User talk:Black Falcon/Archive 6

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 This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
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This talk page archive covers the period 2008-04-01 to 2008-04-30.

Contents

Reliable sources for BLP's

Hi. Is MySpace an acceptable source for some non-controversial aspect of a BLP, like where they went to college? I know that generally it should not be used when a given MS page cannot be verified as the actual, official page of the author, but if the page contains personal photos that do not appear to be available to the general public or on Google, would that not indicate that it is the actual page belonging to that person? Also if this site gives the page as the official one of a cast member of The Real World or Road Rules, is it considered credible enough? Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 06:01, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

The BLP policy states that "material that has been self-published by the subject may be added to the article only if ... there is no reasonable doubt as to who wrote it". The presence of rare personal photos is one factor, but is itself not a guarantee that the MySpace page belongs to the subject of the article. I could try to offer a more informative response if you could specify which BLP (and MySpace page) is under discussion. (You could also seek input at the reliable sources noticeboard.) As for the blog, I was unable to identify to whom it belongs (or, at least, who claims it as their own). Is its ownership identified in a reliable source? Black Falcon (Talk) 16:30, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
This is the edit in question, in which the editor cited the MySpace page of Beth Stolarcyzk of The Real World: Los Angeles. This is the MySpace page that is allegedly hers that they cited. This is the site that gives the websites and MySpace pages of lots of alumni of The Real World and Road Rules, but I don't know how to ascertain its own reliability. Any ideas? Nightscream (talk) 03:42, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
(ec) I'm not sure about the MySpace page... on the whole, I don't think it should be given much (or any) weight. Her MTV biography and this Los Angeles Times article note that she is an "Ohio State graduate", but a LexisNexis news search for "Beth Stolarcyzk" yields two sources, including a personal interview, that indicate that she attended Ohio University rather than OSU. I think the issue may require further consideration or investigation but, again, don't think that the MySpace page should be given much weight. For the moment, I have replaced the MySpace link with citations to the two news sources. Black Falcon (Talk) 19:28, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Hey, thanks for adding those sources to the article! Just out of curiosity, how did you find them, given that they're not online sources? Do you have access to some journalism database or something? If so, is it open to the public? Thanks again. Nightscream (talk) 19:24, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
LexisNexis. Many libraries offer access to the database (especially university libraries), but unfortunately it's not free to the public. Black Falcon (Talk) 19:31, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Deletion Review for Template:Personality rights

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Template:Personality rights. Since you closed the deletion discussion for this article, speedy-deleted it, or were otherwise interested in the article, you might want to participate in the deletion review. howcheng {chat} 17:37, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for notifying me. I have offered my thoughts at the deletion review. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 21:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Opera singer categories

Hi. We communicated about category reform last month after you closed this cfd.

We've now moved forward with this on the Opera Project. I wonder if you can help us? There over 1,000 articles involved and I'm assuming you have the skills/machinery (AWB?) to process them.

Most opera singer articles are now in the following top level cats (numbers in parentheses):

We'd like to move the articles to specific 'operatic cats' - in line with Opera Project guidelines/discussions - as follows:

About 95 percent of the articles in the top level cats like Category:sopranos etc. are operatic - the others are a mixture of pop, folk, oratorio and other classical etc. I propose to weed these exceptions out by hand after the move and cat them appropriately. I know the opera singer articles quite well so this should not be too difficult.

What do you think? Is this a big bore, or is the move something you might be able to help us with?--Kleinzach (talk) 03:37, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

For a straightforward move of all 1,026 articles, a bot probably would be quicker and more efficient than AWB. The task would take about 80-90 minutes with AWB (assuming a rate of about 12-13 edits per minute), while bots like Cydebot and BetacommandBot can reach 25 and 50 edits per minute, respectively. However, I could do the task with AWB if you think some degree of selectivity (i.e. human judgment) in performing the moves would be useful.
One possible problem with a bot run is that all of the moves would take place at once (I suppose you could ask the bot operator not to do all of the moves at once, but you might need to remind him/her a few times...); if you want to proceed (with the weeding out of exceptions) at a more relaxed pace, AWB would be suitable to the task. Also, if you would like to experiment with different methods, I could use AWB to that end.
Incidentally, do you think it would be easier to weed out exceptions after the move or to create a list of exceptions prior to the move, in which case you would need to check only the 1,026 articles in the first eight categories rather than the articles in all sixteen categories?
Please let me know your thoughts. Black Falcon (Talk) 04:25, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. All things being equal I think I'd prefer to do it with you/AWB - ideally one category at a time. That way we can be certain that it won't go wrong. (The Opera Project have worked quite a lot with SatyrBot in the past, but he has a big backlog at present including another job for us.) If that's OK I can start making a list of exceptions for Sopranos and let you know when it's complete? (Incidentally I'll need to re-categorize the exceptions after the move, because in most cases they won't go back into the top level category.) How does that sound? --Kleinzach (talk) 04:43, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Sounds good. I can think of two ways to proceed with AWB (either option is OK with me):
  1. Move all articles in a category, so that you can then recategorise the exceptions (I assume that most of them will be going into the nationality-specific categories).
  2. Move only those articles that are not on the list of exceptions -- those articles would be left in the top-level category and could be recategorised from there.
Please let me know when you want me to start (or, if you prefer the second option, post the list of exceptions somewhere -- feel free to use my personal sandbox, if you like) and I will start the AWB run. Black Falcon (Talk) 05:14, 2 April 2008 (UTC) I will be logging out shortly, but will be back in about 10 hours.
Thanks. Maybe Option 2? I've done the list of exceptions for the sopranos and put them in your sandbox. (I'll add the others soon). Any time convenient for you is OK - I'm in Japan . . . --Kleinzach (talk) 08:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I'll do a run for Category:Contraltos (the smallest category) right now and, if everything looks good to you, will proceed to doing the others as well. (I'm in Canada, by the way). Black Falcon (Talk) 17:09, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Done. What do you think? Black Falcon (Talk) 17:55, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Perfect! Ideal! Any time you want to do the other women is fine. I'll continue doing the male exceptions. --Kleinzach (talk) 22:55, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
OK, I'll start on the other two categories now. Black Falcon (Talk) 00:13, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Category:Mezzo-sopranos is done. Black Falcon (Talk) 00:50, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Great. No problems.--Kleinzach (talk) 01:04, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
The run for Category:Sopranos is done (it took this long because I didn't have access to my main computer - which has AWB installed - for most of April 3 and 4). I will move on to the categories for the male singers... Black Falcon (Talk) 20:28, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Category:Tenors and Category:Countertenors - done. Black Falcon (Talk) 05:07, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I've been away - hence my slow response - but it all looks great, no problems. I hope you didn't have to do any of it without AWB. Best. --Kleinzach (talk) 12:49, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

No, it's all been done using AWB, although it's been taking a little longer since I'm also making some other minor corrections to articles (e.g. defaultsorting, removing unnecessary link piping). I should be able to finish the remaining three categories today. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 15:56, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
All done! (By the way, should Kristinn Sigmundsson be in Category:Operatic basses or Category:Operatic bass-baritones?) Black Falcon (Talk) 18:18, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Splendid, splendid! Great to get that all done and out of the way - and yes thanks for noticing Kristinn Sigmundsson who is a bass. Best. --Kleinzach (talk) 23:37, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
OK, then... Please feel free to let me know if there is another task on which I can help. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 23:47, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Notes

  1. I've edited your proposal a bit, and left a note on its talk page. (See also: Wikipedia:User categories, the intro may look semi-familiar : )
  2. Whoever (I haven't discovered who yet) did the work on Category:Wikipedians interested in television depopulated the subcats too. Would you help with finding them?

Thanks in advance : ) - jc37 16:24, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, nevermind the second, it seems that it's User:Lady Aleena acting contrary to the closure. I'll revert for now. If it continues, perhaps someone will have to request protection. - jc37 16:36, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
With regard to the first issue, I think you may be right. Many of the categories ("all-inclusive", "overly narrow scope", "not-based") concern issues of overcategorisation rather than WP:NOT. I've responded at the talk page. As for the second issue, I'll comment at the newly-opened UCFD. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 18:02, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I've done a fair amount of structuring and linkifying, and just general cleanup of text of both pages. Curious as to what you think. - jc37 18:05, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I haven't been checking my watchlist very much in the past few days and so had missed quite a bit of this... Looking over the new structure, I think it's excellent!
The lack of a single page to provide guidance for user categorisation has been an issue for many months (definitely since I became active at UCFD, and perhaps even before), and I think your decision to split out relevant content from Wikipedia:Userboxes to a page that essentially serves as a "central hub" for guidance related to user categories was definitely a good one. Moreover, both pages seem to function as extensions of a larger set of guidelines regarding categorisation -- I think this too has been a problem at UCFD, as sometimes manifested in confusion regarding "userboxes versus user categories" (e.g. what functions each has, how UCFD discussions will affect each) and "self-identification versus self-categorisation".
Overall, great job! I hope that there will be support for adoption of Wikipedia:Overcategorization/User categories as a guideline, and that the combination of the two pages will help to make UCFD somewhat less stressful. :)
Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 17:35, 8 April 2008 (UTC) P.S. With regard to your comment here, I think it could be worked in, though I'd like to take a more detailed look at LA's proposal first.
Thanks : )
I solved a few issues through transclusion (the intro to both pages, and the UCFD links, for example)
I also originally retained Wikipedia:User categories transcluded at Wikipedia:Userboxes. But finally decided that it should be linked and not transcluded. I tried to minimise how much is actually at the userboxes page, in the hopes the editors will actually click the link.
Also, some credit should go to User:Trialsanderrors (and User:Quarl, who apparently did the initial split)) from what I learned about splitting guidelines when Wikipedia:Canvassing was split from Wikipedia:Spam.
Anyway, if you have the time or inclination, please give them a thorough "going over". (Many eyes typically means fewer errors and greater clarity...)
Thanks again : ) - jc37 17:57, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Will do... By the way, I noticed that you transcluded the introduction to both pages, but to what "UCFD links" are you referring? Black Falcon (Talk) 18:02, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:User categories for discussion/See also - so much nicer to transclude that than to try to replicate the links. I've also created a short cut now. (WP:UCFD/SA) Though now I wonder if I should have used "links" rather than "see also"... I guess it doesn't matter all that much : ) - jc37 18:09, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Ah, I see it now. Thanks, Black Falcon (Talk) 18:12, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Re: Gavin Walsh

Good work! ... discospinster talk 03:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Deletion nomination - Template:Disclaimer-military

Received notice of your deletion nomination for this template and courses of action available to me. Accordingly, I have removed the {{deprecated}} tag pending discussion, and posted my objection at Wikipedia_talk:Deprecated_and_orphaned_templates#Objections. I would appreciate your further thoughts, as well as others. Thank you for the courtesy of a heads-up.    ¥    Jacky Tar  05:50, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I have commented at the talk page. In light of your explanation, I agree that speedy deletion is not the appropriate course of action. Thank you (for the explanation and your notice here), Black Falcon (Talk) 05:53, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Max Meili category change

I note that you changed the category for Max Meili from "tenors" to "operatic tenors," together with an admonition to "report mistakes here." I'm not sure that the change is a "mistake," exactly; he did participate in some opera performances, as far as I can tell mostly of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, although they included creating a role in one contemporary work. Thus, when putting the article together I reasoned that he fell within the scope of the opera project, however tangentially. Nonetheless, he was an early music specialist, and as such fundamentally much more of a concert than an operatic singer. I'll freely admit that choosing categories is probably the thing I do worst on Wikipedia--I invariably seem to miss one or more or to append something inappropriate, and just trying to navigate the various lists of available categories always seems to leave me tied up in mental knots--but I'm wondering if, in this case, the change might call for a second look? My apologies for making bother! [PS, added as an edit: if you haven't heard him and can play 78s, I'd strongly recommend searching out the Victor set of lute songs; categories aside, I think he had one of the loveliest lyric tenor voices of his day.] Drhoehl (talk) 23:40, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

It's no bother at all... :)
After looking in more detail at the article and related sources, I cannot be sure... On the one hand, he is an opera singer; on the other, sources specifically note that he rarely participated in opera and is better-known as a concert and oratorio singer. Since opera is not my speciality and I am doing the recategorisation of "tenors" to "operatic tenors" on request of WikiProject Opera (see here for details), I have asked another user (User:Kleinzach - who initiated the linked discussion) to comment. Black Falcon (Talk) 00:25, 7 April 2008 (UTC) I haven't heard him, but I've always had a fondness for lute songs. If I'm able to find his music, I may take your recommendation...
Thanks to Drhoehl for his comment. Singer cat reform is a long process and much remains to be done. Black Falcon has been helping me with the opera singer cats, putting operatic tenors etc. labels on all those who made a notable contribution to opera - which would seem to include Max Meili.
At the moment oratorio, orchestral song, lieder etc all come under the Classical music project. I'm a participant in this, but as far as I know no work has been done on a category structure for extra-opera singers, although a number of people have made suggestions. (If you wanted to take this on yourself I'd be happy to provide more information - I know where most of the other 'concert' singers are!) Best. --Kleinzach (talk) 00:43, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
OK, fair enough. I just wanted to make sure that the category shift was appropriate in light of how the category is interpreted. Thanks to both of you for taking the time and trouble to double check! As to setting up a structure for non-operatic voice categories, although I'm not sure I'm really all that well qualified, I won't say "no," but "maybe"--just not for a little while, as I contemplate a trip out of town shortly and in the meantime have my hands full trying to tame List of classical pianists and Classical pianists (recorded), which had fallen into a real mess. I've copied all the names between the lists that appeared in only one place when they should, at least arguably, have appeared in both, but the "general" list is sadly lacking in pre-20th-century names, and it's to that task that I've now turned my attention. (I'll copy this to Kleinzach's talk page to spare him checking here.) Drhoehl (talk) 21:13, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll reply on your userpage. --Kleinzach (talk) 23:05, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

User categories relating to media and genres

Black Falcon...You are invited to discuss a guideline for the naming and organization of user categories that involve media and genres. - LA @ 10:05, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Privacy and other concerns

Can you kindly look into the privacy concerns in this update by User:Bodhi dhana as well as WP:NPA on line item 1. Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 21:11, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the part in question and left a comment at User talk:Bodhi dhana#Talk:Sri Lankan placename etymology. Black Falcon (Talk) 16:41, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, can you move over redirect per this please. The new name should be Tamil British which is better cited. Taprobanus (talk) 16:27, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Just a clarification: should the new name be Tamil British or British Tamils? Both are redirects to the article, both are mentioned at the discussion to which you linked, and examples of both styles exist (e.g. Pakistani British and British Indian). Black Falcon (Talk) 16:41, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Mill Mountain Zoo

Nomination looks good, Thanks! Patriarca12 (talk) 22:26, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Harry Plunket Greene

He's not an operatic baritone, so I have reverted your edit. He sang in opera no more than once or twice and immediately gave it up for his concert career. Eebahgum (talk) 01:24, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the mistake, and thanks for correcting it. Black Falcon (Talk) 01:32, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I think that was my mistake! --Kleinzach (talk) 01:39, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
It was about a thousand articles, so only 1-2 error reports so far (this one and Max Meili, which seems to have been resolved) is very low... Black Falcon (Talk) 01:49, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it went very well. --Kleinzach (talk) 01:52, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Haha! I see you are keeping yourselves busy! I am about to revert Elena Gerhardt too, as she did just study a role or two, but her career was all Lieder. Will keep you informed if I find others!! Best, Eebahgum (talk) 02:18, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Actually she did sing in the Leipzig Opera (at least according to the article) . . . Black Falcon is really the guru here, you can put opera-related corrections on my talk page. --Kleinzach (talk) 03:47, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Shoshone (Snake River sternwheeler)

thanks for the good word, what's astounding about this is that it wasn't a rubber raft but a big steamboat.Mtsmallwood (talk) 03:53, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't know much about boats, but even to me it seems an amazing feat to navigate a 41m-long vessel through Hells Canyon (based on what I've read about the course of the Snake River in that area). Black Falcon (Talk) 04:17, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Updated DYK query On 11 April 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Shoshone (Snake River sternwheeler), which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Daniel Case (talk) 17:19, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Request

I started doing it manually, but I see that it will take quite a while manually. Presuming you have such tools (which I "think" you do?) would you be willing to add/replace the cats for the pages listed here to be Category:Lists of userboxes, the name(s) after the initial "Userboxes" for the alpha sort?

For example, Wikipedia:Userboxes/Sports/Football/American would have the cat: [[Category:Lists of userboxes|Sports/Football/American]] (with or without the "/", at your option, just as long as it's consistant : )

Note that there are a few pages which aren't lists. If you can selectively avoid them, fine, if not, I'll be happy to fix those (remove the new list cat) manually, after-the-fact (as there are far fewer of those).

Thanks in advance. - jc37 16:44, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm online for only a few moments right now, but I'll take a look at this when I'm back (in about 6 hours). At first glance, this looks like something that shouldn't be too hard to do with AWB. Black Falcon (Talk) 18:55, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Ok, thank you : )
Also, I've been cleaning up some (rarely if ever to be used) redirects. Wikipedia:Userboxes/Food/Chinese_Food now redirects to User:Mizunoryu/Userboxes/Chinese Food (a subpage of the userbox creator). Would you be willing to also "repair" these as well? (So that the redirect may also be deleted.) - jc37 23:34, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Sure, these are both things that I can do with AWB. It's nighttime right now where I am, but I can do this in the morning (at about 17:00 UTC). Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 06:07, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Repairing tranclusions - done. Black Falcon (Talk) 18:04, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Cool : )
Found another that needs doing: these are links to WP:BOX. Would you please change them to WP:UBOX. BOX should probably be deleted, and then made a shortcut to Wikipedia:Sandbox. (We want people to go practice there : )
Thanks again for all your help : ) - jc37 18:48, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Is this what you had in mind for the category? (Aside from various guideline subpages that are transcluded on Wikipedia:Userboxes and a number of redirects, there are two pages that I didn't edit: Wikipedia:Userboxes/Gallery and Wikipedia:Userboxes/Large/Licencing.) Black Falcon (Talk) 22:42, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes! : )
I'd comment that "Gallery" is also transcluded, but you caught it anyway : )
I've been fairly hard at work removing quite a bit of stuff that weren't either lists pages, or transclusions. At one point, it seems that everyone involved in the "Userbox debate" had created their own personal shortcut. I've managed to orphan most of them. (Most were 10 links or less.) So hopefully that helped with the process.
Anyway thanks again : ) - jc37 00:53, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
(To hopefully reduce confusion) - Related to the above is this discussion. He's attempting to implement Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2008_April_6#Userbox_categories. - jc37 01:36, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Wow... I never knew there was such a mess with userboxes. A few titles are obviously redundant (e.g. Wikipedia userboxes, Wikipedian userboxes) and I'm not sure how to interpret Category:Original Wikipedian userboxes (to what does "original" refer?). Kudos to you for trying to make sense of it. :) If there's something I can do (with or without AWB) to help the reorganisation, please let me know.
With regard to WP:BOX, are you sure it should be orphaned? It's not an entirely implausible shortcut for Wikipedia:Userboxes (though, as you note, there is an alternate target)... Black Falcon (Talk) 19:39, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
See User_talk:Koavf, and please feel free to join in. (I should note something that I didn't notice at first: Koavf is not an admin. And though we allow non-admin closures, they shouldn't be any with delete results, and this one did. I was intending on asking Kbdank71 to finallise the close, since he initially offered, once this ReOrg was done, but you (or any other admin, for that matter) are welcome to as well. In addition, in going over the user's closes, while they're doing decently, I think they could possibly use a bit of mild coaching at times, or at least watching. So please feel free to keep an eye out.)
As for BOX, yes, my intention is to immediately redirect it to Wikipedia:Sandbox as soon as the redirects are fixed. (This has been done innumerable times. WP:EA is just one example of this.) I had considered not having it redirect anywhere, since it can refer to so many things. But all things being equal, the sandbox should have priority.
Oh, and if you'd like to have some fun, check out my deletion log to see how many redirects that Wikipedia:Userboxes used to have. (This doesn't include the dozen, more or less, that it still has : ) - jc37 21:17, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I'll pitch in if I can (I'll have to see how much of the close has already been implemented). As for WP:BOX, I noticed that some of the incoming links seem to be caused by repeated transclusion of a single page (e.g. User:The Raven's Apprentice/Userboxes/User UBX Maniac - check the edit history). I'll try to manually identify and tweak these and then update the other incoming links using AWB. What would you suggest as an edit summary for the AWB run: something like "repairing redirect in preparation for retargeting to Wikipedia:Sandbox"?
I checked your deletion log and ... yikes! Were these all created by different people? And why was a shortcut with an ellipsis ("WP:USER...") ever created? :) Black Falcon (Talk) 23:53, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
BOX to UBOX (or UBX, if you prefer) is just "dab link" or "dab links" (depending on if the page has one or more to be changed). We're not actually repairing the redirect (that's something else altogether, and you probably don't want to get involved with those... depending on the prior usage, those can be LOTS of work...)
I'm not sure if I understand (yet) what you're describing about the repeated transclusions, but I'll check them out next : )
And the shortcuts were created mostly during the great userbox debates. I'm still trying to decide what should be done (if anything) with User:Box. - jc37 02:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
After looking over this, and seeing only 5 links, one of which is the target page, and one of which is this page (!), UBOX probably should be gone as well. It looks like WP:UBX is the clear "winner" for usage. (Though, perhaps the best answer is to just replace the redirect with Wikipedia:Userboxes...) - jc37 03:45, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
And I see what you mean about transclusion. Ouch. - jc37 04:05, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
It looks like a bunch are versions of: {{userbox|Red|White|!|This user is a [[WP:BOX|userbox]] [[kleptomaniac]].}} - jc37 04:35, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
(de-dent) And found a User:Boxes, as well. (I'm glad you're offline now, else I'd probably be driving you nuts with all these notes : ) - jc37 04:41, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
I think all the transclusions are done de-cache-ing : ) - jc37 18:00, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
User:Box made me chuckle, but I lean toward deletion since the page seems to have served whatever purpose it had; it is now obsolete. (The same applies to User:Boxes.) ... I'll start on the links now. Black Falcon (Talk) 18:17, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
I've removed about 50 links so far, and am wondering whether there's a bot that could do the rest... Many of the pages are quite large and it takes AWB a long time to load them (I even had to restart the program twice). Incidentally, most of the uses of WP:BOX seem to be from mid-2007 or before, although there were a few uses as late as February of this year. Black Falcon (Talk) 19:20, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Ouch. I know Kbdank has a bot, but I'm not sure what it's "cleared" for.
What "hurts" is that most of the pages are likely links on a userpage with a horde of userboxes. (I keep finding examples of [[WP:BOX|Userboxes]] in the top of userbox columns.)
It's too bad that we can't just open "edit this page" before having to view the page. then you could change your preferences to not show the page as default when editing.
What's your thought? - jc37 21:14, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
That could work... Since the change is not a complex one that would require review, I could just have AWB load the edit window rather than a full preview of the page. I'll make the change and try the AWB run with those preferences. Black Falcon (Talk) 16:42, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm currently doing the final run. Would you retarget WP:BOX to the sandbox? I think that might make it more clear to users what exactly the edit summary of "dab link" means... Black Falcon (Talk) 19:55, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I did. And added the link to the Sandbox page, realising too later that that header is transcluded, so then I "undid" that edit. In addition, I was reverted in the redirect change, as noted here. I guess the links should be fixed first, to prevent further confusion... - jc37 21:02, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
OK, fair enough... There are about 150 remaining. Black Falcon (Talk) 21:05, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Y Done. The remaining incoming links are ones that are intended for Wikipedia:Sandbox (e.g. User talk:Kliu1), are about the redirect itself (e.g. User talk:AuburnPilot), or could not be fixed by AWB. Anyway, I think it's safe now to retarget the redirect. Black Falcon (Talk) 23:06, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
It took some searching, but I found the stragglers and fixed those links as well : )
Redirect retargeted.
That was quite a bit of work. Very nice job : ) - jc37 01:18, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

DYK nom

Updated DYK query On 11 April 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Horreum, which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--BencherliteTalk 00:30, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

John Roderick (correspondent)

Updated DYK query On 11 April 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article John Roderick (correspondent), which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Cirt (talk) 10:02, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I have added this article into the rotation of WP:DYKs at Portal:Journalism. If you know of any other journalism-related articles that were highlighted at T:DYK, please let me know. Cirt (talk) 10:02, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar

The Original Barnstar
Long overdue for all the fine UCFD work you have been doing for a long time. VegaDark (talk) 01:47, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

DYK

Updated DYK query On 13 April 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Gavin Walsh, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Royalbroil 05:30, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Ancestry

While I'm staying neutral to the discussion, I'd like to note that you didn't tag (or list) Category:Wikipedians of Taiwanese ancestry, though you use that cat as an example. And Category:Wikipedians of Chinese Canadian heritage would also seem to be fall within the boundaries of your nomination. - jc37 15:55, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Oops... Thanks for pointing those out. :) I'll tag both and add them to the nomination. Black Falcon (Talk) 16:09, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Backwards Title

DYK

Updated DYK query On 14 April 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Levi Todd, which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Cirt (talk) 12:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks

Thank you for the Barnstar, that was very nice of you. - jc37 20:44, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

deleting my contributions to lake restoration wiki-site

Hi, you just told me you were going to delete my article on eutrophic water bodies. This is the article I wanted to contribute for the professionals of the community in the Wiki lake project community. I am authorized to use anything from www.aquaticrestorationsllc.com. I am Jack mosel, Its' owner.

JM —Preceding unsigned comment added by Moseljack (talk • contribs) 20:33, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

While you may own the website, the page from which the material was copied (see here) indicates that the copyright to the text (it looks like an abstract of a scholarly paper) is owned by Robert L. Laing. Unless the material has been freely licensed by the copyright-holder, it cannot be copied to Wikipedia in full. For more details, you can consult Wikipedia:Copyrights. Black Falcon (Talk) 20:44, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

BLP policy

Hi there. That revert was actually the contribution of banned editor, User:Amorrow. Just FYI ;) - Alison ❤ 22:07, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

That's a lot of sockpuppets... Thanks for letting me know, Black Falcon (Talk) 22:14, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
That's only some of them. We don't generally mark them any more. Let me know if he comes back, okay? Jimmy banned that guy himself, and he is extremely unwelcome here. Thanks again ;) - Alison ❤ 22:35, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Magic powers

Love to hear how it's deleted with no entry in the deletion log : ) - jc37 07:34, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I've heard that it's a standard feature in the next release of Sysop 2.0... ; ) Black Falcon (Talk) 14:49, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I deleted it (no, it doesn't show up in my deletion log). There is a problem with logging that causes this to happen on occasion (blocks and any other logged actions as well, I believe). It has happened to me 3 times ever to my knowledge, first about a year ago when I first became admin. It is a known bug that I believe (or at least hope) is being worked on, although apparently with slow progress. VegaDark (talk) 04:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Question

Please see this. This section is cited almost exclusively by a report of a case that is still in process in Australia. Couple of ethnic Tamil men were being charged for connection with LTTE and duping people thinking of aiding Tsunami into funding LTTE. The problem is that these are allegation and no court ruling has been made. Since the defense denies that they are members of LTTE or funding for them I believe that it is not suitable in the LTTE article. To me this could be seen as a violation of WP:BLP. Can you comment on this at the article talk page hereWatchdogb (talk) 21:31, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I'll have a look. Black Falcon (Talk) 06:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Could you please share your thoughts regarding Nitraven's comments at WT:SLR#"Local villagers of Tamil Eelam" and WT:SLR#Lakshman Algama? Thanks, Black Falcon (Talk) 06:09, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I have commented on WT:SLR#"Local villagers of Tamil Eelam". However, I do not see any new development at WT:SLR#Lakshman Algama. Am I missing something ? Watchdogb (talk) 13:16, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, I'm happy that the "local villagers" issue seems to have been resolved. As for WT:SLR#Lakshman Algama, I was referring to Nitraven's post of "03:26, 29 March 2008 (UTC)" and the subsequent discussion in the section at WT:SLR. The section immediately below this one (#Ranjan Wijeratne) is also directly related to the issue. Black Falcon (Talk) 18:34, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I have replied at WT:SLR#Lakshman Algama. Thanks for working out the problem WT:SLR#"Local villagers of Tamil Eelam". Much thanks to you ! Watchdogb (talk) 21:31, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your comment on the talk page of the LTTE article. I have raised another question on the article talk page about a related concern. Your expert comment would be greatly appreciated. Watchdogb (talk) 17:28, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Ranjan Wijeratne

I will look at this later today. It's embarrassing to say that I've written on the relationship between terror and some useful terminology in nuclear strategy, but, until I have more coffee, I can't remember where I did so. Let me, therefore, share some definitions that I think might be very helpful in categorizing attacks. They are from Herman Kahn's On Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios. If they prove useful, it occurs to me that the idea of applying them to terrorism may be worth having as an essay somewhere. Clearly, there is original synthesis here, but perhaps a consensus can be established that it is a useful way to organize facts.

The three relevant types deal with counterforce attacks, where the principal target is military.

  • Counterforce with avoidance accepts a greater risk of not destroying the target, to reduce risk to civilians (i.e., countervalue). This, of course, is more practical when one side has precision-guided weapons. There is an increasing amount of writing that examines the Japanese kamikaze as some of the first precision-guided weapons, which only engaged military targets, and, by extension, a suicide bomber that uses the smallest possible bomb and tries to get next to the target is arguably using this type of attack.
  • Straight counterforce defines an attack that has the maximum chance of destroying the target, without particular concern for civilian casuaties.
  • Counterforce with bonus may or may not accept a greater risk of failing to destroy the target, but specifically tries to increase civilian casualties. In nuclear warfare, this usually took the form of using a larger explosion, perhaps aiming the weapon at a position between a military target and a civilian area, with a blast large enough to hit both.

The WWII assassination (not everyone calls it that) of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was by military aircraft attacking other military aircraft, over the open sea. It's hard to do much more in the way of avoiding, although, for example, one of the passengers was the fleet medical officer, who might have been considered a noncombatant.

Hiroshima is arguable. Some call it pure countervalue. It's relatively unknown that the aiming point for the bomb was a landmark only slightly offset from Hiroshima Castle, which was the command post for the defense of southern Japan -- the first area where an Allied invasion would have landed. I tend to think that counterforce with bonus is closer to the point. Nagasaki was a little closer to unmodified counterforce, as the targets were factories surrounded by hills that deflected some of the blast away from the main city.

Anyway, see what you think of these models, which is the way I will approach the problem. Incidentally, there is a discussion of how to deal with POV in articles at User:Folantin/Userspace Folantin5, where your thoughts would be welcome. The Sri Lanka project seems to be the best in Wikipedia in working out POV problems. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 16:19, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Did you want responses here or on the article page? I have some preliminary thoughts, although, unfortunately, they raise more questions. Patterns of Global Terrorism seems to make quite a few assumptions.
From that source, "In March 1991, the LTTE returned to urban terrorism with the car-bomb assassination of Deputy Defense Minister Ranjan Wijeratne in Colombo. Scores of innocent bystanders were killed or injured." I'd want to know more before I decided if this was terrorism. Were there any other ways to attack him? Was the car bomb detonated at a time and place where large civilian casualties should have been expected, and was that placement deliberate? Was the bomb itself at all directional -- explosions won't be completely directional, but, assuming the bomb-makers knew the techniques (e.g., Misznay-Schardin effect), one could put more force into the street and less to the sides and rear.
The source also says "A second car-bomb attack in June devastated the government's Military Operations Headquarters, again taking many civilian lives." Again, not enough detail. Were the civilians working in the headquarters, which would make them a legitimate target, or were they outside the building and not reasonably associated with it? Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 17:46, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Anywhere would be fine... With regard to the details of the attack, the most informative reliable source seems to be this BBC report, which notes that the attack took place during the "morning rush hour", suggesting that civilian casualties could have been expected. I've not been able to find any details about the planning or execution of the attack.
Kahn's typology of counterforce attacks is most informative and could, I think, inform the discussion. Based on the information available, the 2 March 1991 bombing would seem to be an example of straight counterforce or, if one considers the LTTE's history of attacks against civilian targets in Colombo, counterforce with bonus. Of course, lacking proper details about the attack itself, it's hard to make a clear classification.
I will take a look at the userspace discussion later today—from a brief review just now, I gained the impression that there is ample material there that could be applied to a variety of conflicts and content disputes. Black Falcon (Talk) 18:29, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Question

I know you made this change (among others) as a result of the CfD. Not questioning the outcome, but a question on what next the MidWest category was made out of a compromise when one editor didn't think the state categories shoudl exist. However we still have at least Category:Children's museums in California Category:Children's museums in New York and Category:Children's museums in New York City (the latter of which was just re-populated via another CfD discussion). Are those going away now as well? I ask because I firmly believe Category:Children's museums in the United States is far too broad especially when the rest of the museums are categorized. But I don't want to create the categories and still go round and round with CfDs, especially since in this case I thought the nom's desire was an upmerge. Can you clarify? THanks! TRAVELLINGCARIMy storyTell me yours 16:17, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

The nominator's desire in the April 13 CFD was only that the contents of the regional subcategories for New England and the Midwest be moved back into Category:Children's museums in the United States; the nomination did not extend to any state categories. The state categories themselves, especially those that contain more than just one or two articles, need not be upmerged.
There is some disagreement about when a category for an individual state is justified, but I think that Vegaswikian's advice is mostly reflective of the current compromise: "If there are several from one state, you can create a state category. Once a reasonable number of states have categories, then you can add the others since it is clear that there is a series." So, a category for Indiana, which would contain only one article at this time, is probably premature. However, a category for Texas could be justified, since there are currently two articles about children's museums in Texas (Children's Museum of Houston and The Grace Museum). I hope that helps. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 16:50, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
It did, and when I went further through my watchlist I realized what had been done. Some seem to have returned to a home but others like Kohl McCormick StoryBus appear homeless. Should I create a category for them? As we work through the Children's museums (including the vast majority that are not categorized into even the broad cats) there will ideally be cats for most states since the membership of ACM shows there are many more museums than currently exist on Wikipedia. Thanks for your help TRAVELLINGCARIMy storyTell me yours 18:22, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Since Category:Children's museums in Illinois currently exists, I've added the article to that category. Later today, I'll do a quick sweep through the ACM list to try to find any articles that are not currently within the Children's museums in the United States category tree. Black Falcon (Talk) 19:19, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for you're help -- we're working on it at WP:MUSEUMS as well, I just wanted to make sure none got lost TRAVELLINGCARIMy storyTell me yours 19:01, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
So far, I've been only been able to find one that had not been categorised: Discovery Gateway, which I've placed in the main US category. If I encounter any others, I'll be sure to recategorise them as necessary. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 19:06, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Myst Franchise Pages

Thank you for your time regarding my undeletion requests. These articles will be very helpful while working on improvements to the Myst articles. Please feel free to keep track of my progress on my user page. Thanks again! -- OranL (talk) 04:49, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free media (Image:Play N Trade logo.gif)

Thanks for uploading Image:Play N Trade logo.gif. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. BJBot (talk) 13:52, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

AWB concerns

Would you please check the recent contributions history of User:Koavf. See also User talk:Koavf, where I've left a few questions.

I think that this is an enthusiastic editor who started to cross the line to disruption, and may have done so quite a while ago, but I'm just now seeing the extent of the potential damage.

Am I missing something here? I would strongly appreciate your thoughts/insight. - jc37 18:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll just post here to keep the thread intact. Reading through his talk page and archive, this isn't the first problem someone has had with his editing. I distinctly remember he closed some CFD's as a non-admin, and also depopulated some categories while the CFD was ongoing. It would appear that he is trying to be helpful, and not be disruptive on purpose. That said, I don't remember reading any policy that states good-intentioned disruption is ok. Not sure what to do. Don't want to drive someone away who could be an asset to the project, but I also don't want to have someone follow him around to make sure his editing is ok. --Kbdank71 19:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Review Jc37 has politely asked me to refrain from using AWB until I get more feedback and I am honoring that request. In the meantime, I'll review the user manual and await your response. By the way, I authored this as you wrote your response above. Again, please let me know what you would like from me. -Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Incidentally, while I've found several arbitration and various WP:AN (and sub-board) discussions/resolutions concerning such tools I don't see much actually "codified" anywhere. WP:AWB has a skeleton of some rules, and WP:BOT more addresses the code itself than the usage of the code. Please let me know if you find even an essay concerning this. - jc37 19:43, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
(ecx2) With regard to removal of categories that haven't been deleted, I didn't notice any other such edits except on Template:User Greek. As for these two edits, I would guess that they were null edits done to remove the pages from a deleted category. (Of course, the edit summaries should have been changed.) I don't think it's a case of disruption (and the comment above strongly reinforces that impression), but rather perhaps a lack of attention on some edits... Black Falcon (Talk) 19:44, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, since we're all here... What would you (plural) suggest? - jc37 19:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
In my experience, the likelihood of errors with AWB is significantly increased when multiple tasks (e.g. "apply general fixes", "remove category") are performed at once, unless every edit is carefully checked. If the range of functions carried out by AWB on a particular run is limited to just category removal or replacement, much less manual oversight is required.
Since Koavf has an interest in CFD and UCFD, my suggestion would be for him to remain mindful of the category deletion policy (in particular, that discussions should rarely be closed before 5 days have elapsed) and the guidelines for non-admin closes, and just to use a little more care with AWB runs (or to carry out fewer tasks on any given run).
Incidentally, I noticed that you asked Koavf to use more descriptive edit summaries (see here) when changing categories, and this series of edits suggests that the advice was taken and incorporated. Black Falcon (Talk) 20:22, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
(De-dent) - (Was waiting for Kbdank, but he can answer/comment at his leisure : )
Well, from what I can tell, three editors (who also happen to be admins, and who have regular experience at closing discussions, aa well as with dealing with categories as a result of such discussions), have concerns with your (Koavf's) edits, and not just AWB usage.
I support the analysis and remedies by Black Falcon above.
If you need help with appropriate wording for certain kinds of edit summaries, ask either one of these editors (or me, I suppose). They both operate such tools, and I would easily implicitly trust their judgement in this (and their usage of the tools, of course).
You may also want to read over: Wikipedia:Edit summary legend.
One point that I'd like to also remind you of (noted on the page that Black Falcon already pointed you to) is that non-admins should not close discussions with results of "delete". That and perhaps (noting that this is merely a suggestion) you might want to hold off on closing discussions for a bit. Instead, read over them over, and ask questions to one of us three (or any other admin who regularly closes discussions). Kbdank was greatly helpful to me with this before I became an admin. (If you ask nicely he may even coach you : )
I also appreciate that you're taking this in the vein in which it's being offered.
And I do hope this helps. - jc37 20:43, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks As I think you understand, I am receptive to constructive criticism and I try to not make the same twice - e.g. after being informed of the procedure for closing CfDs, I have not closed any more. If you need to communicate anything else to me, please don't hesitate to post to my talk, e-mail, etc. As I am not watching this page and it appears that we have a rough understanding of my good intentions and decreasing incompetence, I won't likely see any further responses. Again, should something critical come up, please inform me - otherwise, I'll just take this as a learning lesson. Onwards and upwards. -Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I too have had concerns about Koavf; no doubt those who've reviewed his talk page archive will have probably seen my comments there. (1) Koavf continues to close speedy rename CfD proposals, despite my best efforts to explain why I think it's best for admins to do this. In closing them, he manually migrates the contents and then sets up a soft-redirect; normally the old category would be deleted, which I feel is preferable. This is discussed in the CfD guidelines, which I pointed him to, but after doing so I see he has continued this practice. This is not the first issue about categories that it has been difficult to bring Koavf around to following policy — (2) I had a heck of a time convincing him that CfD in general was the way to go in renaming categories, rather than manually migrating articles to a new category and then asking for the old one to be speedily deleted. (3) In the middle of CfDs, he has been known to create the proposed category and migrate some or all of the contents of the old category, thus pre-empting the CfD and making it very hard for users to see what state the category was in at the time of nomination. Anyway, I am not an admin, and I realise this entire conversation/issue is winding down, but thought you might be interested in my input anyway. Good Ol’factory (talk) 02:19, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Excuse me? It is my understanding that it does not take an administrator to close/de-list a speedy rename on WP:CfD. After waiting 48 hours, I migrated uncontested moves from one category to another and I've left the contested ones for other users to discuss. Is that against the rules as well? If I did the exact same thing, but I was an administrator, would that be fine? I realize that a non-admin is not to close a discussion that is for deletion (again, thanks to my fellow editor above - this is a policy by which I have abided since he notified me), I did not realize that a non-admin cannot de-list a category that is intended to be moved to a new name due to the speedy criteria as well... If this is the case could someone explain to me the rationale? -Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
From the standpoint of wiki-principle, speedy renaming of a category by a non-admin should not be an issue. It is only due to a technical feature of the MediaWiki software (categories cannot be moved; instead, they must be deleted and their contents relocated) that it may be one. While converting an old category into a category redirect is one option of dealing with this technical restriction, this is not common practice. I do not know of any specific guideline or policy that addresses category redirects, but they're generally only set up when there are many incoming links to the title or there is large likelihood of confusion. The only real guidance regarding the use of category redirects I could find is at Wikipedia:Redirect#Category redirects and Template talk:Category redirect#FAQ. Black Falcon (Talk) 03:11, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
My only concern was the fact that the old categories were not being deleted, not any other "rules-based" reason. When a category is renamed, the default seems to be that the old category is deleted, not redirected. I view this somewhat analogous to a situation where a category is being deleted from CfD. But lately all of the ones going through speedy have been redirected, not deleted, which may lead to the old category being populated by the creator if they are unaware of the rename. I think it's always good to have a mis-named category appear as a redlink to clue in editors after they add it that "something has changed" since they created the category and they need to look into it. If they see no redlink, they will not investigate further. Good Ol’factory (talk) 03:24, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
That was a concern of mine as well, which I mentioned on his talk page and I haven't seen him do it since. In general, I think most category redirects, both soft and hard, are pretty useless, so my position is that category redirects should almost never be created. I have noticed couple concerning things other than that, but Koavf does seem to be improving. My main concern is that he has removed categories from the speedy section at UCFD a couple times, when those should in fact be archived along with the regular nominations and not simply deleted. Also, there were a couple speedy nominations he made a week or two ago at UCFD that he started, then simply made the change himself before further input, and removed the speedy categories (which to my knowlege still have not been archived properly, although possibly unnecessary at this point). The change seemed fairly uncontroversial so I simply attributed it to being bold, but in that case a UCFD nomination probably should have never been made. Overall I haven't seen anything to be too concerned about other than the edit Jc37 mentions and some misleading edit summaries, as long as Koavf listens to everything mentioned above, there shouldn't have to be any further issues. I do appreciate the work he has done at the UCFD working page to create target categories and facilitate depopulation of the deleted categories. VegaDark (talk) 04:46, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
The redirects for non-user categories are still being made. Good Ol’factory (talk) 05:30, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
To be fair, that edit was made just minutes after the issue of category redirects was raised, so it's possible that Justin simply didn't notice the comment here. In any case, this seems to be a case where a category redirect is not needed (no incoming links), and I've speedily deleted it. Black Falcon (Talk) 05:35, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes; what I meant was they are still being made days after I brought it up on his talk page. Good Ol’factory (talk) 06:28, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Ah, I see. I've left a note on Justin's talk page asking him to check on the comments here (in case he does not have this page watchlisted). Black Falcon (Talk) 07:08, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Sorry for the delay, yesterday was a little hectic. I don't think there is anything else I can add that hasn't been said already. Our concerns have been voiced and responded to, there are enough eyes on his edits to catch any mistakes quickly, and he seems open to criticism and learning. I did want to let him know to be very careful when editing user pages, especially when removing redlinked categories and when using "general fixes" in AWB, but a few users have already spoken to him. --Kbdank71 15:33, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Category redirects My assumption in creating category redirects is if someone created Category:X once, someone else is likely to create it again. By making Category:X a redirect to Category:Y, you can ensure that the content is put in the correct category because a bot comes along to clean out category redirects every so often. If you delete Category:X after migrating everything to Category:Y and someone recreates Category:X later on, you will have to rely on others happening upon X and Y and figuring out there was a CfD, etc. Category redirects are useful in that regard. Some of the category redirects should not have been made so those were deleted and I have not recreated those kinds of category redirects, but (for instance) Category:Myanmar should have a redirect to Category:Burma or vice versa depending on where the main article is. If you think a particular category should not be redirected, then I have no objection to the original being deleted if it is not likely to be recreated and repopulated. -Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:30, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Cat redirects are useful in the case of Myanmar and Burma, but to leave a redirect simply because someone created a category that got renamed, no. That's not a good assumption to make. There is simply no point to keeping these around on the off-chance that it might get recreated, because for the most part, they don't. --Kbdank71 18:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
In most cases, the deletion log (which is visible to anyone who tries to recreate a deleted category) is an adequate deterrent against recreation. Black Falcon (Talk) 18:44, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
That and it makes the category not be a redlink, which is a whole other can of worms... - jc37 18:45, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Found another example of concern. You (Koavf) merely removed the category, instead of replacing it with the new category name.
In addition (back to the edit summary topic - though this edit was weeks ago) we usually link to wherever the final "resting place" of the XfD will be located, not just the generic XfD page.
Everyone has different ways of doing this, for me it's:
per [[Wikipedia:User_categories_for_discussion/Archive/March_2008#March_14|14 Mar WP:UCFD]]
It's just clearer and more communicative. Hope this helps. - jc37 19:21, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Also, When going back in their history to find more edits that day, I've discovered that they've made over 5000 (yes that's thousand) edits in the last dozen days. Not necessarily a bad thing, just worth mentioning. - jc37 19:41, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Just now I closed out some speedy CfDs and listed them for deletion (please see my contributions.) Let me know if this is an acceptable method. -Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:43, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I'll clear out the listed categories and will ask Kbdank71, who's significantly more experienced with WP:CFD than I, to comment. I don't know whether Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working/Manual is a watched page; if it isn't, requests might linger for long periods of time. Black Falcon (Talk) 22:43, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
As long as you follow the speedy criteria (wait two days, no opposition, etc, etc), that should be ok. I have WP:CFD/W/M on my watchlist, so they won't sit there too long. I do appreciate the link to the diff (with speedies, it's hard to make sure what's being listed at CFD/W/M isn't just vandalism). --Kbdank71 13:22, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar

The Barnstar of Peace
This barnstar is for being such a stand-up person and for your help here. Thanks again. DerRichter (talk) 05:51, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Re. Translation request

Hello Black Falcon. Last two sentences: "He was the director of Northern Mozambique Railways between 1993 and 1995, and then executive director of the same company and in the same zone, between 1995 and 2077, when he was then made executive administrator of the Northern Mozambique Railways within the Mozambique Ports and Railways company. He is a member of the Fighters of the National Liberation Struggle's National Committee, having gone through the political-military preparation in Tunduru, in 1973." Indeed, the National Committee can be translated in several different forms due to multiple word order variants and genitive applications, typical when translating Portuguese-English. The one above though I guess might be the best. I hope this helps. :-) Regards, Húsönd 12:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Siegfried Kasche

Hi Black Falcon,

Thanks for the nom. It's flattering. I've created a few articles and it doesn't normally occur to me to put them forward for DYK. I suppose I should do so more often. Anyway, it's much appreciated and if I can help you with any articles etc please let me know. I'd be glad to. Best wishes, AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 20:52, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Winston's Hiccup - I'd be delighted to put the article forward to WikiProject WikiWorld. I wasn't aware of their existence until now, sorry to say.... As an aside, it's a good article about a story that got me into trouble with User:Wetman on Talk:Winston's_Hiccup... He/She (as far as I can tell) didn't get the idea that the article is about what was said to have happened, rather than the actual truth. Ah well. C'est la vie.
Meanwhile, I've heard that the Democratic Party nom for the Presidency is going to be decided by 'super delegates' (better than the ordinary ones) at their forthcoming convention; when we finally get around to appointing 'super admins' (better than the ordinary ones), I'll be sure to put your name at the top of the pile... ;-) AlasdairGreen27 (talk) 23:43, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

4/23 DYK

Updated DYK query On 23 April 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Filipe Nhussi, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Bedford 22:14, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Western Mexico shaft tomb tradition nomination

Hey, thanks, Black Falcon, of the above article for DYK. I had already put a nomination forward (see this) that somehow gotten deleted {see here). I re-instated my earlier listing which I believe has more punch, as well as an image. Thanks again, Madman (talk) 02:52, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

DYK nom for Baguio Cathedral

Thanks for the nomination, highly appreciate it. Let me know if I could be of further help for the nomination. --Anyo Niminus (talk) 08:25, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for DYK nomination on Annette Elise Brown

Thanks for the DYK nomination on Annette Elise Brown and for copyediting.Mhjohns (talk) 12:40, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

DYK nom

Updated DYK query On 24 April 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Siegfried Kasche, which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Bobet 13:40, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Updated DYK query On 24 April 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article John Bowman (pioneer), which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Bobet 13:46, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Content forks

Take a content fork to AFD and it'll be kept for notability. Trust me. Sceptre (talk) 18:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

This AFD, for starters. Sceptre (talk) 18:28, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
Might want to fix Wikipedia:Content forking, then, as it states As Wikipedia does not view article forking as an acceptable solution to disagreements between contributors, such forks may be nominated for deletion. --Kbdank71 18:34, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
"For starters". Content forks have been given free rein for a while, I'm afraid. And I tried merging, but I got reverted. Sceptre (talk) 18:45, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
If I go to Chester and shoot a Welshman, I'll still get arrested for murder. (and by that, I mean we shouldn't keep dead weight longer than necessary... and the content fork criterion is that) Sceptre (talk) 19:01, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

DYK nomination of 4 Mots sur un piano

Hi Black Falcon ! Thank you for having nominated "4 Mots sur un piano". I just hope it does not contain too many mistakes of grammar or spelling ! (English is not my native language) :) Regards, Europe22 (talk) 23:44, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply on my talk page and your copy-edit on "4 Mots sur un piano" ! Europe22 (talk) 07:04, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the apology, but it is probably me who should apologise. I was probably over sensitive to DGG and probably also misread your agreement with him. Take it easy, Hiding T 17:48, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Ta, but I'm not sure it's my idea. It came up on talk, but per WP:CONSENSUS we are supposed to come to consensus through editing, and besides which it's currently getting missed in all the other stuff. Hiding T 18:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment

Can you please comment at the ongoing discussion here which is about users adding casualty figure of the Sri Lankan Army with source that is not highly regarded - violating WP:REDFLAG and further making synthesis claim violating WP:SYNTH. The edits are here. I have been revert warring with the parties, however, now that I have brought this to your attention I will not do so. With that being said I hope you can comment and help come to consensus.

Same problem being made at Battle of the Forward Defence Lines. Where a user is doing edits where the user is removing the fact tags, censoring wikipedia (by removing the CNN source and the claims made therein), removing tags and violating WP:SYNTH. Again I will stop the revert war now since you have been notified. Please comment on the article's talk page. Thanks again Watchdogb (talk) 20:36, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I will take a look, but could you clarify what the essence of the dispute is on the Sri Lankan Civil War article? It's a bit hard to make sense of the edit history, what with edits being made by three different accounts (yourself, TheFEARgod, Top Gun). Black Falcon (Talk) 21:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I want the casualty figure of the Sri Lankan Army to be only up until the 2001 because the citation that was directly from the military of sri lanka claims that these were the casualty figure until 2001. However, the other two editors want to add claim from a website, South Asian Terrorism portal, and synthesize that 1700 more soldiers have died since 2001. My main argument is that the casualty figure of a state force of a country is an exceptional claim and need exceptional sources to back these claims. As we know SATP is not an exceptional claim and therefore I want the casualty figure take off in accordance with WP:REDFLAG. Furthermore, another problem is that even SATP citation only covers the period from 2001 - 2007 and no claim is made of 2008. So for the users to claim that 1700 have died since 2001, they are indeed using other sources (like BBC and AFP) and adding the numbers up and are comming up with a final number. This violates WP:SYNTH. So the crux of the matter is that we only have one exceptional source to back up the exceptional claim until 2001. This is why I was trying to only have the casualty figure until 2001. Watchdogb (talk) 21:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
The said user has repeatedly questioned my neutrality and claimed that I cannot edit wikipedia. The latest is here. Can you please discourage the user from such actions. Thanks Watchdogb (talk) 21:40, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I am currently working to formulate a response (and am also simulatenously editing another article), but I will post comments on both talk pages shortly. Black Falcon (Talk) 21:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm terribly sorry for the delay. An urgent family matter came up and I've had virtually no time for Wikipedia in the past three days. Black Falcon (Talk) 19:06, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I've spent over an hour looking at the edit histories of the two articles and can't seem to determine what is and is not under dispute. From what you've written above, I would agree that adding up casualty figures from multiple news articles to arrive at a final figure amounts to original research. Such a calculation of casualties is not a matter of simple mathematics; such calculation does not factor in casualties that are not mentioned in any sources, nor can it account for overlaps between figures provided by different sources. I am happy to see that you are discussing the issue with Top Gun and, in this case, I think the best way for me to offer my perspective is to actually get involved in the sourcing and editing of the article. I will try to do that later today or tomorrow morning, depending on how much time I have. Black Falcon (Talk) 22:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Sorry for the late reply. Thank you for your thoughts and suggestion. I agree with your comment that it is better for you to edit and thus bring the problem to a close. Thanks again and please take your time. Watchdogb (talk) 15:59, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

dyk noms

Updated DYK query On 25 April 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Baguio Cathedral, which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--

Updated DYK query On 25 April 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Trip Kuehne, which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Victuallers (talk) 20:42, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

DYK noms

Updated DYK query On 26 April 2008, Did you know? was updated with facts from the articles Lytton (sternwheeler), and Battle of Little Mountain, which you recently nominated. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Wizardman 03:49, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Romance-speaking states of Europe

Template:Romance-speaking states of Europe has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you.--DerRichter (talk) 02:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)