate to edit it as you see fit and offer a helpful argument or two...BTW...what are you doing editing my article!?:) I was going to make that edit, but thought the anti-editing folks would rip my head off.--MONGO 12:39, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• Sounds good. I'll help out when I can.-MegamanZero 13:26, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Tony, pop in anytime. The intro did need some trimming for sure. I may nominate it when I elaborate more or send it up for peer review first. Thanks!--MONGO 04:41, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

It looks pretty good from where I sit, but FA is an unknown process to me. Peer Review sounds like a good idea. Iron out the nits before you take it to be roasted. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:54, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] George W. Bush

I have reinstated the anti-vandalism warning. See justification on article talk. The warning apparently was very successful in reducing vandalism. Crotalus horridus 15:31, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 04:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] I'm vindictive..?

Please take a look at this and this... Do you think I'm handling the situations well..? -MegamanZero 09:00, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I think you're just concentrating on shouting and stuff, and instead you should listen and show that you're listening (even if the other guy is being a jackass). Your responses are grossly uncivil and amount to personal attacks (and the other fellow is giving as good as he gets, from what I see). When this kind of thing happens, just say "I'm sorry, I overdid it. I was wrong to attack you over a difference of opinion." Then respond to any points the other fellow made, conceding any valid points if you possibly can. If you still totally disagree on some issue, see what other people think about the issue.

Also bear in mind that the issue may not really be worth fighting over, so be prepared to concede. You may "lose" one tiny insignificant battle but, by dropping your guard and apologising, you could well make a long term ally who would halve your work in future by working with you instead of against you. Have a look at User:MONGO; when he started he was very antagonistic to me because we have different political views and we differed on what should be in the George W. Bush article. But we listened to one another and avoided letting our tempers get the better of us, and I consider him a friend of mine and would work with him on any project. I strongly supported his RFA. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:53, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

• You are right. I should apologize (even if he came out of the blue making personal attacks), and let bygones be bygones. He's certainly not vindictive, just on the side of WP:POV. Also, his placing of vandlism on the articles for "revenge" is uncalled for, but again, I agree. I'll try to be nicer. :) It did not, however, stop me from nominating him on the WP:NOOB list, though. :P -MegamanZero 10:11, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mary Welsh Hemingway

I believe in speedy deletes when warranted and speedy keeps when possible - and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mary Welsh Hemingway was certainly a case of the latter. WP:IAR is your friend. It's only a "guideline" anyway. FCYTravis 09:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Regarding Webcomics", Bad Faith, and You

I'm sure that any moment now you're going to explain why you removed my comments from Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Webcomics/Workshop without even bothering to inform me. Nandesuka 13:31, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

No, I think my removals, and the accompanying edit summaries, speak for themselves. The workshop isn't a general page for slagging people off or discussing matters not directly related to the points under discussion.

My only regret is that I inadvertently removed a comment by SCZenz. Believe me, in removing your sniping I was doing you a great service. I should have told you what I'd done, though, and this only occurred to me while I was away from the computer. For that, I apologise. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:53, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmm. I think describing the existing RFArb page as "a general page for slagging people off" is actually a fair description of what your edits have turned it in to. But we'll let the Arbcom make that call. As a party to the RfArb, please conduct yourself with the gravitas appropriate to the process. Arbcom is absolutely free to discount my opinion. You, on the other hand, are not free to discount it for them. Thanks in advance. Nandesuka 13:58, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I think we'll have to agree to disagree here. I think you're taking this thing as something very personal (viz your sniping over the spamming issue on a proposed principle that is taken from the precedents and really, honestly, isn't related to talk page spamming but to the wider issue of policy formation) and assume that I'm interested in reciprocating. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:05, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Au contraire. Your interpretation of my comments is not the issue at all, and I'm not taking it personally. The issue is that as a party to the RFArb, it is utterly inappropriate for you to decide what third parties get to say and do. The Arbcom is free to do that. You are free to ask them to do it. But for you to do it yourself borders on vandalism. Nandesuka 14:13, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

You've got a point there. I am technically (having deliberately joined the case because that's what I do if I'm going to comment on an arbitration case) a party to the case, while you technically (although you're doing much the same thing) not a party to the case. I did wonder if it was appropriate at the time, but decided "fuck it" and that your words were just clutter anyway. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:26, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Apologising

• Speaking of "bad faith", I apologized for mine. (Here) I hope he forgives my behavior and sticks around with us...do you think that's an okay ice breaker...? -MegamanZero 14:11, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

That's lovely. I'm rather proud of you, you know. I changed your word "condone" to "forgive" because "condone" isn't quite the right word for the context (although it can mean something close to forgiveness, it carries a baggage of toleration that may not be appropriate). --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:26, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

• Oops. Here we go again. I've become quite popular, haven't I..? :)-MegamanZero 20:36, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

• Thanks. Although the comment didn't bother me so much; his grammer was atrocious- maybe he should return after he starts passing English.-MegamanZero 22:18, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

BTW...would you mind giving me your opinion on my rfa? For instance, any more critisisim on what more aspects I can improve on before another nomination? Also about nominating...do you think sometimes its a bit of a bandwagoon mindset..? It seems obvious when I inquired to some of the voters that I was not being opposed out of good faith; and some even neglected to answer when I made an inquiry. For instance, I looked at another situation when Merovoginan (sp?) voted for another user with far less experience..and it worries me. I don't mind being opposed, but please do it out good faith and reasoning; such mindsets are already hard enough to deal with concerning my peers at High school. We don't need it in wikipedia...-MegamanZero 22:45, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

What tends to stand out is your relative lack of experience in interacting with others--you're obviously capable of taking good advice and have done so, but if you need to ask then you probably don't have enough problem-solving experience on the wiki to be an administrator. As I said before, I'm proud of your progress. Keep moving ahead and do please refer any problems to me and I'll always try to give the best advice. If you continue to improve as you are at present, handling conflicts by showing respect and listening to others, I would probably be happy to nominate you some time next month. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:01, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

• Many thanks for your kind and helpful words, Mr. Sidaway. However, you neglected to answer one of my questions: "Also about nominating...do you think sometimes its a bit of a bandwagoon mindset..?" That aside, I will continue to improve as a part of the community and I will continue to look forward to the future. :) -MegamanZero 23:13, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

No question of it, RFA has become a bandwagon. But if you're good (and be in no doubt that you will be if you take my advice) and you have a nominator whose judgement can be trusted (that would be me), then you will be an administrator when you're ready. You have the right attitude; you ask for advice and you act on it. You are willing to learn. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:32, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

• Once again, thanks for your constructive critisim. :) But, I must offer you an apology, I worded my question incorrectly, What I meant was: "Do you think its a bandwagoon mindset as far as votes go..?" Sorry again for the mix-up, I must remember to structure my inquiry statements more clearly in the future.-MegamanZero 23:39, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely. It's an Aunt Sally stall. A coconut shy. A duck shoot. That's the way it is until we think up a better way to decide who will be an administrator. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:04, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

• I knew it all to well...:( Well, I just have to show them I'm good enough, regardless.-MegamanZero 00:08, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] IAR edits

This is beyond the bounds of what's expected. - brenneman^(t)(c) 09:15, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

• Sorry. :) I just wanted to expand upon the joke a little. Please forgive me. I was just having a good laugh in good faith, and didn'y mean to be vindictive. -MegamanZero 09:20, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Would you revert your edit, please? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:25, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

No, problem. BTW, brenneman, I didn't know at first that IAR was previously you, and I certainly didn't mean it as a personal attack. I just thought you and Mr.Sidaway would get a laugh out of it.-MegamanZero 09:28, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

No, please, mock all you want! There's no problem with that, it's just the putting in of the fake sig that's an issue. Someone might not look at the history and not realise that it was fake. If you think that any conversation is to bizzare to be taken seriously... well, you'll see! ^_^
brenneman^(t)(c) 10:17, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

• No, I won't mock you. Its mean, rude, and having just had some personal attacks of my own, I know how you must feel. Please don't put yourself down like that, I really think you're a good editor and I only meant to give my fellow wikipedians a good laugh. Again, I apologize. I thought that user:IAR was just a joke account someone made up to prove a point, and just thought I was furthuring it.- MegamanZero 10:32, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

• Mr. Sidaway, I hope you and brenneman can forgive me for this-it was all a misunderstanding and I really did not think I was harming anyone. Please. Forgive me.-MegamanZero 09:38, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

No problem. Please call me Tony. I think Aaron understands well that you didn't mean any harm, and he has taken it well. He's a good chap, too. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:47, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

• No. I don't think you understand- what had happened was that I had come across it while in a conversation, and I thought it was a sockpuppet joke account no one had used. I thought it was created just for humorus purposes, and I was completely unaware of the fact that it was previously used by brenneman (I didn't think anyone used it at all). Please. I'm asking you- forgive me for that; I seriously meant no one any harm whatsoever. Please.-MegamanZero 14:20, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey, no problem! Lighten up, enjoy wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:22, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] AfD on Brian Walters

Thanks for posting the explanation, but it's still not clear to me. You quote the body of the speedied article as saing BW is "a prominent Melbourne barrister and civil libertarian". I think that doesn't contain an assertion of notability, although I suppose one could say that it would be incorrect to use "prominent" about a non-notable person, hence there is an implicit claim of notability. is this what you meant? I find this a bit thin to hang a claim that the speedy was out-of-process, though it would be nice if the CSD A7 guidelines had a clause about making brief checks before applying this clause, since obviously in this case it was not hard to furnish references. --- Charles Stewart 20:25, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd say it's obviously incorrect to use the term "prominent barrister" about someone who is non-notable. CSD A7 is useful for getting rid of articles about girlfriends and schoolfriends, but it's misapplied where an assertion of this kind is given, and appears plausible, so it's a doddle to google on it. We end up destroying perfectly good articles-in-progress. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:39, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm convinced. --- Charles Stewart 21:21, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] re:deletions

Thanks for watching over me my friend. I sent a number of the speedies to afd, did a few redirects and at least one relisting back into the article space and will be more careful in the future. Just so you know, I'm not a deletionist at heart. I'll be more careful in the future...when in doubt don't delete.--MONGO 21:14, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

To give you some background, I'm usually content to leave speedies alone but recently there had been some rather questionable speedies that were raised on deletion review, and so I was carrying out a quick survey. Your deletions happened to be among those that I spotted that looked odd. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:13, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pigsonthewing

Just to notify you that he has removed your notice about the article ban twice now. I don't think this merits a block, since it's his talk page, but a stern warning should follow, don't you think? Titoxd^{(?!? - did you read this?)} 21:22, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Definitely not a good reason to block. He has seen the ban notice, which is what matters. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:05, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] User:WikiWikiWiki

This user claims o be you, if so perhaps tagging it something else than a sockpuppet may be much nicer, at least not the default template creating the category. :) --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 21:55, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

That user is Mr.Sidaway, and I put the sockpuupet notice up there awhile ago; however its a beingin one, and Mr.Sidaway no longer uses it.-MegamanZero 22:06, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh ok. I guess Ill retag it. :) --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 22:10, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] User:IgnoreAllRules

This one too which may need to be blocked. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 21:57, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

No one uses that account anymore; see above.-MegamanZero 22:06, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

There is a reason for that me lad: [24]

• 03:31, 18 October 2005 MarkSweep blocked "User:IgnoreAllRules" with an expiry time of indefinite (vandalism-only account, taunting)

--Cool Cat^Talk|@ 22:11, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh I see... Anyways, it was not a sockpuppet of Tony Sideaway, you explained it was you, unless Tony Objects Id rather not tag that username as your sockpuppet as I do not think you want to be identified as a vandal. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 22:20, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll be damned, I guess someone has been using it-well, block away then.-MegamanZero 22:13, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh no it is blokced. I applied the proper tag --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 22:20, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

WikiWikiWiki is mine; I used it for a benign purpose in January or so. IgnoreAllRules belongs to Aaron Brenneman. Neither account is any problem for the wiki at present. I've deleted the userpage for IgnoreAllRules, which contained some joke edits by MegamanZero--he thought it was just a joke account and I thinnk he was going along with the joke. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:14, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Thats fine, just trying to minimise confusion... :) --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 22:20, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

• Correct. But imagine my surprise when Cool Cat notified the thesis of IgnoreAllRules actually still being active...but...how's that possible..? No one else has the password for the account...-MegamanZero 22:18, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I never said that :P I only noticed it now appearing as your sockpuppet. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 22:20, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh. -_- (gets a slap in the face)-MegamanZero 22:22, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh my...wait a minute...since User:IgnoreAllRules was blocked, Aaron might have been also- I think we should check to rectfy his not sharing the same IP address.-MegamanZero 22:37, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

• Also, can I ask a favor..? Mr.Sidaway, I think you have been a sensei to me from the time I first started editing wikipedia. May I put informatonon your talkpage saying your my mentor (like Cool Cat)..? -MegamanZero 12:01, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome! I'm always glad to help. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:10, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

• Umm...Can I add myself to your contact list..? :) -MegamanZero 13:25, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Feel free. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:34, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] WP:NPA

Okay, looks like I'm hated...please look at my history, and note all the edits by User:TheOrgy are personal attacks.. What should I do...? Note I apologized to him on his userpage before this incident started, mind you. Sorry for bothering you again, but I don't want to argue with him and/or break WP:3RR, so I'm notifying you. -_- -MegamanZero 15:22, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

• And no, this is not just a "petty argument", please assist.-MegamanZero 16:56, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] User:TheOrgy

I asked TheOrgy to stop editing your user talk page to call you silly names, and he complained that you've been misnaming him as "TheOgry". I said I'd ask you to stop. Please stop upsetting him, and try to get along with him. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:50, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

• I have been excessively nice, even whilst he shot personal attacks at me. That was a misspelling error on my part, and if you look at his talkpage, I apologized. How is it insulting to make a spelling error of "g" and "r"...? TheOrgy is simply trying his best to dig up false claims on false personal attacks. I have been more patient then I should have. -MegamanZero 20:54, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Be nice to him. I need to see if he'll settle down. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:40, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

• I shall continue to be nice-that's just how I am. However, I will not have the title of being called "malicious" because of a innocent spelling mistake that I even apologized for.-MegamanZero 21:42, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

You are. I apologize if my actions or words seemed to imply that I agreed with TheOrgy about that. Let's allow his batteries to run down, and maybe when he finds his feet he'll be more reasonable. Remember you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:26, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

BTW, I have answered on the [25]-MegamanZero 22:30, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Talk:Iori Yagami

MegamanZero and TheOrgy were edit warring over the talk page itself, hurling personal attacks and other incivilities. I protected it specifically to give them both a time out so we could come back and discuss this later. I was going to unprotect it myself later this afternoon while making an effort to help resolve the underlying disputes over the article. It's unusual, yes, but not inappropriate. — Phil Welch Katefan's ridiculous poll 22:49, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Fine. Have it your way. — Phil Welch Katefan's ridiculous poll 22:51, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I really don't want to start a habit of preventing people from talking when there is a dispute. Talk pages should only ever be protected when there is serious vandalism. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:57, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Tony, when another administrator is already addressing a situation, it's not very civil to swoop in and take over without as much as letting the other person know what's going on. You want to take on my to do list as well? Should I give you a copy of my watchlist? Clearly, you are far more capable of doing anything on here than I am, so clearly instead of being an editor or administrator myself I should just bring everything to your attention and have you do it for me. After all, there's no way I could possibly be doing things right. It's not like I was ever made an admin or anything. — Phil Welch Katefan's ridiculous poll 22:59, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

And for your information, all that was going on when they were "talking" was an exchange of personal attacks and edit warring over the poll. When you're edit warring a talk page you need a time out. At least that's my judgment, but what the fuck do I know, right? — Phil Welch Katefan's ridiculous poll 23:01, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

"Edit warring" and "exchanging personal attacks"..? I made quite a bit of comments regarding my anaylisis and concensus. Actually, I didn't make any edit warring or personal attacks. I was calm throughtout the entire situation, and although my polling method was perhaps unjustified, I was practicing civility. I looked through the archive and there were more intelligent ways to edit then edit warring and breaching personal attacks. -MegamanZero|Talk 19:43, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. A few nice words to both parties is usually enough to stop edit warring on talk pages. No need to protect. I'm sorry that you didn't realise that I was already dealing with this situation. One thing that I find surprising is that you appear to have been editing the article itself today. Doesn't this prejudice any attempt that you might make to mediate? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:13, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

You were dealing with the situation, huh? Then how come the first thing you did on the talk page was take over from what I was doing? It's clear you disagreed with my judgment, but that's no reason to be a jerk about it and take over for me when I was already going to (a) unprotect the page soon (I would be unprotecting it right now if you hadn't gotten in the way) and (b) ask everyone in the dispute to give their views on each of the issues under dispute. If you'd asked me "hey man, what are you doing? Here are my concerns" then there would be no problem, because we'd have roughly the same outcome. But no, you had to just take over. Fine. You might want to ask Arbcom to get me deadminned if I'm so incompetent that you won't even discuss things with me. — Phil Welch Katefan's ridiculous poll 23:21, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Well I do seem to have rubbed you up the wrong way, for which I apologise. However I don't think protecting talk pages is a good idea--nothing personal, but we don't do that here. Your archiving of the talk page was not something I would have done (maybe a waggy finger, and if they didn't listen then some brief blocks to get their attention), but I'm glad the poll is out of the way, so thanks for that. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:46, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Obviously what you would do is the most important criterion of administrator action here on Wikipedia. Just leave me alone from now on and there won't be any problems, alright? Bye. — Phil Welch Katefan's ridiculous poll 23:50, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

• I have establihed my composition concerning the concensus of the Iori page, which can be found here.-MegamanZero 07:31, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

It's appalling. You go on and on about this other chap and really hardly mention the article at all. Please reconsider and rewrite. That monstrosity will get us back into the bickering and attacks, which I had hoped to avoid. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 09:16, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

• Oh, all right.-MegamanZero 09:18, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

You are wise, Mr.Sidaway, and once again, you've helped me improve myself. Now, I know how not a way to construct thesis. Many thanks for your being my mentor, I see I was right to make that decision. Concerning your query, I have created a far more constructive thesis. I hope you like it. -MegamanZero 15:39, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Michael J. Skindell

Thanks for the note - no probs - just looked awful to me and like a typical vanity piece - on patrol you don't get too long to look at the stuff flashing before you - the edit I looked at wasn't good though! I've since tidied it Brookie :) - a collector of little round things! ^(Talk!) 16:55, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Speedy deletion patrol

I'm a non admin who is willing to participate. It's quite true that non-admins have all kinds of diasadvantages compared to admins, but Special:Undelete often tells you a lot about articles, so one catch mistakes (I've already found one, per talk page: very notable individual twice deleted, once following copyvio). --- Charles Stewart 19:31, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words. I've not been interested in adminship until recently when I started to work on WP:DRV - if I do speedy patrol it would make a big difference. Maybe I'll put together an rfa in the New Year. --- Charles Stewart 17:10, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Reaching concensus

Indeed. We need to reach a concensus on what's going to transpire in the future transmogrifacation of the article. As you're well aware, I believe it not advisible to edit the page until such a concensus has been reached. I put my thesis and thoughts upon the talkpage, and no one has really objected agaist them nor supprted them. We need a clear evaluation from you so we can start editting. And yes, I'm aware of your plan to "step back" and let me handle it, but no one is saying anything, so can you comment on the talkpage..? Many thanks, -MegamanZero |transerver 19:36, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Please stop avoiding discussion :( We only want to know your thesis and thoughts on the current situation. -MegamanZero |transerver 20:58, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Good things are worth waiting for. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:17, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

• Indeed. But I'm itching to wikify the article, and no one is saying anything else. Its worth note that Oni said I should go ahead and begin on the talkpage, but I'm still being cautious...I don't want anymore personal attacks or editing warring. Please tell me what I should do.-MegamanZero |transerver 14:58, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Charles Pellegrino

Mea culpa. Enochlau 22:30, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Nicole (DOA)

Following the press release that bungie made regarding the halo based DOA character, I have created and polished off the article for her. I value your opinions and knowledge on wikipedia, so if you have the time please take a look at it. I'd like to get some opinions regarding the article and anything I may have overlooked/done in error. Thanks a bunch.--Oni Ookami Alfador^Talk|@ 05:17, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

• Hehe! Oni, Mr. Sidaway's not A DOA fan! He's our mentor, meaning he teaches the advancement of our values in wikipedia and gives us advice, etc. You should ask videogame geaks who play these games 24/7 (that would be me). -MegamanZero |transerver 05:50, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I appreciate that, but I also want to get a neutral opinion. After all thats what ultimately put a stop to the KOF dispute. There's no doubt in my mind that I am just as likely to fancruftiry an article as anyone else if I get to exited, and its easier for a non-fan to see that. If he doesn't care to comment I'm absolutely fine with that too. Just figure there's no harm in asking.--Oni Ookami Alfador^Talk|@ 05:54, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

• I see. I'm just saying that I don't think he's really as "hardcore" as the rest of us dorks :) Speaking of the article, you did a fine job, and it is by no means written in POV or fancruft. -MegamanZero |transerver 05:58, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks, by the way

Thanks for keeping me in check. Do you have a www link to Jimbo's WikiEN-L post (I don't read or participate in the mailing lists - like I have said elsewhere, I think it is a Bad Thing that so much policy making / consensus deriving occurs there rather than out in the open here on the wiki). Thanks again. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 11:45, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

• here. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:39, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pornstar

Thanks, but I don't like the appearance of that kind of star. I've taken the usual liberties. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:02, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

What's wrong with the way Barnestar's look..? -MegamanZero|Talk 20:12, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

They look like something from an American barn. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:31, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

• I don't understand what you mean....-MegamanZero|Talk 12:39, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

That's what the name derives from. Apparently the name "barn star" is a reference to an American rural ritual known as barn raising, which I regard as somewhat alien to the internationalist concept of Wikipedia. Barn raising means nothing to me. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:50, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I see. Anyways, please look at this and tell me what you think. :) -MegamanZero|Talk 12:54, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

My eyes! The goggles do nothing! --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:30, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

....? You're not making fun of me, are you..? -_- -MegamanZero|Talk 14:12, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm red-green color blind, so I don't know how it looks to most people, but to me it renders the text very difficult to read. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:57, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

• Oh, okay. I shall change the colors. What do you think of the layout, however..? -MegamanZero|Talk 15:09, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't know. All I can think about is how much my eyes hurt. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:46, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

• Okay. Its much easier on the eyes now. :) Take a look now, and tell me what you think. -MegamanZero|Talk 16:03, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I like it now. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:45, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] re: Georgie Dubya Bushy

I think that unless Wikipedia itself decrees some form of "semi-protection" or similar new feature, that we shouldn't be discouraging anyone from editing...especially by placing warnings or banners as you mentioned. I see it as unwiki...but the vandalism there really is sometimes out of control and I recently estimated that for up to 3 hours a day, the page is in a vandalized state. However, I do not agree that a banner or warning should be in the edit window unless it concures with current policies, and I don't think it does. I am apprehensive at some of the new moves by Jimbo to limit contributions by anons such a new page creation, and hope things don't go too far...--MONGO 21:08, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Wonder if you'd be interested in attempting to remove the "noeditsection" directive from the page. The more people do so, the less sustainable would be any claims that it is there by consensus. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:12, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

If I may contribute to this conversation, I think the new policies Master Jimbo is considering are backed by clear reason and are completely justified. I don't think we're so much discouraging people from editting so much as stopping vandalism. If we were to protect the page from anons and such, I'm almost posititive vandalism rates would drop substantially, if not desisting altogether. Commenting on what MONGO said, I think its perfectly wiki, and considering the John Seigenthaler Sr. issue that transpired recently, why not..? While anons make great contributions and I, believe, have contributed greatly to wikipedia, Mpst of the cases I've seen are some form of vandalism, POV or some other stub article that needs serious wikifying. I'm begginnning to think it should be made a rule to sign in to wikipedia before you edit.. It may sound somewhat harsh, but like MONGO said, the George W. Bush article is being vandalised constantly, as well as many of ht articles I have been working on. Also, the new moves to prevent anons form making new pages is one of the best ideas I've heard in awhile, why let anonymous users create (potentially offensive and low-quality) articles out of the blue..? It's risky, since none of us might not pick up on them for awhile, and the creator may be hard to track. Besides when a person makes a article, i believe they should be a part of the community so they may properly engae in discussion and perhaps thanked for their efforts. -MegamanZero|Talk 08:21, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I think that everyone should be able to edit...anon's too and they should also be allowed to create new articles...many have that ended up as great artilces. The entire affair is a knee jerk reaction and it is up to us to do better jobs policing for problems.My understanding is that this new thing will prevent anons from doing any new article creation, no matter how many edits they make, but I may be wrong. I do, however, support semi protection and the aspects of that that require 50 edits before an article under semi protection can be edited by newer users...and this could be applied to new article creation too. While I support the idea of asking everyone to register from the standpoint that it gives them more credibility, it should never be a mandatory requirement to do so. I am also waiting, Tony, for those folks over at the GWB article to show me the actual redusction in vandalized edits since the incorporation of the noedit section warning as compared to before...I have yet to see the evidence as of yet...just don't feel like arguing with them right now.--MONGO 09:22, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Please don't misunderstand, MONGO. I wish that we wouldn't have to ever even create policies such as this... Its just that in the current situation, as well as what's transpired, I think what Jimbo's doing is in the face of full concensus. Sure, there are many articles created by anons that have even reached featured article status, but then there's risk of vandalism, not keeping track, unknown credibility, unnessary blocking and wrongful blame, sockpuppetry...the list simply goes on and on... Why should we risk letting in the minority when the mojority are harming wikipedia....? -MegamanZero|Talk 15:08, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Aggiman

He sent an apology stating that he was drunk at the time and shouldn't have made all the vandalisms, so I unblocked him. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-16 00:35

• At least, I thought I unblocked him. That was a couple days ago. It's still showing in the list, so I tried unblocking him again. I think the first time I only unblocked the IP that tried editing and was autoblocked. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-16 00:38
  • I checked his last 4 edits, [26], [27], [28], [29], and the image of a US Flag turned into Nazi symbol, and concluded that he should be blocked indefinitely until he can explain his actions. He explained them, and has been unblocked. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-16 00:49

[edit] Checkuser

I'm a newer Admin who is trying to find out what the status is of the Checkuser function and how to submit a request for this if I can't do it myself. Ironically, I never worried about this and then in one day two instances (one involving harrassment of another user, and the other a possible sockpuppet) came up where I could use this info. However, when I looked through the Wikipedia:Quick and dirty Checkuser policy page it merely said that admins may be granted the right to do this; it didn't state either how to ask for this right or which admins already have the right so I can approach them about a particular request. Any info you can give is appreciated.--Alabamaboy 01:34, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikification

Thanks. I'm glad you like my userpage design, as you can see, I melded ideas form your page, Cool Cat's, Jimbo's, Angela's, and then added my own. However, about the article, I've finally gotten around to wikifying it, and I believe its competent enough to have the cleanup tag removed. With my thesis said, you may see for yourself, and please give me feedback on its layout. -MegamanZero|Talk 22:51, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Looks okay to me. It might look better if the statistics are in an infobox of some kind instead of set off in a section on their own. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:19, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with that statement. Also its less time-consuming, as the categories will already be present, and editors can simply fetch the template and add information with little effort. I'll start working on it.-MegamanZero|Talk 23:22, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Here it is. I'll try inserting it into a few articles.-MegamanZero|Talk 23:45, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] request

Hello Tony. Can you help undoing a POV-rename of the article Ancient Greek phonology? Thanks. +MATIA ☎ 23:20, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't understand the subject--or what dispute there could be. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:34, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Once upon a time (around 1500) Erasmus, while studying Ancient and New Testament Greek, developed a theory on Ancient Greek pronunciation (also known as reconstructed or erasmian system). The other theory is called Reuchlinian or traditional and it supports that the Ancient Greek were speaken like the Modern Greek (in 1500 that would be Byzantine Greek) (my personal opinion is that probably both systems are or could be wrong). User:Thrax disagrees with the reconstructed system and did a pov-renaming of the article. User:Ανδρέας disagreed with that, and changed part of the new title (removed the "19th century" part of the title). Most editors involved in that article are somewhat "tired" of Thrax, and I tried (or thought I did) to help them co-operate on expanding the article. Thrax may have given some good arguments (and not only wrong examples as some other editors may think), but the rename of the article certainly was a wrong thing to do.

While this article doesn't cover the whole Ancient Greek phonology yet, the titles Reconstructed pronunciation of ancient Greek or The 19th century reconstructed pronunciation of ancient Greek certainly do not describe the article as good as the previous title. User:Kwamikagami has also helped with that article and if I'm not mistaken he is a (new) admin, so perhaps you could talk with Kwami too about it. I think that pov-moves don't have to go through WP:RM right? Thanks +MATIA ☎ 17:19, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Album infobox 2

This has been going on for a long time. User:Gamaliel has taken some leadership in trying to resolve the situation. User:Curps has bot-rollbacked the latest spree, but User:Locke Cole has reverted all of the ones that User:Monicasdude did by hand. Opinion on going forward? Jkelly 02:46, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Correction! The editing was only to put in Album infobox 2, and did not revert all the way back through months. My mistake, and while I don't agree with the edit, it isn't the same kind of disruption. Jkelly 02:54, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] George W. Bush

I just realized something: the deleted edits were only the vandalisms, not their reversions. I counted all the reversions, and then multiplied by 2, so those deleted vandalisms were included in the total. So, it actually did drop rather noticeably. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-17 04:27

[edit] Oops

Oops, sorry about that... I just got promoted yesterday so I'm still getting used to being an admin... --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 04:45, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Meatpuppetry

Mr. Sideaway, I find your comments rather offensive that you posted under Meatpuppetry. To say that I deliberately set out to sabotage or deliberately acted maliciously wholly wrong and undeserved. I did no such thing. I am not aware that letting people know that something is up for deletion is breaking the rules of Wikipedia. This has been going on for a long time including among admins. I told people about the vote. People have made mention to me that things have been up for deletion or for vote in the past. Articles that I voted to keep in the past have been deleted because of people telling other people that the page was being voted on.

I neither told people how or even encouraged people to vote. No vote stuffing took place, I did not know the outcome of any votes. This User:Aecis is starting a smear campaign against. Has been lying by saying that I told people how to vote and saying that I am out to eradicate the BCE CE dating system at Wikipedia which is not true. I believe that the policy from what I understand is to stick to the dating system that each article was given when it was started. When I noticed that the most commonly used, widely accepted BC and AD were being erased and replaced with the CE and BCE dates I simply tried to follow policy and replace them with the original formating. Because of this and my letting people know about the vote this user has been making out that I am doing things maliciously or that I have an agenda. I never even tried to revert a page originally started as BCE because the policy is that if it was started with that system it should stay.

I have done nothing with malice. I don't have an agenda. I am interested in the abortion issue and believe that both categories should be kept. Religion has nothing to do with preserving AD and BC on the articles that were begun with that system. AD and BC have been used by Western Civilization for over a thousand years and they are still the most commonly used. Every encyclopedia I've looked at are still using AD and BC it would be silly to change Wiki policy because Aecis does not like AD and BC. --Dwain 07:15, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Let's look at the wording of the messages you placed on those talk pages.

Hi, I see that you are listed as a Roman Catholic Wikipedian, well the Pro-life celebrities category is up for deletion. Category:Pro-life celebrities I think this is an interesting and worth while category. Afterall not all celebrities are pro-abortion.

In view of that, I stand by every single word of what I said. You acted with malice, selecting your targets because of your beliefs about the probable response of those many people whom you contacted, aware that your campaigning would severely hamper any attempt to make a consensual decision. You must stop doing this lest you do more damage to Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:50, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] User:BGC

Where all those edits reverting changes to albums back to October/November undone after they were reported to WP:ANI? (User:MacGyverMagic, not logged in) - 82.172.14.108 11:58, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

No idea. I haven't even got a clear idea about what happened to the current lot of changes. The problem was not the outcome, but the edit warring engaged in by this editor. As you're aware I hold you in good measure responsible for that editor's present disposition. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:52, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] User:GreekWarrior

Hi Tony, i was quite disturbed to see this users comments on the TRNC talk page. Surely this kind of stuff warrants an immediate ban, Wikipedia should not accomodate racist or facists boy. What possible constructive contribution can such a person make?

Well, I'll say one comment, and I'll be blunt- his userpage is one of the most well formatted and informative userpages I've seen. :) -MegamanZero|Talk 13:21, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Please see his reply to your warning: "I am putting my comments about Cyprus back up on MY talk page, now fuck off and go away." Also look at the rest of his edits, he needs immediate banning, he is the worst kind of contributor Wikipedia could have. --A.Garnet 22:43, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Usernames

Those usernames were created during the massive attack on the GWB article. At the time, username creation was extremely low, so it was easy to tell when someone was creating several names at the same time, which is what the GWB vandal was doing. In particular, he would end several of the names with "69" or put other obvious signs in the name. Those 5 names all popped up over a few seconds during the heaviest attacks on the page. To date I have only had one complaint email, for the BABABAprd account, whose IP was shared with another user, and I unblocked him. No complaints as of yet from anyone about the usernames themselves. Since the GWB vandal tends to create new accounts for each of his vandalisms, and he hasn't vandalized GWB in a while, I'd be fine with unblocking these. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-17 15:50

Well it would probably be a good idea to do so, in case you have some collateral damage. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:01, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Since the attacks are brief and you're essentially firefighting when you perform these blocks on usernames that have never edited, has it occurred to you that a block for an hour or so would be just as effective? Also some kind of note on the talk page would be essential in a case like this, as well as in the blocking message, which is the first thing that would be seen by an innocent editor who had been wrongly blocked. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:09, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

You can unblock that name if you want to, I wouldn't recommend it though. The warning on his talk page suggested editing in the Sandbox, and he followed that up by vandalizing the Sandbox. I think his vandalisms were blatant enough to warrant a block, and indeed Danny recommended I block him for 2 months. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-17 16:04

I'd recomend gving him a good finger-wagging, and block him if he didn't take the hint. Really this was an inappropriate block. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:09, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I replied on my talk page. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-17 19:32

[edit] Blocked without warning

I noticed this block:

• 16:28, 17 December 2005 Brian0918 blocked "62.38.140.113 (talk • contribs)" with an expiry time of 3 hours (adding linkspam to articles)

You don't seem to have given any warning. To my eyes, it looks as if the very first interaction between that editor and Wikipedia may well have been a notice telling that he had been blocked--albeit for only three hours. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:58, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

• The vandal was repeatedly linkspamming pages on multiple IPs. Thanks for alerting me about the person, though, since I missed one of his linkspammings. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-17 20:16

[edit] Becoming a party

In the summary of a recent edit to Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Webcomics/Workshop you said that "My comments, by the way, are always under parties because I've presented a substantial amount of evidence in this case". was that in response to my just prior edit saying I didn't think you were? No offense was intended. I guess I am curious as to whether in your view giving a lot of commentary tends to make one a party to the case even if not initially named in it? If you were elected to ArbCom would that be your general approach? Thanks for your thoughts. (watchlisting this page in case you'd rather respond here). PS I think you have a few stragglers that aren't under parties... hopefully if you decided to move them around people wouldn't blast you for it. ++Lar 01:17, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

It has historically been the case that the arbitration committee regards editors who get involved in a case, for instance adding evidence, are to some extent parties to the dispute. The committee will sometimes make rulings concerning people who don't consider themselves parties and haven't followed the case. If I comment on an arbitration case before it is accepted, I normally add myself to the parties. If I get involved after it's accepted, I consider myself a party. If I were not a party then I'd just let the committee get on with it. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 01:31, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Another odd-looking block

21:11, 6 December 2005 Brian0918 blocked "Blastcage (talk • contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (repeated vandalisms despite warnings)

The user had made only three edits. albeit they were all minor instances of vandalism, and was blocked indefinitely, only two minutes after the first warning message was placed on his user talk page. He clearly cannot possibly have had time to read the warning, but in any case he had not made a single edit since that first warning.

How long have you been doing this? How far would I have to go back before I would not find these extremely eyebrow-raising blocks? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 01:10, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

• The last warning I saw on his page said "This is your last warning, the next time you vandalize, you will be blocked." So I blocked. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-18 01:24

[edit] User:Roger55 indefinite block

16:50, 6 December 2005 Brian0918 blocked "Roger55 (talk • contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (vandalisms)

This chap first edited 16:32, 6 December, replacing an existing picture of Charles III of Spain with some other image, since deleted. He then vandalized George W. Bush. He subsequently received two vandalism warnings (1634, 1637) and did no further edits. You blocked him indefinitely at 1650.

Why? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 01:23, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

• Because of the 2 vandalisms and the obscene content in the image. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-18 01:25

I believe he stopped to see how long his vandalism would remain on the site. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-18 01:46

[edit] Complaints

I noticed you have taken an interest in my history of blocks. I have set up a special page for you to leave your concerns, at User talk:Brian0918/Complaints from Tony Sidaway. Feel free to delve as deeply into my blocking history as you want, but please leave concerns on that page so that I can easily reply to them. Thanks! — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-18 01:46

No problem. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 01:49, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] requested move

Hi Tony, I was wondering if you could do me a favor and address a particular move from the backlog of WP:RM#2005_December_11, that of advocacy group into interest group. I'd like to get on with conducting a merge of special interest into that page as well to consolidate the information. It would be great if you could do this or, let me know why it is impossible/undesirable/outside your field of expertise. Thanks. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:31, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Seems okay to me, but it's far beyond my area of expertise. I'm trying to think of someone else who might be able to help better than I, but no names spring to mind immediately. Someone who has edited articles like this quite a lot? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:24, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] MegamanZero Mk-II

I made a promise to myself Mr.Sidaway, that after I reached the point after aquiring 2000 edits, I'd begin to get serious, so to speak. I think I am ready to aquire more skills as I have been a wikipedian for over a year now. So, if you'd be as so kind, could I ask a boon of you..? I request that you give me a thesis of my performace of my behavior and experience and then give me a list of objectives and skills of mine that need work. I'm hoping to become a better editor from this experience, and as one of my mentors, I look forward to your critisim. Many thanks. -MegamanZero|Talk 18:52, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps you're too busy at the moment..? :) -MegamanZero|Talk 16:40, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm always too busy. Honestly? I think you need to soak for a month or two. You need to look around at Wikipedia and dig your knuckles into the soil, breathe the air, and so on. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 01:34, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you

I'd like to thank you, first and foremost; if you're receiving this message, it's because I think you were one of the people I adopted as a personal mentor, and who helped to make the whole Wikipedia experience more enjoyable.

The fact is, I've got no choice but to leave. The recent sordid affair with User:Deeceevoice and my appalling conduct in that showed me that I have not the calibre required to maintain good relations with users on the wiki. Worse still, I violated almost all of the principles I swore to uphold when I first arrived.

I've now been desysopped, and I plan on devoting a little more time to what I am good at, which is developing. I don't fit in on this side of the servers, but perhaps I can still be of use to the project.

Thank you. Rob Church ^Talk 20:04, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] SOVIET GEORGIA

In Soviet Georgia, yogurt eats you! Mike H. That's hot 07:51, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh behave, else I'll go through the whole thing correcting the spelling to yoghourt! --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:04, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hey.... (2)

Are you going to replay to my query or not...? -_- -MegamanZero|Talk 18:20, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Please be patient. I am not your slave. Merry Christmas. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:29, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Which makes me want to ask, whose slave are you? Ok, ok, I have a perverse sense of humor at times. KillerChihuahua^?!? 00:35, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

She knows who she is. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 01:02, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

She beats you, doesn't she? (scrabble) talk to +MATIA 01:07, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Only if I ask very, very nicely. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 01:56, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Please, take your time. I was just wondering because it seemed you passed over my comment there. Anyway, I will be on wikibreak for awhile, and I'll see you all when I get back.. thanks, and Merry Christmas! -MegamanZero|Talk 07:03, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

P.S- I never thought you were.

It's not Christmas yet! Reread this before you go into a holiday slumber, drunken orgy or whatever indecent melee you have planned...I am about done and at 37KB it is almost too long. So get to work!:)--MONGO 12:59, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Undeletion request

I wanted to read the text of the following deletion debates: Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Kick the ass of anyone who renominates GNAA for deletion before 2007 and Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/GNAA votes for deletion policy. I don't know why these are deleted, because even failed AFDs are supposed to be archived. I requested undeletion on WP:DRV, but it was removed from the page with the following cryptic edit summary: "WHBT WHL WSHAND". (Google has no hits for this phrase.) Could you please undelete these debates? Note that I am not asking for the debates themselves to be reopened, just to have them undeleted so I can see what was said. Thanks in advance. Firebug 20:01, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Kim Bruning deleted both of these with a cryptic comment about a GNAA sock out to make trouble. I see no harm in undeleting them. Done. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:11, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your quick assistance in this matter. I'm going to move them from VFD to AFD, so they'll be in the same folder as the other deletion debates. I'm also going to put up the closed notices on both so no one mistakes them for active. Firebug 21:41, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed ban from Karmafists Userspace

I propose that Pigsonthewing be banned from Karmafists User and Talk space, and all subpages, per the recent ArbCom ruling placing Andy on probation. Please see this for discussion, and I would welcome your input there. Thank you. Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 23:39, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

He's acting very oddly--not like someone interested in editing Wikipedia. However this isn't that unusual for someone in his position. I'm adopting the long view. Thanks for letting me know; I really appreciate that. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 01:01, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merry Christmas

I would like to wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and all the best for the New Year. Guettarda 17:23, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] .

User:Davenbelle having a big picture of a vicious cat on his user page apparently he uploaded it, it concerned me a little but the image name kewl cat really got my attention. Before that A picture called kewlkitten with under it Missing as of November 8, 2005 --Adam1213 Talk 00:49, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Various blocks by Brian0918

I left some comments on some of the blocks by Brian0918 at User_talk:Brian0918/Complaints from Tony Sidaway --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jimbo Wales (talk • contribs) 22:22, 23 December 2005.

I'm sorry that you feel that way. Consorting with such outright thuggery will not make Wikipedia a better encyclopedia. There are policies, they work, when they're blatantly ignored with the sanction of the site owner, it's not a good sign. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 00:57, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Scrotum article

People may try to remove the photograph from Scrotum again, even though, unlike in autofellatio, this image actually should be there. You might want to keep an eye on it.Voice of All^T|@|ESP 05:11, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh yes, I'm a great fan of Scrotum, the wrinkled retainer. :) --Tony Sidaway|Talk 05:25, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Please help

I need some assistance here Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Welcome to tha chuuch mixtape vol.1, because some editors may want to ignore the undeletion decision.... Lajbi 17:05, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, very odd. Don't worry, I'm dealing with this. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:29, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

What Can I do more besides arguing? I'm getting tired to reason to a deaf man... Lajbi 17:46, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I would like to thank your support so far, you helped me not giving up during the day, but I'm tired of arguing without getting back anything (a "thanks for editing those articles for months" at least). Damn it, it's Christmas or what!! Get the chuuch CD series for yourself from somewhere. Or ask Santa! They are really awesome! Lajbi 01:12, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

• Perhaps I should! Don't mind the deletion discussions, they're often full of nonsense and are widely acknowledged to be one of the most contentious areas of Wikipedia. There is often a big mess but we usually end up making the right decision. I strongly recommend that you take the mixtape articles and merge the contents into a single article on Dogg-related and Dogg-sponsored productions. This would in my opinion make the material, as long as it can be verified, absolutely impossible to remove from Wikipedia. People wanting to read about a particular album or DVD would type in the name and find that article through a redirect.

• Oh, and Merry Christmas to you. I hope Santa has been watching you and decided you have been good. And if you haven't, well at least you had fun being naughty! ;) --Tony Sidaway|Talk 01:25, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS, Tony Sidaway/Archive 2006 01 06! A well deserved pressy!--Santa on Sleigh 21:57, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Happy holidays

We've overcome some great hurdles on Wikipedia this year, and things are finally looking up. You've made a positive difference here, and I want to wish you and your family happy holidays and all the best in the new year. Bahn Mi 23:09, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] WOW!!! i didn't think anybody would notice!

after 5 ArbCommissinors opposed to looking into this, i was beginning to think that WP was becoming "opposite-land". Thank you, Tony r b-j 06:43, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Meatpuppetry?

When I listed the outside voter canvassing concerning an afd and a cfd on the Administrators' noticeboard, you said that "this kind of behavior is absolutely unacceptable. We cannot judge consensus if editors set out deliberately and maliciously to sabotage the process." I'm sad to say that the behaviour is continuing. User:Shanedidona recently created Wikipedia:Catholic Alliance of wikipedia, "a pro-life group" and "an organization for the purpose of rallying voting on articles about topics such as abortion." [30] When I nominated this page/project for deletion, Shanedidona left messages of this on 50+ talk pages, explicitly telling them: "Please vote and/or tell other people to vote to keep this organization on wikipedia." All the people he informed of this mfd were informed of this (oh surprise) "since you are listed as a Roman Catholic." Shanedidona described the Catholic Alliance of Wikipedia to Darthgriz98 (talk • contribs) as "a CAtholic organization for the preservation of conservative values, basically, CAoW is a redily summonable voting block in case a pro-life article is threatened. ... Vote Pro-Life!" [31] I believe we are slowly but steadily approaching an RfC on this behaviour. I myself have no experience with RfC's other than reading one every now and then though. I was wondering if/hoping you could help me out on this one. Merry Christmas :) Aecis ^{Mr. Mojo risin'} 11:23, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I have deleted this as "Not remotely compatible with Wikipedia's policy of neutrality.". --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:08, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

No kidding it isn't, but it was on MFD. Why do we even have MFD if you act arbitrarily like that? Especially after that talk last night and the recent tirades against my "unpredictability" and my "fanning the flames" in regards to the trolls. What you did will just embolden the Catholic POV trolls to feel like they can recreate it since they didn't get a fair shake in MFD. I'm restoring it until the end of the vote. It's close to consensus there, but I don't think consensus is airtight yet. karmafist 15:21, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

They don't get to recreate it. If anything like that appears ever again, it's zapped on sight. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:19, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Best wishes

I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. --Bhadani 14:33, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merry Christmas!

You should be dancing, yeah! Mike H. That's hot 18:20, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Compliments of the season to you, Mike. Thanks for all the lovely conversations we've had online in the past few months. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:18, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merry Christmas

Hi Tony, just wanted to stop by and say congratulations on your article on Brian Peppers surviving, and merry Christmas. CanadianCaesar The Republic Restored 22:57, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. Article that I take under my wing have a knack of surviving. ;)

Merry Christmas to you!--Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] More racist rants by User:GreekWarrior

Tony, i urge you to stop showing patience to this boy. Look at his recent edits, he has a clear anti-Islamic and anti-Turkish agenda on Wikipedia. I have come across him before on www.cyprus-forum.com where he made many racist comments under the name Digenis Akritas and ChomskyFan. Is there no process for an immediate ban of people who make it their clear goal to spread hatred. He is not due the respect of an arbitration case, he is a known trouble maker.

In any case, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year --A.Garnet 12:06, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely. I looked at his first few edits after being unblocked and it's pretty obvious that he only intends to stir up hatred, describing muslims as "pure evil". This kind of activity can never, ever, be part of building an encyclopedia. I blocked him for twelve hours before. This time, because he completely failed to take the point, he has been blocked for fourteen days. If he repeats his hate speech, the third block will be indefinite. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:16, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Catholic Alliance of wikipedia

I have restored Wikipedia:Catholic Alliance of wikipedia as I do not believe its deletion was in compliance with our deletion policies such as WP:CSD. If you desire to see the page deleted, please employ the proper channels; thank you for your concern in this regard, Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 07:04, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

We don't have any "proper channels" for deleting poisonous crap that is so blatantly contrary to the principle of neutrality. We just get rid of it. This and anything like it must be deleted on sight. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:15, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

• Tony, I am inclined to agree with your judgement on this matter. --Improv 15:31, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
• I agree that it is poisonous and crap (and I commented "delete") but am concerned that deleting it in the middle of an AfD discussion might not be viewed as appropriate, if it is considered not in compliance with deletion policies. But I am just a newbie. ++Lar 15:35, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

• Insisting on process in an instance like this can only benefit those who want to use Wikipedia as a playground to push their personal points of view. There is no possibility of this kind of project page ever being acceptable on Wikipedia, and holding a debate only encourages the false impression that our neutrality policy is negotiable. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:46, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I am only an egg and you are one of the Big Dogs(tm) of Wikipedia, but doesn't (giving the appearance of) trampling process make you look bad in some quarters, and give your detractors more diffs to use against you? I think this will be a total slam dunk delete, and further maybe it would be good to get this sort of situation added to WP:CSD, but it just seems to look bad to me. But again, I may not grok the nuances here. Thanks for your time and thoughtful reply. ++Lar 19:20, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't mind doing the right thing even if it annoys those who put process in front of Wikipedia. The more minutes that page, and the sham discussion over its deletion, are on Wikipedia, the longer the point-of-view campaigners have a common focus about which to recruit. We should be ruthless in stamping out such abuses, and the only way to stop campaigning getting a hold on Wikipedia is to delete on sight. The Neutrality policy is not subject to negotiation. I don't mind the idea of a speedy criterion that would cover it--if I were able to draft one that would be unambiguous and not subject to gaming, I would do so. However I suspect that we'll just have to rely on admins like me sticking our necks out every now and then. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:04, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Had I been on RCP, I would have deleted the article based on the reasons I gave for my delete vote in AFD.--MONGO 20:42, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I turned up my participation level here as a result of the Checkerboard Nightmare AfD flap, I decided I better watch a few of my favorite obscure webcomics, and I figured, better edit stuff while I am hanging out. It's loads of fun, and I think I've created or improved some worthy articles but the flamewars are a bit of a downer. So I guess I'm glad you are willing to stick your neck out. Please keep doing it and don't let your detractors get you down. (I need to put together my ArbCom slate and watching who says what helps determine it).++Lar 20:50, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

• Tony...just let the thing die through WP:MD...it's going to go away soon...you can even close out the voting in a few days. Get that arbitration thing out of there too...! I may be forced to make an outside comment--MONGO 01:40, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] re: your message.

I'm going to be as civial as possible about this, but you know this is a ridiculous question, right? I removed a long list of unverified (and unverifiable) information about mixtapes, a long list of fancrufted video appearances, etc. I made some attempt to try and sort through them to figure out which were the dozens of singles missing from the singles section of the discography, but without year information and chart positions, that's not going to happen (and considering the significant amount of collaborations in question, that would be a full 24 hours of AMG searching). I don't know what kind of thing you're trying to pull (I mean, common sense should tell you why I knocked out a long list of poorly formatted, unverified info fro mthe discography), but if you want to do something about it, why not help add/verify/format the correct information, so that I don't have to edit it all alone (and forego all my required tasks at my paying jobs and my home life, as I've had to do before)?

And, yes, I removed the mixtape listings. There's easily 100 of them or more for Snoop or any artist; this guy just typed up the ones he apparently owns or could easily find.

Wait. Stop. what the hell is this: Snoop Dogg minor albums, bootlegs and mixtapes? Is it your honest intention to sit here and completely undermine whatever attempt at verifiability and reliablility Wikipedia has as a reference. Any idiot with a computer can make a mixtape, so if you wanna run an internet search and list all 100 tracklistings of so Snoop Dogg mixtapes tracklistings, let's see you do it. All of them, since we're supposed to be factually accurate. And then, when you're done, maybe I should press up my own and sell them on the market, one a day, just to mess with you (I'm not going to do this, BTW, b/c it's illegal. And what about all the mixtapes for Nas? Jay-Z? 2Pac (ha ha, good luck with that one)?

You see my point? Mixtapes coverage is beyond our scope, because they have very little notability other than the fact that they exist, and an artist doesn't have to be involved for it to exist. I don't know who the hell made you an admin, but you most certainly do not deserve it. I wasted a whole year of my life trying to get some decent music coverage in this damn place, warding off vandals, fancruft pushers, street teamers in disguise, and you, an administrator, pull some crap like this.

I don't know if you're trying to do it because you feel sory for that kid that wrote all the articles, but this isn't a good way to operate. If you wanted a consolidated article on Snoop Dogg underground releases, you should write one, in prose, covering important underground releases (if any are that important). This is ridiculous; highly ridiculous. Are you specifically trying to piss people off? Because, if so, you're doing a good job. Stop disrupting the Wikipedia and use better judgment and common sense. --FuriousFreddy 17:49, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

FuriousFreddy, you must be aware that the claim that all of the material you removed as unverifiable is seriously disputed--indeed as a matter of personal opinion I'd say that the references given in the articles that you have listed for deletion convincingly refute that claim.

You seem to be arguing that all of the material has just been knocked out by some kid with a computer, but the direct connection with the artists is verifiable in most cases.

Now as to your personal attacks above, I have to take serious issue with them. Please cease immediately. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:45, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] revert war, interested in options

hi Tony, as an administrator, I was wondering if you know how to stop a revert war. Right now it is civil, and more of a skirmish than a war, but I don't want it to become uncivil.

It is in regards to Richard Pipes and two anons, 64.12.116.204 and 205.188.117.12. I have asked exhastively for them to explain their edits both on the Richard Pipes talk page and their own talk page. They have ignored any dialogue, and instead continue to delete a good portion of my edits about once a day.

What are my options now?

I am going to add footnotes to this article, so they will have to delete more, and they have zero justification, in the meantime, what are my options?

Thanks in advance. Travb 18:33, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Please don't get any further involved in edit warring--don't edit war. I promise to investigate as soon as possible and try to help you to resolve this. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:46, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Tony, I am importing footnotes from Team B and already added the Controversial3 template to the page. One of the anons has a history of revert wars, and his been warned repeatedly. Travb 18:53, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay. Please be careful, don't edit war under any circumstances. I will investigate this and I promise a resolution under the dispute resolution policy. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:17, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Sure Tony. Thanks. Travb 21:19, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Your belief that I am personally attacking you

Tony, I'm very sorry that you believe I have engaged in personal attacks of you. I have merely tried to extend to you the same amount of credit, assumption of good faith, and comradeship, that you have extended towards other editors, such as Aaron Brenneman, Dragonfiend, Zoe, Geogre, others, and myself. I have simply followed your lead in carefully choosing my language (your own prose, for example, is replete with terms such as "cronies," that most people would view as a personal attack.)

I believe I have kept well within the bounds of civility, and a small amount of irony and sarcasm have long been considered a civilized way to gently point out the hypocrisies in another's position. If you don't like the taste of this medicine, then I respectfully suggest that you stop administering it to others.

Wishing you all the best, Nandesuka 21:10, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I can see what you've been trying to do. That's the problem. I strongly dispute the suggestion that any of the comments I listed is remotely civil. I believe they're copybook personal attacks, usually deliberate misrepresentations of my opinion or actions. I acknowledged that some of my words were inflammatory and I removed them. You however continue to engage in inflammatory attacks, apparently believing that you're giving me a taste of my own medicine.

However I did find our brief discussion on IRC productive and I hope that we can reach agreement that there is a better way to deal with personal disagreements than launching personal attacks. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:30, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mutual Assured Snarkiness

How about this: I will absolutely, positively, 100% promise not to use snarkiness or irony when disagreeing with you. Let's say for the next month, I will be utterly without guile. I will be completely straightforward, and say what I think. That means that there may be times that I say "I think you're being somewhat hypocritical here." But I will do it without glee or malice.

In return, I'd like to ask you to recognize your tendencies to cut off consensus discussions before they have matured, and to try to reign it in. Note that I'm not even asking you to not use your administrative powers as you deem appropriate, but just to not use them while conversation is ongoing. Give the community a chance to arrive at the right decision. Use your persuasive powers. Show some faith.

How does that sound to you? --Nandesuka 21:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

You defended your personal attacks by claiming, apparently, that you were giving me a taste of my own medicine. That doesn't justify them; two wrongs don't make a right. You know we have a dispute resolution process but instead you resorted to snide personal attacks that you apparently believed to be imitations of whatever I was doing wrong. I won't argue with you because you have in effect ceased to assume good faith once you embark on that path. I made sincere and strongly held statements of opinion, and then withdrew them.

Now you're making a request that is apparently based on your belief that I "cut off consensus discussions before they have matured". I'm asking you not to make personal attacks and I will not enter into a negotiation on that. Absolutely not. I expect all personal attacks from you on me to cease now, whether you think I'm doing the right thing or not. Express your disagreement in terms acceptable to longstanding Wikipedia policy, or go elsewhere. No bargaining on that. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 21:39, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Suit yourself. As before, I of course deny that anything I have done even approaches a "personal attack." I will continue to comport myself in accordance with Wikipedia policies. If in so doing I end up pointing out places where you are apparently being a bad citizen, such as here, where you repeatedly tried to delete content from Wikipedia in violation of our deletion policy, so be it. I am glad, however, that you acknowledged on IRC that some of your comments on the recent RFArb were beyond the pale. Admitting that you have a problem is one of the first steps to self-improvement. Hopefully this will lead to your behaving more appropriately in the future. Kind regards, Nandesuka 21:52, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Saying that you believe that deleting this project page is "in violation of our deletion policy" is fine. I disagree but in saying so you're not yourself violating any Wikipedia policy, and you should be encouraged to express your opinion in this way. I believe that in persistently restoring a project page for which absolutely no consensus exists is wrong. I will say so but without impugning your motives.

And it's acceptable and correct to say that my original expression, in which I used words like cronies and the like, of my opposition to Aaron Brenneman's use of talk pages to invite to the websites debate about half a dozen people who he clearly expected to agree with him, describing them as cronies was utterly unacceptable. I was wrong and I removed that characterization. Mea culpa.

If such activities by me have provoked you to make personal attacks on me, I admit that your criticism is often deserved but continue to say that your personal attacks are not. The problem is not what you say but the manner in which you say it, which is corrosive of consensus and encourages factionalism. You may notice that the statements for which I am criticised are for the most part directed at such anti-consensual activities. Where my criticism strays into personal attack it is of course incorrect.

Criticism, whether merited or not, should be encouraged where it is (as in this case) clearly made in the interests of Wikipedia. Expression of criticism in a manner corrsive to mutual respect, as we'd both have to admit, is not acceptable. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 23:54, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Theodor_von_Hippel

Hi Tony,

I moved Theodore_von_Hippel to this page as a requested move. However, there is the issue of the previous article that was there (and has an AfD that was closed as a redirect by you). I usually always undelete previous history when doing the moves, however in this case the article is seperate and has no content in the article that was moved to it, so for now I'll leave it deleted. Feel free to undelete the previous history if you so desire :). WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 01:36, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Test time!

User:MONGO/Test for Dementia--MONGO 11:56, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey...FYI...email.--MONGO 16:34, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Confirmation for Kate

See my email. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:38, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New article

I just wrote an article about the Family Viewing Hour. Did the UK ever have anything like this? Mike H. That's hot 02:50, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] User:Battlefield

Don't post anymore of your anti-Semitic crap on my talk page Battlefield 10:14, 30 December 2005 (UTC) (User is responding to my {{test}} waring)

This user is giving me a somewhat hard time with comments such as the one above. User has already made a few rather disruptive edits ([32], [33], [34]) and seems to be a newbie hence I ask for you could explain him as he wont listen to me. I also like a temporary protection on Category:Anti-Semitic people during the vote. --Cool Cat^Talk|@ 14:29, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Afd process

Hi Tony,

I'm trying to initiate Turkish Invasion of Cyprus for deletion, since it is still a POV fork from Cyprus dispute. When i add the afd tag, the articles entry shows the archive result from 6 months ago. How do i go about initiating a fresh vote?

Thanks. --A.Garnet 16:44, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] More wishes

Hello, I wish you and your family a prosperous and happy New Year 2006! We shall surely remain actively involved in the Project Wikipedia. Your encouragements when I was new here, I still remember. --Bhadani 16:50, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removing CSD tags

Tony,
I notice that you're very active in restoring articles that have been speedily deleted. However I also notice that you often fail to complete the process by notifying the admin and taking the article to AfD where required. James S. Putnam and Fiona_Sit are two good examples: these articles when last touched by you were totally without WP:CITE. We really should take WP:V very seriously, and things that cannot be verified should be deleted. Both of these articles had positive outcomes from there AfD discussions. A potential hoax was removed, and a very lean article was expanded. Please do consider taking the extra time to complete the process if you are going to restore something. - brenneman^(t)(c) 00:21, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

As one who feels that verifiability is utterly essential (without it, Wikipedia would not be an encyclopedia), I agree with the above. I also agree that Afd is overcrowded and often dysfunctional, but it's the best we have right now and should be used in cases of contested speedies. Or, if you don't like Afd, maybe take it to DRV instead? I'm not saying this because it's what "the rules" say, I'm saying it because IMO it's the right thing to do for the project. Friday (talk) 21:01, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

You seem to have your facts wrong. Fiona Sit, for instance, when deleted contained citations--for instance a published album called F Debut, which was easy to verify, as was her fame in Hong Kong. The article should not have been deleted, nor should it have been listed for deletion--Aaron clearly hadn't done his homework or else he wouldn't have listed it for deletion.

The Putnam article was a straightforward out-of-process speedy deletion. We don't speedy these articles. You're welcome to list them for deletion if you think that is necessary, but please don't expect me to list articles for deletion that do not seem to qualify for deletion. Please, both of you, I beg you, read the deletion policy. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 07:48, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I didn't look into Fiona Sit at all, but honestly, I am unable to trust your judgement as far as what qualifies for deletion. Hence, the messages left here. As far as I can tell, you rarely see any reason to delete things, even things that obviously are candidates for deletion, like the Putnam example given above (consensus for deletion of that was quite obvious at Afd). All we're asking is you be less unilateral and invite review of your undeletions, since (at least in some cases), your views on what's deletable seem to differ strongly from what most Wikipedians think. Friday (talk) 14:38, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Results in AfD

Did you see the outcome of the debate in Snoop Dogg minor albums, bootlegs and mixtapes? User Splash deleted it by his self-conviction although the voting was 8:2 to Keep.Lajbi 08:38, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Happy New Year

For last year's words belong to last year's language

And next year's words await another voice.

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

Happy New Year! ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 20:24, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Out of process deletions

Some admins have taken it upon themselves to mass delete various userboxes without going through any process. See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Kelly Martin. Could you please undelete these? Firebug 00:53, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Happy New Year!

I'm back! I took your advice, and I "soaked", as you put it, and I feel much better. Thanks, and I hope you had a good christmas! I sure didn't... Anywho, back to work. -MegamanZero|Talk 11:12, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Have you seen this wikipedian..?

May I inquire what happened to User:JG of Borg..? His account and talkpage seem to have been completely erased. Has he requested an different account name for his alias, or has his account been deleted due to vandalism (very unlikely)..? I noticed his sig turned up negative on his various comments, which I found very odd. -MegamanZero|Talk 16:00, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Systematic rape

Hi Tony. I'm working on a subsection of the Rape page about rape as a tool of warfare. Once it's finished, it may be appropriate for Systematic rape to point to that section since we're basically covering the same subject. Does that seem reasonable? ERobson 03:53, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:User evolution

May I ask why this was deleted without TfD and cleaning up red links? Ian¹³_ID:540053 09:55, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Userboxes (again)

It seems that you are deleting various userboxes without discussion or the TfD process. You might not think it's a big deal, but many people do. --King of All the Franks 09:59, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Au contraire; the wasting of time and the Foundation's resources is a big deal. Rob Church ^Talk 10:08, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

There is no need to be neutral (as Tony is defending his deletions by claiming that userbox useers are proselytising), or to have people dictate what can or can't be placed on one's own userpage. --King of All the Franks 10:17, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

There is much debate about this. You should wait till it's over before deleting things. Larix 10:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Well I've deleted lots and lots of them. I don't think this is a fit subject for debate. Those buttons expressing beliefs or support for poltical or religious causes would be fit for a blog or forum, but this is neither. It's an encyclopedia, and those buttons threaten its identity. It doesn't matter what the community thinks, we must act in the interests of the encyclopedia at all times. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:34, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Do you know how controversial this is? I really think you should wait until there is a policy about the topic. And 'what the community thinks' does matter; the community has a voice in what 'the interests of the encyclopedia' are. Larix 10:39, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes the community confuses "the interests of Wikipedia" with having nice shiny baubles on its user pages. Go figure.

I think this will most likely end with Jimbo saying something about it. I've no idea what his opinion on this, but he does have a knack for coming up with something reasonably sensible. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:36, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Please can I request their undeletion and TfD or appropriate if you so wish. Ian¹³_ID:540053 10:30, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Try other admins in Category:User undeletion. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:04, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure, I just think its good for the admin conserned to consider it, shows they are prepared to change their views, and act on what the community feels appropriate, if you know what I mean :) Ian¹³_ID:540053 11:35, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

My views on this haven't changed. It would therefore be inappropriate for me to undelete the templates that I still consider to be deleterious to Wikipedia--whatever other people may think. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:38, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree that the userboxes are not in the best interests of building a NPOV encyclopedia...but do they qualify as speedies?--MONGO 11:45, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Depending on their content, I think if they offend anyone in anyway, cause anyone to feel uncomfortable, or violate policy, then speedy deletion is in order. Concerning the source content in the boxes depicted, they seem to violate one of the fundamental basics of wikipedia: un-biased views on subjects. And Tony is right- sometimes the community confuses "the interests of Wikipedia" with having nice shiny baubles on its user pages. Go figure. is true. But, if such content is unclear, and they're not doing any harm, then no one has the right to cache blanche to speedy delete; reach concensus and/or discuss issues beforehand. -MegamanZero|Talk 12:47, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

In the interest of civility, I would like to request that you refrain from speedy deletion of userboxes while discussion of the issue is ongoing. Thank you. Kaldari 13:14, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

• I think that sounds fair. Mr. Sidaway, I think it'd be great if you'd agree to that. -MegamanZero|Talk 13:25, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with civility.

This is why userboxes must die in great numbers. Number of edits per month on user boxes:

period	cnt
June 2005	607
July 2005	357
August 2005	621
September 2005	1106
October 2005	1098
November 2005	1233
December 2005	6093

Userbox edits have shot up in December. It's some kind of mania, a craze. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a blog. If the outcome of the discussion is that the majority people rather like festooning web pages with baubles and whatnot, then the conclusion is not that we should permit them to do so but rather than they should bhe encouraged in as forthright and direct a manner as is possible to obtain a user page or blog and do it there. If they cannot live with an eneyclopedia that isn't plastered with such nonsense, they should go off and find one that is. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:45, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Tony, you may be misinterpreting some of these numbers. A great deal of work has been underway by WP:UB to take care of any concerns over WP:AMT and WP:FU with the userboxes. This possibly accounts for the majority of the page edits you are seeing. 1001001 14:26, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to add that saying the encyclopedia is plastered with what you consider nonsense is misleading. These user boxes are meant for user pages, it isn't like they show up in articles. So of course they're not encyclopedic. Neither is your foto on your own user page. Larix 14:48, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I really don't think I'm misinterpreting the figures. Take the page listing userboxes by beliefs. Of the 40-or-so templates listed there, I could only find 3 that even existed before last month, and a large proportion of them seem to have been created over the Christmas and New Year period. This is very much in line with what the raw edit counts told me--that this is a mania or craze. In the light of the recent widespread abuse of such templates in order to carry out an organized assault on the decision-making process only last month, I am very, very worried by the sudden uncontrolled growth of these items which serve essentially no encyclopedic purpose but make the encyclopedia extremely vulnerable to organised attacks. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:07, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

• Your edvidence and concensus regarding this situation is throughly noted, Mr. Sidaway, and it is indeed, a breaching of what wikipedia is about. It seems people have lost the true view on wikipedia: which is to construct great articles, making proper thesis, construct conjecture, and evaluate data and sources; which leads up to the main purpose: making a informative and expansive encyclopedia avalible to all on the internet. Everything else (customizing, POV, chatting, userboxes, etc.) are secondary to this goal and should be treated as such. However, deleting and removing anything without discussion or at least making a comment regarding why is not okay. Please, everyone, discuss, and don't just delete, revert, edit war, etc. like the wind. -MegamanZero|Talk 14:23, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:DRV discussion

It might help the discussion over your deletion of user boxes if you have a brief, self-contained explanation of why you think the deletions are necessary. It's my impression that you are concerned that they provide a basis for POV warriors to abuse WP's voting mechanism, but that's not based on firm evidence. --- Charles Stewart 18:31, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

• I think that sounds sensible. Mr. Sidaway, I think it would be great if you'd agree to this. -MegamanZero|Talk 18:40, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Charles, I'm surprised that you claim that my view is not based on firm evidence. The Catholic Alliance case is the most recent abuse of userboxes, and is well known. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:08, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Barnstar

Tony, I award you the Surreal Barnstar... there is nothing I consider more surreal and "wild-card" on Wikipedia right now than willingly diving headlong into the seething array of flak guns that is the userbox inferno. Call it courage, call it batshit insanity... either way, that's a barnstar. FCYTravis 10:22, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I second this barnstar-age. --King of All the Franks 10:31, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Ooh look, they've changed into starfish. I dislike barnstars as designs, so I always mutate them into something prettier. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:38, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

One man's courage is another man's disruption. Perhaps controversial deletions do make things more exciting around here, but is this actually a good thing? Where I come from, encyclopedias aren't really about being dramatic. Friday (talk) 14:58, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

So right Larix 15:05, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Things that are bad for Wikipedia must be deleted. This should not be controversial. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 01:21, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... there seems to some communication problem. Most people are not defending boxen. Continued insistance that all this is about boxen (by lots of people) is either a sign of some kind of social disorder or willful stupidity. Tony, I hate the things. I think they are pointless and a waste of time. I think that they have the potential to be misused. I would have perhaps agreed, in a stately discussion, agreed that they should be deleted. And I still think that you were totally wrong and willfully disruptive.

The use of force is an indication that reason has failed. Was the suspicion that a debate _would not_ have resulted in these being deleted? I'd suggest that, if the "unwashed masses" have taken over to the stage that "correct" behavior must be forced upon them, perhaps it's time for a fork? Let the baby have its bottle, and go and play somewhere else.

Except of course that it would faill miserably. Because all the same people who don't have a clue, who must be beaten with the delete stick until they get... they are the people who are actually the ones building the encyclopedia.

brenneman^(t)(c) 01:33, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

It’s not, but the definition of what's bad for wikipedia is, and the decision as to who gets to make that definition more so. And there's the rub. (Me, I’d delete all ‘POV-club’ userbox templates and corresponding categories right now – but then all hell would really break loose).--Doc ^ask? 01:27, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

It's about boxes. To claim that it isn't is to state a manifest falsehood. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 03:09, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Parsing...scanning...incorporating...analyzing.

Nope. It's still not about boxes. Sorry. You are mistaken. Nandesuka 03:40, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll leave you to your counter-factual beliefs; it would be pointless for me to argue in the face of an outright denial of the issue. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 05:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

People — well, at least some people — have been very straightforward about why, exactly, they endorsed an RFC condemning KM's actions. A significant number of those people endorsed statements that read, in summary, as "Userboxes are stupid, but Kelly's actions showed disrespect for the community". For example, here ("What I feel upset at is the lack of communication shown on your part"), here, ("Without necessarily taking a stance on whether these templates should exist—Jimbo obviously makes a valid point about their less-than-positive effects—I feel that Kelly Martin's summary deletion of dozens of them indicates a certain lack of respect towards her fellow Wikipedians."). That, of course, are just the statements. If you bother to read any of the 123 (!) endorsements of the original statement of the RFC, you see that a number of people have noted that they are more concerned with Kelly's words ("screw process" is an oft-quoted one, that seems to have touched a nerve. I wonder why?) Others discuss their concerns over a lack of civility, of admins setting a bad example, etc., etc., etc.

None of which is to say that all of these people, or any of these people, are right about all of these issues. But the community has made its voice clearly heard, and it has said, clearly and unambiguously, that it is not about userboxes. Even the most desultory reading of the original RfC shows that. So if we're looking for "counter-factual beliefs" and "an outright denial of the issue," we don't have to look past this talk page, and your comments on it. To believe that your fellow editors are wrong is common; we all do it. But to pretend that they haven't said what they have said is, in my opinion, disrespectful. Nandesuka 06:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Tony Sidaway 3

This has been moved around, deleted twice, created in haste, and probably had it's nails done. I've re-re-created it as I promised the original user I would. It's not linked to the RfC page as he hasn't filled it out yet, so it's 48 hours hasn't started. I've also offered to help him polish it up before it goes "live".

Just to be clear, I'd have done this even if it wasn't you. Hell, I'd have done it if it were me, I've offered to help people raise complaints against vs brenneman before. I simply think that not being too familiar with the way things work is something that we help people with, regardless of what it is that they are trying to do.

I've also created WP:RFC/TS3.

brenneman^(t)(c) 00:45, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I just noticed that you did a misleading link (it didn't show up as red when I knew that someone had deleted the link target and so I wondered why the redirect hadn't also been deleted). Please don't do that kind of stuff, it's silly. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 19:24, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tony, could you take a look at

Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Rbj and possibly add a comment, if you feel so inclined? r b-j 02:26, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:RFC/KM

This is currently being discussed both at VFU and RFD. Remember, when in doubt, don't delete. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 02:55, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Userboxes on TFD

Please don't list all those userboxes on TFD. It's the wrong place to gain consensus about them and it will only disrupt TFD's normal operation. I think you know that too. The vote needs to be held elsewhere. -- Netoholic @ 05:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree with any of the above, and I don't your suggestion that I know something which is merely your expressed opinion is very helpful. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 05:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Design a sub-page to hold the full vote. You've been involved in other mass-deletion requests, so you do know the effect. -- Netoholic @ 05:43, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Good point. The list of templates is currently on a subpage, so I'll add the other stuff there. Usually I leave the tfd people to decide for themselves when to refactor in this way. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:40, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much for moving it off. -- Netoholic @ 18:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WTHell???

Is wrong with you? you can't just delete everyone's userboxes without asking them first--Xenaphon 06:08, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure he can. But don't stress. Some other admin will probably undelete it. Most of Tony's recent deletions have been undone. It's not really worth worrying about. Nandesuka 06:33, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, Xenaphon has 24 hours to think it over anyway, as I blocked him/her for insulting edit summaries and personal attacks.--MONGO 06:36, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I thought this seemed a little excessive given the above, so I went to shorten the block to twelve hours (which would be an immediate unblock). However looking at his contributions since arriving on Wikipedia this morning, I wonder whether we shouldn't just get someone to consider blocking him permanently. I wouldn't take this decision myself as it would be inappropriate. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

He was blocked permanently by Jayjg [35]. I thought my 24 hour block was conservative but would have preferred to block permanently but didn't. The account existed almost solely to insult, was hitting the recent changes to revert others and insult them. I was thanked by a new contributor as he/she felt insulted. [36] No reason to allow a vandal account to push what may be constructive new contributors out of here.--MONGO 19:57, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Userboxes and factions

After the American Revolution there was for a while opposition to factions on much the same grounds that you oppose them here. Soon however political parties developed and factions within parties. It is just a natural process. In fact, we already have factions, they just operate informally. I think we should concentrate on handling the inevitable formations of factions rather than trying to resist the tide. My thought is that a faction should be treated as the viewpoint they represent, given fair expression but not dominating. Fred Bauder 14:13, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

It's one thing to tolerate a faction, quite another thing to pay its living expenses and telephone bills. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I have taken the liberty of doing what you admitted you should have done in the first place. You might light to take a look at WP:CFD --Doc ^ask? 18:38, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Very good job. Odd that some editors still view these ridiculous straw polls as having something to do with consensus. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:40, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:Cyde

Really, was this neccessary? If you have actual technical concerns about page rendering times, this might be valid, but where is the evidence that it's a problem? And why on earth did you feel the need to use delete instead of making a normal edit? I can think of no reason for it. As for calling it disruptive, I find that remark baffling. Frankly, from where I sit, your actions were more disruptive than those of Cyde. Friday (talk) 15:32, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

And citing "The servers were groaning" was a comment I found extremely odd... -MegamanZero|Talk 15:45, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I have listed this on WP:DRV. Friday (talk) 15:55, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Ooops, this is irrelevant. The deleted versions have already been restored. Friday (talk) 16:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Megamanzero, when Wikipedia has to render a lot of templates in a page, this means it has to do the equivalent of serving lots of different pages, and I understand that for technical reasons this places a large load on the main servers, rather the squids. This is my reason for the reference to the servers "groaning." Although I appreciated Cyde's humor, I wasn't amused by his abuse of Wikipedia facilities. --Tony Sidaway|Talk

Please call me Zero. I was fully aware of that. My point was that the comment could have been worded better than how you cited it; the servers weren't breaking apart or anything, and it perhaps made the user feel more at fault then he should have felt. The comment above is the one you should have cited to Cyde to begin with. -MegamanZero|Talk 18:25, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm perfectly certain that the servers were, indeed, groaning, which is why I stated as much. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:34, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so. Nor do I think describing his actions as "abuse" was justified. A simple description of "overzealousness" or "unneeded content" would have sufficed. No need to be negative in comments such as that, espescially concidering that Cyde agrees with our outlook that too many boxes is unneeded, so a less aggressive explanation regarding his actions would have been enough to make him remove them. -MegamanZero|Talk 18:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

It was abuse. The first three screens of the page were occupied by categories in the Cologne blue skin, and the various userboxes added were contradictory in their statements. This was a classic case of disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:33, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• Disruption how..? First you say its technical, now its disruptive(?). Its his userpage, and had you worded the comment more positively, he no doubt would've still removed them. Coming out of the blue and making such assumptions that a user is being slanderous is unacceptable. Please be more considerate with comments as such, and don't make people feel backed into a corner, I know we all would like chances to explain our opinions, but you simply came out and said his intention was to be disruptive, without allowing him to explain. More sutible would've been: "Why do you have such large amounts of boxes on your page..?" Then explain why its not good (politely), then inquire for a removal of them. I'm sure he would've agreed. -MegamanZero|Talk 20:43, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

It's disruptive because it strains the servers. I'd like you to look at this edit, made by Cyde on the Kelly Martin's RfC at 2330, 3 January. Just four hours previously, Cyde had edited his user page, placing nearly 900 userbox templates on it. Each template requires a separate database fetch in order to render the contents, each time the page is accessed. Many of the templates contain graphics, putting a load on the graphics server. At the top of the page, Cyde had placed an invitation: "If you see any userboxes I'm missing, please add them. If you see any that are broken/deleted/not properly formatted, please delete them." It was to this page that Cyde trollishly referred when he wrote on the RfC, in a place reserved for summaries of serious points: "Kelly's actions had a very detrimental effect on user pages such as this one".

Dutifully reading the RfC page and examining the evidence, I cannot have been the only person lured unsuspecting onto that page. The load on the servers was one thing; the load on my own system was also considerable. A dialup user would probably have had to cut his connection, and in some countries such connections are paid for by the minute (which goes up with long download times) or by the connection (which goes up each time you have to redial).

So it was disruptive. I'm convinced that Cyde intended it as a joke and didn't give a thought to the consequences, otherwise I'd have taken a more serious view of his conduct. I did have to do something about the disruption, however, and I did so quickly and decisively, deleting the problematic revisions and asking Cyde not to do it again. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

You're missing the point. Are you saying that this gives concensus for saying such comments to another user? Are you implying that this means avoiding discussion beforehand and deleting histories..? Are you defending the right to improve without taking consideration into effect..? I don't deny Cyde was a bit meschevious, but he certainly isn't the disruptive type. The point is, you should have asked about it first. I don't care what the reason, discuss beforehand. There is no reason to not think he wouldn't have removed it after inquiring in a more positive fashion regarding the situation. Simply citing: The load on the servers was one thing; the load on my own system was also considerable. A dialup user would probably have had to cut his connection, and in some countries such connections are paid for by the minute (which goes up with long download times) or by the connection (which goes up each time you have to redial). would have been more than enough to convice Cyde of the situation. But calling others names and backing them into defensive positions is uncalled for. Completely uncalled for. I wholefully back you on your viewpoint regarding the boxes. However, the way you do it and the reason why you do it are completely different. All I ask is some discussion beforehand regarding subjects such as this to get both sides viewpoints between both sides. This is the crap that happens when you decide to push people in corners and not discuss. Please do so, as more of this anger in the community is something I hope very much to avoid. -MegamanZero|Talk 23:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Not sure what you're getting at here. My actions were directed towards alleviating the load on the servers and making sure that other editors who read Cyde's misleading comment and followed the link would not get the same problems I got. He trolled but I don't think it's a big deal, except in the bad effect that it had, which I stopped. I asked him not to do it again. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

A lesson for you: Be bold. If you can master the Tao of that, you'll be ready to be an administrator. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 02:33, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

• It has nothing to do with being "Bold". My point is simple: be nicer when you say comments like that. The reason you said it, I agree, the way you said it, I don't. That's all. Its not too hard to take into acount how another person feels. And regarding adminship, I'm more concerned about mediating at the moment. :) -MegamanZero|Talk 05:54, 5 January 2006 (UTC)