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Afd NIRS

Thanks for your understanding about my deletion on the NIRS page. I mainly made the explanation because it's an unfortunate notice to have on one's talk page, but I'm glad that you checked back to read it. I definitely would not intentionally do something like that. :)Athene cunicularia (talk) 20:33, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Bowen Staines

He is a musician, with a record contact and sponserships with over 10,000 copies is current sales. His father's music carrer might not look to famous on wikipedia, but he is a featured artist on Cat Steven's greratest hits album, the same album that won Rolling Stones' 500 Best Albums Ever Award. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nathanielndavis (talk • contribs) 03:17, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks for your message. If you read this page carefully you will see that I was acting as an administrator and only placing a procedural nomination based on other people's views of this article. I actually do not have any view on it personally BUT my job (amongst others) is to push a contested speedy deletion request (in this particular case) to Articles for Deletion. I suggest you go to that page and comment as to why the article should remain. Others will consider your input - but stay calm, civil and keep editing the article itself. Cheers!--VS 03:22, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

The Great Banquet - deletion

You recently removed the article The Great Banquet citing "blatant copyright violation". The copyvio is inaccurate, as I did cite the source, and even received explicit permission from the originator for my paraphrase (permission for a paraphrase is not even necessary, anyway) on the article's discussion page? Furthermore, the website cited by Redfarmer, and agreed to by yourself, as having been infringed was not the originator of the description that was paraphrased to begin with! DJ Clayworth's assertion that the scope of the movement is limited to one event at one church is ignorant (this is not an insult - just factual, showing a lack of any fact checking at all on his part), and completely unfounded, as easily evidenced by the link I provided in my "Keep" response on the deletion log. that link show the location of hundreds of Cursillo movements, including The Great Banquet. (That link, by the way, was also included in the article.) The copyright violation assertion is simply wrong - period. Just because a website has a copyright notice at the bottom of the page, does not mean they originated all the text within the page. They paraphrased Lampstand's description of the movement on their site, just as many other communities have: , , , , , , , , et.al. I did get to wondering, though, if my article might be appropriate as a sub-article under the Cusillo article, anyway, as the Great Banquet, as is noted in the text, is a "spin-off" of the Cursillo movement anyway... Continuing to contend that the article was a copyvio is simply irresponsible. I understand you are absolutely swamped with articles to review, and may not have time to research each perceived violation; and I understand it is reasonable to trust your regular contributors/editors before some "newbie". But please take just a minute to look through the references I have provided, and reconsider reinstating the article. I will do my best to make any additional edits to make the article more palatable. But the historical information and description of the movement is factual, and not contested in any way. The scope of the movement is hugely noteworthy, with a 60 year international history, and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of worldwide "Cursillo method" weekend alumni. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rmsphoto (talk • contribs) 03:36, 26 January 2008 (UTC) -Sorry - forgot to sign. Rmsphoto (talk) 03:39, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

• Thank you for your message. I appreciate your recognition that admins have 100's (nay probably 1000's) of articles to review and other such tasks. I will add however that I personally do not trust regular contributors any more than I trust newbies - insofar that I check as thoroughly as I can the actual request for speedy deletion. In this case your article consisted almost completely of the following information:

• To become familiar with the Great Banquet, look first at the history of its counterparts, the Cursillo and the Walk to Emmaus. The Cursillo (3-day course in Christianity) began in Spain in the 1940s in the Roman Catholic Church. It spread to the United States and evolved for Protestants into the Walk to Emmaus under the auspices of the Upper Room and the United Methodist Church. An Emmaus Movement was started by the First Presbyterian Church in Madisonville, Kentucky in 1982. After a 10-year history of the Walk to Emmaus in Madisonville, Rev. John E. Pitzer and lay people from First Presbyterian Church formed the Great Banquet. The Great Banquet is governed by an ecumenical board of directors, using the "Cursillo model", but with a different image, the parable of The Great Banquet, from the Gospel of Luke. The Great Banquet Movement is institutionally sponsored by local church groups in a growing number of American communities. Lampstand Ministries was formed as a covering corporation to move the Great Banquet Movement to other areas.

The Great Banquet is a 72-hour experience based on the Cursillo method. The cursillo method focuses on training lay people to become effective leaders over the course of a three-day weekend. The weekend includes fifteen talks, some given by clergy and some by lay people. One emphasis of the weekend is on preparing those undergoing it to take the movement's methods back into the world, on what they call the "fourth day". To assist alumni in after the weekend, the Great Banquet community offers specific opportunities. First, "fourth day" "reunion groups" may be established to examine their goal of spiritual growth and encouragement. Second, alumni may assist in future Great Banquet weekends. Third, guests are made aware of community needs via communications with other Great Banquet communities, locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally.

• The page that was stated as the copyvio link at stated:

The Great Banquet is a 72-hour experience, beginning on Thursday evening and ending Sunday evening. For three days, guests live and study together in a worshipful time of singing, prayer and discussion. During each of the fifteen talks given by laity and clergy, the theme of God's grace is presented. Guests participate in the daily celebration of Holy Communion and examine more fully the presence of Christ in His body of believers. They personally experience His grace through the prayers and acts of a loving, Christian support community.

To become familiar with the Great Banquet, let's look first at the history of its counterparts, the Cursillo and the Walk to Emmaus. The Cursillo (3-day course in Christianity) began in Spain in the 1940s in the Catholic Church. It spread to the United States and evolved for Protestants into the Walk to Emmaus under the auspices of the Upper Room and the United Methodist Church. An Emmaus Movement was started by the First Presbyterian Church in Madisonville, Kentucky in 1982. After a 10-year history of the Walk to Emmaus in Madisonville, Rev. John E. Pitzer and lay people from First Presbyterian Church formed the Great Banquet. Governed by an ecumenical board of directors and using the "Cursillo model", but with a different image, the Great Banquet continues to emphasize personal Christian discipleship. The Great Banquet Movement is institutionally sponsored by local church groups in these areas. Lampstand Ministries was formed as a covering corporation to move the Great Banquet Movement to other areas.

• As I hope you will see I did do my research and, well I'm sorry but in a nutshell your content is a copyright violation. Best wishes --VS 03:50, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I might just quickly add that your content was not in fact a paraphrase - it was in the majority a word for word copy and actually fits more closely into the definition of plagiarism. Cheers. --VS 03:56, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Posted here also for sake of maintaining the thread Yes I can accept the latter part of your argument - (latest one put on your talk page). But that will mean that you point me quickly and easily to the original site that has the exact content you had put up (which you agree is plagiarized at this time from the page I was referred to in the first place) and (a) prove to me that it was written and posted by that site first, and (b) that it is not copyrighted - so that it can be put up on wikipedia. If you do that and return to my talk page with that prove I will restore the article and place a note on its talk page and as a a part of its restoration edit summary.--VS 23:18, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, VS, for continuing the thread. Well, those are quite some hoops to jump through... I cannot offer documented proof of law. One cannot create a historical log of the web server time-stamps and archives from the past many years to prove such a thing. But it is certainly implicit that the originator of the movement precedes the locales to which the movement spread. The discussion page for the original article (which I can no longer access) contains a statement from Lampstand Ministries giving permission to use the text from their site. I contacted Lampstand directly, asked them to register with Misplaced Pages, asked that they check the article for accuracy and acceptability, and provide permission to use text from their copyrighted website if they felt it appropriate; they did so on Friday afternoon - USA East time. I'm sure they would be happy to place the "I am the owner..." statement on the article if it becomes reposted - I would definitely contact them again to do so... Quick and easy original site link: http://lampstand.net/about_great_banquet.html Again, I do commend you for going to bat for intellectual property owners; I know that is a thankless job. I owned a photo lab for several years, and constantly explained (and sometimes argued) why it is not OK to copy your kids' school photos, or your best friend's wedding photos, etc.Rmsphoto (talk) 06:03, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Synthetic Entertainment

Hello Steve,

Thanks for flagging the few pages of mine you did.....to be honest they did need some work! As you can see some of my other pages are more detailed and referenced out/flushed out for starter/stub pages. I'm trying to develop my pages all up to a high standard. My Central Heat Distribution page I created recently I think is pretty solid and I hope to be my new standard for new pages.

As for the Synthetic Entertainment page and the 2 others (Denyss McKnight and Mark Sommer) you flagged I have done lots of work tonight on them! I have dug around the web and found lots of references to back up the validity of the 3 flaged pages. I have also rewrote and restructured most of the articles! Can you help me out and smooth out any other rough edges you see or if its ready can you take off the AfD alert please? Let me know your thoughts Cheers Hollywoodnorthreport (talk) 05:01, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks for your message. Good to see you taking such a keen interest. As you probably know I was only flagging these pages as part of a procedural nomination following the request to speedy delete the first by another editor. I would rather remain at arms distance at the moment - mainly because as an administrator trawling through hundreds of 'duties' I just don't have the time to be able to re-write each article. That said the AfD should stay there for its 5 day nominated time-slot but you should rest assured that other editors will see your work and nominate keep, delete or merge as a result of the changed pages - and in many cases take a moment to adjust the 'rough edges' you speak of. Again well done on your work. Cheers!--VS 05:32, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
  • thanks for the barn star...it’s great to know that work DOES get noticed and appreciated around here! :) No other editors have added any opinions on the AfD page for my pages. Is that a good thing or bad? Hollywoodnorthreport (talk) 10:40, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

My pleasure on the barnstar. No further comments and two keeps means only good things at this time. Keep up the good work!--VS 10:46, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Blogged.com entry

Greetings VirtualSteve,

I appreciate your time in evaluating my article. I am taking into account all of your comments and would like to address some of the concerns regarding the article. Most importantly, the question of "notability" is a valid one and I would like to address that if possible.

Would it be possible to give me a little time to provide some useful references that may address your concerns for notability? I do feel that my article has a place in Misplaced Pages because it discusses a new trend which is very significant to the ever-evolving behavior we call social networking.

Thank you again for your time and valuable feedback. It is my first wikipedia article and I am definitely learning a lot from my first attempt.

Cheers,

-Kenneth —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ellidyr (talk • contribs) 08:27, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

• Hi Kenneth - good to see you taking such a fine interest in your first article. As you will have noted I have posted a welcome banner on your talk page with heaps of links to reading material that will help you create the perfect article. In particular you should start by reading Misplaced Pages:Five pillars which as you will see provides other links to Notability and Verifiability. I should also note that as an administrator on wikipedia I only tagged your article as part of the normal process that occurs when an editor puts a request for speedy deletion up on a page and another editor asks for the community to "hang-on". I do not have any personal view about your article. I suggest that you might get some more help from DanielRigal as he was the first to put the tag up. Normally editors who have taken the time to tag an article for speedy deletion are happy to provide more information. I will post a note to him about this conversation but also you can at any time contact him and ask questions. Just remember three important rules, stay civil, stay calm and keep editing. Best wishes. --VS 12:14, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

One other tip perhaps - go to .com and have a look at the list of ".com" sites and links about half way down the page. Click on one or two (or more) and have a look how the numerous editors have written an article based on fact and have removed the style of advertising spiel that will make an article more brochure and less encyclopaedia. Don't worry about being as good as this straight up but try and get more of this style into your blogged.com article. You have about 2 or 3 days to sway the reviewers who will come to post a suggestion of keep, delete or merge on the AfD discussion.--VS 12:29, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Sock attacks on celebrity pages

See: 92.8.159.121 and an MO that matches Harvey Carter. Bzuk (talk) 17:29, 26 January 2008 (UTC).

• Thanks blocked for one week. Both this one and the recent one you referred to on my talk page (and banned by another editor) are also tagged as suspected socks of HC.--VS 22:01, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Protocol on user home pages

I'm not up on the conventions related to use of user talk pages but is it appropriate to remove admin's message on a user's talk page? I think it's okay because it shows that the message was read but a questionable aspect could be a removal can sometimes "flavour" a "message string" or even putting a "spin" on things by use of controversial comments, see: Bzuk (talk) 19:41, 26 January 2008 (UTC).

• It seems quite certain he is attempting to flavour his pages - especially with his moves of removing some posts and copying other conversation from my page above. Its absolutely certain that he is not a very rational contributor when it comes to his concern over LaraLove and the_undertow. In terms of his removal of messages - the convention is that he is entitled to (although they should be archived) and if he does it defines that he has read them and others can act accordingly. Thank you for your interest. Cheers!--VS 21:36, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Rack N Road Deletion

Hi VirtualSteve,

I just had a question on why my Rack N Road entry was deleted. I'm not quite sure how it could be considered blatant advertising because it was just going over the history of the store as well as the services it provides. Looking at REI's entry, I don't see a real big difference, and if anything REI's entry is much more "blatant advertising" then my entry was. I also noticed that a peer in the industry "Rack Attack" also had their entry flagged. REI's has never been touched. Maybe their entry should be looked over once again. Please let me know what I can do to change our article to fit within Misplaced Pages's guidelines. I definitely read through the different Misplaced Pages sections on good editing and I felt I had follow them quite well. Thank you for your time.

Respectfully,

Biligas74 1-26-2008

• Thank you for your question Biligas74. I note the following history in relation to this article. Firstly it has been deleted 3 times, once on January 20 and January 27 last year, and then again on January 21, 2008. I deleted the article because user:Kesac had nominated it for speedy - which was not contested and the article was by and large written as an advertisment. Almost at the same time user:Figma put it up as a part of an article for deletion discussion here which as you will see was closed by another admin when a consensus of delete was reached - this time on January 26. I would suggest that with that many editors commenting that the article did not meet wiki's guidelines that it probably was not ready to stay up on this site. Particularly I note that the article had problems with notablility. You should also consider carefully the Wiki guideline on conflict of interest. In terms of your comment relating to REI - I'm sorry but I have no idea what you are referring to.--VS 09:43, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Please consider that

you got pwned!. By a bot, no less. Haha. the_undertow 10:51, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

• Yeah I know I'm still laughing about it - It got me as I was doing merges. Bastard!!--VS 10:54, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
  • You don't have to lie to make friends. Just admit it Steve, you hate tildes. It's okay. We all have aversions. the_undertow 11:03, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
• Hey cut that out - all Aussies love tildes we even sing about them - You'll come a waltzing maTILDa with me--VS 11:15, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I knew it. Another Aussie Cabal member. I'm still getting used to the idea that the English edit here, much less my 'realisation' that there are many, many roos. For a country (and a continent!), your reputation for being bad-ass really is shot down by the overwhelming percentage of those who spend their time editing a reference book. the_undertow 11:25, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

• Bullshit - the only reason I'm responding to you so slowly is 'cause I'm holding off this frigging crocodile with my other hand!--VS 11:30, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

LMAO. If I wasn't busy on my Soloflex, while eating apple pie, I would probably block you for pulling the crocodile card. the_undertow 11:55, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

My Rfa

My effort to regain adminship was unsuccessful, and I'll do what I can to ensure your opinion of my suitability for adminship improves. Thank you for taking some time out of your day to voice your opinion.--MONGO 05:06, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Floating boxes

Your "wikipedian for" and "admin since" boxes are pretty neat, but unfortunately they get in the way when viewing diffs of your talkpage. :-( --_{tiny plastic} Grey Knight ⊖ 09:11, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

• Cheers will fix as soon as I have a moment - thanks for telling me.--VS 09:14, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Fixed by moving to my user page - There was probably another way but for now that will do. Thanks again for telling me.--VS 10:48, 28 January 2008 (UTC)