User talk:Avillia/Archive1

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[edit] GNU/Linux

Hi, Avillia! I’m not going to welcome you to Wikipedia, since you seem to have been around for a while (your user page says years). Anyway, just thought I’d mention that I replied to your comment on Talk:Linux — a rather poor excuse for getting to deflower your talk page. :-) — Daniel Brockman 05:14, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Freemasonry - why they don't get along

Welcome to the wonderful world of the Freemasonry pages. I've got little interest in the main freemasonry page, but you see me editing some of the other pages including Catholicism and Freemasonry.

The majority of the editors are Freemasons, and are very protective towards an institution to which they've given a large amount of their adult spare time. They are also rather fed up with the anti-masonry propoganda on the internet. This however has the unfortunate effect that they will not accept any criticism (if you think that's an exageration one said that there were no legitimate criticisms of Freemasonry - and that was one of the better of the better ones). Some of them have resorted to vandalism and blanking of referenced sources.

This has not been helped by an anti-Masonic editor, Lightbringer, who keeps coming back as a different sock puppet every few weeks. However, now many of the Masonic editors now use the excuse that anyone who puts in any material that is critical of Freemasonry as being a sock of Lightbringer and routinely blanking material.

That's probably 10% of why the editors can't get along. It's sad and you're welcome, but be prepared for some real abuse. JASpencer 20:47, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dev Benegal

Please don't revert that page. It's an obvious vanity page. Zora 05:20, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but looking over it there are some parts which should remain, like the screenwriting credits. If you think it's good, alright, change it back, just saying. --Avillia 05:22, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
None of the truly famous screenwriters get lists of screen credits like that -- they just get a few mentions of their famous movies. The Dev Benegal page should not be ten times longer and more detailed than the pages for people of much greater accomplishments. (See Salim-Javed.) His movies were not hits, he has no real fame, that is self-promotion. Zora 08:13, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User page

Hi again! I see you've got your userpage sorted, and found some more stuff to add. Looks good. Anyway, it's nice to see people using elements of my userpage, suggests it must be a good design. Some of your monobook.css tweaks are interesting – mine's blank at the moment, but I guess I ought to try customizing it at some point – Gurch 11:37, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm still working on the appearance of the added tabs and one or two of the popup tweaks, but aside from that it's mostly done. Good to see your comfortable with me stealing your ideas! --Avillia 13:57, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Genetics of Pakistan

I created this page and plan to rewrite this page in the future. I have removed previous material due to copyright concerns. Siddiqui 20:51, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Kay. --Avillia 20:52, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scanger

Hey... Any particular reason for reverting my edits to this page? It's a shambles of a page, I'm just trying to bring it up to standard. What I've been deleting is basically bollocks that someone's written as a joke. Please leave the edits, or email about it at least!

All I see when going on a vandal reversion is a page that's been the topic of a lot of discussion being repeatedly blanked. Please copy the complete source into a text editor, make all the edits you need to, and drop it in one swoop. I know that a few others have been talking about the page as well, as the repeated blanking does, despite your intentions, appear to be vandalism. Sorry for the inconvience. --Avillia 21:06, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

No bother, sorry about that.

[edit] Edit summary

When reverting something (as in [1]) and the reason for the revert isn't obvious (vandalism, accidental edit, damage caused by the edit, etc), please use a relevant edit summary instead of just the standard popups or rollback autogenerated edit summary (even if this means you have to revert manually). --cesarb 21:35, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake. --Avillia 21:55, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comments on user talk pages.

Disclaimer: Please bear this in mind while reading the below: I am not taking sides but as a member of Esperanza, I believe in promoting positive well-being and avoiding conflicts. I'd like to say for the record that I am also a member of Wikipedia Review (I know both sides and am still not taking sides). Please assume good faith while reading this, as this is a constructive comment and has not been written to attack you in any way whatsoever.

I noticed your recent edit to SlimVirgin's talk page.

Such comments can be interpreted as trolling (and were reverted), as they exist only to provoke others. While we are all are entitled to our opinions, there is a time and a place for expressing them. Deliberately provoking a user on their talk page isn't the most constructive thing to do.

I would like to encourage you to make more positive contributions to Wikipedia.

Esperanzally yours, — nathanrdotcom (T • C • W) 06:35, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

And so, once again, a attempt at humor fails horribly. Alas. --Avillia 16:31, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rainbow colours on userpages

Well, your friendly neighborhood monster and her blinking babyzillas would all like to thank you for the rainbow vandalism. Their page gets purtier and purtier!

[edit] Carrol High School

Please do not re-add the borderline libelous material at Carroll High School (Fort Wayne, Indiana). Thanks. Aplomado - UTC 19:45, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry. A lot of page blanking vandalism today. --Avillia 19:47, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pornographic Links (goatse)

Wikipedia may not be censored for minors, but that does not mean that it is acceptable for articles to include a bunch of off-topic links to bizzare pornography. The article is about a certain website, and none of those links had anything to do with that site other than that they included pornographic images similar to those used by the site. - Conrad Devonshire 03:07, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I say again, check for consensus on the talk page. Pardoies of Goatse seemed alright for the topic, and a quick check of Talk didn't show consensus to remove. By the fact it was there and wasn't recently vandalized (unRVed vandalism) I assume there has been a editing consensus. Please try to discuss it on Talk first. --Avillia 03:16, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Blocks of 69.210.*.* IPs

Thanks, Avillia. I've sprotected the article instead. Regards, Sango123 (e) 03:26, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please stop reverting copyvios

See Talk:History of Guatemala#Merging content, SqueakBox 18:58, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Please either blank and use {copyvio} or leave the content and use a prod template, or a speedy delete template if it is less than 48 hours old. --Avillia 18:59, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

These were all speedied last night by another admin who located the copyvio's. This formerly blocked user is just repeat offending and my responsibility is to remove the copyvio's asap. if the press find us reverting proven copyvio removals from a repeat offender as in this case it would be negative publicity, SqueakBox 19:04, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalproof & GPL

Just to let you know, this is why I only intend to make source code available to trusted developers. AmiDaniel (Talk) 05:02, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Just to let you know, this is why I intend to open the wings of freedom and remove the shackles of tyranny from your software. --Avillia 05:05, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Why do I not buy that? Oh, I know why--because clichéd rhetoric and cheap hacks are usually the sign of someone lacking the creativity to actually improve others' work. I feel you may be confusing "the shackles of tyranny" with the lid of Pandora's box--should you succesfully remove the seven lines of code you so despise, you'll not be giving wings to my software, but rather free Wheels to ill-intentioned users. AmiDaniel (Talk) 05:36, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
And should I not, a vandal will. And if not a vandal, then a person just like me. If you think the people who have enough time to make Wiki vandalbots will just ignore your tool and it's vast possibilities for vandalism, you are sadly mistaken. Also, everyone deserves a wheel. They are so nice to roll around and throw at things. --Avillia 05:42, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Thus "why I only intend to make source code available to trusted developers." Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you just restated my case for me, including why you would not be considered a trusted developer. Thanks for your understanding! AmiDaniel (Talk) 05:56, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
And the source code isn't needed to work around a 7 line protection scheme. --Avillia 16:30, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I will personally block anyone whom I find using this software as violating the bot policy. I encourage you to take the file down, and warn you not to use it, or you will be blocked. Ral315 (talk) 06:15, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

AutoWikiBrowser is legitimate software, which has, if my understanding is correct, been approved by a bureaucrat and I know to a fact that it is used by administrators. It is not a bot: See WP:AWB. And if it is, the same policy would apply to WP:VandalProof as well. --Avillia 06:29, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
Yet both of those require a form of approval, and can be denied the privilege. Your "free" AWB does not require any sort of approval, and there's no way for administrators to stop vandalism with it apart from simple blocking- users can create new accounts and continue to vandalize with it. The approval of AWB was partly because of its strict approval structure. Ral315 (talk) 14:33, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
1. Why take so many steps to secure it when the mere presence of such a tool would attract fairly seasoned vandals? I'm sure as hell someone willing to write a Squidwardian vandalbot would rather take the five skips to patch the protection schemes of AWB or VP. 2. The tools themselves aren't exactly things a newbie would find out about quick, possibly by design: A vandal would actually need to be fairly familiar with the structure of Wikipedia aside from "Edit it and hope it isn't reverted within 2 minutes", as it's not particulary prominently linked anywhere: This could even be further enhanced by changing 'AutoWikiBrowser' to 'AWB' in the subst summary. And, of course, 3. Well, good thing it's impossible to tell users of AWB and FreeAWB apart! --Avillia 17:10, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
Are you completely unable to recognize that all you've done with removing the authentication is to make it a *prime* target for vandals to easily download and use? What other justification do you have for doing this other than your phobia of any kind of restrictions? The point of these protocols is to make it more difficult for vandals to turn them into tools of mischief--you're the one trying to make it easier for them. As I remarked on VP's talk page, any vandal will the skill and patience to reverse engingeer the executable and remove the authentication would be much better off writing his own vandalbot scripts more finely atuned to his purpose. Take down the link, and consider improving AWB rather than damaging it. AmiDaniel (Talk) 02:03, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I suppose I'm just a bit opposed to that which makes a 'sham' of Freedom Zero, which results in a cabal atmosphere to the editor not involved in WikiPolitics or a outsider, which hampers those who may wish to help moderate Wikipedia for one reason or another by forcing them through a approval process susceptible to bias and in and of itself biased against recent users, and so on and so forth when, again,

  • A vandal who thinks it's hilarious to randomly abuse a resource would not know about AWB, VP, or other Wikitools without a fairly high amount of knowledge of Wikipedia and Wikipedia Anti-Vandalism.

AND'

  • A vandal dedicated enough to constantly harass Wikipedia, who has the knowledge of Wikipedia to allow the use of a script to harass it, and who has the intelligence with a coding language to create a script to harass it would easily be able to sidestep the protection measures AWB and VandalProof use.

(made a new branch for the sake of formatting) --Avillia 03:05, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but wouldn't that highly dedicated and intelligent vandal find it soooo much easier to simply write his own scripts? I guarantee you that if my goal was to bring down Wikipedia or commit mass vandalism via a vandalbot, I could certainly write an app much more suited to that purpose than VP. What I'm concerned about are: 1) the severely ill-intention vandal finding this cool tool and saying "I could do a lot of damage!", and as both VP and AWB (especially AWB) are becoming very widely known, it's not so unlikely that any ole' idiot would find these tools and know how to use them to do harm. 2) The inexperienced user accidentally using it in ways it should not be used, a common problem with AWB users who go through removing invisible spaces and clogging recent changes, thus the need for experienced users. 3) The non-vandal and possibly well-known and respected user using my tool in an edit war or to harass others while we can do nothing but watch. 4) Similarly, the good user turned bad, who pissed off at some wiki policy, goes about vandalizing while we can again do nothing but watch and block his infinite sockpuppets. 5) A new breed of Willy's, who unlike the original, don't need to know how to code the scripts themselves--they can download mine. By the way, I should note yet again that my tool is FREEWARE, and I feel you're wearing out your welcome with many developers. There always does seem to be that one bad egg who takes something great, something like GPL, and ruins it for everyone--ultimately what you're doing is convincing everyone that it's a bad idea to release source code. Maybe that's your intent, maybe you're a rogue from Microsoft trying to halt the freeware competition, or maybe you really are as extreme about GPL as you claim to be. In any case, thanks to you, I will never again consider licensing VP under GPL. AmiDaniel (Talk) 03:26, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
First: If it can do as much damage as you claim it would, wouldn't it be very advantageous to a vandal to both do his damage AND cause a good deal of trouble for the author of a generally helpful program? Second: Experience comes through experience. A user with 1000 edits or a user with 10 edits does the same with the help materials offered for AWB (next to nil, if I'm not confusing projects). Three: WP:3RR is a amazing rule. Four: Blocking is a amazing tool. And, Four: Please don't licence it under the GPL if you plan on compromising the spirit of the GPL, which is free use and free modification. --Avillia 03:46, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the link to "FreeAWB", as this is potentially highly disruptive. Do not add it back, or any other links to the filefront page. I am extrememly disapointed in this abuse of my good faith. Martin 16:37, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I know this is not a legal issue, it is an issue of what is best for wikipedia. Please try and understand how this looks from my point of view, I have invested countless hours carefully developing a tool to aid in some tasks, I was also aware that this tool could be abused by vandals and more importantly missused by clueless new editors. So I spent a significant amount of time adding a restriction, and now you have just removed it claiming a "philosophical spirit", this is highly frustrating as I would never have released the software if I thought it would be used like this. Not only that but your actions are clearly counter productive to your own cause, as I am obviously not going to update sourceforge from now on, and AmiDaniel is obviously not going to release his software for further development. I suggest you remove the links to filefront and just use the normal version. When the dust has settled you could even help develop the original version, I think that would be a vastly superior outcome for all concerned than the alternative. Martin 20:30, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

One last thing: I understand you want to promote the "spirit of the GPL", which I generally agree with, but this is an unusual situation, as usuage of the software affects other people as well. So I would politely ask you to respect the spirit that the software was developed with. Martin 20:45, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Modified Version of AWB

Hi Avillia. I would like to kindly ask you to stop making available a modified version of AWB, which does not have the check to the AWB checkpage. I do not believe that this check is a serious hindering for any wikipedian. Applying for the inclusion on the check page is easy and handled quite promptly.

The original creator of AWB, Martin (Bluemoose) is not happy if you are providing such a modified version. While I agree with you, that there is nothing that you violated in doing so (if you publish your modified sources, which I believe is trivial), I personnally urge you to remove that exe from the Interent, as this is controversial. I do not believe that providing this modified exe is worth the trouble.

This would be a very kind action from your side. Please do us this favor, as I am sure you also do have an interest in keeping a good reputation of AWB. This is in the interest of all AWB users. Best regards, and in good faith. --Ligulem 19:46, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hello

Hi, I just wanna ask why you added a rainbow border in my userpage?--hottie 22:32, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Colored signatures

Hey; regarding your question at User talk:Rory096, WP:SIG#Customizing your signature is a good starting reference for helping you toy around with your sig. ~ PseudoSudo 20:49, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Public posts of private logs

Please do not publicly post logs from IRC channels that have a clear privacy policy prohibiting this. This includes posting logs across multiple pages, as you are doing on user talk pages. It is counterproductive to publicly post logs in order to request users' permission to publicly post logs; please contact them privately or describe the logs you wish to post ("...from the discussion concerning <subject> on <timestamp>"). Thanks. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 20:20, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

The privacy policy was updated to make it explicit. However, logging of such channels are widely considered private by default. For example, m:IRC channels (which you cited as proof of permission for public logging) states, "Some channels may be publicly logged. Although all channels may be privately logged, many of have a policy that channel logs must not be published." Channels which allow public logging are denoted as such in the notes column; this is not so for the channel in question. // [admin] Pathoschild (talk/map) 20:50, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
It was not listed in the topic, on Freenode, or on CounterVandalism.org prior. I only cited specific and relavant material, and there is no lesser a way to request permission for publication without virtually ensuring that I am not sucessful. --Avillia 21:09, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re:Permission to use IRC logs.

No- I do not give you permission to publish logs of my IRC chat. As far as I'm concerned talk in that channel is for confirmed trusted members of Wikipedia, and therefore things get talked about that should not be public for all to see on Wikipedia. Please also see the comment made by the channel owner Essjay on my talk page. Thanks. Petros471 20:20, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

i also deny you the right to use my logs same reasons as above Benon 22:17, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ok?

what's with the rainbows?--64.12.116.130 20:59, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Permission to use IRC logs.

I see no problem in quoting these particular lines; but I also fail to see any use on quoting them (and also, they only make sense with the example of incorrect usage some lines before it on the log). Could you please point me to the context where they are/were being quoted? --cesarb 00:55, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I think I found the context (User:Avillia/CVU Politics, Deleted revision as of 27 April 2006). I still do not think it's that relevant, though I accept it might be (my discussion of CIDR issues having no real relevance to the main situation, if I'm understanding the issues correctly). --cesarb 03:30, 27 April 2006 (UTC)