User talk:Casey Abell/Archive 4

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Archive 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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Why isn't Ohmy news a reliable source?

Their article seems to be the most accurate and informative that exists on the Wikipedia scanner issue, and the author Ludwig de Brackenleer has been the most accurate investigative journalist with regards to the Lockerbie bombing and the related SlimVirgin controversy. Why dispute it when you don't have any alternative sources to dispute it? His articles appear in Google News and are picked up by Slashdot and RSS feeds, suggesting that he is considered to be very reliable. Unless you can prove that its wrong, I think that removing sourced information is a violation of WP:V. 123.2.168.215 14:08, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

On the Lockerbie bombing, Ludwig de Brackenleer is recognised as the most reliable source in the world. The SlimVirgin controversy was picked up by a number of mainstream news agencies. Its absurd that it doesn't have an article on Wikipedia, and reeks of censorship. I think it is laughable that you consider this to be unreliable information. I'd also like to know who these IP edits were that had no previous edits on Wikipedia, that were removing sourced information. Do these IP edits belong to the Wikimedia foundation perhaps? Someone from the Wikimedia foundation made the correction that it was WMF, not Wikipedia, which of course would be accurate, since WMF is the funding body. I didn't make these assertions.

Yes, we have to be very careful when adding information, and also careful not to censor accurate information out of a high profile article. It leads people to believe that Wikipedia is trying to cover something up. 123.2.168.215 14:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Casey, and for the record: Wikimedia Foundation did not fund Wikiscanner nor did we hire Virgil Griffith. Vishal-WMF 15:22, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Made by Vishal-WMF, when denying it. You seem to be very good at spreading Disinformation, Casey. 123.2.168.215 15:27, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

If it is so unreliable, then why is it used as a source 190 times in Wikipedia articles? http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Linksearch&target=%2A.ohmynews.com&namespace=&limit=500&offset=0

Why does it appear 439 times in Google news? http://news.google.com.au/news?hl=en&ned=au&q=ohmynews&btnG=Search+News

I'd suggest that it is far from an unreliable source, and that Ludwig in particular is especially reliable. 123.2.168.215 15:41, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Final note on this dispute

The anon editor who left these messages about Wikipedia Scanner has now retracted and apologized for his allegations about the database tool's funding. See his talk page. Casey Abell 17:29, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

WikiScanner

OK, so you've removed my researched and fully referenced info on the Aust news reports from the WikiScanner article, which gave both the media reports and the government response. This was not "grinding axes" nor "slamming an organization" as you suggest on the talk page. I'm not sure what's not neutral about giving both sides of a story, but you may be able to explain.

Unfortunately what's now left is meaningless blather which is incorrect. I don't mind the stuff being improved, or shortened for that matter if it keeps its meaning, but now it's silly.

For example you've written "...prompting restrictions by the government on the editing of Wikipedia from its computers". Quite untrue. It was the Defence dept that blocked editing, not 'the government'. This is a huge difference. The government itself has not banned editing, and workers in other government depts can still edit.

Someone else has now copy and pasted my paragraph from the Department of Defence (Australia) article into here to fill the gaps, but it's out of context in this article. So what was a well written and referenced paragraph is now meaningless and incorrect.

The significance also is that this story prompted a government response from the highest office in the land, which I can see in no other media story (the BBC get to have a whole paragraph and blockquote response on their edits, but the editing, media reports, and response from the Dept of the PM in Aust is insignificant?). Also I cannot see where any other country ascribing to free speech has had a Gov dept block their employees from editing Wikipedia.

Therefore I don't think your claims of WP:UNDUE are correct; this is significantly different from the other media stories, and a paragraph about it would not seem to be overkill to me. Please explain otherwise. --jjron 13:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

As I said above, I think replacing accurate referenced info with an inaccurate summary is not really desirable. However I didn't bother re-editing the article as I can't be bothered engaging in edit wars either. So if the article is misleading, so be it, I tried. Perhaps someone else can come along and strike a happy medium. --jjron 06:51, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

"odd-looking white space"...

...but aren't these references even more odd-looking when some one quarter of their horizontal space is stolen by the wikinews box? Миша13 17:48, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, this is how "your" version looks in my Firefox. I'm not an expert in HTML layout but I guess that's the proper behavior - i.e. that it "steals" the space from the entire <div> that encompasses both of the reference columns. Your browser probably understands that the boxes are allowed to overlap, just the text must flow around. A better solution would be to widen the wikinews box, but it's not flexible enough to allow that. Миша13 18:25, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

re Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Statement by Casey Abell

"The heartbreak of psoriasis"? Thanks for giving me my daily snicker. Mangoe 19:29, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Attack sites opened

Hello, Casey Abell. The arbitration case in which you commented to has opened. Please provide evidences on the evidence page for the Arbitrators to consider. You may also want to utilize the workshop page for suggestions.

For the Arbitration Committee,
- Penwhale | Blast him / Follow his steps 21:05, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Dark Period

For the record, the person deleting that section on the GSN article is the EXACT same person who has done it under other I.P.'s and accounts, so don't think it's more than one person who thinks it should be gone. Just one editor with a history of an attitude and agenda pushing problem. FamicomJL 14:53, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Western States Football League

This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of Western States Football League, and it appears to be very similar to another wikipedia page: Western states football league. It is possible that you have accidentally duplicated contents, or made an error while creating the page— you might want to look at the pages and see if that is the case.

This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot 14:35, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Criticism of Wikipedia

Could you explain why you reverted all of the chat page crap without explanation on Talk:Criticism of Wikipedia even though the page explicitly says at the top of the page that it's for discussion of the article Criticism of Wikipedia, and not for bitching about Wikipedia? Corvus cornix 16:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you see at the very top of the page where it says, Note: This is the Talk page for the Wikipedia article on external criticisms of Wikipedia. Users interested in discussing their own problems with the project should go to the Village Pump where there are specific sections for dealing with various types of issue.? Corvus cornix 20:15, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry if you were offended by my words, but I was offended by your reverting of my edits without comment or explanation. Corvus cornix 19:36, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

You do have a good point. If the chat on the Talk page can morph into a discussion on how to make changes to the article, then I have no problems with that. Corvus cornix 15:47, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

"This user assumes good faith"

According to a userbox on your page, that is. I'm interested to see your thoughts on the link in that article. Please note that I have never conducted a "mass" anything, particularly not a link deletion spree. (One month I sorted a few thousands stubs, but I don't think that counts.) -GTBacchus(talk) 23:14, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Linking_to_external_harassment

Hey, seeing as how you keep getting sucked into this case, you should take a look at the new policy proposal and let us know if there's any way we can improve it. :) --Alecmconroy 16:02, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Irving, Texas

Oh, I absolutely agree about the evidence against Oswald. It's a matter of journalistic/encyclopedic style. "Alleged" may carry a whiff of "probably didn't do it" to your ears or those of some others, but it's absolutely the way newspapers and encyclopedias state the case when someone has not (yet) been convicted of a crime. Sometimes it may look a little silly, as in those cases where someone guns down someone face to face in front of thirty people and he's still called the alleged killer. But that's simply the style, as in journalistic style. I certainly never meant to suggest he might not be guilty. Rather, I chose the journalistic guideline of saying as much as possible in as few words, following typical style, as possible. "Alleged" says "accused, believed, probably, but never technically convicted," but does it in one word. As to the residents thing, Abraham Lincoln was a resident of Springfield, Illinois. It seems a little wordy to have to qualify it with "former" resident. There are scores and scores of Wikipedia (and other encyclopedia) articles that use "Resident" without qualification to convey that someone does or did live somewhere. But it's not something to fight over, that's for sure! BTW, I don't know, but I bet none of the people on that list still live in Irving. Just a guess, though. Monkeyzpop 01:50, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Who requested Essjay to ArbCom?

I figured we might as well go to the other "reliable source" in verifying this statement. I hope you don't mind, and that no trouble will come your way because of this line of questioning. Libertyvalley 14:39, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh No

Don't tell me you're an actuary... --Isotope23 talk 18:05, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I've only ever known one actuary personally. I used to go to parties with him and he'd go up to people and tell them that based on his professional opinion they had only (X) more years to live. If it was an attractive woman, X was usually a very small number followed by his personal opinion that she should make the most of her time left by going home with him. He was a blast.
I will definitely take my hat off to anyone who gets through the examination process. I'm not an actuary, but from everything I've seen the process is brutal.--Isotope23 talk 18:14, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Whatifsports

Are you a member there? I have seen you make several edits on the page. michfan2123 22:03, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah, ok. michfan2123 00:57, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia "Section Order Guideline/Rules"?

For almost every other Opera Singer page I have seen, the sections were in order:

External links
References

However, I noticed you just reversed the order of the Grace Bumbry edits I just did, to:

References
External links

I sincerely hope you did this because you are following the Official Wikipedia "Section Order Guideline/Rules". I have asked others about these rules to no avail, and I have searched for them in vain. I would be happy to follow the rules and place all future Sections I Edit/Add in their proper order. However, I don't know what the "Official Order" is. Where are the rules that told you to make this change? If you respond on this page, also send a copy via E-Mail, otherwise I may not see it. Thanks.
____________________________________________________________
Doug Henkle - mailto:henkle@pobox.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by Henkle (talk • contribs) 17:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Request

I congrtulate you for being the first Wiki to think of creating an article on a very interesting but lesser known writer like E.T.Bell.There is one more 'great'who you could do justice, in this case Cassey, Edna Kramer, who wrote some thrilling books on the history of Math.I humbly request you to consider a write up on her.It will be more appropriate if Bell's photo is added to the existing article.Incidentally, if you have some spare moments, kindly, let me know how to find,use and create Wiki Commons.

regrds R.K.Sharma India° —Preceding unsigned comment added by Subzbharti (talk • contribs) 03:01, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

flagged revs

Hi Casey --

I just saw your blog post on flagged revisions (I have a google alert set up.) I've argued about this previously on my own blog, here [1], and I believe we're in sympathy on this issue. There was a dust up a few months ago on this but to tell the truth, I have a feeling these days that -- despite the hubbub -- it will never actually happen. It's flawed not only ideologically, but also just won't work in a practical sense. I might write more on it but as far as I can tell reading between the lines, it's dead in the water. Sdedeo (tips) 17:29, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Just dug around in your blog -- lots of fun. My only other "public" remark on WP is here [2], which I think bears on the current fundraising. Sdedeo (tips) 20:18, 15 November 2007 (UTC)