Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 15:15, 13 April 2008

Welcome to my talk page. Please take off your shoes at the entrance and have a seat. Tea will be served shortly. Please keep all comments here calm and polite. Messages that are welcome here:

• politely-worded criticisms of my behaviour
• calmly-expressed differences of opinion
• questions about how to edit Misplaced Pages
• just saying hello or whatever
• etc.; I like getting that "you have new messages" banner.

Messages that are not welcome here:

• criticisms of users other than myself (However, if you need help, it's OK to place on this page a link to polite criticism of another user in an appropriate place, if there is an appropriate place, perhaps your own talk page.)

One way to leave a message here is to click on the tab with a plus sign ("+") at the top of this page. Sometimes I reply here, sometimes on your talk page, etc.; feel free to let me know which you'd prefer.

Archives

Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5 Archive 6 Archive 7 Archive 8 Archive 9 Archive 10 Archive 11 Archive 12

A quick thumbs up

Just wanted to stop by to let you know that I appreciate your diligence on the CG article thus far, and that I believe with your efforts and others, the article will turn out very nicely. I hope you keep up the great work, and plan on joining you more heavily this weekend, when I have some spare time. Redthoreau (talk TR 06:05, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much! I also appreciate the tremendous amount of work you've been putting into the article, and hope you keep it up! I was happy to see you editing about the same time as me part of yesterday.

By the way, last weekend I was in a used bookstore, happened to see el Che's image looking at me from a display of books, and acquired Anderson's biography, doubling the number of books I own on Che Guevara.  :-) --Coppertwig (talk) 11:07, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

It's a great book; I suspect you won't be able to put it down. Well I am off to nap for awhile (after a long night of "editing") ... I trust that you will continue to make great modifications and improvements in my absence. Redthoreau (talk TR 11:26, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I see you've made lots of edits! I was thinking of posting a message to you about 10 hours ago just to say hello and that I was about to log off -- you started posting not long before I was stopping -- but I got distracted. Hope you get some good sleep. --Coppertwig (talk) 11:39, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Responding to answer, in turn to request to Mattisse

Hey, greetings. You wrote:

"Hi. I'm not sure how familiar you are with Misplaced Pages practices. Many users archive their talk pages; I do, for example. Some like to keep a mostly-empty talk page and archive quickly; others let things sit around for a long time (as I do -- probably too long.) Some users don't archive at all but just delete messages. If the user archives, you can easily view the archived messages in the links to the archive pages at the top of the talk page. For users who don't archive, the messages are still viewable in the page history, although that's less convenient.

You've made a request and it's been turned down. I don't think it's reasonable to insist. The Misplaced Pages:User page#Removal of comments, warnings guideline says "Policy does not prohibit users, including both registered and anonymous users, from removing comments from their own talk pages, although archiving is preferred." --Coppertwig (talk) 18:39, 4 April 2008 (UTC)"

This is something I've never been involved with, as you surmised. I'm fairly sure I'm in line with Wiki, though, so I'll proceed: Mattisse created an article which I happened on by chance. When I checked other articles written by Mattisse, I discovered systematic mistakes.

Then I discovered that there is, in fact, a considerable amount of controversy about contributions that is not reflected in Mattisse's talk pages.

The pattern is that Mattisse deals with disputes on a one-on-one basis, and somehow (I am not a sufficiently sophisticated Wiki user to understand how this is done) manages to sweep under the carpet considerable and significant community opposition to edits. Hence, an editor who prefers comments on their edits to be difficult to access. Surely an archive period of 60 days, or even 120 days, would not strain resources.

Regards,

24.130.14.173 (talk) 18:57, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

With the consensus system and the fact that we're all volunteers, we tend to do things via request, not demand. If you get a "no" to a request, you pretty much just have to accept it. If your request were backed up by a policy or guideline you might have a stronger case.

What you're asking for is very unconventional, potentially technically unworkable (as some browsers can't handle large amounts of text: a reason I probably ought to archive my talk page more often) and generally seen by Wikipedians as unnecessary, since the information is available in the archive pages. Therefore, while you can attempt gentle persuasion, I think your request is very unlikely to be accepted.

You know where to find the talk page archives, right? Numbered or dated links near the top of the talk page.

You might want to look into WP:Dispute resolution.

I'm not sure whether you're a new user or someone who has previously edited under a different IP address or account (that's not an accusation! There are accepted reasons for doing so) but if you're new-ish you might want to look at the welcome page which has links to various information to help you learn how things work around here. You're also welcome to ask me questions about how to use Misplaced Pages.

The consensus system takes some getting used to. Although there are some rules and some enforcement of rules, it's mostly about getting along with people. It's hard to explain. --Coppertwig (talk) 20:08, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I appreciate the thoughtful words. Asking someone to be accountable for what they say, well, that's not unusual. So, I can't accept that Mattisse is removing her talk pages to an archive for an honest purpose. She's involved with divide-and-conquer, then, alternatively is shuttling criticism to another authority which she reckons will be unable to deal with the situation.

Archived talk pages cannot be modified. Mattisse has found a vulnerability in Wiki which she is exploiting.

That Mattisse is writing dozens of articles about subjects which she knows little about seems to be lost in the political shuffle. So it goes.

Thanks again for your comments.

24.130.14.173 (talk) 20:31, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks.

Just asking someone to be accountable is rather vague. Usually when we do accuse people of things, we provide diffs to illustrate exactly what we're talking about.

Please note the message I've put at the top of my talk page about what types of messages are or are not welcome on this talk page.

If archived talk pages can't be modified, I think that's a feature, not a bug. In practice, I think they can be modified: they just don't tend to be, or if modified will tend to be reverted. If you want to reply to something that's in an archived page, you can post a message on the main talk page and state that it's a continuation of a previous discussion.

I believe messages are only archived (automatically) from Mattisse' talk page when the latest time stamp in the section is 14 days old. I could have that wrong.

We don't have to be previously personally familiar with a subject to write about it. Misplaced Pages articles are based on reliable sources, not personal knowledge. It does help to have experts in the subject involved, too. If someone gets something wrong, someone else will likely fix it. Some experts might find it easier or more inviting to fix errors in an already-existing article than to start an article from scratch.

If someone asks you not to post to their talk page, it's probably a good idea to comply with that request, possibly making an exception if you have a specific complaint that the person has violated a specific policy or guideline that you can cite and if you can provide diffs showing that they violated it -- though even then often it's best to keep away from their talk page. Trying to carry on a discussion when the other person isn't interested in participating tends to make things worse rather than better. You might want to look at the WP:Civility policy.

Thank you for trying to help make Misplaced Pages better. --Coppertwig (talk) 21:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

You said "I'm fairly sure I'm in line with Wiki, though,": I'd suggest reviewing relevant WP:Policies and guidelines to make sure. --Coppertwig (talk) 21:10, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, excuse, I didn't read the header on your talk page. So I'll just round this out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.130.14.173 (talk) 21:33, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

With acrimony it's possible to bring Mattisse to heal. She's so far out of line that...there's not much question. I'll leave it to someone who's spoiling for a fight to alert the Wiki community that someone who is ... let's say obsessed ... is using the "letter of the law" to run roughshod over those assuming "goodwill" on the part of others. Unfortunately, in the meantime, the authority of Wiki, and the truth of what Wiki readers see needs to suffer. It's a "Wiki growth experience". Smile.

Friendly wave your direction.

24.130.14.173 (talk) 21:25, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

A friendly wave to you, too. However, the above message is the type of thing I'm talking about when I say that "criticisms of users other than myself" are not welcome on this talk page. --Coppertwig (talk) 21:31, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Salt Lake City School District

Hi, you contacted me about the Salt Lake City School district page. I'm just curious as to why I can't put up this information. Somebody else has undone my work at least 3 times. Doesn't that break a rule? I listed those two Deseret News pages as sources. Nothing in my paragraph is false. It's true. Please send me a private message. Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dylandude89 (talk • contribs) 13:54, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Re Salt Lake City School District: Thank you for discussing this with me. Note the Biographies of living persons policy. Misplaced Pages requires high standards of reliability of sources in order to include defamatory material about living persons in an article. A student newspaper is not the type of source considered reliable for this purpose. See the reliable sources guideline. An account from a person involved is not the type of source Misplaced Pages uses. It has to have been previously published in a respectable forum, such as a newspaper with a good reputation, a book from a publisher with good editing standards, etc. The first two footnotes you give seem to be dead links or links to some kind of error message or something that I don't understand. Your citations are not properly formatted; they would have to have title, date, etc. For defamatory material about a living person, several reliable sources would be needed. Please don't re-add the material until there's a consensus that there are sufficient reliable sources. You can present sources on the talk page of the article and discuss there whether they're good enough. To see whether there's consensus you should probably wait at least several days for replies to see if anyone has any objections after you post to the talk page and before posting to the article.

I see that your edits have been reverted. I reverted once. If all of the other reverts were by the same person, they might have over 3 reverts in a 24-hour period (I haven't counted), but enforcing the BLP (biographies of living persons) policy is specifically listed as an exception at WP:3RR, so they would not be in violation of 3RR even if they had more than 3 reverts. You are in violation, however.

Per the WP:Edit war policy, editwarring is not endorsed as an editing technique. Rather than repeatedly reverting (whether it's about a living person or something else), it's better to discuss things on the article talk page and make changes after the people involved agree on what the article should say. See WP:BRD: you can be bold and edit an article, but once someone reverts your material once, you should shift to discussion, not editwarring. --Coppertwig (talk) 14:18, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Good heart

		The Good Heart Barnstar
		For all your efforts to help others in many different areas and particularly your dedication to helping others reach peaceful resolution to conflicts. Moonriddengirl 00:40, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! --Coppertwig (talk) 09:50, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Well deserved ! Redthoreau (talk TR 10:02, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! --Coppertwig (talk) 10:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank You

Hello,

Thank you for responding to my New Wikipedian "help me" request last month. I've just posted an announcement about my little ol' research survey on the miscellaneous village pump. If you have a few moments, would you be willing to take the survey? Please visit my User page for details. Thanks very much! AMQ815 22:52, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Hello again, thank you for the suggestions. I've made some alterations and will continue to do so as I feel my way through this. (It is the wiki way, after all.) I hope you'll find the time to answer my survey questions. AMQ815 02:08, 8 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by AMQ815 (talk • contribs)

Well, they are not easy questions to answer!!! --Coppertwig (talk) 02:15, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Belated reply to Redthoreau

I realized today that I needed to reply to these messages (which are now in my talk page archives); I decided to make the reply in the following paragraph (though I hadn't decided on the precise words) before I saw the recent activity between you and Mattisse. I hope these comments help and don't make things worse!

Re this and this messages from you to Mattisse: I hope I'm not violating my own instructions for use of this talk page by saying this, but I'd like to explain: Yes, agreeing with someone can be perceived as an insult. For example, in a culture where being fat is deprecated, if someone says "I think I'm getting fat" and someone replies "I think you're right," the person would tend to feel hurt. And if someone says "I'm leaving now" and someone replies "Good idea," again that would tend to be perceived as insulting -- and I think it would tend to be perceived that way not only by the person being spoken to but also by objective observers. Please consider retracting some of your words.

That's what I had intended to say; but I'll add some comments on the recent exchange between you and Mattisse. Mattisse has stopped editing Che Guevara because of what Mattisse perceives to be personal attacks from you. Under these circumstances, it would seem to me wise for you to be very careful to use the highest standards of civility when interacting with Mattisse -- or else to avoid interacting at all.

If I understand correctly, by "MD" you mean The Motorcycle Diaries, an article related to Che Guevara. I suggest that since Mattisse has already shown extensive interest in the topic of Che Guevara, that it is not at all surprising to expect that Mattisse might decide to edit articles on that topic. No coincidence need be assumed. Also, Mattisse is apparently sorting large numbers of autobiographical articles; I've seen a few of thsee showing up at WP:BLP/N, for example. When sorting large numbers of articles, it doesn't take much coincidence to hit one of a small set of articles.

Mattisse is absolutely free to edit Che Guevara – there is no reason not to. Exactly the same applies to Motorcycle Diaries or any other article related to Che Guevara or any other article not related to Che Guevara. Mattisse is also free to express an opinion that articles are not compliant with NPOV.

You feel that Mattisse has attacked you; but please remember also that Mattisse also feels that you have attacked Mattisse.

You quoted Mattisse as saying in an edit summary, "this article is Original Research - it presents the editors view only & any reverences are not neutral - article is written only to glorify subject of article 18:05, 7 April 2008 Mattisse" Apparently when Mattisse wrote this, Mattisse didn't know you were one of the editors of the article. Note that the word "editors" has no apostrophe. Therefore, it's not possible to tell whether it's in the singular or the plural. I would presume it's intended in the plural. There's nothing there to say that the alleged glorifying was done purposely. People can easily express an individual POV (e.g. glorifying someone/something) without realizing that that's what they're doing; each person's POV tends to seem neutral to that person.

While you might perceive a personal attack there, I'm not sure that anyone else would see that edit summary as a personal attack against you. This is a typical pattern, that people tend to see attacks against themselves more often than other people see them. We need to compensate for that, in part by showing understanding towards those who perceive our own words as attacks.

In the interests of developing a NPOV encyclopedia, Mattisse must be free to express the opinion that certain articles or parts of articles do not conform to NPOV. Please don't take that personally.

Sometimes I find it hard to take when someone uses harsh words to criticize an article. I feel as if I'm being criticized. However, I realize that the user has the right to make comments about an article and to express them in the style that the user prefers, so I don't complain. --Coppertwig (talk) 00:30, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Please do not post Redthoreaus's name on my page again.

Readhoreau has stated that he reserves the right to continue to hassle me every time his name is posted on my page. I am begging you to cease mentioning him on my page. You are the only person who does. This has become harassment. It if continues, I will close my page to all messages and delete without reading anything that are posted there. PLease, –Mattisse (Talk) 21:13, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

You mentioned my name as an attack, which is why I responded Let's review:

I'm sure, to stand up to Redthoreau. No one has so far, so I don't expect any change. In fact I expect an ugly post from him to appear right under this one. –Mattisse (Talk) 00:51, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

= Mattisse accept personal responsibility for your actions and stop impugning Coppertwig, who has only dealt fairly and politely with you. I don't know how else to make this extremely clear: "If you post an accusation against me on your talk page, on another page, on a forum, anywhere I know of on the internet" ... = I WILL respond and answer my accuser. If you wish to be left alone, then desist from casting aspersions.       Redthoreau (talk TR 21:29, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Mattisse, I will try to remember to do as you ask, unless I have a strong reason not to. When I said "Congratulations", I was congratulating you for getting a barnstar, a DYK and an invitation to join a wikiproject. :-) Congratulations on mostly remaining civil through the stress of the last day or so, and for posting good comments about content without commenting about editors at all at Talk:The Motorcycle Diaries#My objections to para one; however, it would be better to revert with no comment (which is also frowned on) than to refer to a longstanding editor's edit as "vandalism". Redthoreau is right that this remark about an "ugly post" was not nice. It's OK to defend yourself by saying things like "that was an attack", but please don't say uncivil things yourself. AGF: Redthoreau can be easy to get along with if you treat the user nicely. --Coppertwig (talk) 23:01, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Redthoreau, I think everything would go much more smoothly if you would start treating Mattisse with consistent civility, respect and gentleness, regardless of whether you believe it's deserved.

Even if you believe someone is acting in bad faith, there is rarely or never any reason to say so explicitly, as you did here. Try to think about how things will look to other observers who may not interpret the evidence as you do. See WP:Assume good faith#Dealing with bad faith, its subsection WP:Assume good faith#Accusing others of bad faith and GTBacchus' comments at Misplaced Pages talk:Assume good faith, such as this one. Also, re using "vandalism" in an edit summary, please don't try to use another person's behaviour as an excuse for your own behaviour. I would really appreciate it if you would instead constantly look for ways to de-escalate or at least not continue that sort of conflict. I'd rather spend my time reformatting footnotes than responding to these sorts of things. --Coppertwig (talk) 23:01, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

3RR / BLP issues

Thank you for coming to my support in this 3RR issue. Your message on my talk page was the first warning I had of the report. As I noted in my comment on the report, I suspect that the report was actually made in retaliation for these warnings (which I chose not to report). You will see from my comments in those warnings that my intention has always been to assume good faith and apply consensus editing. Anyway, thank you for your interest and helpful guidance in this matter. -- Scjessey (talk) 02:02, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome. A couple more things about how 3RR works: 3 reverts in 24 hours is not a violation of 3RR (though it may be considered editwarring; it takes 4 reverts to exceed 3RR and violate the rule. Also, a series of consecutive edits by one editor is generally counted as a single edit for 3RR purposes. Taking these things into account, I don't see how Andyvphil could possibly be considered to have violated 3RR in the last day or two at Barack Obama. --Coppertwig (talk) 02:13, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. This is personal for User:Andyvphil, as I am sure you have gathered. Under normal circumstances, I would revert these edits for the reasons I (and other editors) give here, but I'm afraid to revert anything that isn't obvious vandalism, etc. I'm essentially being prevented from carrying out my normal functions as a Wikipedian by a single individual trying desperately to get me blocked because I politely warned him about possible 3RR violations of his own. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:35, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I looked at some of the discussion on that talk page, and it seems to me that the issue is complex. Your preferred version may be better, but it isn't immediately obvious. As EdJohnston says, it would take quite a bit of study to figure out whether it would count as a BLP exemption. (I may have been too quick to jump to conclusions about BLP earlier.)

You called your warning to Andyvphil "polite". You might be able to avoid getting into these retaliatory situations in future by learning to be more polite. I doubt it was perceived by Andyvphil as polite. If I remember right, you posted two 3RR templates with largish triangles with exclamation marks on them to his talk page, when he had not violated 3RR. Note Stifle's warning to you: it's short, without icons, personally written, begins with a positive message and is worded as a gentle request; Andyvphil complained that it hardly counts as a warning. You could try to emulate Stifle's style, and consider not even doing that until the person has actually violated 3RR, i.e. done 4 reverts (separated by other users' edits) in 24 hours. See Misplaced Pages:Don't template the regulars.

Things you can do include: Posting to WP:BLP/N; posting to wikiprojects or WP:Requests for comment (article content) to try to get more people involved; if you feel you can't revert due to 3RR, you can put in tags such as {{fact}}, {{POV}} etc., and you can edit the words by adding words such as "allegedly"; adding words would probably not be considered a revert, and modifying might not either, although it could be argued that if you deleted a word that's a revert. --Coppertwig (talk) 22:16, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

This is about a different 3RR case; I'm just posting it here because the section heading says "3RR". For the record, when I posted this I was aware that the argument for the 3rd revert was very weak. I figured I would present what I had anyway and let the closing admin decide whether the argument had any merit. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:13, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Place to discuss CG article

Great work thus far and it has been a pleasure to edit with you. A suggestion I thought I would throw out in response to yesterday's message about stepping over each other at the same time. One thing that I always do before I push preview or submit ... is copy and paste the info I am working with. That way if there is an edit conflict it won't be lost and I can just re-paste it. Just a suggestion that I have found works well.    Redthoreau (talk Redthoreau 13:09, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Maybe I shouldn't have said anything. I only got one edit conflict. I don't really need to copy-paste the material beforehand because I can just hit the back button on my browser (or, in fact, get it from the lower edit window in the edit conflict display.) I do sometimes save stuff but not usually. Anyway, in spite of edit conflicts I still find it more fun to be editing at the same time.

With the references reformatting, if someone had edited the same section I would probably have changed to my version, then re-added the other person's change. The only problem would be if two people did extensive changes at the same time. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. As an aside, there seems to be gaps in the references after Kabila, Gott, and US army but I can't tell how they are there ?    Redthoreau (talk Redthoreau 13:25, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Quick ?. If there have been several edits in a row that were faulty ... how do you revert back to a specific edit, without having to revert all of the intermediate ones individually ? Thanks.    Redthoreau (talk Redthoreau 22:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Suppose you want to discard the last three edits. Click "history". Click on the date for the 4th edit in the list (i.e. the good version that you want to revert back to.) You're now viewing the good version, with a pink bar on top warning you that you're viewing an older version. Click "edit this page". It warns you that you're editing an older version. Fill in the edit summary and click "Save page". --☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:19, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that will help tremendously in the future ... in the case of repeat vandals.

   Redthoreau (talk Redthoreau 23:37, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind that I copied your idea of having a smiley face in one's signature. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:39, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

No not at all. I view imitation as the highest form of flattery jk ;o). But joking aside ... I think the smiley actually fits your personality more than mine. To me it is a reminder to be more "civil" ... for you it is an accurate representation of your very positive personality that I benefit from.    Redthoreau (talk Redthoreau 23:44, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much! ☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:47, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Looks below. Just wanted to say that I am constantly impressed by your calm politeness and resoluteness for civility in a situation that I believe is most likely futile. Unfortunately it has been my experience that some people can just not be worked with collaboratively, but I admire your unrelenting commitment, and note that you are a better person than I in that regard. Keep up being who you are regardless of other editors behavior, as this editor finds it extremely refreshing.    Redthoreau (talk Redthoreau 06:45, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, but before posting, please carefully check whether your messages are within the spirit of the note at the top of my talk page. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 11:27, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

3R

Thank you Coppertwig for that. I know contentious articles very often there are sides to choose and while there are positions on various arguments my side is with making the encyclopedia an excellent neutral resource. I welcome both sides of the circumcision controversy and simply feel the article is unbalanced. Note I'm not alone in this opinion just perhaps more vocal. I look forward to working with you and am sure that as long as we WP:AGF and remain WP:CIVIL everything will work out. Garycompugeek (talk) 13:23, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

All of us are on the side of trying to have a neutral encyclopedia. It's just that different people have different ideas of what neutral looks like. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:21, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Edit summaries

You need not mention that I have asked for a citation in an edit summary for Che Guevara. What is the purpose of that, other than regurgitate my name and perhaps your satisfaction that you have driven me away. I noticed you did not for many other citations where you added facts for notations. Plus I notice that wording I wanted (which was removed because I objected) is now back as I wrote it. Ironic. You and another have replaces much of my wording, but, of course, it is all credited to you now. –Mattisse (Talk) 02:27, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I have never had any intention of driving you away, and if you're staying away from the article because of things I've done, then I feel shame and regret about it, not satisfaction.

Today I was originally intending to post a question asking whether everyone was satisfied with the current wording of the "Castro's brain" sentence, in order to encourage you to get involved and to show support for your freedom to edit. However, while searching the edit history etc., I realized that the current version seems to me to perhaps satisfy the point you were raising, but that there were other issues you had raised in other edits -- such as citation-needed tags -- which had not been addressed, so I decided to mention those instead. The reasons for mentioning those things were to try to ensure that your contributions were not lost but were used to improve the article; and to try to encourage you.

If I've put some of your words in without attributing you in an edit summary, I apologize. If you tell me which words, maybe I can do something to help fix the situation; or maybe you can do something about it yourself, such as deleting and re-adding the words with an explanation in an edit summary of where they came from.

Your message above leaves me confused as to whether you would prefer that I mention your name, or that I not mention it. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 02:48, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

By the way, I checked through your edits of March 30 &ndash April 1, and it seems to me that for almost all of them, the current version of the article in some way fixes the problems you were raising. If there are some points you feel are still not addressed, I hope you will mention them again so they can be negotiated and worked out; and I hope you'll continue to contribute to the article. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 11:49, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:3RRN

Just thought I'd tell you the result of a case you worked on: . Good job! :-) Scarian 10:47, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Scarian (or Pat), for letting me know, and for the compliment! (Not to mention for closing the case in the first place.) ☺Coppertwig (talk) 11:20, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Runhardt Sander

Hi Coppertwig, I am thinking that I should put this article up for AfD. The sources just don't feel right, although I can't tell if this is intended to be promotional or negative. (Heaven forbid that means it is NPOV!) I am not a reader of German, but what I got from the AfD at de.wp, it seems they felt there were original research and notability concerns. If this fellow isn't notable in Germany, I really can't see him being notable internationally. Any thoughts? Risker (talk) 02:23, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Did you notice that I just nominated it for deletion with prod a few minutes ago? I figured if anybody removed the prod notice I would put it up for AfD. If you want to take it to AfD right away that's fine too. I have some ability to read German though I'm not sure it helps me read that deletion discussion any better than you can; I had to look up "Quellen" in the dictionary anyway (apparently it means "sources"). I would have to re-read it a few times and look up some more words to really follow it, but yeah, I get the impression they're talking about relevance (notability?) and sources. And "Original Research". :-) Someone says something along the lines of fine, if there were ... sources. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 02:38, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

PROD works for me, no point having a big debate if it isn't necessary. If it fails PROD then I am quite happy to see it on AfD. I did a bit of google translation on what appeared to be the key portions of the discussion, and it did seem to boil down to those two things. There are a few wikipedians around who read German quite well, I might ask one of them to give it a read if the PROD fails. Thanks for doing the nomination. Risker (talk) 02:43, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome. I felt responsible because I had patrolled the article.

By the way, I think at least one person in that deletion discussion is arguing to keep the article. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 02:48, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Oreskes page

Hi Coppertwig,

Thanks for offering to explain how Misplaced Pages works. I am bewildered by the rules. Are there Wikipedian lawyers and consultants to help novices? Or books written on the subject?

Is WP:3RR the same as 3RR?

Did Tabletop protect the Oreskes page?

Why would an editor have a name like Tabletop if he also uses a real name?

Thanks for your offer of help.

Larry 12:35, 13 April 2008 (UTC)Lawrence Solomon

I'll answer some of your questions now, and might answer some more a little later.

Essentally, WP:3RR is the same as 3RR. "WP:3RR" is an abbreviation ("shortcut") you can type in as a page name in order to quickly find the page Misplaced Pages:Three-revert rule, which describes the three-revert rule (3RR). That page is one of Misplaced Pages's policies. Policies are listed at Misplaced Pages:List of policies. There are also guidelines and help pages.

Misplaced Pages is pretty much entirely run by volunteers. We're all at different stages of learning how things work, and we help out people who are newer. I don't know whether there are any books on the subject.

Misplaced Pages follows a consensus system. It takes time to get used to. It's not just about following rules: it's about using common sense and getting along with other people.

People are encouraged to be bold and edit even if they don't know all the rules. People are also expected to start gradually getting familiar with the rules by reading policies and guidelines from time to time; when you've been editing for a longer time, there's more of an expectation that you should know certain rules.

You can feel free to ask me questions. You can also post questions to the help desk, or you can put {{helpme}} on your talk page and put a question after it, and someone will come along to answer it. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 12:59, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Apparently Tabletop has not edited the page Naomi Oreskes since March 15.

Naomi Oreskes was page-protected by Rjd0060, which you can see by looking at the page history, or by clicking on "Special pages" at the left side of the window (under the search box, under "what links here"), then clicking "Logs", and then entering the name of the page in the right-hand text entry box, which should show you this display.

Regarding why someone would use both a pseudonymous and a real-name account: see Misplaced Pages:Sock puppetry. There are some limited situations for legitimately using more than one account. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:31, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

By the way, when you post a message on a talk page such as this one, please sign it by putting four tildes (~~~~) which will transform into a signature and date when you post your message. That way there will be a link back to your talk page, making it easier for people to reply to you. I think now I've replied to all your questions above; feel free to ask more. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:34, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Since Lawrence asked if there were books about editing Misplaced Pages, here is one:

John Broughton (2008). Misplaced Pages:The Missing Manual. O'Reilly. pp. 477 pages. ISBN 0-596-51516-2.

See his Chapter 10 'Resolving content disputes' for discussion of the 3RR rule. EdJohnston (talk) 13:46, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, EdJohnston. Thanks for filling in that missing information! ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:55, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Lawrence Solomon, you might also be interested in the page protection policy. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 14:13, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Just my two cents (since i'm the one Mr. Solomon wrote an article about, and confused with tabletop). I'm not tabletop, and never have been. You seem to have confused a single edit by an uninvolved editor with me, when browsing the article history. I presume that appologies should be forwarded to User:Tabletop, since you've basically libelled that person in Canadian national media. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 14:15, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify: in my reply above I was trying to reply to a general question without expressing any opinion as to whether anyone in this situation was using more than one account. I apologize if I appeared to imply anything.

Now that you point it out, KimDabelsteinPetersen, it's very clear: Tabletop has made only one edit to the page ever, and it was a minor spelling correction. You later reverted to the revision by Tabletop, but that revision was really entirely written by people other than Tabletop, except for that minor spelling correction.

Lawrence Solomon, I guess you were confused by a statement which is standard in edit summaries, "Reverted to revision 198494083 by Tabletop; ..." The person mentioned is simply the last person to have edited the page, not necessarily a main author. Maybe it should say "last edited by" instead of "by", but I guess it's concise to save space. This part of the edit summary is usually automatically generated, for example if you click "undo" beside someone's edit. (And by the way, just in case you do that, if you click "undo", you're normally supposed to type in some additional information in the edit summary to explain the reason for your edit, as KimDabelsteinPetersen did in this case.) ☺Coppertwig (talk) 14:30, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

And, Lawrence Solomon, I think you also owe an apology to KimDabelsteinPetersen, whom you have (apparently) essentially baselessly accused of sockpuppetry in national media. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 14:37, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Coppertwig. I checked the history and it appears to me that a change occurred after Rjd0060 protected the page. Is the correct and, if so, why would this have occurred? Larry 14:57, 13 April 2008 (UTC)Lawrence Solomon

Yes, William M. Connolley has edited Naomi Oreskes while it is protected. William M. Connolley is an administrator, and administrators can edit protected pages, though they should only do so under certain circumstances, such as if there is a consensus on the article's talk page in favour of such a change, or if the administrator is enforcing key policies such as the Biographies of living persons policy, etc. See the page protection policy.

William M. Connolley has also posted messages on the talk page of the Naomi Oreskes article. Note that you can find an article's talk page by going to the article and clicking the "discussion" tab at the top, or by putting "Talk:" before the article name, like this: Talk:Naomi Oreskes.

I don't understand why your signature doesn't include a link to your talk page. Are you signing using four tildes, or typing in a signature each time? ☺Coppertwig (talk) 15:15, 13 April 2008 (UTC)