User talk:Jayvdb/Archive 1

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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.
Archive
Archives
Archive 1 - epoch — July 7, 2007
Archive 2 - July — Nov 25, 2007

Contents


Anthony Burgess vandalism

Jayvdb's efforts in tackling vandalism to the Anthony Burgess page are greatly appreciated.

Rivers

Thanks for editing (and re-editing) the Rivers page- I keep accidentally deleting stuff (oops) I'm getting (slightly) better with computers though and he deserves the best (big hero of mine) so thanks a lot

Pudupudu

  • No worries. Im glad to hear it was just a mistake that the references were removed.  :-)
John Vandenberg 03:16, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Yeah, I'm sorry about that- I somehow managed to delete them when I was adding the external links (stupid me) and then didn't know how to put them back in again :P

Anthony Burgess photo

Dear Jayvdb: Do you know of a copyright-acceptable Anthony Burgess image that might be usable for the Anthony Burgess page? Best regards —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.131.21.16 (talk • contribs) 19:22, 21 October 2006

No. I looked briefly before removing the image redlink, unsuccessfully. John Vandenberg 04:00, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Avenue House - Finchley

When you wrote about the "North Wing" did you mean Hertford Lodge, which is next door to Avenue House is not actually Avenue House. Do you want to amend or remove. There is a history for Hertford House (it was a school for a long time) Hugh : )

I dont know much about Avenue House; I have only corrected the spelling on that article once. You should probably ask this question on Talk:Avenue House. Jayvdb 21:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Executable UML

Hey, thanks heaps for the work you're doing on Executable UML. GeorgeBills 10:07, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

My pleasure; Im glad I ran into it. I have been lightly researching Model Driven Architecture vs Domain-Specific Modeling in order to define our architectural goals at work, so im keen to find further articles in this area. Jayvdb 10:20, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Grandes-Bergeronnes Airport

There are about 1300 Canadian airports (Category:Airports in Canada) and they all have the same (or should have unless I missed some) reference source. I was curious as to what was wrong with this particular airport as nobody has had a problem with any of the others. Many articles (Section Thirty of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms for example) have references that can't be checked unless you have access to the particular book. Because I work at Cambridge Bay Airport I have the access to the most current Canada Flight Supplement and use it to provide the information, which I update ever 56 days when the new edition comes out. The book is available to anybody that cares to purchase a subscription and not just to people involved in transportion. Cheers. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 01:17, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I ran into the article and thought it was a bit strange having 'Current xyz ' as a Reference because the word "Current" doesnt really mean much -- it doesnt inform the reader which edition was used unless they know that the pages are being updated by someone (i.e. you) the moment that a new edition is released. I didnt realise that was common amoungst all of the airports of Canada article otherwise I would have dropped you a line. In my opinion you should state what edition the info is based on -- that way people reading the article know which edition they can use to fact check the article, and people viewing the history can see what editions each change occurred in. I dont mean that you should update the edition number for all articles after every edition, but where a new edition means an article needs updating, the edition in the reference should be updated. Jayvdb 05:44, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
OK I hadn't thought about it like that but you're right. If there's no date on it then it would be impossible to tell if they were current or not. On the other hand I would have to change all of them every 56 days when a new edition was issued. Some airports don't change for years and then you might end up with airports looking as if they were years out of date. I think what I will do is leave them until June when the new CFS is out and update the lot then. Cheers. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 13:34, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Personally I dont think readers of Wikipedia should judge the accuracy of an article by the references, but if you want to give the readers that assurance, it sounds like a good idea to update the reference each time you fact check it. That will mean that others with access to the CFS will be able to see which ones havent been fact checked, and may be able to help you with the task. Godspeed. Jayvdb 05:15, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Añoranza

This user doesn't care about military history or historic accuracy; the only operational titles being changed are those of the United States military. This is nothing but rabid anti-Americanism, and it's pretty disgusting that you continue to enable it. Haizum 00:58, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

The user has also been concentrating on Isreali operation names, and possibly others.
Please read the section "Re: Advice" on the users talk page. The user is technically correct (as the guidelines I pointed out confirm), but wasnt using the correct process. The correct process is too propose large changes and make the changes only when others have agreed, and I hope that Añoranza does that so we all have time to comment.Jayvdb 01:16, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for your comments at my page. I cannot see where I wasn't using the correct process but you are welcome to tell me. Añoranza 01:35, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
No worries. The first thing I suggest is that you slow down. Every change you do will be watched like a hawk by lots of people, including myself. While we discuss the propaganda issue on your page, dont make other further changes to the same articles (It appears you are already observing this process so I am just reaffirming that you are doing the right thing). Let the dust settle on the issue, to demonstrate you are happy to discuss the matter first. Once we have determined the correct process, then we can go back and fix any articles, and I will definately help.
Be careful deleting comments of others. In most cases, I suggest you leave other peoples comments alone, because any sane admin will be able to see stupid comments for what they are. Also, deleting comments can interfere with people who are trying to make useful comments, so by deleting them you hurt your POV.
Also, in the meantime, why not do some research into the international use of operation code names like I suggested. In order to avoid being tagged anti-American, be sure to research other countries not affiliated with America. You can create it on a sub-page of your main user page, like I have done with my User:Jayvdb/Al-Watan page, and just do a brain dump -- it's your page so you can provide lots of useful information without causing concern. Then when the dust has settled that information can be merged into new or existing articles. Jayvdb 02:00, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Layla bint al-Minhal

Just curious as to what other work you thought was needed on this article? As far as wikify goes it is done as can be for now. --Brad101 03:04, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi, this article has a lot of peacock words, the people and places in the article need to be clarified, and the last paragraph doesnt belong on this article as best I can tell. Maybe some other tags would be more appropriate instead? Jayvdb 10:39, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
There are several that might fit such as {{copyedit}} or {{tone}}. I've been working on the backlog of articles to wikify; most recently trying to clear articles from March. Thanks --Brad101 21:15, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I've changed the tag to {{copyedit}} as it's a better fit. Cheers, Jayvdb 22:44, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


Hello thanks for the message Tried to reply to your email but my mailbox swallowed it! Like to try again?

Or try direct dj5dj@hotmail.co.uk

All the best DJ5DJ

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userbox

I fixed that. Thanks for pointing that out. SkeenaR 04:03, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Your message about the Kubrick entry

Hello Jayvdb. Thank you for asking about the change I made to the entry about the Martin Scorsese interview about his reaction to Barry Lyndon. I heard this interview years ago. Right now I can't remember if it was on NPR or the Charlie Rose show or somewhere else. I know that he, like most English speakers did not call it the 'El Prado' because that, in essence, is saying - the The Prado - which is a redundency to be avoided. In fact I don't really ever remember hearing it called the El Prado by any English (Brit or American) speakers. But, that down't mean the phrase isn't used it just means that I haven't heard it. Now, I don't have a copy of this interview and I don't know if it was ever transcribed anywhere so I won't change it again, but, you might ask User Rosuna whether they have a source for their edit as they have not cited one either time they made their entry. It looks odd to my eye as I read it, but, it certainly isn't worth an edit conflict. My apologies for not being able to give you more specifics. MarnetteD | Talk 18:39, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Your minor edit on 'Nomad'

The following is a pedantic, hair-splitting question, but I'm still trying to get a handle on what constitutes proper/normal Wiki style.

I note that your edit on Nomad removed a list sequence within the paragraph. I'm wondering about your thinking here. I find the revised sentence a bit awkward, due to the presence of a rogue comma and the long second point:

“
It was arguably the first database retrieval system to feature an integrated programming language, and a report statement (the LIST command) allowing relational database operations, analogous to the SQL SELECT statement.
 ”

We could change it along these lines:

“
It was arguably the first database retrieval system to feature an integrated programming language and a report statement allowing relational database operations (the LIST command, analogous to the SQL SELECT statement).
 ”

This seems better; but I thought that the previous a), b) sequence was reasonably readable:

“
It was arguably the first database retrieval system to feature a) an integrated programming language, and b) a report statement (the LIST command) allowing relational database operations, analogous to the SQL SELECT statement.
 ”

Thanks if you don't mind explaining your views. Trevor Hanson 19:13, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi, your pedantic question is warranted and welcomed. The change I made to the article was pedantic; the sentence was a bit unwieldy the way it was, and needs a cleanup; however instead of rewriting it, I removed the list sequence because I felt it was detracting from the flow (esp. for screen readers used by the vision impaired). As you have pointed out, my change wasnt enough to restore order to the universe.
I like your proposed sentence, however I dont think we need the ' (the LIST command, analogous to the SQL SELECT statement) ' in the Introduction -- I think that this software needs a specific section to describe its features; after all, this article may be the only lasting record of what the software is/was able to do.
Besides that, the use of arguably needs to be reworded, or backed up by external references (refer to Wikipedia policy No original research); the introduction is very flowery; e.g. this sentence is pretty, but also irrelevant: 'This empowerment of end users was itself a major force leading to the success of the time-sharing industry, and creating the pent-up demand that fueled the PC revolution.'
Jayvdb 05:58, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, this is helpful (and of course, now that I read it, should have been obvious). When making minor changes to preexisting material, I typically have tried to preserve as much of the original text as practical – which of course is not "bold" enough if the article wasn't quite up to snuff in the first place. I do understand about No original research, although this article is an example of two Wikipedia problems I sometimes encounter when dealing with relatively esoteric (i.e. non-controversial) topics:
  • A contributor who is knowledgable about an event or topic may nevertheless have difficulty finding appropriate citations, particularly for a matter that is remote in time, or that might be considered obvious to an expert or contemporary. For example, the 'arguably' bit above: Back in the 70s, NOMAD was frequently described as the "first commercial product based on relational database theory," and those of us in the thick of it at the time knew this – because the capabilities of other available products were manifest. However, finding a citation establishing this, or even just stating the claim, will not be easy. Is it better to include uncited information, or omit it? (This is why I was the one who added the word 'arguably' in an earlier edit; in the absence of a citation, this seemed a softer assertion. I didn't want to remove the claim, because I think it is important.) Do we want to remove every unsubstantiated statement, including those that are in fact known by experts to be true?
  • In a related vein, and again in the context of non-controversial esoteric topics, it seems regrettable (to me) that we don't provide a way for people with special first-hand knowledge to contribute recollections, anecdotes, or pedagogy. Example: Consider a first-hand participant in a WWII battle or a particular Arctic expedition who visits its Wikipedia article. These people will often have insights and comments that would be so interesting to capture. Obviously an "I was there" story doesn't belong in the body of an encylopaedic entry, and it would obviously violate NOR (perhaps also NPOV). Yet I feel this is a wasted opportunity for expanding public domain knowledge. Eventually these people die and their stories are lost. (Though these people no doubt often contribute unsourced edits.) Perhaps an 'anecdotes' tab on Wiki pages, analogous to 'discussion,' would meet this need, or a "WikiStories" site analogous to WikiCommons; but any of these would of course be a major change in philosophy.
There is a continuum between these two problems.
In the meantime I have found some more citeable NOMAD material and will add it when I have time. Thanks again for your input. Trevor Hanson 02:15, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
It sounds like the claim is contestable, but not so much that is dubious -- I think it's best left in there until a citation can be found or someone contests it. However, you may be able to break the uncited statement of fact into smaller factoids that are readily provable. The first step would be to add a new section detailing the inner workings of NOMAD, even if they are not cited, because they dont make claims beyond the scope of the article (e.g. the LIST command was introduced in version 1.1 (1986) vs NOMAD was the first database to introduce modern relational database operations)
wrt recording your anecdotes, create a new page User:Spinality/Nomad, and dump everything there. That is your page, so the rules are relaxed. When you have sufficient useful content there, add a new section to the top of the Talk:Nomad_software with a link to your new page.
Btw, you might like to try your hand over at the Wikibooks:WB:WIW project, where the aim is to create open source textbooks. The rules of WP:NOR and WP:NPOV also apply to WikiBooks, however there is less need to cite every detail. You may find it a good way to pass on your domain knowledge to students with a curious nature -- here is the closest page I could find to your area of expertise: b:Computer_programming/Database_Programming? Jayvdb 03:35, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Good comments and suggestions. Thanks again for taking the time for this long exchange, which I have found helpful. I really want to reach a comfort level on this crucial point. Two observations:
  • I didn't make myself clear about the anecdotes issue – I didn't want a place for my own anecdotes. I wanted a place for comments by the likes of Sir Edmund Hillary, Steven Hawking, or plain old Joe's dad who was there at the fall of Saigon. Not just a place for them; I want somebody to elicit them and record them. (These people visit Wikipedia like everyone else; but we can't ask for their memories. Pity.) Plus I wish there were a way to re-create the 'Britannica 11th edition effect' – giving me the modern equivalent of Maxwell on physics, Russell on philosophy, Swinburne on poetry.
  • Regarding contestable claims and proveable factoids: I understand and agree. However, it also seems the coward's way out to take a strong and important point – e.g. "the first commercial product based on relational theory" – and reduce it to a series of small defensible claims from which the reader must infer the important point. This would also tend to transform a concise, accurate overview into a recitation of minutiae. The result may stand up in court, but we risk losing the reader after the first paragraph. We ignore Strunk & White ("Be concise!") at our peril. One grants that verifiability is the goal, of course. But in the absence of good citations, and (importantly) in the absence of anybody contesting the claim, isn't it better to state baldly (and boldly) the salient points as they are understood to be? I realize that this is not a simple issue, and that it involves core tenets of Wikipedia. I expect I make an invalid distinction between original research and firsthand experience.
I do realize that mine is ultimately an untenable position – that it is my responsibility as a contributor to find the damn citations wherever possible. So I'll stop whingeing about the unfortunate reality of the need for verifiability! Again, I appreciate input from you and other Wikians helping me to understand my role. No need to respond if you feel we've beaten this horse to death. Trevor Hanson 04:51, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
WikiSource is the place for snippets originating from mouths or pens more famous than you or I. I need to head off to the bush for the weekend; happy editing! Jayvdb 06:12, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I hadn't seen WikiSource as really encouraging the entry of first-person snippets and anecdotes, as opposed to the capture of pre-existing stand-alone documents; but I'll reconsider it in that light. Perhaps if this role is intended, it should be addressed in the WikiSource introductory material. Anyway, enjoy the bush, and thanks for your guidance. Trevor Hanson 22:14, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

more Nomad/National CSS

I see that you added a 'citation needed' tag to a curious claim in the Nomad article. I was never happy with that entire section of the article; it was obviously added by somebody with considerable firsthand knowledge (I can confirm the veracity of what is stated), but this person did not help us with citations. (Kind of like my own editing in fact. :) But I digress.)

I think we can soften that "world's first" claim into a safer form by calling CP/CMS "an early" or "a precursor" open-source project (since it was manifestly both publicly funded and available for free in source code form). What I'd really like to do is move this section to the National CSS article, as I stated in my editorial note, since it has nothing to do with Nomad. However, I have been puzzled that the National CSS article is not found when I try to search for it, only when I link to it. Does this perhaps mean that it has been removed, or is being considered for removal? I know that articles about companies are held up to high standards, and it may be necessary to make a case for its retention. Alternatively, perhaps there's something I need to do to get it into the search trees. Anyway before yanking that section out, I wanted to be sure it had a home. Thanks if you can again guide me. Trevor Hanson 06:38, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Regarding "world's first open source", it struck me as possibly true given the vintage, but it needs a source. I realise that it may be a while before one can be found, but it is monumental so every reader should see that citation needed in case they know of a source to back up the claim. The open source article is of no use, as it neglects to delve into its past (for fear of those libre fighters that lurk there). Free software currently lists DECUS as an example, however it is clearly an example of open source because I'm sure those user groups forgot to add copy-left licenses to their works. (Please correct me if I am wrong as my only claim in this area is having lectured Unix to TAFE#Western Australia students) -- to me this is important because the history of computing is so young and forgotten so quickly. Sad; because I have found that teaching students the history assists them learn (e.g. less is more sticks in everyones brain! those crazy cats!).
[TRH] History? Helpful for learning? Bwa-ha-ha! What an hilarious concept. Trevor Hanson 22:37, 15 September 2006 (UTC) [My additional in-line comments follow below, unsigned.]
[TRH] [I have responded to your questions in some detail, but if you'd rather not dig too far into this project, feel free to punt it to me. I can proceed along the lines you have suggested.]
[JV] Im keen to help where I can.
[TRH] There is a whole legacy of publicly funded technology predating (and no doubt influencing) the FOSS movement. The University of Waterloo, for example, spawned loads of great software which was used everywhere in the 70s. I've often felt that this mechanism did not receive enough historical attention. The public's rights were often unclear, of course (e.g. with the original versions of UNIX, which still clouds the current SCO situation). There were many such systems distributed freely in source form to academic or noncommercial users.
[JV] I agree that this branch of computer science has been kept under wraps. IBM probably did this to protect its own interests.
In regard to WP:SEARCHing vs linking to National CSS, there is no funny business going on here. Even while an article needs to be cleaned up, the article is still treated like a first class citizen. However, the Wiki search tool is busted in my opinion -- I never use it. Instead, I use Firefox, and the Wikipedia+Google search engine.
[TRH] Thanks, good suggestion. Nevertheless there must be a way to influence the WP:SEARCHability of articles; and we can see that redirections are somehow implemented. I guess I should investigate. BTW I see that the title does NOT show up on Special:Allpages which is probably why searching fails. Should this be getting updated automagically? Have I somehow put National CSS in the wrong namespace? [Wrong: I forgot about how CSS gets alphabetized.]
[JV]: I guess it comes down to Google having more of a vested interested in producing good search results for Wikipedia, than MediaWiki does.
WP:REDIRECT deals with how redirects are constructed.
OK, with those out of the way, a bunch of these articles needs to be organised, and I havent the background to do it.
  • is this correct: CP/CMS begat VP/CSS and CP/CMS begat VM/CMS
[TRH] Correct.
  • Did CP/CMS begat any other OS's?
[TRH] Good question. There were a number of academic installations with substantial enhancement/modification, e.g. at Yale, but I can't recall any that went far enough to earn their own names. I recall that other customers, e.g. Sears, Roebuck, also made modifications for their own use. I vaguely recall of other cases of commercial use for resale (other time-sharing firms like NCSS), but if so I doubt any were in the league of VP/CSS – which was not simply a renaming, but really involved substantially new software (the fruits of a full-time development team, up to 100+ people, working full-time over the course of 15 years). I will see if I can find any more specifics.
[JV] did it ever escape into Europe ?
[TRH] I think VP/CSS content might best live in a subheading on the National CSS page, since the two were inextricably linked – and VP/CSS should redirect to National CSS (it obviously should not link to Nomad). But I defer to you if you think it would be more Wiki to have VP/CSS on its own page. (I'm thus far agnostic about lumping versus splitting in Wikipedia, though I've always found this taxonomy argument interesting.)
[JV] My rationale for it being on a separate page is that I gather that VP/CSS is inextricably linked with both National CSS and Nomad. Rather than move it from one to the other, it feels more appropriate for it to find its own home.
That said, reading through WP:REDIRECT, I've come across the Wikipedia:Redirects with possibilities justification -- I think that provides good reason for the VP/CSS content to live on the National CSS page, with a redirect to take the user to the proper page.
  • CP/CMS currently links to the same page as VM/CMS; are they really so closely tied that this is valid? (IMO, it smacks of truthiness being written into the history books by the winner of the war)
[TRH] Another good question. I would say it is...well, not incorrect: VM/CMS was a direct successor of CP/CMS, more than just a descendant; CP/CMS ran on IBM hardware; CP/CMS was available (only) through IBM, i.e. all users were IBM customers; and CP/CMS development had heavy IBM involvement. It was the public money that made it a special case. All this being said, CP/CMS indeed had a distinct life, and thus a separate article dealing with in historical context would probably make more sense.
[JV] nod I was looking from a comp.sci. history point of view rather than the hardware it ran on POV.
  • The claim that CP/CMS was open-ish source-ish leads me to think that it deserves its own article.
[TRH] Also a valid point. I do think that everything about CP/CMS applied to VM/CMS, i.e. I think its public-domain-ness was 'viral.' (This is no doubt one reason IBM always discouraged customers from adopting it, recommending instead the 'mainstream' IBM operating systems. IBM used CP/CMS in-house for interactive use, however, because it was so much more efficient! As I recall IBM hired away a number of key NCSS employees who implemented some of the same technologies at the Thomas Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights – specifically the VP/CSS three-queue dispatcher and NCSS's page migration algorithm.) I'm not sure whether IBM eventually claimed to have rewritten enough of VM370 (the VM/CMS successor) to make it no longer a free system.
[JV] Veddy, veddy interesting. I doubt that IBM has anything to fear at this stage from the muddy history being investigated. It may even help for the murky waters to be covered in a separate article to the articles for VM/CMS, VM370, etc.
If you can provide the answers to the above queries or otherwise help me understand the lineage, I can either re-jig all of those articles so they are less convoluted (and then you can set about improving the content), or I can give you a few pointers on how to go about doing it yourself. Jayvdb 09:13, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
[TRH] I suggest that I think about this all a bit more, and do some further source research, before we start pushing things around. One problem we'll face with this area is that so many of the records predate the Internet, and relevant books are long out of print. There are plenty of subject-matter experts, but like me they'll often have the problem of knowing something to be true but having no idea where to find a citeable reference. Perhaps as we set up the framework we can get some old IBMers, Elis, NCSSers, etc. to add their two cents. The IBM Systems Journal is probably a good source; I wonder if they have made back issues available electronically? ACM journals, for example, don't go back far enough to help us much. (I long ago purged most of my paper journals from that period.)
[JV] and i watch on ebay for those journals to appear :-) It is a terrible, inexplicable, shame that the period just before the internet is going to end up notably vague. Maybe in time, or with our effort, this will be fixed, but it seems like this period will be lost because there is a cognitive dissonance in play wrt to the 10-20 years prior. I've read so many textbooks that cover this history of computer (abacus->valve->vague IBM references or nada->pdp-11->onwards and upwards) that somehow miss the heyday.
The framework you elude to is a WP:PROJ, of which there are a few, but none. The candidates are Wikipedia:WikiProject Computing (too broad?), Wikipedia:WikiProject Early computers (too early), or we create our own if those dont work. Anyway, my thinking is that we can use the project to accumulate opinions of more than one person to create a quasi-truth in lieu of sources, and hopefully more people will mean more sources.
[TRH] On a related topic, I could not find a place where the {{fact}} tag is defined. I understand its purpose, but I'd like to see a list of such constructs. I'd expect to find it on How to edit a page but it doesn't seem to be there. I'm guessing that some other documentation exists on some of these deeper Wiki editing skills and I'd just as soon try to do things the right way.
[JV]{{fact}} is Template:fact. The curly braces tell MediaWiki to look in the Template namespace. I havent created any templates myself so that is as much as I know at this stage.
[TRH] Thanks again for spending time on these matters. Trevor Hanson 22:37, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
[JV] It's my pleasure.
[JV] another aside; It seems like Timeline of computing 1950-1979 is missing a lot of mainframe history.

and yet much more Nomad, National CSS, CP/CMS

Following are replies to your latest comments. One wonders if we are crossing into email territory....

BTW, sorry for being so prolix. You really need to be careful about encouraging me! But I do find that such exchanges help tease out memories and give them shape, especially when dealing with topics that one hasn't thought about for years.

[JV] I agree that this branch of computer science has been kept under wraps. IBM probably did this to protect its own interests.

[TRH] Few people today realize that IBM's domination of the computer industry far outstripped anything we see today from Microsoft, which exists in a much larger and more diverse industry. The international situation was less extreme, but of course the U.S. dominated computer R&D during that period. Those were the bad days when IBM earned antitrust actions through incredible trench warfare – I knew of several firms that were put out of business by IBM, usually by having their other suppliers cut them off at IBM's sub rosa request. "Sorry, we can't sell you paper anymore." Such actions were apparently taken by aggressive field people, i.e. it was not choreographed from the executive suite, but the effects were chilling.
[TRH] IBM's effect on software technology was similarly incredible and terrible. For a decade or more, the fruits of computer science really could not reach the commercial computer user. Modern compilers, user interfaces, design paradigms etc. could be studied at school, but had no bearing on what any IBM customer (75% of the U.S. market) actually did. This was because IBM was solely concerned with 'selling iron,' which did not encourage advances in efficiency, performance, or functionality.
[TRH] IBM famously created a priesthood of technocrats – their value depended on specifically which IBM products they knew, which IBM classes they'd attended, and (importantly) which IBM manuals they had on their shelves. I remember many key documents that I snagged through clandestine means, documents that unlocked the keys to 'magic' system capabilities. Manual distribution was closely controlled by bureaucrats at each customer site, on a need-to-know basis ("You don't need that manual for what you're doing.")

[JV] did it ever escape into Europe ?

[TRH] Interesting. I doubt it, since the system was funded by U.S. tax dollars, and thus any sense of public domain-ness would have been limited to U.S. sites. I expect there were CP/CMS installations in Europe, probably at academic institutions, but I would not expect to find any big customization projects. We'll see if we can attract some CP/CMS insiders who can provide more details or historical documents.

[JV] My rationale for it being on a separate page is that I gather that VP/CSS is inextricably linked with both National CSS and Nomad. Rather than move it from one to the other, it feels more appropriate for it to find its own home. That said, reading through WP:REDIRECT, I've come across the Wikipedia:Redirects with possibilities justification -- I think that provides good reason for the VP/CSS content to live on the National CSS page, with a redirect to take the user to the proper page.

[TRH] The VP/CSS link to National CSS is fundamental. Its link to Nomad is more one of context. Nomad ran under VP/CSS in the same way SQL Server runs under Windows. Another version could (and eventually did) run on another operating system.
[TRH] Why don't we start by expanding the National CSS material, and then, if we wind up with a good crisp sub-article, move it to its own page?

[JV] nod I was looking from a comp.sci. history point of view rather than the hardware it ran on POV.

[TRH] Right, but recall my comments above about IBM's hegemony. The hardware it ran on wasn't as important as the vendor it came from. It simply wasn't possible to run anything on IBM hardware without IBM's active involvement. Media were generally incompatible between systems. Skill sets were highly vendor-specific. IBM wasn't so much a vendor as a world view. I suppose the early Macintosh might be a technical (though not a business) analogue. A piece of early Mac software really had no relevance (nor even existence) outside of the Mac universe.
[TRH] Naturally the comp.sci.history perspective is the one of primary interest for us; but during this period, comp.sci had precious little to do with Fortress IBM. ACM journals rarely mentioned anything about work on IBM systems, except for pure research activities at places like Yorktown Heights (and even that mostly went into the IBM Systems Journal). CS research dealt with a discrete problem space. CS graduates learned to program in FORTRAN or perhaps ALGOL, studied UNIX or MULTICS, became C addicts, and learned how the BLIS compiler was written. When they got jobs in the "real" world they suddenly had to learn 360 assembler or COBOL, going through in-house training programs in which they often found themselves outgunned by English majors. In those days, when hiring IBM-world programmers, a CS or engineering degree was not of special interest except perhaps in a true R&D lab (there were few). Smart employers often looked for music majors or philosophy majors. Creative and editorial skills were more important than understanding logic gates.
[TRH] Sorry for the pedantic trip down memory lane. But as you say, much of this mindset is unknown today; yet at the time, that was everybody's reality.

[JV] Veddy, veddy interesting. I doubt that IBM has anything to fear at this stage from the muddy history being investigated. It may even help for the murky waters to be covered in a separate article to the articles for VM/CMS, VM370, etc.

[TRH] IBM has transformed itself into a big fluffy friendly vendor (cf. the SCO conflict) after losing its empire to Microsoft. I'm sure that old IBMers will give nothing but helpful input at this point. (It's like talking to old WWII combatants on opposing sides, who today have more in common with each other than with succeeding generations.)
[TRH] I think you are probably right about the advantages of separating an historical article on CP/CMS per se. Nonetheless I feel we should probably assemble much of the material first, rather than construct it out in plain sight, to be sure we begin at the academic high ground – good sources, etc. It will take a while to pull the sources together.

[JV] and i watch on ebay for those journals to appear :-) It is a terrible, inexplicable, shame that the period just before the internet is going to end up notably vague. Maybe in time, or with our effort, this will be fixed, but it seems like this period will be lost because there is a cognitive dissonance in play wrt to the 10-20 years prior. I've read so many textbooks that cover this history of computer (abacus->valve->vague IBM references or nada->pdp-11->onwards and upwards) that somehow miss the heyday.

[TRH] I believe I have at least JACM, Computing Surveys, and IEEE TOCS back to around 1980. I'll try to find the right boxes. (Though by that time IBM mainframe systems were really not part of the CS mainstream.)

[JV]{{fact}} is Template:fact. The curly braces tell MediaWiki to look in the Template namespace. I havent created any templates myself so that is as much as I know at this stage.

[TRH] Ahah! Templates! That was the keyword I was missing. I have now found Wikipedia:Template_messages and can see my potpourri of options. Merci.

[JV] another aside; It seems like Timeline of computing 1950-1979 is missing a lot of mainframe history.

[TRH] Wow. So I see. This is not surprising, though. I think that many Wikipedia survey articles need another few years of evolution before they have decent coverage (by which point they will need to be severely pared down to provide a reasonable overview). I happened to look at the list of guitarists and was amused to see the selections and lacunae.
[TRH] More than just mainframe history, the timeline lacks commercial history. This list obviously should focus on technological events such as fabrication and integration milestones, and major software releases; but one must remember that the explosion of computer technology was due to its enormous commercial value and application. But this gets short shrift in the mind of most academic historians. (Partly because so much of it is deadly dull. Who cares about the history of the punchcard? That's why neither 'punch' nor 'card' appears in the 1950-1979 timeline – probably the dominant commercial medium of the period!)

All right, how about an action plan? I believe this is what we're considering:

  1. Nomad's VP/CSS material --> National CSS for the present
    • [JV] agreed.
  2. VP/CSS redirect --> National CSS
    • [JV] agreed.
  3. New CP/CMS historical page; can we start building this in a sandbox before adding any links to it?
    • [JV] The page User:Spinality/CP/CMS has now been created. Anybody can edit it, but only you and I know it exists, so its almost an island.
  4. Assemble CP/CMS reference material
  5. Assemble time-sharing reference material
  6. CP/CMS redirect --> new CP/CMS historical article
  7. VM/CMS link to new article

What else do we need to do? I don't perceive any Wiki-technical challenges to these (i.e. even I could do them) but perhaps you are aware of pitfalls I don't see. Trevor Hanson 18:50, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've taken a first crack at pushing around the material; see National CSS, VP/CSS, and Nomad software. (I also fixed my search woes by adding National css (lower case) and redirecting to National CSS.) In the process I've spewed a lot of new text so I'll have to go back and re-edit it, but I thought I'd get the new framework in place anyway. I'll keep churning on CP/CMS sources and will let you know when I have something to discuss. I hope you concur with the direction I've gone, but of course feel free to flame away. Trevor Hanson 00:34, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Looks good. my only flame is that National CSS now contains a lot of background CP/CMS information that IMO belongs on the User:Spinality/CP/CMS page. So long as you dont mind, I'll keep adding questions and snippets to the CP/CMS page -- expand or discard at your leisure. Jayvdb 01:09, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
[TRH] Yes, I realized that too, but felt I needed to leave enough in place so that the remaining content made sense on its own – absent the new CP/CMS article. (To an extent, I was backing into the old NOMAD#VP/CSS text about CCWTRANS, and how IBM ignored NCSS for a while. I believe I know who wrote that; it's a small population and I know his writing style. It will be helpful not to piss him off, so I can enlist his help :) later.) The other point is that there won't be many people looking at a National CSS article; but there could be many people looking at CP/CMS, including serious historians, and I expect they will be much more critical readers. Hence my desire for a sandbox version of that text. Anyway, I will also flip over to the new article for further comments. Trevor Hanson 01:48, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the help with my sandbox

I didn't know I could create a sub page under my user page. That was a big help. I have done as you suggested. Mrhsj 14:39, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

My pleasure. Good luck with the rewrite. Let me know if you need any assistance. John Vandenberg 21:47, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Speling

Yikes! Thanks for catching my ridicilous mistake on the piano regulation page. !melquiades 17:47, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

No worries. Finding and fixing spelling mistakes is now really easy with Mozilla Firefox 2.0, as it includes a spelling checker. John Vandenberg 22:04, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

...as does virtually every text editor in every app under OS X, which provides spell checking as a general feature. I was just not paying attention! !melquiades 05:00, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

or you could expect your OS to provide such features as a useful text area :) John Vandenberg 05:51, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

the SS guy

He's doing this everywhere.

etc.--HanzoHattori 07:29, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I've also fixed those three. I know there are more but I dont want to rush this and cause a rv war. I'll add a note to the IP's talk page and wait for a response. Cheers, John Vandenberg 12:59, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Program Executive Officer

Thanks for the catch—of course "program" could be confusing. I've given the article in question a tweak. Does that clarify it in your mind? —Ryan McDaniel 23:47, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I've "enhanced" the PEO dab page. Also, as requested, added a partial list of PEOs to the Program Executive Officer article. To answer your question, there are ~10-15 PEOs per service. —Ryan McDaniel 00:47, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Frame entry

Hey, Jayvdb, thanks for clearing the marketing fluff from my Frame addition. I let my enthusiams override my brain there. Rekiwi 00:14, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi, you are Special:Contributions/64.95.112.114? No worries; without your addition of the marketing fluff, I would not have had the basis, nor inclination, to revise it :-) Im glad to see you have created an account. John Vandenberg 01:06, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Talk:David Farrow Maxwell

I saw your exchange on user:HQCentral Talk:David Farrow Maxwell. We've discoever that he is the sockpuppet of notorious plagiarist Primetime. Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Primetime, Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Primetime. It is almost certain that material you were discussing was copied from elsewhere. Sorry that we didn't catch him earlier. -Will Beback 05:32, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Will, thanks for taking the time to let me know. Sadly back in June I wasnt familiar enough with wikipedia to find and tackle processes such as WP:CV, otherwise I would have been able to point it out. John Vandenberg 06:27, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Linking journal names

Hey, Jayvdb. I have mixed feelings about linking journal names, as in Cohn's irreducibility criterion. My thought is that hardly anyone who comes to such a specialized article will be unfamiliar with the American Mathematical Monthly, a well-known journal. Links should be informative, i.e. answer a question that a typical reader of that article will have. My concern is that the only people who ever click on that link will be those who (incorrectly) think it will lead them to the text of the cited article. I'd suggest that the names of contemporary and widely-used journals not be linked in math articles. A quick scan of some mathematics FAs did not reveal any linked journal names. EdJohnston 17:47, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi, my expectation is that journal citations will eventually include a link that could take the reader to the text of the cited article, assuming the reader has a subscription to the journal, etc, etc. However that cant happen until ISSNs are frequently found in citations, and the other necessary fields in {{cite journal}} are in use, and it definitely cant happen when I need to spend over an hour in order to deduce which journal "C. R. Acad. Bulg. Sci." referred to here [1].
Also, in my opinion, the article about the journal is very important reading for someone who cares enough to be reading the References section, as it should give the reader a NPOV overview of the journal, esp. its selection criteria and quality control. However a large percentage of journal citations I have looked at in the last few days are to missing journals -- for these I have added redlinks so the reader can see that wikipedia has no further information on that journal.
wrt American Mathematical Monthly, note that it does not include the ISSN of the journal at this time, because even though the journal is well-known, wikipedians havent bothered to fill in a {{Infobox Journal}}. Also it is being abbreviated in a few styles:
Of those, around 48 are linked to the journal. John Vandenberg 19:36, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
  • The libraries of the world already have information on the existence and basic data of most of these journals, even if the journals don't yet have Wikipedia articles. Nearly all of the journals in your list should have OCLC numbers, which are an especially fast way of looking up library data (e.g. use {{OCLC | 43573783}} as a field in the cite-journal template to create a URL that gives you the publisher, responsible assocation, correct name, and ISSN of the first journal on your list, the 'A and WMA Environmental Compliance News', along with a list of 19 libraries that have it. Here is the actual OCLC URL for that journal [2].
  • Your effort to obtain the full names and ISSNs of the lesser-known journals certainly seems worthwhile. I don't think there should be any reason on Wikipedia to abbreviate journal names. (Wikipedia is not paper). Ideally all journal references would use the {{cite journal}} template.
  • Digital object identifiers (DOIs) are very useful whenever they exist. Many readers who have institutional or personal subscriptions can click on a DOI and open up a PDF of the article with no further ado. ISSNs don't have any similar ability for direct lookup.
  • Pre-1990 papers that don't have DOIs can sometimes be opened via a JSTOR link.
  • Conceivably there would be value in creating micro-articles for all these journals in your list, starting with nothing more than what OCLC gives you. (Assuming no copyright problems). Further info could be added as it becomes available. The alternative of having the journal-name link take you to the OCLC entry might be considered. Does this option have any appeal? EdJohnston 03:45, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Hi Ed, firstly .. thanks for the additional information with the factual tidbits; I am in the business of commerical research management software, and publications is an area of the game that I still need to learn a lot more about. You have raised some interesting discussion points here, so I would like to quickly respond regarding the hyperlinking of journal articles. In the past I have found cases where the journal names and book publishers were linked, and I think that doing so assists in the fact-discovery & cross-checking processes. I adopted the practise in part to record where I or others have been. However, this is possibly letting the editors needs impose on the readers; I agree that linking the journal name is distracting to the reader. To summarise:
Pros:
  1. bluelinks inform the reader that they can follow the link to find more detail about the journal
  2. in the case of redlinks, the reader can see that more information is desired
  3. abbreviated journal names can be used (Template_talk:Cite journal#JournalURL: User:~K is also linking journal names)
Cons:
  1. results in strange and/or overlinked citation format
  2. a DOI represents all of this metadata and more; m:Wikicat intends to bring journal metadata into wikipedia
Some possible solutions:
  1. Alter Template:Cite journal to create a non-intrusive icon that links to the journal. Is there some precedence of doing something like this. Is there an icon that people would recognise, perhaps similar to one used in other sites that host cross-linked journals.
  2. Create a policy for when to link to the journal articles WP entry. e.g. if the journal citation has a DOI or ISSN, dont link to the journal article.
  3. Break the DOI link into its parts: the journal component links to the wikipedia article and the second goes offsite to the journal entry. e.g. 10.1103/PhysRevLett.93.098107 My understanding of DOI is that it is not suitable for this purpose.
  4. Dont link the journal names. Once the real name of a journal has been identified, creating a stub article such as IJMMS with redirect Internat. J. Math. Math. Sci. will help the reader find the information if they do a google search.
A few related wikipedia resources:
The above isnt intended to be final; im certainly willing to be swayed on the linking of journal names, but I would first like to find a solution that only has Pros and no Cons :-) John Vandenberg 07:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Missing Journal articles

A follow-up comment. I was thinking it might be worthwhile starting to go down your list of missing journals to fill in some information. However there is no guarantee that any one journal is mentioned in Wikipedia, since that's a list made from library holdings. This might result in creating extra work for us. Any ideas on how to proceed? EdJohnston 05:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Creating Wikipedia articles for each journal has the potential for recording a lot more information that a DOI record can, because it is free form. For example Zeitschrift für Physik is a literary mess, but yet it is still very useful. The best way to start would be to look over the list for journals in your field, and create stubs for any that you feel are important (IJMMS is a good template). However you have raised a really important point: not all journals are used on wikipedia. Still, it wouldnt hurt to be ahead of the citations, and create articles for important journals either to assist wikipedians find ISSNs, DOIs, etc, and also to assist people that might use wikipedia to find the journal they may encounter (in abbreviated form) in printed matter or online elsewhere.
User:Bduke has mentioned that Wikipedia:List_of_missing_journals is unwieldy, so I think we need to come up with something more workable. I have thrown together a "workbench" that we can all edit: Wikipedia:List_of_missing_journals/Queue. I created my first template (Template:Missing article) in the process, in order to make it easier, and I am keen to create additional templates to assist searching for inexact citations. John Vandenberg 12:10, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
You've collected some interesting references on this problem! I can't resist adding that the German WP has an article called de:Wikipedia:ISSN [3] (which has no counterpart in the English WP: en:Wikipedia:ISSN). They link ISSNs to library catalog cards, thanks to some consortium that exists in Germany. An example is their article on MAD Magazine (de:MAD-Magazin). If you clink on the first underlined ISSN in that article it takes you to a record in a library system. EdJohnston 16:44, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for diving in and helping with the WP:LOMJ/Queue. I've joined the :de WP so I can start looking about at how things are being done over there.
Im not sure if you are aware, but :en does have Template:ISSN, which works similar to the :de equivalent; it takes the reader directly to the journal (not the specific journal article).
de:Wikipedia:ISSN is linked to by de:Wikipedia:Literatur, which also doesnt exist on en. However, :en does have Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines. I've yet to review that guideline to understand the current WP group think. John Vandenberg 00:39, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

OCLCs vs ISSNs

I havent run into OCLCs before; what advantage do they have over ISSNs? John Vandenberg 07:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

p.s. there is a known issue with using ISSNs on Template:Infobox_Journal. The template needs to be expanded, so I guess it is important to know where OCLCs fit into the picture. John Vandenberg 09:13, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

  1. OCLCs exist for historic journals that may have predated the ISSN era, since they are based on library entries found by worldcat.org. If the journal is held by a major library, an OCLC should exist for it. For example, Bulletin of the New York Mathematical Society, which existed only between 1891 and 1894 has an OCLC but no ISSN.
  2. OCLCs give 'one-stop shopping' for journal information, because they give you the equivalent of a library catalog card for each journal, with the full name, publisher, society, and ISSN.
  3. The Template:OCLC gives the reader a clickable link to open up the library information. (When a journal has an ISSN you could also search worldcat for the ISSN and display the same data record in maybe one or two additional steps). However, I imagine that more people have heard of ISSNs than OCLCs. Certainly the journal publisher is more likely to identify itself by its ISSN. EdJohnston 15:53, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Point 1 (historical journals) is reasonable; do you know why the ISSN numbering system hasnt been expanded to cover older publications? My concern is that lots of numbering schemes cause confusion, and current mindshare and WP policy/guidelines are focused on ISSN. To recommend an alternative will require solid arguments.
Response. The ISSNs are for the convenience of publishers, and they are relatively new. When documenting pre-1970 books in a WP reference list, we have a similar problem, because an ISBN won't usually exist. If a publisher re-issues an older book, it will probably give it an ISBN. EdJohnston 02:09, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Point 2 (additional data) is on shakey ground IMO - if an OCLC and an ISSN uniquely identify the same journal, they are interchangable identification schemes, and the additional information is merely attributes implemented into the catalog system.
Point 3 (WP template) is moot AFAICS: Template:ISSN.
Response. Now that I've suffered through that Z. fur Kristallographie stuff, I think that it's more reasonable to add ISSNs rather than OCLCs for journals in our reference lists, if a decision is made that we want journal information everywhere. One way to do this would be to linkify the journal name, and have that be a URL to a Worldcat search for the given ISSN. For instance, for 'Canadian Journal of Mathematics', clicking on the link would open the URL http://worldcat.org/search?q=issn%3A0008-414X. That way clicking the journal name would lead you to an externally-maintained 'catalog card'. With this way of doing it we could have ISSN be a hidden field in the cite journal template and it wouldn't use up space in the visible reference list. See what you think. Never mind. I just saw your comment (above) about how Template:ISSN works, and that seems superior to what I described. It does mean we would have an ISSN in every journal reference, unless we think of a cute abbreviation like the icon you suggested. EdJohnston 02:09, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Still a further idea: why not make the abbreviation 'ISSN' itself be a link, and NOT make the number visible? If clicking the word 'ISSN' takes you into Worldcat, where the ISSN is displayed, that probably does the trick. EdJohnston 02:29, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
That would make it more difficult for humans and HTML parsers to pull out the ISSNs as they would need to parse the URL instead of the DOM. I would prefer to see the 'ISSN' part disappear or be unlinked, as it is needlessly repeated. As both ISSNs and OCLCs both link to WorldCat, it seems sensical to treat them synonymously, in which case differentiating them with ISSN or OCLC doesnt have much value (the astute reader should be able to visually pick which are ISSNs vs OCLCs. This is pretty academic tho, as changes to either the ISSN or Cite Journal templates are improbable without a lot of consensus building. In the interim, I think we can use DOIs where possible, and create the missing journal pages -- simply doing that is proving to be a steep learning curve. I expect that WP:LOMJ is duplicating/overlapping the work of meta:Wikicite, however the human comprehensible descriptions of how a journal flowed through time is where the true value is. John Vandenberg 03:17, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
It seems like we're switching positions. You got me interested in the ISSNs, and I now see the value of adding them, and the grand overall problem (of shaggily-structured journals like Z. fur Kristallographie) is something I'd be willing to leave aside for a while. Until you pointed it out I wasn't aware that Template:ISSN is doing a worldcat lookup. Are you aware that the id= field of 'cite book' and 'cite journal' is essentially free-form? That means you could put in the identifier of your choice. It can be an ISBN or an OCLC, in case of a book, or an ISSN for a journal, whatever you want. You just shouldn't make a choice that is too eccentric or you will annoy people. It's possible that the Mathematics wikiproject would agree to have ISSNs added to the math references. This could be done with 'id={{ISSN|nnnnn}}, I believe. EdJohnston 03:44, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Maybe. I didnt explain myself very well in the last comment: I like having ISBNs or ISSNs for each citations, but I dont like the wiki-linked text "ISSN" or "ISBN" appearing in each citations, as the References sections soon becomes a sea of bluelinks, esp when doi= and id= are both provided. For a long time I have been content to add ISSN/ISBNs where I could, however I have started addressing WP:LOMJ because I have found it really difficult at times to figure out which journal is being referred to, and then which ISSN is the right ISSN. This is in part because I dont know a lot about journals in general (quickly learning), but also because the history is messy (and interesting :-) ). Ultimately, I want to create articles for all notable scholarly journals, and so I see us coming back to the linking of journal names issue. In my opinion, linking the citations to the WP article about the journal will be able to provide useful information to the reader. But, having said that, I can see now that wikilinking names of journals (esp. redlinks) was possibly just a poor-man's version of WP:LOMJ/Queue, so I'm going to focus on enhancing the templates that drive WP:LOMJ/Queue so that it becomes easy to figure out the ISSN for any citation. John Vandenberg 05:24, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for details you have provided; I think these need to be feed into OCLC/WorldCat, or perhaps Comparison of bibliographic databases or Wikipedia:Bibliographic databases. John Vandenberg 00:54, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

DOIs

DOIs are a workable way to point to a journal article, but the format doesnt intrinsically (appear to) cater for pointing to an entry about the journal itself. The reason I am interested in this is that often a citation will not have sufficient information to be able to find the FQ-DOI -- in that event, it would be handy to be able to record the components of it that have been nailed down.

Do you have any experience with how well DOI.org resolves partial identifiers? John Vandenberg 07:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Steven Boone-GIMPS merger tags

I removed your merge discuss links to November 2006. I guess you meant to write "|date=November 2006" instead of just "|November 2006" in the merge tags. PrimeHunter 05:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

You guess correctly; cheers for fixing those. John Vandenberg 05:21, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Multiple clickable items in a journal reference

See [4]. This example has an article URL, but no DOI. It might be worth converting a sample article (whose creator does not object) so see how different reference styles would look. EdJohnston 22:08, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The last example you left on my talk page seems the best one so far. See my response at [5]. EdJohnston 03:34, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Cite journal template

I took a look at the conversation in Template_talk:cite_journal. It seems that they have played around with adding parameters in the past, and there have been 'taste wars' (whether titles should display with quotes, for example). It looks as though more reading in the citation areas of WP will be necessary before being comfortable asking for a change in a standard template that's so heavily used. I also looked at m:Wikicite but that work seems a touch utopian.

Your discovery about Google books and OCLC appears promising. Perhaps Google HAD to use OCLC because their main focus is on books that are out of copyright, which generally are too old to have ISBNs. Also they are starting with books found in libraries which thus are guaranteed to have OCLCs.

Here's something you might find interesting. The French WP has a centralized reference list. You could look at [6] and then select one of the items in the reference list. If you choose Serge Lang's book, and click on 'détail des éditions' it will take you to [7]. At that book you can pick reference format from a roll-down list, which is kind of cute. That way, if you didn't want to look at the ISSN or the DOI, you wouldn't have to. However they don't do this for all their references, just some of them. The other advantage of their scheme is that it gives them ready-made reading lists for certain topic areas. For instance their mathematics project has an algebra reading list called [8] which includes Lang's book.

I guess this is a bit far afield from your interest in journal citations, but it just shows what is possible if the editors have enough patience. EdJohnston 03:53, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Published-invalid ISBNs in WP

Hey John. I know you're mostly tracking journals rather than books, but bad ISSNs and bad ISBNs have something in common. I left an update over at Rich F's talk page about published-invalid ISBNs. One would hope that serial publishers don't make that kind of mistake, but, your recent findings do raise the question. EdJohnston 03:22, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Melbourne meetup in planning

Hello, you've indicated that you're interested in future Meetups in Melbourne on this list, so I'm giving you this message to remind you that Melbounre meetup number four is currently in planning. If you haven't already, please go to Wikipedia:Meetup/Melbourne to suggest possible dates, times and locations. Thanks --Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 03:04, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

As of (month) (year)

Hi John,

I saw that you added a link to "as of December 2005" to the article Google Book Search. That format is deprecated; we're just supposed to use "as of 2005", with a piped link when necessary to amplify. One of my projects is to remove the deprecated usage from pages (and try to improve them as I flit by), so thanks for your help. MKoltnow 04:33, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know! John Vandenberg 04:47, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

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Linking to journals, still more ideas

See Talk:Scientific citation guidelines for a review of some things you and I talked about before. EdJohnston 19:18, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

number of journals in doaj

There are as of mid-Dec. 2500 of them. DOAJDGG 20:29, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

also: -- see continued discussion on my user page.DGG 21:51, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

journal categories

Perhaps you can help me figure out what the hierarchy of categories (and lists) for academic publication ought to be--and in partic what shoul dbe done with the List of scientific journals. that now includes all subjects, not just scienceDGG 04:57, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm not the real inventive sort, so my preference is always to organise things in classifications schemes that someone else has created. The classification scheme that I am most intimately aware of is is Research Field, Course and Discpline (RFCDs); the problem is that typically any research is comprised of multiple RFCDs -- In the australian research market, all funded research _must_ be defined in terms of one or more weighted RFCDs. Ideally (some time into the future) the Australian research industry needs an electronically accessible database of all/most journals that includes weighted RFCDs, so that university research offices can audit and/or automate the RFCD classification of a researchers publication. I wonder if there is an equivalent international classification scheme...

With regard to List of scientific journals, there are currently 29 lists of journals on WP. I prefer categories over lists of article names, but no doubt we would have difficulty removing the lists. John Vandenberg 06:04, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Barnstar

The Working Man's Barnstar
For your work on ISBNs Rich Farmbrough, 00:13 19 December 2006 (GMT).

Two-eyed speedy beast

(irt Wikipedia:Deletion review#JasperReports)

Jayvdb, I understand and even mostly agree with your statement about two-fisted speedy-ing. If I'm even slightly hesitant about deletion, I'll either tag it as a speedy and palm it off on someone else, use a {{prod}} tag, or send it to afd. In this case I had no hesitation, as there was nothing to differentiate it from the raft of other de facto advertising articles.

We have dynamic tension between preserving encyclopedic content and keeping the signal:noise ratio high. The speedy deletion backlog is always high, and if admins were required to "double check" their own judgement in a tag-and-bag operation, it would perhaps get higher.

However, there are plenty of mad inclusionists1 out there double checking after the fact, and lots of them are adminstrators. Most of the time we get it right, and for the times when there's even a chance that we didn't deletion review has the "content review" section just in case.

brenneman 07:08, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Only poking mild fun, don't read anything into it.

Hi, I'm not perturbed by you deleting JasperReports, even tho in this case it was definitely hasty (as you say, there is a backlog) -- that is why there is a WP:Deletion review. However, I am unimpressed that you feel that admins dont need to follow processes -- if you cant be bothered following a process on an article, leave the article alone! By taking matters into your own hands you discourage Wikipedians and destroy the reputation of Wikipedia, which in the end results in people not being available to perform the maintenance tasks such as CAT:CSD. In this case, a {{prod}} on the article would have resulted in me (or someone similar) spending an hour upgrading the article from a stub (see Oracle BPEL Process Manager for evidence that prod really does work). John Vandenberg 08:09, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Also, your argument that you cant take the time to check google hits is a straw man. There are plenty of ways to very quickly verify whether there is some reasonable notability for an article (and 800,000 google hits on the article title should definitely give you reason to stop and think). If you think this takes more than half a second to do, I will be happy to point you to wikipedia javascript hacks, greasemonkey scripts and firefox extensions that help you give your "gut feel" a reality check before you act. John Vandenberg 08:09, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I feel as though we're not communicating well here.
  • I'm not at all suggesting that adminstrators don't need to follow process. Speedy deletion policy is that "Wikipedia administrators may delete Wikipedia pages or media "on sight" without further debate." What you're suggesting, that admins must tag articles so that other admins may delete them, is classic instruction creep.
  • I'm also not suggesting that I had neither the time nor the tools to do a "reality check." I'm suggesting that it is not required. If an article doesn't tell me it's notable, it is a valid speedy deletion. If you'll examine the speedy deletion criteria, you'll see that they are all carefully contructed in this manner.
Really though, we're spinning our wheels here. Edit the userpage Saved_pages/JasperReports to include reliable sources that indicate its notability and this discusion is over. Barring that I cannot support undeletion.
brenneman 10:12, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
My beef is that the right to 'delete Wikipedia pages or media "on sight" without further debate' was used in a case where I think another approach would have been more appropriate. I am not referring to the limited WP:CSD process -- I am talking about the general process of trying to improve articles (i.e. tagging article to solicit others input). When I read G11, I see it limited by blatant, and I presumed it was for cases where the article is full of superlatives. I guess at the end of the day maybe you had me pegged correctly from the beginning -- maybe I am more of an inclusionist that I thought I was. If so, and you fall into the other camp, then indeed we are spinning wheels. In the process, I have gathered a better understand of the importance of "on sight" in the WP:CSD.
As I have said previously, I am only mildly concerned that the page was deleted. I was hoping that with the error pointed out (800,000+ hits sure has a nice ring to it doesnt it? :) ), the page would be restored. I fully intend to fix up the article, but I would like to see the history restored, preferably now because in my opinion it is self evidently notable, but if not, after I prove it would be fine; call it principle if you will. John Vandenberg 12:45, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you

Hi John. I just want to thank you for taking the time to consider the facts and express an informed opinion with respect the the Islamic Cults AfD. The issues that you have raised are right on the ball, and I appreciate the opportunity to respond to your comments. Kind regards -- Aylahs (talk) 00:45, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I've been keen to learn the nuisances of the branches of Islam for a while; now is as good a time as any. Two questions:
  • Nizari is not listed on Ismaili; is that intentional?
    It is actually listed - with at least three links, multiple mentions and clear description of the history. The word appears with diacritical marks as 'Nizārī'. -- Aylahs (talk) 03:16, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Salafism states that Wahhabism are/were different, and even that the word Salafi is ambiguous. Wouldnt it be better to avoid the term on Divisions of Islam ?
    I must confess that I'm not as informed about Salafism and Wahhabism. My understanding is that Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab inspired a movement termed Wahhabism which had tremendous influence over Saudi Arabia. Salafism emerged as a response to modernism. As Saudi Arabian society has evolved, its official interpretation of Islam has shifted towards Salafism. So they are separate movements, but it sounds like Wahhabism is slowly giving way to Salafism. -- Aylahs (talk) 03:16, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Looking forward to your responses here and on the afd. John Vandenberg 02:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Hope this was helpful. Regards -- Aylahs (talk) 03:16, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, thank you for pointing those out. John Vandenberg 03:28, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey :)

Wow, small world. Hope all is well with you. Orderinchaos78 11:26, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

All was well; now im perplexed. If I dont sleep well, its your fault. John Vandenberg 15:44, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Aww, sorry :| Um, my profile should give some hints, especially if you subtract 7 years from my age and the letters "inf" trigger any memories. Orderinchaos78 06:43, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Agh. Hmm, Glendalough? John Vandenberg 06:51, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Yep - I didn't live there though, just visited occasionally. Orderinchaos78 07:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

links in CLRI

I apologize for my over-imaginative use of external links. I knew it was wrong but I was in a hurry. Trying to quickly upgrade articles someone else should have done correctly tends to do that. Thanks for watching. DGG 22:59, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Seriously, not a problem at all. Your research will probably save the article, which is all that is important. John Vandenberg 23:26, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Re John Moccia

There is no need to wikilink proper names, especially if it is unlikely an article on the subject will ever be created. This just adds redlinks which clutter up pages. — Swpb talk contribs 14:47, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

It does help the Afd process if people can quickly see which things that have been mentioned are covered by an article already. If the article is deleted, then the redlinks go with it. John Vandenberg 14:53, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Re Count From Zero Links

Hi, I noticed that you reverted some edits I made with the reason "we dont list to external directories", which pertains to the site I own, Count From Zero. There are three reasons why I think this is incorrect:

1) On the page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links, the second item under "Links to be considered" states

"A web directory category, when deemed appropriate by those contributing to the article, with preference to open directories."

Admittedly, Count From Zero is not open, but I intend to make it so soon. An argument could be made about the appropriateness of content, but considering that I provide significant additional information beyond that available from Wikipedia, I think the content is appropriate.

2) IMDB, a directory if there ever was one, is linked to pervasively on Wikipedia, and is not open. Is a special exception is made for this case?

3) The article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_engine has links to "Open source software in" Java," an external directory also not open, although this may just be an oversight.

Olinga 04:53, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

addendum: after reading Wikipedia:External links I admit I was in violation of the of the Conflict of Interest policy. Olinga 06:00, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

My apologies for not responding sooner. We had a few power problems here. Thanks for reading those two guidelines, and also for taking the time to discuss the matter further. Before I noticed the COI, I was suspicious because you were adding external links to the same website on multiple wikipedia articles, in quick succession - that is rarely the sign of good contributions because each article has its own needs. Behaviour like that automatically makes me think: shill. Anyhow, the damage was quickly fixed. wikt:No harm, no foul. :-)
Wrt the listing of directories as external links, your use of IMDB as an example is incorrect, as each article usually links to a single page within IMDB, on which the reader will find lots of information specifically on the same topic. Contrast that with a external link to a webpage that lists other pages on the same site -- that type of external link is not as useful, as the data on the external directory page may grow to include WP:NN entries. Fundamentally, "lists" and "directories" is one of the features of the wikipedia category system, so it is more benefital to Wikipedia's goals to require that lists of things are internally managed, so that wikipedians can monitor them. However external links to directories, such as you have pointed out on Rule engine, are often used when an article or subject matter is first being fleshed out -- these links usually disappear as the article and related articles improve. John Vandenberg 13:46, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Re:trying to find author of article

Name of author himself isn't showed, so I only say that author company is Newsfront Corporation. --Izumi5 13:38, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Generation YES citation

Hi John. I added an ISSN that you were looking for, but can't get the syntax right- can you help out? Thanks - Freechild 20:46, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

invalid ISBNs

I saw your comment on the Category talk:Articles with invalid ISBNs page. I've worked on about a thousand ISBNs so far. I've tried to leave tracks about what action I took. If you look at my contributions page you will notice that I tried to mark what I did as a "repair", "delete", "repair" or "unable to locate". I hope this is of help to you.

A few of the "unable to locate" articles have ISBNs that are supposed to refer to DVDs. I am not sure DVDs have ISBNs. --Droll 01:49, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

DVDs can have an ISBN, but usually when accompanied with significant supporting printed material. They also have their own identification system, and we are running into them a lot, so perhaps we need to start arranging how Wikipedia should handle them. John Vandenberg 02:18, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

re: Category:Date of birth missing

Good evening. Per the discussion about privacy concerns expressed at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Privacy of birthdays, date of birth should generally not be added to the biographies of living non-public or semi-public figures. So far, that policy has been interpreted fairly strictly with a pretty high bar being set for the definition of "public figures" who are assumed to have given up their rights to privacy.

By the same token, we should not be adding Category:Date of birth missing to articles unless we have made the case that the person meets the "public figures" threshold. Otherwise, we're just baiting new users into adding content even though the community has already said that we shouldn't include that particular data point. Category:Year of birth missing is okay but the exact date is often not. Thanks for your help. Rossami (talk) 23:38, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I was aware of this but don't doubt that I made a mistake; which article was this in regards to? John Vandenberg 23:43, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Telecell was prod-ed

Hi John. I happened to see your edit comment asking about Telecells. That was a redirect to Telecell, which was deleted due to prod on 20 January. EdJohnston 17:30, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I've been meaning to merge that into Spreadsheet, but couldn't be bothered doing that at 2:30am. I've pulled the little of value out of the google cache and put that plan in motion. John Vandenberg 01:04, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

chu

John, I'm not sure what you seem to be saying: 40+ publications with hundreds of citations to them isnt V of N? He just has to be more notable than mot people in the field, and full professors of both medicine and biochemistry at stanford are certainly that. Also considerably more than the avg 3 or 4 papers are enough. WP:PROF is not a policy or even a guideline, and even if it were, any one of the criteria is enough. DGG 02:44, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Milk (Garbage song)

Hi John. I don't want to replace any material you might have added to this article, but the two songbooks at the top of the list looked somewhat imaginary to me, so I just plain got rid of them. Please revisit if you think this was incorrect. the 'Garbage Version 2.0' book certainly existed and was found all over the place via Google. I'm guessing that someone just filled in some entries from memory, and didn't get it right. The rest of the article was exhaustively detailed and I figure they would rather include verifiable information. EdJohnston 03:59, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

No worries; thanks for the heads up. International Music Publications is a curious beast, which is why I left the information in the article. You're correct to get rid of them; I've made a note on the songs talk page to help me remember where I was when I gave up last time. John Vandenberg 04:34, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Armagetron Advanced

Hey. I don't understand what you mean. This, this and this were not "reasonable attempts" but vandalism. Even a bot tried to revert him, but was too slow. I didn't revert his section blanking the second time anymore, because that, instead, could be an attempt to improve the article. Thanks, Prolog 13:21, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

See User talk:Prolog. John Vandenberg 13:31, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
No worries. I've made the same mistake myself once, when I was tired. :-) Prolog 13:37, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Ottobib

Thanks for your help on the OttoBib page. Maybe the AfD is not a bad thing if it helps get some attention. But be sure to weigh in at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/OttoBib.com. BTW, I don't know if you have been using it in your ISBN work, but it seems to return results on obscure ISBN numbers that many other tools cannot handle. Dhaluza 02:01, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

No worries. Im not sure that the article should survive yet, as ISBNdb.com does not have its own article. Do you have an example where OttoBib returns a result when OCLC doesnt? John Vandenberg 02:34, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Try http://ottobib.com/isbn/0960567631. Also the examples at ISBN are pretty obscure: ISBN 0-19-860-0585 refers to the "Oxford Dictionary of Quotations". In real life the edition of the book of poems shown has ISBN 0-571-108-644. The first edition of "The Ultimate Alphabet" and "The Ultimate Alphabet Workbook" have the same ISBN 0-8050-0076-3. Conversely, books can be published with multiple ISBNs: A German as a second language edition of Emil und die Detektive has the following ISBNs: 87-23-90157-8 (Denmark), 0-8219-1069-8 (United States), 91-21-15628-X (Sweden), 0-85048-548-7 (England) and 3-12-675495-3 (Germany). Some books have more than one language area code, e.g. A.M.Yaglom, Correlation Theory... , published by Springer Verlag has ISBN 0-387-96331-6 and ISBN 3-540-96331-6. Dhaluza 03:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
ISBN 0960567631 doesn't demonstrate OttoBib's supremacy; it turns up at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0960567631 and at http://worldcat.org/search?q=isbn:0960567631. OCLC shows all editions of the same book, crossing language and publisher. John Vandenberg 03:23, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Newbie question

Thanks for help on *User:Badgettrg/Minnesota Colon Cancer Control Study (PMID: 7580661). How do I delete a another test page I made in my user space (User:Badgettrg/test)? Do I need an administrator? ThanksBadgettrg 19:51, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Types of trombones

I noticed you left an message at Talk:Types of trombones about the Mandip Kang reference. I removed the referece because it seems to have been created by a vandal. I left a note on the talk page. --DRoll 10:51, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I hope you don't mind but I took the liberty of removing the ISBN reference from your note on the talk page so that it will not be flagged by smackbot some time the future. I'd be glad to revert the edit if you want. I know it was not quit proper but I thought you would not mind. --DRoll 10:58, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

No, I dont mind at all. Case closed. John Vandenberg 11:00, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Collier

fixed it. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 23:04, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Message

Re Evan Siegel religion See his website, he was a Hebrew Instructor 1994-2000 Park Slope Jewish Center ;and Faculty advisor to the Jewish Interests 1997-2000. also see item 11 of http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:qe43ynz0e0kJ:www.laguardiacorruption.com/lagcorruption/MONTHLY_UPDATE+jew+%22Evan+Siegel%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=13&lr=lang_en Kiumars

Hmm, that doesnt look like a reliable or conclusive source, as it requires a leap of faith :-). Someone may claim Jewish identity but not be of the Jewish religion. Also, a Jew may be a Messianic Jew, which is quite a different religion. Anyway, it is a start. John Vandenberg 16:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Luciano Fadiga

Hi, been looking around and there are enough good sources re. Fadiga ... they just have to be referenced in the article and there could be a keep 87.203.48.160 00:06, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry forgot to log in Alf photoman 00:08, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Heymann standard

I have changed my AfD vote based on the work you did on William Bradford (professor). Out of sheer curiosity I stumbled across your essay, and figured you could count my experience as a success story.  :) /Blaxthos 17:05, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Text

I note that you've been disambiguating links to text. You might find the article I've just started at textuality helpful. Thanks. Chick Bowen 16:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Problematic ISSN

Do you think we need a {{Listed Invalid ISSN|X}}? I've noticed that you and I have each tried to fix the remaining article tagged with an invalid ISSN. Keesiewonder talk 01:24, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

We definitely do need an equivalent for ISSNs; I've created the template and applied it to that case. Thanks for finishing off the rest of the articles in the Invalid ISSN category. John Vandenberg 03:36, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the template; I'll have to figure out how to create them some day. Keesiewonder talk 03:43, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Puzzle

Maybe you can help me with this too: Why do the first two links below bring up the same thing, but the third does not match (when it should)? Is there a bug at WorldCat? --Keesiewonder talk 02:40, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
[9]
OCLC 9806395
ISSN 0739-8018

I dont understand why they should match; the first two appear to be for one journal (ISSN 0739-8018), and the third is a different journal (ISSN 0894-6485) by the same company. John Vandenberg 03:17, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Look at the ISSN when you click on the first two. It is the ISSN I list in the 3rd. Yet, when you click on the 3rd, you travel to a different ISSN, i.e. the one you provided. Keesiewonder talk 03:40, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Ahhh, I now see what you mean. I think I have seen this before, but havent been working on ISSNs for a while, so I'll need to refresh myself on WP:LOMJ/Queue. In the meantime, try this: [10]; it shows two results for "0739-8018" and [11] is only displaying one of them; probably the most current. The big question is why is it that the specific request for issn 0739-8018 is ending up being "intelligently" handled. It could be a bug, or an obscure part of the MARC record. Do you want to add a entry to WP:LOMJ/Queue#Unsorted for this ISSN? If not, do you mind if I do? John Vandenberg 04:16, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
You may do it since I am not as familiar with this realm, yet, as you. If need be, you may of course reference our chat here. Let me know what happens. Thanks. Keesiewonder talk 12:53, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Maybe this will be a clue for you. I just noticed if you put 0739-8018 in the magazine template, it links as we want it to. So, in the magazine template it works as we'd expect, but when in the ISSN template it uses its artificial intelligence ... ? Keesiewonder talk 13:08, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
I was about to direct you to my sandbox for a demo, but, now the problem seems to have gone away? Keesiewonder talk 13:14, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Looks like it was a bug that has been fixed. I noticed yesterday that the OCLC search was unavailable for about 15 mins, so maybe that was due to them upgrading the search software. John Vandenberg 21:54, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Another ...

Another FYI ... --Keesiewonder talk 19:26, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Infobox Journal without name parameter

What did you have in mind with Category:Infobox Journal without name parameter ? I cant find any references to it anywhere. John Vandenberg 04:48, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I abandoned it a few minutes after creating it. I use categories to filter out templates with certain error in them. I'll go list this category in the speedy deletions. --Dispenser 23:53, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Seetal

Will try to have a friend dig up some Newspaper reports n Switzerland. Good job Alf photoman 13:20, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Invitation to join WikiProject Graffiti

Hello, thank you for your recent contributions to an article relating to Graffiti or Graffiti culture. WikiProject Graffiti is a dedicated group of people working to better Wikipedia's coverage of topics relating to Graffiti. We would greatly value your joining our WikiProject, or adding some input at our talk page.

Regards, Dfrg.msc 07:46, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Metal Storm

Done and done! And even cited my reasons! [gasp]  :) Sorry about the punk'd link, totally forgot I was a brat and put that up there. [grins]  ;) Jachin 08:15, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Articles about journals

Interesting project. I am not sure I want to commit myself to a project like this, however, as I have a few other things I had planned to do, but I will keep it in mind and perhaps add the odd article on a journal now and then, provided people won't start suggesting them for deletion as soon as they have been written. Does that happen often?

The list at Wikipedia:List of missing journals looks rather incomplete. I would expect many more German-language journals beginning with "Zeitschrift..." and "Jahrbuch...", for instance. (I doubt the articles have all already been written.) Is it somehow auto-generated? Can it be easily updated with the help of a few more library collections? (And perhaps divided into smaller parts?) Pharamond 08:39, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

It hasnt been developed into a full scale project; feel free to participate to whatever level you wish. There are only a few people who frequent it; mostly librarians or other folk with a keen interest in scholarly research and digital repositories -- and they are more interested in creating and improving articles about worthy topics rather than deleting articles.
The list was originally created by User:SimonP, and has been manually maintained since. If you know of any accessible lists that we could automatically suck in, I can do the coding required. Dividing it into smaller parts has been suggested once before; at the time I wasnt in favour because I prefer to do searches on the one page, but I have since learnt of some MediaWiki features that can be used to have my cake and eat it too. I'll bring it up on the talk page; the lack of German-language journals is related to splitting it up. John Vandenberg 09:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Carl Steadman

Jay, please stop blindly reverting my contributions to the Carl Steadman article. Your "evidence" to justify vandalizing my work consists of a page written at least three years before Carl's death [12]. So, you're claiming that I'm the vandal here, and yet you can't be bothered to spend the five seconds it took me to look that up at the Internet Archive? The level of hypocrisy you've shown here is staggering. TVshot 01:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I have not claimed that he is alive or dead, just that he is still listed as the operator. If you have evidence that he is dead, or no longer the operator of plastic.com, by all means show us. John Vandenberg 02:13, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm done reverting (WP:3RR), but I explained my evidence for his death in the paragraph I wrote in the article. I suggest you re-read it; his disappearance following a reference to suicide on his web page seems like fairly strong evidence to me. Now, I don't have proof that he hasn't simply disappeared, which is why I qualified the statement with "Although unconfirmed" and a question mark next to the date of death. Why is no evidence at all needed for your claim that he is still alive, but I am required to prove conclusively that he is dead? At the very least, some doubt that he is alive should be expressed in the article. TVshot 02:30, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
I did read it, and think that you may be onto something, but Wikipedia is not a place for original research. Until a credible source says something on the matter, there isnt much that you can add to the article. John Vandenberg 02:39, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Canadian Research Funding

Canada has three (research funding) granting councils: NSERC, SSHRC, CIHR These provide funding for graduate students and post-docs.

Canada also has a national research agency that PERFORMS research, the National Research Council of Canada.

A good reference is The State of Science and Technology in Canada. Rakerman 14:25, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Offering a new fringe journal for your consideration

Hi John, See the Denny Klein AfD. This stuff is so good, you could not possibly make this up! A new and combustible form of water?? Anyway, per the links I show below, there is a new journal which (amazingly) is offered through www.sciencedirect.com, called the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. I nominate this for your consideration in WP:LOMJQ as a journal that ought to have a WP article. Here is the link to the specific article that caused my excitement: [13] I guess the bottom line is, articles about journals will be more interesting the less the reader has heard about them, and the more strange they are. I don't know how many people will bother to read our article about the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, but they could be more likely to read about the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. It would certainly belong in Category:Fringe science journals, which sadly, has only six members at this time. There must be more weirdness out there that we could document! Sorry to be politically incorrect. EdJohnston 01:24, 23 February 2007 (UTC)


Resp

Looks like you've been busy recently. Thanks for helping the articles along, I really appreciate you efforts. The AfD, I think, has been a major backfire for the nominator, before the AfD some of the articles were tiny and had little or no attention; now the spotlight is on and they are flourishing, better than ever and stand much less chance of being deleted. See you out there. Cheers, Dfrg.msc 05:37, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Chabad Messianism

Hi there, could you please help me out I don't know what to do. I am being chased around by User:PinchasC who will not let me add a single word or link about Michichism, let alone create a separate article.

Every time I try he pulls another deceitful slight of hand, reverting endlessly, nominating good articles for AfD just to confuse people and so on and so forth.

Chabad Messianism is one of the major controversies in Judaism in the past 50 years with numerous books on the subject yet PinchasC (and co) have ensured that there can only be 1 paragraph in all wikipedia about it - which is followed by endless of the point Berger-bashing.

He nominated Controversies of Chabad-Lubavitch for AfD to create a smokescreen, when there was a clear consensus expressed that there should be a Chabad Messianism article I un-redirected it. He then redirected back again, without any debate and falsely claimed that all the info was in the other article.

How can this be resolved?

David Spart 21:52, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I cant do much for a few hours as I am at work. My initial suggestion is to create your new content on a Wikipedia:User page; i.e. User:David Spart/Chabad Messianism; as that is your page, it would be extremely bad form for PinchasC or anyone else to interfere with you. If you are harassed on your own user page, let me know asap, and Ill take the matter up with a bit more urgency. Once you have written User:David Spart/Chabad Messianism so that it is a good article that covers the topic well, we can attempt to smoothly move it into the main namespace. John Vandenberg 22:10, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

He is driving me insane

He is deliberately trying to provoke me at every opportunity, and threatening to ban me for removing his frivolous warnings from my own talk page. Can you please help me deal with this Chabadnik who has made it his mission to control everything about Chabad on wikipedia.

David Spart 22:44, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I have outlined an approach to take above. PinchasC is an administrator; i.e. a vital part of Wikipedia, and should not be directly opposed by yourself. Do not let this escalate; do not call names or make personal attacks, otherwise you give PinchasC cause to ban you. I seriously suggest you leave this whole topic alone until Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Controversies of Chabad-Lubavitch has been completed. Dont touch PinchasC's talk page, and dont remove PinchasC's comments from your own talk page. Please, just work on your own User:David Spart/Chabad Messianism page, or find some other constructive way to pass the time while the afd is in progress. Please understand that while an Afd is in progress, any article involved in the Afd should be considered a "no war" zone, so you do not have the liberty of making bold changes to those articles, as you should wait for the outcome of the Afd. John Vandenberg 23:00, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Denny Klein

I replied on my talk page. —Doug Bell talk 21:54, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Visual arts-related AfDs

Here's a template to use in an AfD, when it has been listed on Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Visual arts (please do list appropriate AfDs there). I think it should go under the article details and above the nom statement, as it is a formal notice and not part of the debate. It will sign your name with date stamp automatically. Please pass on to others.

Mnemonic: List of Visual arts-related Deletions.

Template to use:

{{subst:LVD}}

Result:


Tyrenius 00:13, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


Denny Klein

This article has just been deleted on the grounds of failing WP:PROF, WP:BIO, and WP:RS. Interestingly enough it has almost immediately been recreated without adressing those issues. I placed a {{db-repost}} tag on the page. Also I would like to refer to your discussion and mine. Doug Bell suggested asking you for advise how to proceed. And I posted a comment on AN/I on this matter. Respectfully. Nomen NescioGnothi seauton 01:14, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. At present, I have no opinion on the subject except that I thought there was the possibility of an article somewhere amongst all of the content that has been deleted. I wanted a starting point, hence the userpage. My personal opinion is that a bio could be constructed on this person, because the person is the main driver of the technology. I also strongly feel that these inventions, hoax or otherwise, should be captured on Wikipedia at the time because in a year everyone will have forgotten and others will try the same hoaxes. For that reason the previous deletions are troubling, but only to the extent that I feel it is a call to action for the serious editors that can write a proper article on the matter. However, this particular deletion by Doug is fine by me, and I dont think this bio is worth another Afd at this point as it would essentially be in place of a DRV; also I expect that five days wouldn't be enough time to sort out suitable content. John Vandenberg 01:46, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Responded on my talk page to your latest. EdJohnston 17:48, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Aquygen

I made a new article about the above subject matter (Aquygen) and clearly worded it in such a manner that presents the subject as pseudoscience and does not endorse Denny Klein in any way. I cited a famous Skeptic's appraisal of the phenomena also. Its been on CNN and FOX news and is similar to some hoaxes in the 90's. The thing some editors don't understand is that articles about Hoaxes and Pseudoscience are allowed on wikipedia provided that they don't endorse the hoaxes and actually exist as a notable phenomena in real world. For instance, the phenomena of Phrenology exists, even though it is quakary. However, some parties apparently want to delete this article. The intervention on this matter of someone with your presence of mind and experience is definitely needed. Majestic Lizard 04:47, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

The individual trying to delete the page is now vandalizing (with the assistance of a probable sock puppet) and making insulting remarks in his edit captions such as "you would never make it as lawyers". An attempt to make HHO look like an actual science is also being made. Your intervention would be appreciated.Majestic Lizard 19:25, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I have started a Deletion review. — Omegatron 14:29, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Essjay RFC

Thanks for the additional evidence. Both of those make me very sad to read, but it's better that we bring every bit of this into the light. Regards, William Pietri 02:48, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Re: Allegations about Essjay

I can't reply to you on my user page as I'm now banned from editing anything (including my own user page) on Wikipedia. By the way, your link to 2nd Amendment/Gun Control teachers plans in the United States is dead. Kade


Turns out I was right about Essjay. His statement declaring himself to be a five-year paralegal and Fortune 20 account manager was false. http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070306/NEWS01/703060446/1008 Kade

I responded on your user page. John Vandenberg 01:05, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

User talk:David Spart/Chabad Messianism

Following a recent wheel-war over Controversies of Chabad-Lubavitch in which PinchasC did not let me write an article on Chabad Messianism even after an AfD implied consensus for such an article. You advised me to write such an article in my user space. Thankyou for your advise. I have now done so and would be grateful for any feedback from you before I put it up. David Spart 00:45, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Sure, I'll review it and let you know. John Vandenberg 01:37, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Comments

Partial agreement and partial disagreement- newspapers are generally primary sources- they are reporting on what the primary sources and such. That said, I wouldn't necessarily mind a notability criterion that required some form of retrospective secondary or outright tertiary overview source. But that isn't policy, and attempting to apply that sort of notion to a single controversial article is bad. JoshuaZ 14:21, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Programming language/merge

You can delete it. --Ideogram 08:03, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Re:Peter Costello

Hi, If Peter was deputy leader of the liberal party since 1994, then he would have to now be deputy prime minister which he is not, Mark Vaile is. I doubt that Peter was deputy leader of the liberal party but if he was he was only deputy until 1996. So the phrase, 'deputy leader since 1994' is incorrect. Thanks, (210.49.218.202 01:02, 9 March 2007 (UTC))

Talk archives

I'm sure this was well-intentioned, but why are you editing my talk archives? - Jmabel | Talk 02:55, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

My apologies if that edit was inappropriate. I wasnt intending on modifying pages that were stagnant, but I think the last timestamp of "06:03, 28 June 2006" made me think it was a recent archive. John Vandenberg 03:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

amazon.com vs. amazon.co.uk

What are your ideas for making the existing (or a new) template work for the UK's Amazon.com? I've discovered that the ASIN numbers here are invalid in the US but valid in the UK. Keesiewonder talk 00:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I remember coming across an ASIN that only worked on .fr, so I've added a new "country=xx" param to the ASIN template. Is that acceptable ? It also supports uk, de and fr, but I have only tested =uk. Are there any other Amazon's ?
  • Of course that's acceptable; in fact, it's excellent! :-) Thank you so much! --Keesiewonder talk 01:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Khachkar destruction

Jayvdb, please revert yourself on Khachkar destruction. I withdrew my nomination for deleting this article, so the AfD is moot and awaiting to be closed by an admin. I cannot revert this article myself for another 24 hours per a 1RR parole regarding an Armenian-Azerbaijani RfA. -- Aivazovsky 22:08, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Rasulzade

Please revert yourself. Obviously you did not notice the large discussion going on in the talk page about it: [14] Now that you are aware that there is an ongoing discussion on the talk page about the section, I'd appreciate it if you reverted yourself. I have also asked for a neutral third party to come and give an opinion. Thanks.Azerbaijani 13:48, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Please see the talk page. I have brought up major evidence which should settle this once and for all. With your neutral third party opinion, we can put an end to this dispute.Azerbaijani 14:20, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
By the way, on Atabaki, we had a discussion in more details on the same talk page, in the beginning: [15] there you can see the fuller quote, too, as I reproduced it on Jan 24, 2007. --adil 07:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. John Vandenberg 07:48, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Change in Template:DRV top

Just a heads-up that I made a small change in the {{DRV top}} (or {{drt}}) template: the level 4 header, with a (closed) marker, is now part of the template. So any discussion can now be closed by simply replacing the four equal signs on each side of the title into the the template text:

 ====[[Title]]====

is changed to

 {{subst:drt|[[Title]]|Decision}}

which turns into

Title (closed)

Hope that makes closures a bit easier. Comments and questions please here. Take care, trialsanderrors 08:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Fifth Melbourne meetup

The fifth meetup of Melbourne Wikipedians is being planned as a breakfast meeting in the city with Jimbo Wales (at a venue to be arranged) on Friday, 27 April 2007.

Jimbo has proposed breakfast as the one real window of opportunity during his tightly scheduled stay in Melbourne. Tbe precise time has to be sorted out with Jimbo, but the arrangements for the equivalent Adelaide meetup a few days before may give a good idea.

Feel free to edit the relevant page in any way that might be helpful. I feel like a bit of an interloper, not having attended previous meetups. If there's anything you can do to help, I'll be grateful. Please think about whether you'll be able to make it, assuming the arrangements are similar to those Adelaide is adopting (i.e. a block of time with people being fairly free to arrive when it suits them). Some indication on the page of your possible participation would be really helpful. Metamagician3000 06:28, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Linking an IP address's edits to a newly registered username

Thanks for the welcome. I was wondering if this were possible: Prior to registering, I edited several articles under the IP address 68.194.79.110. For some reason, I believed once registered, these prior edits would link to my new identity; as you know, this does not occur. However, is there a way to have this done? All edits under 68.194.79.110 (except for Applegate, Pink Flamingos, and the film Frankie and Johnny) are mine. Thanks for any help! --TashTish 12:54, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

About notability and speedy deletion

Hello. A few days ago, you made this edit to non-notable band page Non-Divine. It seems (given the edit summary) that you meant to submit the article to speedy deletion. However you placed the template {{notability}} which is just a tag and does not actually submit an article to speedy (or for that matter any kind of) deletion. It might have been just a mistake on your part but just in case you don't know, the correct template for speedy deletion in this case is {{db-music}}. No harm done of course! In any case, I have now submitted it for speedy deletion. Cheers, Pascal.Tesson 22:50, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I think I am an inclusionist. I like to give people a bit of notice before they are faced with the CSD or Afd templates and process. That article has now had time, so thank you for doing the CSD thing. John Vandenberg 23:48, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Hey!

Hello. I am going to be really busy this week, so if you dont see me make much comments on the Rasulzade article, please dont think that I am avoiding the topic. I will be able to discuss it in full next weekend. Thank you.Azerbaijani 20:38, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Green Day

Sorry Dude about the whole april fools thing —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pearsy (talk • contribs) 11:38, 1 April 2007 (UTC).

The Andrew Denton Breakfast Show - Musical Challenge

Hey there John.

Not sure if you know, but all this music was from when Denton was on MMM's breakfast show. He hasn't been there for a long time now. Maybe it says on his article when he was there?

This was a charity album, all the rights (from both the songwriters and the recorded performers) were donated to a charity. I think it may have been Westmead Children's hospital, it says who the charity is in the CD sleeve. Garrie 23:41, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

There are a few details on Andrew Denton, but I didnt do much background research. I merely wrote the article about the CD because the track listing was included on an inappropriate article[16] and it appeared to be a notable CD. Feel free to update the article; if not, I'll fix it up tonight. John Vandenberg 23:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Al-Manar

Sorry for the wrong shortcut. I meant WP:NOTE. Trish Schuh is not notable nor is she writing for any notable publication. Furthermore, she provides little to no evidence for her allegation, she seems to be listing any pro-Israel group that comes to mind. As for MEMRI, which has simply translated and publicized the broadcasts, Schuh smears them as "neo-con" and does not mention whether or not the broadcasts were true or false. --Shamir1 19:13, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Is Shamir part of "Internet Haganah"- the Israeli group that destroys/hacks/censors internet entries it opposes or disagrees with..? Unfortunate. Every line in the article on Al Manar TV referred to is verified by research, from such "credible" sources as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), Jerusalem Post, Haaretz etc.

A Brief Partial list of sources: 1. Most information came from WINEP's tool "Beacon of Hatred" by Avi Jorisch which was used to lobby Congress, the Pentagon and State Dept to censor Manar & label it a terrorist organization 2. NY Sun reporter Eli Lake credits Natan Sharansky with "leading the campaign against Manar" and showing clips of Manar to Congress in an effort to pass legislation censoring the station and declaring it a terrorist org 3. neo-con NY Sun launches a campaign with five part series called "Must-See Hezbollah TV" via MEMRI. On 1/4/05 it's sister "news source" MEMRI credits itself with being "instrumental in bringing the issue of Al Manar to the attention of world leaders including high ranking American government officials, Germany's chancellor and foreign minister, the Swedish and Australian prime ministers and France's prime minister and president" upon which Le Monde said the French PM agreed to ban Manar. 4. AJC- slate.com (12/29/04)and several other MSM sources on varying dates quote the American Jewish Committee as lobbying US State Dept to ban Manar TV 5. ADL officially starts lobbying the US to designate Manar a terrorist organization in July, 2003 (ADL press releases)and also publishes a list of actions to be taken by US against Manar outlet- all subsequently carried out by US government 6. IDF's Psychological Warfare Unit(PWU)had Lt Gen Moshe Yaalon, among others, speaking against Manar in 2004 7. Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth (10/14/05)sited IDF Media Head Eitan Arussi referring to Manar TV as a problem to be dealt with "Israel Must Concentrate on Arab Media" 8. Coalition Against Terrorist Media a 'project' of neo-con Foundation for Defense of Democracies issued a statement on 12/20/04: "Ending Al Manar's access to American living rooms is an important victory..." 9. Israel's Haaretz (3/18/05) lists FM Silvan Shalom as lobbying EU ministers to ban Manar. Haaretz lists his successes-EU satellites ban Manar, France bans Manar from Eutelsat, Dutch Skies Sat bans Manar. "The Tranatlantic Institute, a Brussels based think tank set up by AJC" had also pushed for the bans. 10. Washington Times (10/23/04) sites MEMRI's Steve Stalinsky agitating to ban Manar, as does WINEP, tho the Pentagon had not even heard of Manar before neo-con efforts 11. AIPAC (April 11, 2005) in "Off the Air" celebrates its success in getting Manar censored throughout Europe and in getting it labeled a terrorist organization in the US 12. AIPAC (May 8, 2006) in "Cracking Down" applauded the blacklisting of Manar by Treasury Dept as well as the State Dept 13. JTA also celebrated Spain's removal of Manar from Hispasat as well as its banning from North and Latin America satellites (JTA "Breaking News") 14. Radio Netherlands (1/27/05) reveals a ban of other Arab outlets has been extended to Lebanon, Iran and Saudi Arabia 15. Simon Wiesenthal Center also assists in expanding the ban to include other Arab countries' media and in Palestine (Arutz Sheva, 5/16/05)

Trish Schuh bio-- Prior affiliations/work appearing: ABC News, NBC, Fox, Jerusalem Post-(material reprinted without permission, attribution or payment), Economist, NSA, CIA, FBI websites, Asia Times, and various arab outlets in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Libya, Jordan etc Member of Military Reporters & Editors, Middle East Studies Association, United Nations Correspondents Association and cofounder of Military Families Support Network. Lived,travelled,and studied Arabic/Islamic issues in Leb, Syria, Iraq, Palestine. Freelance, never embedded.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.73.180.38 (talk • contribs) 06:28, 3 June 2007

History of the name Azerbaijan

Hi John. Could you please check this article: [17] It contains the same dubious claim about Rasulxade's apology about the name. I would appreciate if you could help resolve this issue. Regards, Grandmaster 12:34, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Sure, Ill take a look now. John Vandenberg 12:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. Grandmaster 05:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Please do not remove sourced information from Wikipedia, the paragraph you removed is from pages 25-26 of Azerbaijan: Ethnicity and the Struggle for Power in Iran ArmenianJoe 08:17, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

John, I have some new information that I will present to you.Azerbaijani 18:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Andrew Denton Revert?

Gday Jayvdb, Im new to this wikipedia stuff...

I just removed a spam URL from Andrew Denton that you just reverted back? using TW? Would you be able to enlighten me on this TW and the reason for putting the who weekly spam back on the page? Cheers mate :) Jpk82 10:08, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I looked at the URL at it wasnt in my opinion spam; it was relevant and could be useful for someone wanting to further the bio. see WP:TW for more info on what TW is. John Vandenberg 12:09, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Is there a reference page that details what is and what isnt spam that I could look at? Personally I didnt think it was very relevant, it was soft news fluff with no further insight into Denton. Additionally it rubbed me the wrong way that thats all this particular user had contributed, obviously an employee of who weekly using wikipedia as a base to boost search engine rank. Jpk82 12:40, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
English Wikipedia adds nofollow to all external links, so it cant be used to boost search engine ranks; besides the who magazine isnt in need of boosting. "spam" is usually blog entries by non-notables. It's best to assume good faith of other contributions. John Vandenberg 19:50, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Understood, thanks alot for your help John. Jpk82 22:10, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Manufacturing Execution System

Good idea with the stubs. Don't you think that as an article over two years old that's in this condition could use a bit more direction for other editors' to focus on, such as the importance tag? --Ronz 00:19, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Norman Lamb "war"

Hi! I'm one of the two folks who've been "reverting" the text on the Norman Lamb. (You sent both of us a message earlier today.) I noticed the additions yesterday, and -- as a very new user -- have been trying to figure out how to deal with them. I sent one message to the other (anonymous) user, advising him/her that the additions were not neutral POV. In fact, they seemed to be potentially libelous to me, so I've been working my way through the various "Help" articles, trying to work out what to do next. Thanks for weighing in, since it gives me a chance to ask an administrator directly!

What do you suggest I do next? Understand, I have no vested interest in this, beyond "fair play" in Wikipedia. I'm not a UK citizen, and can't vote for Norman Lamb. I just don't think Wikipedia should allow those who support rival political candidates to trash opponents! MeegsC 17:18, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, you need to assume good faith of the other contributor. My suggestion is to hold off on the revert next time, and let me or someone else deal with it. Usually people back off a bit when they see they have more than one person opposing them. John Vandenberg 17:26, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
OK, sounds good. Can you please have a look at the article and let me know if the additions seem fair? Perhaps I'm being too critical... MeegsC 17:52, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

New Template

Hi Jayvdb,

Can you help me, and create a new Search template which can be called {{Missing species}}

  • g = Google search
  • wp = Wikipedia search
  • we = Wikispecies search
  • gwp = Google search of Wikipedia
  • gwe = Google search of Wikispecies
  • en = Encarta search
  • co = Columbia Encyclopedia search
  • eb = Encyclopedia Britannica search
  • g = Germplasm Resources Information Network search [18]
  • in = International Plant Names Index search [19]
  • it = Integrated Taxonomic Information System search [20]
  • p = USDA PLANTS search [21] [22]

--Ricardo 20:08, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi John,

Thanks a lot. I wrote some comments about this template in its talk page.

Best wishes,

--Ricardo 15:33, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Trevor Ivory

An editor has nominated Trevor Ivory, an article on which you have worked or that you created, for deletion. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also "What Wikipedia is not"). Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Trevor Ivory and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate. Thank you. Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. Jayden54Bot 19:20, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

MMORPGs

Inselkampf is gone. It looks like Urban Dead and Starships! may be next on the hit-list. Let me know of any articles that you think may be in danger, and I'll try to clean them up or find citations for them, or help out in any way I can. Matt Brennen 18:04, 24 April 2007 (UTC)


You scared me then! I thought Urban Dead had been deleted as well because it was a redlink!
Well, Tribal Wars is the one we currently need to save from Afd -- do you know of any others that were nominated at the same time ? John Vandenberg 18:08, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
hahaha, I scared myself! Then saw the typo, lol. I constantly go up and down the MMORPG lists, to make sure there are no more attacks. If there are, I'll report them here. Matt Brennen 07:17, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Generational cohorts

Hi,

I thought you might be interested to know that the template generational cohorts has been nominated for deletion. See: Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 April 24

Thanks,

Peregrine981 16:11, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Question re: copyvio

While looking at some of the "On this day" articles, I followed an external link for Flag of the Faroe Islands and found that the WP article is basically copied almost word-for-word from the Flags of the World website -- which seems a pretty blatant copyvio. Reading the history for the article, I see it had been slated for deletion for copyvios in the past. Is that something an admin follows up, or is it something any editor can do? I'm still learning all the ropes here! MeegsC 23:18, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Anyone can start the ball rolling on copyvios. I suggest you raise your concerns at Talk:Flag of the Faroe Islands with a URL of the page you think has been infringed on, and I will join in on the conversation there. I have had a quick glance at [23], and I don't see large copyright issues. John Vandenberg 23:29, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

language question

Do you know of anyone who could translate an article into other languages for me? If you do, just have them contact me on my talk page. Matt Brennen 07:19, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at Wikipedia:Translation. John Vandenberg 10:27, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

re: edit summaries

im glad you agreed with my changes, i did in fact make the database models page from what was in that article. the previous database models page just appeared to be a list of database models?! so ive moved that to List of database models. the page was getting a bit big and off-topic.

thank you for letting me know about edit summaries, i think i became so use to seeing it i didnt bother even notice it. i did mention what i had done on the discussion page in case anyone had disagreements with it. :-) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Decrease789 (talk • contribs) 14:07, 30 April 2007 (UTC).

the vans band

Hi there you recently commented on a deleted article we tried to get on wikipedia and offered your help to us.

Firstly, thank you very much for your offer and we'd be very happy to have you help us! Secondly, is there an email account I can contact you at? I'm not overly familiar with the wikipedia format and I'm not even sure if this will be getting to you!


The thread that I am reffering to went like this:

The article The Vans has been speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This was done because the article seemed to be about a person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content, but it did not indicate how or why the subject is notable, that is, why an article about that subject should be included in Wikipedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not assert notability may be deleted at any time. If you can indicate why the subject is really notable, you are free to re-create the article, making sure to cite any verifiable sources.

Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable, and for specific types of articles, you may want to check out our criteria for biographies, for web sites, for bands, or for companies. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. Veinor (talk to me) 17:12, 20 April 2007 (UTC)


Hi. check out WP:COI. If you can point me towards some critical reviews of the band by magazines or dates the guys appeared on Triple J or something, I should be able to write an article on the band. Cheers, John Vandenberg 17:35, 20 April 2007 (UTC)


Some critial reviews:

28/2/2007 Garage to V, written by Michael Inglis (http://www.fasterlouder.com.au/) gig review: -http://www.fasterlouder.com.au/reviews/events/8091/Garage_to_V_WA_final_Artrage_Bakery_Perth_2822007

5/4/2007 Orange EP review, (http://www.perthbands.com/) EP review (unsure of author): -http://www.perthbands.com/displayReview.php?type=CD&reviewID=12

28/2/2007 Paddington Ale House, unsure of author (http://www.perthbands.com/) gig review: -http://www.perthbands.com/displayReview.php?type=GIG&reviewID=5

if you are able to supply us with a contact email, we will be able to send you some more reviews which were published in print media, including an article in Groove Magazine (March 2007), an article in Pelican magazine (August 2006), an article in Drum Media magazine (April 2007) gig reviews in X-press magazine (November 2006, December 2006). All these we would be able to supply to you as scanned images unless you are able to aquire them.

in the coming weeks, a review of the Orange EP should be appearing on http://www.allmusic.com/ , there is already an entry for the band under "the vans" on there.


dates the Vans have appeared on radio:

- 11/04/2007 92.1 RTR FM (Live & interview on Breakfast with Peter Barr) - 03/04/2007 89.7 Twin Cities FM (Live & interview at the OZ) - 15/01/2007 RTR FM (Live & interview on Breakfast with Peter Barr)

If we are able to email you, we would be able to inform you of when we would be appearing on 92.9FM, FOXfm and Triple J, the two former are in confirmation stages, Triple J are yet to contact us as their incoming demos/etc is quite substantial.


As previously mentioned, if you are able to help us we would be extremely grateful to you! Please feel free to contact us through better_thank_your_lucky_stars@yahoo.co.uk (not the official email account but I'm trying to avoid spam.)

Thank you again, Adelle

Starships! now up for deletion

This is one of the best sourced articles in the category. If it goes down, they will be able to take them all down. Matt Brennen 20:36, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Starships! is less notable than Iter Vehemens ad Necem and Tribal Wars, so I wont hold my breath. I've had a quick look for sources but turned up very little of use due to "Starships" being a common name. Also, the use of unpublished ISBN 1933770023 is really odd. John Vandenberg 01:01, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

VoIP

Sorry, but your revert was wrong! If you choose VoIP, you of course depend on the internet. Without bandwidth reservation, your QOS depends on the bandwidth available. I think to say more is mere advertizing for POTS, what is completely unencyclopedic. I agree to keep the paragraph, but it must be wikified! --Kgfleischmann 10:14, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

VoIP adds another level of complexity to telephony in that it uses the Internet, with all of the problems that come with it. In addition, most VoIP setups make use of POTS as well for failover and to access services/rates not available/comparable on VoIP, resulting in duplication. There is a lot more that can be said about it. I have no problems with the paragraph being overhauled, but deleting it wasnt the way forward. John Vandenberg 10:55, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
John, we agree in so far, that VoIP differs from PSTN. In so far it is correct to talk about the difference. The rest of the mentioned paragraph is advertising and support for the POTS-providers' market strategies. And such stuff should have no place in the Wikipedia! So what's coming, I hope to find time for a cleanup end of this week. If you want to participate, you're wellcome.

Yours, --Kgfleischmann 18:24, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Kupari

Thanks for closing the AFD! Had you not provided that website I would have continued to think that the article should be deleted. --Deepak D'Souza (talk • contribs) 10:14, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

No worries; your intentions for nominating the article were noble, the article ended up improved, and we all learnt something along the way! :-) John Vandenberg 10:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

logos

Hey, whydja revert my tag? there was only one citation in the whole article.George 23:40, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

There is a bibliography at the bottom of Logos; {{unreferenced}} is used for articles which do not have sources and could be considered WP:OR. If you want more inline citations, add {{Citequote}}, {{cn}} or {{Request quote}} on individual sentences that need it. John Vandenberg 23:47, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

OK

Colle

Done what I could for the moment. Cant figure out just what the nom is getting at-- took no part in prev. AfDs--ck her user page. 05:37, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Afd comment for Amir Butler

G'day. Thanks for your musings. I didn't associate your real name with your user name, so sorry. I should say that I consider myself a "keeper" particularly for public organisations. I would prefer a soft delete option for marginal cases (and which I think Amir fits in) and whilst I think Wikipedia's policies on biographies on living people are tough, I think we should follow them until we can convince the community otherwise. Amir's article is getting better by the way. Cheers. Assize 11:00, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

DATASTRUCTURES AND DATABASES

This should be deleted; please dont bother with an Afd. refer to notice I've added to top of the article. John Vandenberg 12:47, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up John Vandenberg, too late though. Really doesn’t matter, you right in tagging it for speedy deletion. I was told I’m a little to quick on the trigger sometimes, so I am trying to be a more gentle, sympathetic editor. :-) Shoessss 12:53, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks & Barnstar

The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
Awarded for standing up for truth and justice in an unpopular cause. The fact that your views (and mine) did not prevail in this debate does not make your work less valid. Many thanks. NBeale 20:56, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Bomberblitz

Sorry, but my !vote stands. Per WP:N: ""Coverage" means that sources address the subject directly and no original research is needed to extract the content.2 It does not require that a topic be the sole focus of a source, but does require that the source speaks on the subject in detail, rather than a mention in passing or name drop." The sources I see quoted still fail to assert any reasonable level of notability. —Moondyne 05:24, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

No probs. I try to expand it. John Vandenberg 05:37, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Your DLR

I have responded. Sr13 05:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Image:Kuhs.png

Hello, Jayvdb. An automated process has found and will an image or media file tagged as nonfree media, and thus is being used under fair use that is in your userspace. The image (Image:Kuhs.png) was found at the following location: User:Jayvdb/Kathmandu University High School. This image or media will be removed per criterion number 9 of our non-free content policy. The image or media will be replaced with Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg , so your formatting of your userpage should be fine. This does not necessarily mean that the image is being deleted, or that the image is being removed from other pages. It is only being removed from the page mentioned above. All mainspace instances of this image will not be affected Please find a free image or media to replace it with, and or remove the image from your userspace. User:Gnome (Bot)-talk 17:16, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

About Virtual Sheet Music Article

Hi John, regarding my article on Virtual Sheet Music, I was wondering why the article has been deleted before I could provide more evidence? I have been very disappointed above all because I didn't have even the time to backup the article correctly. Thank you for any answer. --Fablau 16:09, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Redirections...

Hi! Way back in April, you helped me out with a few things when I was a new editor, so I'm hoping you'll be able to do so again! About a week ago, I created a short article on a bird genus and managed to misspell the article name when I started it (as Haliaster). I moved it to a page with the correct name (Haliastur), and am wondering if there's some way to delete the original; after all it should never have been there in the first place! I tried to put it on the AfD list, but couldn't... Thanks for any advice you can give me! MeegsC | Talk 18:47, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! ;-)

Your NPWatcher Application

Dear Jayvdb,

Thank you for applying for NPWatcher! You've been approved to use it. Before you run the program, please check the changelog on the application page to see if there is a newer release (or just add the main page (here) to your watchlist). Report any bugs or feature suggestion here. If you need help, feel free to contact me or join NPWatcher.

«Snowolf How can I help?» 20:19, 22 May 2007 (UTC)


Melbourne Gangs

Wow, that article is in really bad shape. With the amount of opposition to it and the huge amount of work to keep it afloat, I don't think it can be viably done. I think we'll have to just let it go. Thanks for telling me though John, good editing. Cheers mate, Dfrg.msc 07:04, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Rollback Tools

Jayvdb, you should not use rollback tools to revert legitimate edits, or label good faith edits as vandalism. Also, please do not restore poorly cited, POV and advertisement style material. Thank you.Proabivouac 00:56, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Based on your rapid removal of as much information as possible on Peace TV, Islamic Research Foundation and Zakir Naik, you clearly have an agenda. Your edits are not solely to improve the knowledge in Wikipedia, and do not appear to be good faith, otherwise you would be attempting to find sources and/or discuss with the intent of improving the content. John Vandenberg 02:15, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
My agenda is to keep Wikipedia from filling up with Naikcruft, including attacks on as well as promotion of Naik (view the history) and anti-Islamic spam (such as that you've just restored.) What's yours?
I must say that I find it very strange that you proposed an article on Peace TV then an article was created on OhmyNews, then you created the Peace TV article citing the OhmyNews article.
Aside from such dubious or misrepresented sources, much of your material has no source at all.Proabivouac 02:25, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Any correlation between my creation of the Peace TV article and the OhmyNews article is beyond my control — blame Google for me being able to find it so quickly.
As I stated on the IRF Afd, 99% of the content on the IRF article was not of my writing; please be specific if you want to point out any of my contributions that you consider unsourced or spam. My agenda on these articles is to improve them as best I can with English sources, as I do not have any ability to use sources in other languages; Wikipedia's coverage of this area is patchy due to systematic bias of people with anti-Islamic agendas or Afd members determining NN without being aware of their inability to judge notability without a command of Arabic/Hindi/etc. Note that Category:Hillsong has an abundance of articles on Wikipedia. John Vandenberg 02:53, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Re AfD, I strongly disagree: it is much too difficult to delete the cruft that piles up nearly everywhere, regardless of topic, or the simple reason that requires consensus to add material to an existing article, but only a lack of consensus to keep the article itself (as on IRF, where the deletes ran 2:1.) A far more useless article which could not be deleted is Pizza Farm...and how much energy went into Brian Peppers? As for Category:Hillsong, see WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. IRF and PeaceTV aren't obviously ridiculous in the way Peppers and Pizza farm are, but I've see no evidence that they're important, either, except insofar as Naik is (marginally) notable. Calling Naik the President of IRF which broadcasts PeaceTV is just a way making the fact that Naik is president of himself which broadcasts videos of himself sound more important than it really is.Proabivouac 05:44, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Once again, Jayvdb, do not use anti-vandalism tools to revert good-fath edits.[24], and do not add unsourced material to Wikipedia.Proabivouac 10:23, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Your edits are vandalism, and you have now performed three reverts of the exact same fact on Zakir Naik within 10 hours. I am stunned. I do not call that good faith editing. Please explain why Peace TV should not be mentioned on the article, and disprove that Naik's programs are broadcast over Peace TV. That is all clearly sourced on both articles. John Vandenberg 10:32, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Jaydvb, they are not vandalism, see WP:VANDAL, WP:BLP. It is reliably sourced, or it must go.
Wikipedia is not the appropriate venue to promote Zakir Naik, IRF or Peace TV. I am sorry that this leaves you "stunned," but it is still true.Proabivouac 10:47, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I am not promoting anything here; simply recording facts, with sources. You still have not explained this deletion that you have repeated. Please provide diffs if you are going to accuse me of BLP violation! John Vandenberg 10:53, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
You have not one notable/reliable third party source which discusses "PeaceTV."Proabivouac 11:01, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Peace TV is not a BLP, and the reason there are no sources is because you have removed them all three times. I'll leave things alone for the moment as you are wasting my time; hopefully you see some sense tomorrow. John Vandenberg 11:23, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Might I also ask why you call him "Dr." Zakir Naik?[25] He has no degree in any of the subjects he discusses, only an MD. I'd thought that "Dr." was only the affectation of his followers.Proabivouac 11:06, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Because that is what the sources usually call him. I do not know him from a bar of soap, so I do not know that he does not have a PhD as well. John Vandenberg 11:23, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Okay. But it violates the MOS.[26]
For the rest of it, I think what we really need is some outside advice.Proabivouac 19:09, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
For the third time, Jaydvb, do not use anti-vandalism tools to edit-war, or mislabel my edits as vandalism.Proabivouac 04:16, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Visual Basic Tutorials

Although I am tired of reverting all the spam tutorial links that have been added to Visual Basic recently, I think removing the entire section is a bit extreme. There was a good-faith editor a while ago who went through and trimmed down the external links, and I would hate for all that effort to be lost. I restored the article to before the latest batch of spam additions. If you disagree, feel free to start a discussion on the talk page. -- wrp103 (Bill Pringle) (Talk) 13:51, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

No worries. I didnt see much discussion on the talk page (or archive) about the external links, so I was a bit bold. As you and others care about the links, I have no problems with them being there. John Vandenberg 14:20, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image (Image:Arellano University Logo.gif)

Thanks for uploading Image:Arellano University Logo.gif. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image 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 images 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 any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Aksibot 20:02, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Proposed Micronation Wikiproject

I've published a proposal to gauge interest in setting up a micronation Wikiproject, which I thought might be of interest to you based on your recent contributions. Comments and suggestions are welcome: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#Micronations --Gene_poole 01:36, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Ajax.NET

The Michael Schwarz guy you AfD'ed authored this Ajax.NET thing. I think it is unremarkable too (only a couple of microsites use it), maybe you can add it to the AfD? Stellatomailing 22:48, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

It says it is a first of its kind (and it has a standalone JSON component which could also be a first of its kind for .NET), and it's open source, so I'll let someone more knowledgeable about .NET clean it out if that is appropriate. John Vandenberg 02:55, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Non-free use disputed for Image:Nafcol.png

Warning sign This file may be deleted.

Thanks for uploading Image:Nafcol.png. However, there is a concern that the rationale you have provided for using this image under "fair use" may be invalid. Please read carefully the instructions at Wikipedia:Non-free content and then go to the image description page and clarify why you think the image qualifies. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If it is determined that the image does not qualify under fair use, it will be deleted within a couple of days according to our Criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 04:38, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Signature

Ah ok, thanks for the tip on the deletion listing. And with the signature can you copy whats in your signature onto my talk page please? thanks [[User talk:Savin Me|Savin Me]] 05:34, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Non-free use disputed for Image:Nafcol.png

Warning sign This file may be deleted.

Thanks for uploading Image:Nafcol.png. However, there is a concern that the rationale you have provided for using this image under "fair use" may be invalid. Please read carefully the instructions at Wikipedia:Non-free content and then go to the image description page and clarify why you think the image qualifies. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If it is determined that the image does not qualify under fair use, it will be deleted within a couple of days according to our Criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 05:53, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Burgess

Because per our fair-use criteria and guide to nonfree content they were being used as a gallery (pretty obvious from the gallery tag) and this is simply not allowed. It came up at the list linked to at this Administrators Noticeboard thread as part of general clean up. Please familiarize yourself with the two guidelines I linked to and lend a hand fixing the fair use violations on other pages if you wish :) -Mask? 08:27, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, no worries, the cleanup edit summary as the final was just because I was trying to make the relevant information display without any issues after the removal of the images, it generally takes a little tweaking after. -Mask? 08:34, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Deletion again

Our favorite disruptive user has nominated Brown's gas and HHO gas again. Brown's gas is absolutely fine at this point, HHO gas still needs some work, but is not even close to deletion-worthy. — Omegatron 14:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Aquinascruft

There's been some sizable changes to the essay in question which you nominated for MfD, and I'd appreciate it if you'd spend a few moments looking over it to see if you still support deletion or wish to reconsider your position in light of the improvements. Cheers, Thewinchester (talk) 15:48, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Northcott Society

Nice work! Suprised to see they didn't have an article already. Your article clearly shows that even stubs can be well referenced.Garrie 05:30, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. It was written to build the web on the bio of Frank Coletta; deleted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Frank Coletta (Australian Journalist). two steps backwards, one forwards. [27] John Vandenberg 06:11, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar

The Original Barnstar
Thank you for your work with Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Music‎ It is extremely helpful and your work is appreciated. Cricket02 19:15, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Melbourne meetup 6

Hi. This is a reminder to people on the Melbourne meetup participation list that the next meetup has been arranged for 19 June. Could you indicate on the meetup page your likely attendence, or otherwise. Regards. - Cuddy Wifter 23:38, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Colligo Contributor (2nd nomination)

I ended up relisting this article at AFD, the nom explains why, just giving you due notification. --W.marsh 19:39, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Re: Khachkar

Ah, fair play. Well I've had a look at Armenian_language#Phonology and I think I can work out the IPA, but I'm not sure what that first letter is; is it (from that table) a "k‘" or an "x"? My browser doesn't have armenian character support so i can't see the text. The IPA would be either [kʰɑtʃkɑr] or [χɑtʃkɑr] depending on the first letter. Don't know how the IPA would help solve the dispute on the talk page though. - Zeibura Talk 06:33, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

You have followed correctly :) I've added the IPA pronunciation to the article, hope this helps. - Zeibura Talk 06:49, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Our favorite spammer

Well, those are two fairly wide ranges to block -- especially since the disruption has been ongoing, but at a slow pace, for awhile, now. For the time being, I've semi-protected Visual Basic for one month. I'll look into adding http://www.geocities.com/ + cooltutorials (etc) to some of the spam blacklists, for the relevant bots. Are there any other affected pages, that you know of? – Luna Santin (talk) 08:49, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Russian interwiki in Template:Infobox Journal

<!-- Add cats and interwikis to the /doc subpage, not here! -->
--ΑΜακυχα Θ 15:37, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

List of unaccredited institutions of higher learning and the possibility of WP:3RR

Hi. Looking through the history of what seems to have happened overnight on List of unaccredited institutions of higher learning, you seem to have gotten into a WP:EDITWAR with a couple of anons and an established user over using a Geocities website as a source. Even if you're "right" in a content dispute, it doesn't give you the "right" to get into a revert war (see WP:3RR). In this case, though, I don't think you were right in the first place, as the article on Geocities is a self-published source per WP:SPS and is not acceptable as a reference in this context. The entry for the University of Esoterica is fine, as are the Michigan and Oregon cites, and I don't see the sense in continuing to wrangle over a self-published website (no matter how well referenced internally) that's not even necessary to "prove your case." If you really think that link belongs in the references, the burden of proof (showing it's an acceptable source, etc.) is on you. We can discuss this at the article's Talk page if you wish to pursue it further. However, please do not reinsert that link again without discussion. --Dynaflow babble 16:45, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Two reverts does not make an edit war. There were two entries removed by the IP, and user Bobk only restored one of them. I then restored both with the geocities link because it is well written, and we have two others refs to go along with the geocities link. John Vandenberg 23:52, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Raymond Apple (rabbi)

Thanks for your support. I have rewritten the article and would be grateful if you could take a look. Capitalistroadster 07:14, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Visual arts AfDs

Many thanks for all your listing of visual-arts deletions, but normal theatre ones aren't for us - unless they seem to involve performance art, or special claims are made for the artistic quality of the sets I suppose. The VA project is essentially just for stuff that might be found in an art museum, plus street art, etc. Whether the performing arts have their own list I don't know. Having said that, if you're not sure please add them. Thanks again, Johnbod 14:02, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

No problem - a couple were interesting anyway. Thanks for the 3rd time for your heroic work on the sorting! Johnbod 00:02, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Graffiti Newsletter

wham!

Greetings from WikiProject Graffiti, you are part of a dedicated group of people working to better Wikipedia's coverage of topics relating to Graffiti. Latest News:

If you are looking for something to do:

Graffiti Portal
  • We still have a To Do list.
  • You can help spread important templates.
  • You can improve these pages.
  • You can also help but uploading pictures or images of Graffiti and Street art.

And remember you can add some input at our talk page. Cheers, Dfrg.msc 09:41, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

RE:AFD

The nomination may have been by an indef blocked user, but there was clear consensus to delete. « ANIMUM » 15:55, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh. Okay, I didn't even know the nom was indef-blocked at the closure time. « ANIMUM » 16:07, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Philately WikiProject

You are listed as a participant in the Philately WikiProject. Today I have created an inactive list consisting of those participants who have not made any philatelic edits for more than six months. I was going to use a 3 month cut off point but felt generous. You may be one of those editors, so if I have moved you and you want to remain an active participant, please forgive me, and move your name back from the inactive list to the active list. If you are still active on Wikipedia but are inactive in philately I hope there is no harm done in listing you as inactive. We really need more active participants for all philatelic articles. The Philately Portal has been running for some time and I am doing occasional updates, Postage stamps of Ireland is a candidate for featured article (that would be the first philatelic article), and several of the redlinks have been filled but we need more activity so if you are around please participate. Otherwise thanks for the work you have done in the past. Cheers ww2censor 00:27, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Interactive PR

Thanks, i had only just noticed i messed that up and was trying to quickly scan every Page on how to delete. I suppose this is why only admin's should do it. -- Jimmi Hugh 14:48, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

No worries. see {{ab}}. John Vandenberg 14:50, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

A... My Name Is Alice

Yes, afd was speedily & procedurally withdrawn! The Rambling Man 18:20, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Re: delsort list Americas

I have no objection to the page's deletion. After all, it sees no activity, does not serve a topic-specific WikiProject, and only links to other delsort pages. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 02:38, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Sword Boys

Hi John. I removed a couple of sentences from the article as they weren't unambiguously supported by the refs. Obviously we need to tread very carefully here and only report what is known as facts. Where it is speculation on the part of a West journo, then we should only ever report it as speculation. I hope you understand.

WRT your question on separate articles for other gangs, IMO, no. Thankfully, gangs such as these are not that prominent in WA (yet) and most would be non-notable. I could see most of the stuff going into an expansion of Crime in Western Australia though, thus you don't have to be so concerned with notability issues. Reading Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bra Boys, although the consensus was keep, the arguments for notability seem to be the main issues of concern. In that case though there is a much stronger case on notoriety. Regards. —Moondyne 15:34, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Patrick Knight

The copyrighted sections you removed from Patrick Knight have been added again. Do you think in their current form they are satisfactory? I'm hesitant to remove the section personally because I'm not yet familiar with what constitutes copyright violations for text and since I nominated the article for deletion it might appear biased if I were to do so. Thanks for your advice. Talmage 17:13, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your response on my talk page. I'm not even sure using the website of a political advocacy group as a primary source would ever be appropriate. Given that Amnesty International actively pushes a political agenda, it raises questions about the objectivity and accuracy of their publications. Even if certain facts are objectively true, advocacy groups nearly always omit data that would weaken their argument. Talmage 23:50, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Jayvdb, could you please clarify whether you are Talmage or not? The editing action between the both of you seems .. odd. Furthermore, I've readded the content. Your last revert of it in my opinion was vandalism, as you were aware of the cautioning I made of Talmage of arbitrary deletion that lowers article content and makes the article appear irrelivant to further strengthen the AfD case. Thus, again, I reitterate, blanket removal of material can be deemed vandalism, please stop.

If you believe that it requires further citations, put a cite request up there, or find more. Do not arbitrarily remove text. Further action on your or Talmage's behalf will be passed on to an administrator for arbitration, as there's clearly no point in wasting more time or getting into edit wars. This has been syndicated to Talmage's page for his review, although at present I'm of the belief you're both possibly even the same person, please get back to me on that one. Jachin 00:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

AfD

I appreciate you sorting the articles in the WP:PW that are up for deletion. What I don't appreciate is the insinuation in this remark [28]. If you want to say something, then say it. The articles listed fall under the project, a number of PRODs were discussed here [29], and when PRODs were removed [30] then the articles went to AfD. If you have a problem then go to the project talk page or my talk page, don't insinuate things about good editors. Darrenhusted 11:43, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Those articles (the current crop of AfD's) were all prod removals turned in to AfD. And before AfDing each one I checked the references, and the articles did not meet notability, whether you watched them on TV as a kid is not really the point. WP:BLP is the guide, not WP:PW. But it should be noted that deletions were discussed by the project, if you want to know what is happening to pro-wrestling articles then watch the WP:PW talk page. If the PW wikia want to be informed then they should watch the talk page, the project members are busy enough without having to let other know their every move. Darrenhusted 14:33, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Here is a list of the articles PROD-ed along with the AfD articles Alere Little Feather, Bob Hansen (wrestler), Brian Rogowski, Buck Quartermain, C.W. Bergstrom, Caprice Coleman, Caryn Mower, Chris Samson, Dale Veasey, David Peterson (wrestler), David Sheldon, Dean Higuchi, Don Zalesky, Eddie Golden, Erich Sbraccia, Gary Sabaugh, George Hines, George Wells (wrestler), Greg Wojciechowski, Happy Humphrey, Icarus (wrestler), Jeff Patterson, Jeff Roth, Jon Bolen, Jon Moxley, Kurt Beyer, Lex Lovett, Lou Marconi, Lou Perez, Mark Kyle, Marty Garner, Michael Imburgia, Mike Diamond, Mike Sampson, Mora Uman, Murray Happer, Niles Young, Prince Kharis, Ric Byrne, Richard Hoff, Richard Slinger, Rick Michaels, Ricky Rice, Rorschach (wrestler), Sean Davis (wrestler), Sedrick Strong, T. Rantula. As you can see the list was long, but more importantly the list was on the WP:PW for a week. This is why there is group voting on AfD articles. Darrenhusted 17:17, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/Glen Osbourne

I would like you to know that i am not part of the wikiproject pro wrestling as you said on the Articles for deletion for Glen Osbourne. It may appear this way cause i have edited that artical several times, that is cause i was putting AFD tag's back on removed by bittenbender who has removed it several times. I have removed my name from that part. Thank you. OysterGuitarst 00:47, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, my mistake. Thanks for removing yourself. John Vandenberg 00:56, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Steven M. Evarts

LHP Evarts was the 43rd overall pick in MLB First Year Player Draft[31]. He receieved a signing bonus of $800,000 and since June of 2006 he has played professional baseball fulltime. Currently he is a roster player for the Danville Braves, a professional team where MANY current Atlanta Braves once played. Evarts is the real deal and his notarity is without questions to scouts, player developers, and Atlanta Brave fans nation-wide. There are many notable players in the Braves minor league farm system, Evarts is one of them.
I appreciate your inquiry as well as your scrutiny. Best Regards, Magicmahka 13:55, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I am a baseball FANantic. I am new to this and I want to thank you for the help. I certainly desire to do this correctly and I am a quick learner.
I believe Evarts has the tools to make it as a major league pitcher and when he does this effort will have grown into a wonderful way to track his career. I am wondering if I can use and list the same citation for more then one bit of information? Is it better to find more then one citation? Magicmahka 00:27, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Delsort script

Has the main list button that loads /Compact been removed from the script? -- pb30<talk> 15:16, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I can't get the /Compact window to come up at all. The shortcut options work, but clicking on delsort does nothing -- pb30<talk> 00:10, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

VPN: WallCooler

Hi John,

I understand your point, I think this product is very new, I had never heard of it before I discovered it in a forum 2 weeks ago (at http://groups.google.com/group/alt.comp.freeware/browse_thread/thread/1421d12f8cecde50/505a1a3720ff0f99). I have been using it since then, and I am impressed by the tool, so I was wondering why it was not on Wikipedia. I don't know if there has been article published. But I have been using VPNs for a while and it is definitely one of the best free solution I have tried. I will follow your advice and request for an article.

Nighthawks Afd

Tyrenius had already added this (near the top) to the Visual arts list, so it now appears twice. I'm not sure how to sort; no doubt you know. Johnbod 14:39, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

-ok-thanks Johnbod 14:40, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Pacific Community Credit Union

Just had a look through the deleted article, and that was about as blatant as the "blatant advertising" criterion gets. Have a look at some sample lines here...

  • full-service financial institution, offering a wide range of services to its members.
  • Pacific Community Credit Union has a tradition of providing quality products and services to our members while maintaining exceptional financial strength. We are excited to expand our horizons and move forward as we welcome new community members into the Credit Union.

Not only does it look like it could have come out of someone's PR department, it looks like in this case it actually did. I've no objection to recreating the article, provided the organization passes the corporate notability guidelines, but quite honestly you'd probably be better off starting from scratch and making sure to use good, reliable sources independent of the organization. The previous "article" is basically just a press release, you'd spend more time fixing it then you would writing a new one. Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:46, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's a bit more than that...it doesn't look like it's necessarily a very notable organization, I sure can't find anything looking for independent sourcing on it. It would need independent and reliable source material, else it would just get deleted again as A7 (non-notable organization). Have you had any better luck at finding source material, might you be able to point me to it? (Also, not on-topic here, but you might want to consider archiving your talk page, it doesn't hurt my feelings on a 9 Mbps pipe but long ones can be a bit hard on dialup users. There are bots you can set up to do it automatically as threads go inactive as well.) Seraphimblade Talk to me 00:40, 7 July 2007 (UTC)