User talk:Metropolitan90

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Archive
Archives
Archive 1 (2005)
Archive 2 (2006)
Archive 3 (January-April 2007)
Archive 4 (May-August 2007)
Archive 5 (September-November 2007)
Archive 6 (December 2007-February 2008)
Archive 7 (March-April 2008)


Contents

[edit] Re: Sadra Caron

I was referring to the sockpuppeteer, Coolest Kid20, but I realised after I logged off that it probably doesn't count because he's just indef blocked, not banned. So, erm, sorry about that. I had a feeling I should've just left it alone. --Closedmouth (talk) 12:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kilburn, Derbyshire

Please note! This wasn't vandalism, I've moved the whole content of the article to a more relevant title (Kilburn). Thank you. Kind Regards Rich 19:20, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template talk:HIM

Hello Metropolitan90,

Just out of curiosity, why did you choose to blank this page instead of deleting it? Korg (talk) 02:14, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

  • I thought the content looked more like a harmless test than like spam. It wasn't libelous or a copyright violation, so keeping it in the edit history wouldn't do any harm. Since Template:HIM is a valid template, anybody would be able to re-create the talk page anyway even if it were deleted. See also User talk:Metropolitan90/Archive 7#Blanking instead of deleting Talk pages?. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:02, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the explanation. I agree it is harmless to keep it, but I don't really see the benefits of the blanking over the deletion. If the page is deleted, the red link has the advantage to directly indicate to the user that there is nothing to see. A blue link presupposes that the page has content (at least something useful); if a user clicks on it and sees a blank page, they would probably look at the edit history to know why it has been blanked, before realizing there is in fact nothing useful to see. Korg (talk) 18:56, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Good point. I will consider that in the future. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 00:46, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
        • Alternatively, such talk pages can be tagged with a talk page template when it is appropriate. Best regards, Korg (talk) 00:44, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
          • What kind of talk page template? --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:25, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
            • Any templates that would be appropriate, for example a WikiProject notice. I was thinking of {{DisambigProject}} for disambiguation pages, or {{WPBiography}}) for biographies. The purpose here is to avoid a blank page, otherwise users would have to check the history to see if it hasn't been blanked as vandalism. Of course this is an option in a few circumstances, and it is generally simpler to delete the page. Best regards, Korg (talk) 00:04, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 5th Infantry (STAR) Division

We really have a problem in works of the Intellectual Property of the Philippine Gov't and this has been posted in WP:PINOY a hundred of times. Please bear with me on this one.

Sec 176 of the Philippine Intellectual Property Code says that prior approval from the gov't is needed if the works will be used for profit. I know that wiki is non-profit but mirrors such as Answers.com is for profit. I just thought that wiki shouldn't be a part in a sort of infringement as the Phil. govt. will surely want royalties. This is the reason why most Philippine seals that you find here in wiki is fair use rather than PD. Eastmain already stubbed the article so I'm ok with that.--Lenticel (talk) 01:02, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

  • You have a good point. The problems were that (a) I could not find [1] earlier, which is the actual URL that much of 5th Infantry (STAR) Division had been copied from (it was obscured due to frames used on the 5th Infantry web site), and (b) the copyright issues are too complicated to deal with in a speedy deletion. Since Philippine government sites aren't likely to bear copyright notices due to Section 176, I would recommend that any other pages which have the "prior approval" problem be taken to Wikipedia:Copyright problems instead of speedy deletion, so the problem can be explained. Anyway, now that the page has been stubbed, I wouldn't want to restore the copied text because it wasn't written in an encyclopedic style anyway. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 01:17, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] eh?

Woz wrong with closin afds? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arrogant & Intransigent (talk • contribs)

  • See Wikipedia:Non-admin closure. Non-administrators should not close AfDs where the result is delete, because they can't actually delete the articles. You were purporting to close the AfD as "delete", but you didn't delete the articles. Instead, you removed the AfD notices from the articles, as though the article was going to be kept. Furthermore, on the AfDs themselves, you changed the lower case letter "l" to the capital letter "I". In other words, Cindy (dolphin) became Cindy (doiphin), except with a capital letter "I" in the middle of the word "doiphin", so that it looked like Cindy (doIphin). (I have to phrase it in this awkward manner due to the sans-serif font that this will appear in.) I can't imagine that you were changing the word "dolphin" to "doiphin" in good faith, particularly because you made similar one-letter changes to two other AfDs. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:24, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] John Baselmans

You've asked me why I did place the Wikipedia:CSD#A7 tag on the article John Baselmans, but my anwser remains that the article does not simply explain why it subject is notable. Can you explain why, and based on which phrase in the text of the article, you do think the subject is notable? Kind regards, 81.70.9.250 (talk) 15:02, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sander Cohen

This article should not be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.181.46.247 (talk • contribs)

[edit] Hooker with a heart of gold

After deleting all people without a source I noticed you have been adding a lot of sources to that list. I don't think it should be made any bigger especially since discussion talks about making it smaller. Perhaps only 'popular' roles should be included? This page should not need tons of examples. Let me know if you think otherwise. Virek (talk) 07:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

  • I personally am pretty much done with adding sources to the article for the time being. Considering that the main issues in the AfD were lack of sources and original research, I figure that going from 1 source to 30 sources should be enough to have the article kept (at least with a "no consensus"). After the AfD closes, the article can be improved through normal editing. I don't know how we would be able to determine which roles are "popular", though. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 13:21, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Domingomes

Thank you for the translation at the Carlos Domingomes article. I tried to complete it but i need help to translate it to good english. Can you help? Thank you very much!92.250.56.189 (talk) 22:51, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

  • It would help if you could provide some more sources about him besides his own web site. That would help me figure out what the article should say in English. I don't actually speak Portuguese but I can recognize some of the words well enough to translate some of them. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 01:16, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why do people keep deleting my talk page?

Why d you want to delete my talk pages for Asia United Bank? User:Daxdigital

  • Talk:Asia United Bank was deleted because it was an "orphaned" talk page (a talk page without a corresponding article in the main space), which can be speedily deleted at any time. If there is a Talk: page, there needs to be a corresponding main page. The obvious next question, then, is why was Asia United Bank deleted? The answer is that the article about the bank looked more like an advertising/promotional article written by the bank than an independent, neutral encyclopedia article, based on such statements as "Both groups [of owners] share a common commitment of delivering superior and efficient financial services to the local communities as well as the business sector." The article could probably be re-created if it were completely re-written from a neutral point of view and using independent, reliable sources. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:02, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Cvt.pdf

Hi Metropolitan90,

The reason for the PDF version of the image, Image:Cvt.pdf, is that it is a vector image. It is possible to convert PDFs to SVGs using converter software and there are a slew of commercial converters. Recently I think a free piece of software has even been produced. [2] I tend to find that if I don't post a PDF version images get tagged with Template:ShouldBeSVG, posting a PDF means people have an easy solution if they want a vector image. Hopefully in the future SVG support will be more widespread in drawing applications or MediaWiki will be able to support PDFs.

Cedars (talk) 12:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] User talk:Game4Fans

Absolutely. I treated it as if it was an article talk page, rather than a user page with talk history--although I assume most of the talk was about similar spamming. Thank you for taking the time to explain. Much appreciated, JNW (talk) 00:58, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] reasoned discussion

I thanked you a few months ago for being willing to engage in meaningful discussion. I really appreciate it, as I have been profoundly frustrated by the unwillingness of some of the other participants in these discussions, to be respectful. Some have made unprovoked breaches of WP:NPA, rather than respond to my civil counter-arguments, which I find very disturbing. And I am afraid I found many participants have stated views that misquoted the wikipedia's policies.

In our discussion a few months ago, you said that the articles on the Guantanamo captives should be judged on a case by case basis. And in this most recent discussion you cited the precedent of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ahmed Adnan Muhammad Ajam.

I regard our disagreement over Ajam as an honest disagreement between two individuals willing to consider the other person's counter-arguments.

Ajam was a captive who faced what I regarded as very serious allegations, but he didn't attend or testify at any of the administrative procedures in 2004, 2005 or 2006. No books or newspaper articles covered him.

Abdul Salaam, on the other hand, had an article written about his CSR Tribunal, back on January 22, 2005. And he had his case described in Andy Worthington's book. Further he testified on his own behalf, in 2004 and 2005.

I think Abdul Salaam's case is remarkable because his is one of very few cases where the OARDEC personnel who drafted the Summary of Evidence memos leveled fewer allegations against him in 2005 then they did in 2004. Most captives faced twice or more as many allegations during their 2005 review than they did in their 2004 CSR Tribunal.

I've worked very hard to make sure I didn't insert my personal POV into these articles. I've worked hard to make sure I didn't insert original research into these articles. I've worked hard to make sure everything I wrote was documented through authoritative, reliable, verifiable references. I think I managed to do a good job at this, because the material I have contributed has only rarely been challenged over these concerns. Some of those challengers didn't turn out to be serious enough to try to be specific about what concerned them. Granted some of them had found a limited number of lapses on my part. I am only human. I am grateful to them. And I fixed those lapses. But most people who could be serious and specific about their concerns turned out to have concerns based on misconceptions, or misinformation.

Granted, the conclusions I drew about how remarkable it was for the second memo to drop two thirds of the allegations used to justifiy his detention doesn't belong in article space. But, it seems to me exactly the same kind of judgment call that lead to my regarding his case as remarkable is being made by those who want to erase all coverage of the captives.

Here is the paragraph Andy Worthington devoted to Abdul Salaam:

"Also captured at this time (and subsequently released) was a family of businessmen from Birmel, in Paktika Province, who were caught up on what the Americans described as 'a sweep of the Birmel town bazaar,' which was as random as it sounds. Twenty-seven-year-old Abdul Salaam, his 50-year-old brother Haji Osman Khan and his 19-year-old cousin Noor Aslam ran a hawalla (a money exchange forwarding business) with branches in the Pakistan and the UAE. Salaam was arrested at his shop by US and Afghan soldiers, but he insisted he was an honest businessman and had never received money on behalf of the Taliban or al-Qaeda; he explained that the money they received was from families outside the country who were supporting their families in Afghanistan."

The second and third sentences of WP:BIO state:

The topic of an article should be notable, or "worthy of notice"; that is "significant, interesting, or unusual enough to deserve attention or to be recorded."[1]. Notable in the sense of being "famous", or "popular" - although not irrelevant - is secondary.

I think where the guidline says "famous or popular" we could put "notorious". Abdul Salaam is not individually notorious. But is he "significant, interesting or unusual enough to deserve attention"?

I feel sure that if we had only the sources we currently have about Abdul Salaam, but he was an American citizen, that no would even think of questioning whether he merited coverage on the wikipedia.

Okay, thanks for reading to this point.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 15:05, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

  • First of all, let me indicate that you have obviously paid a lot more attention to what is going on at Guantanamo than I have, so there may be errors in my comments below. If so, please let me know so I can correct them for future discussions. Also, some of my comments may seem to be somewhat scattershot, but I have a variety of ideas to get out with regard to Abdul Salaam (Guantanamo detainee 826) and articles like that.

Geo, it is my understanding that you believe that every Guantanamo detainee who has been the subject of an OARDEC review should be considered notable enough to be the subject of a Wikipedia article (because the OARDEC review constitutes a secondary source which establishes notability per WP:BIO). Furthermore, if I understand OARDEC and Combatant Status Review Tribunal, every detainee who has been held at Guantanamo since June 2004 is supposed to have his status reviewed. Thus, every detainee held at Guantanamo for the last four years would be notable in your opinion. Am I accurately describing your opinion?

I do not believe that the OARDEC review constitutes a secondary source, however, because it is a record of an administrative proceeding in which the subject was involved.

As to publications which clearly are secondary sources, you mention that Abdul Salaam is discussed in the book The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison. According to the book's web site, it purports to "tell the story of every man trapped in Guantánamo". Thus, his appearance in the book was not the result of his activities or experience or life being particularly distinctive, but just because he was one of the Guantanamo detainees. Furthermore, a 352-page book (per the website), which covers 774 detainees, would only be able to devote an average of less than half a page to each detainee. If the paragraph above is all that Worthington wrote about Salaam, it would seem that Salaam received only three sentences' worth of coverage in the book, which was shared with two of his relatives.

I can't find the Associated Press article which you recently cited (Alexandra Olson (January 22, 2005). "Detainee Has Last Guantanamo Panel Review". Associated Press.). If it's offline only, it ought to be cited to a particular newspaper. But the citation is a minor point; mostly I want to know what it said. I have since seen the article; it doesn't mention Salaam by name. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:10, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abdul Salaam (Guantanamo detainee 826), you indicate that the detainees have been called "the worst of the worst". But that description is supposed to apply to the detainees collectively. Assuming that whoever called the detainees "the worst of the worst" also meant that Abdul Salaam himself was "the worst of the worst" would be an example of the Fallacy of division. I don't know of any example of Salaam personally being identified as "the worst of the worst".

In the same discussion, you write: I suggest that anyone, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who almost everyone will agree is one of "the worst of the worst" merits coverage here. Certainly Khalid Sheikh Mohammed himself merits coverage in Wikipedia; it's still easy to find international press coverage of his capture in 2003, and that's not even getting into the coverage one will be able to find in today's newspapers (June 6). But I don't see how Salaam is comparable to KSM, either in terms of how serious the accusations against them are, or how much attention they have received.

You also write: The USA imprisons thousands, or tens of thousands of individuals charged with, or convicted of murder. And we have articles about practically none of them. But we have articles on guys who stand out, like Willie Horton or Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. Well, that's the problem with Abdul Salaam -- he doesn't stand out even compared to the other detainees at Guantanamo, at least not in my opinion. He certainly hasn't been the subject of a major political commercial and become a frequent topic of discussion in a presidential campaign. There hasn't been a hit song about him nor has he been the main character in a major motion picture (nor was he a top-ranked athlete before being sent to Guantanamo). The most distinctive things you have brought up about Salaam are (1) that he testified on his own behalf and (2) that upon review, the number of allegations against him were fewer than before. Neither strikes me as even being an interesting fact about him, much less a claim to notability. Salaam seems to be at the opposite end of the spectrum of notability compared to Horton and Carter.

This next point does not relate to Salaam, but I believe you have in the past asserted that there was a problem in that some of the detainees have had their names spelled inconsistently. I can't find where that is clearly stated, so I can't be 100% sure. But if that is an issue, I think it could most likely be explained by the fact that many of these detainees' legal names are spelled using a non-Roman alphabet and there are various ways to transliterate those names from Arabic (or other languages) to English.

And finally, the lead of Abdul Salaam (Guantanamo detainee 826) implies that Salaam is still being held at Guantanamo, but the infobox says he was "cleared for release" in 2005, and the quote from Worthington says he was subsequently released. If Salaam is no longer at Guantanamo and is now free in the outside world, that needs to be made much clearer in the article about him.

By the way, if you would prefer to continue this discussion on your user talk page or elsewhere in your userspace, just let me know and I will follow up there if necessary. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 06:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Howard Steven Brown

Please stop deleting anything related to Howard Steven Brown. My name is Henry Brown and I currently work for the University of Pennsylvania. The article is extremely relevant and substantive to the philanthropic, societal and business community. I wrote the article after hearing Howard Steven Brown speak during an anti-violence conference in New York City and would appreciate if you did your research and veerified the information before you decide to delete any posting. There are numerous sources and publications from the Philadelphia Daily news, Goldman Sachs and most recently, the New York post which highlights his activities and life.Hsbrown00 (talk) 11:32, 7 June 2008 (UTC)Cheers hsbrown00

  • Please make sure to add those sources and publications to the article. I can't find any sources about him myself. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 14:45, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks for the long and thoughtful reply.

I have started to draft a point by point reply, in my user space.

I see you have seen that I have taken some of your comments into account, and made a few changes to the article.

The short version of my reply, which I will leave here, should start by telling you that, try as I might, I simply can't find any policy or guideline that states sources should be media sources.

[edit] the Alexandra Olson article

Its true the Alexandra Olson article doesn't explicitly mention Abdul Salaam by name. But Lt Green's description of the last captive is essentially an exact match to the allegations against Abdul Salaam.

Only one other captive faced allegations that he worked for a Hawala. But the rest of his case didn't match. He was captured in his home in a Pakistani refugee camp, and he didn't work for a small family based hawala based in Afghanistan. He worked for a Somali based hawala, that was one of the largest in the world. And his allegation memo was drafted on September 19, 2004. Tribunals generally followed the the drafting of the memos a few days later. When captives requested off-Island witnesses the Tribunal would wait about three weeks, going through a pro forma request to the State Department to locate the requested witness, and get a witness statement. (The State Department failed to locate a single witness.)

So, I don't think there is any meaningful doubt that Abdul Salaam was the captive described in the article. But, I think it is important not to go beyond what the references support. So, I wrote what I thought stayed strictly within what the reference supported:

The Associated Press reported that Lieutenant Terry Green described the last captive to go through his CSR Tribunal, on 2005 January 22, was a 30 year old Afghan, who ran a hawala, who had two major customers who had ties to al Qaida.

The main reason the article doesn't identify Abdul Salaam by name was that the Bush Presidency policy in 2005 was to keep the identities of all the captives secret. Captives' families didn't know what had happened to the captives. They just disappeared. It is a terror technique usually used by totalitarian regimes.

In January 2006 Jed Rakoff ruled against the DoD, and forced it to publish the identity of the captives. The DoD published the first two official lists of captives names on April 20, 2006 and May 15, 2006.

Geo Swan (talk) 11:59, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Which is more important -- policy, or consensus?

I think complying with policy is important. And I have worked hard to comply with policy. I think honoring consensus is important too. And I have a commitment to discussion and and trying to reach consensus. You asked me if it was still my intention to lobby to keep all the existing articles on all the Guantanamo captives. No, this is no longer my plan. I do not plan to lobby to keep any article, like the Ajam article, that is only sourced to OARDEC memo(s). I have transwikied the allegations from some of those memos to wikisource. My plan is to transwiki the allegations from all those articles that rely solely on OARDEC memos to wikisource. I expect this will take a considerable time.

I honestly believe that the Abdul Salaam article fully complies with policy. Another administrator told me my contributions can't survive in "the current BLP climate". I find this comment very troubling, because I know how to comply with a policy. And I know how to discuss an issue, and work towards a consensus. But I don't know how to comply with a "climate" when those who assert this climate has authority over my contributions aren't willing to explain it to me.

I'd like your opinion on this. I believe that the wikipedia's core policies have to over-ride the consensus in a particular discussion, or series of discussions. I suggest that WP:NPOV, WP:VER, WP:OR, WP:CIV, and some other policies, should be non-negotiable. And if the consensus in a particular discussion wants to over-ride those policies administrators and experienced wikipedians have to speak up and say, "no, the consensus in this discussion does not comply with a core policy".

I realize there are people who do not want any of the Guantanamo captives to be covered on the wikipedia. Some prominent challengers, like User:Zoe, have gone on record as stating that NO Guantanamo captive should have an article. She took the position that those articles would be "inherently POV", and could only contain "America-bashing". I thought she mis-spoke, because I thought the surface meaning of her statement was insupportable. Entire topics can't be POV. The coverage of a topic can be POV, but not the topic itself. It is my position that even the most controversial topic can be covered from a neutral point of view, provided those working on it work hard enough to use good sources, guard against editorializing, and only go as far as the sources support. Frankly, I believe I succeeded in this.

I understand that "consensus can change". And new policies can be proposed, discussed, formalized. I don't see anyone doing anything about making a proposal, discussing a proposal, to incorporate their ideas as to why this material shouldn't be included into a policy. If those discussions are happening somewhere I would like to be able to give my input.

I don't know where the BLP policy came from. It wasn't a policy when I started the articles on the Guantanamo captives. Frankly, if this policy was, in part, a response to my efforts -- if the articles I started were offered as examples of why a new policy was necessary, I think it would have been a sad lapse that I wasn't invited to offer my input.

Let me repeat that I am grateful for your willingness to discuss these issues -- when other people haven't been. Thanks! Geo Swan (talk) 14:35, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Response

Hi,

This article has been speedily deleted multiple times [3]. it should probably be creation protected. Regards--Bit Lordy (talk) 15:48, 8 June 2008 (UTC)