Revision as of 00:48, 23 April 2009

I usually watchlist talkpage threads for a few days, so please reply in original.
If you leave a message here, I will probably reply here, unless requested otherwise.

small bag of holding

Noahveil

First of all, thank you for putting back my link on the Tom Robbins page. There were many such links on wikipedia but other editors have had knee-jerk reactions and removed them without actually checking them out. Like you said, just because a link may appear to have a COI doesn't automatically make it spam if it's got good information pertaining to the subject of the page.

That link has been taken down twice now by editors who simply decided I was a spammer and ruthlessly went through the entire Misplaced Pages removing every single link I ever made, first by irishguy and now by Raven in Orbit. Many of the links had no COI whatever, links to articles by other people that just happen to be hosted on my site.

Please, I need somebody rational to talk to about this. Just as my Tom Robbins article is of value to people looking up Tom Robbins, so too are my articles about Andy Kaufman, Michael Nesmith, Godfrey Reggio, Jonathan Demme, and many others, all deleted by Raven in Orbit, the same one who deleted the Tom Robbins article, all declared SPAM for no other reason than they came from me.

Believe me, I understand "no original research" and COI, but these were all articles previously printed by the LA Weekly, Daily Variety, Movieline Magazine, and the WGA. I'm not a spammer, even though the articles happen to have been written by me. If I wanted, I could go into the articles themselves and edit in what I know, but my writing style isn't really a neat fit, so I thought it was more proper to simply add links at the bottom.

Do I simply need to find third parties to add those links? Some of those deletes make absolutely no sense. I'm the editor of the Los Angeles Free Press. I put up a link to the Los Angeles Free Press on the Los Angeles Free Press page. Raven in Orbit took it down, calling the link SPAM. Now people looking up the Los Angeles Free Press won't find a link to the Los Angeles Free Press. Madness.

Any advice or help would be appreciated.

Noahveil (talk) 19:45, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Replied at User talk:Noahveil/Archive 1#Reply from Quiddity and below.

See also User talk:Delicious carbuncle/Archive 2#every link to my site banned.

User:Noahveil

See User talk:Gb/Archive 15#Blocking after 1 warning for start and reply.

Thank you for your message - I think it's probably helpful to start when their contributions start.

November 2005 - a bunch of contributions, 99% of which were to add links to www.disinformationtoday.com and articles by User:Noahveil himself.

February 2007 - exactly the same thing again. 45 or so links to his website added in about an hour. Nothing else - no constructive contributions whatsoever. All these links are to a blog, and thus not a reliable source per WP:EL.

January 2008 he edits under an IP (User_talk:71.102.70.171) reinserting deleted external links to the same site on Sweeney Todd. He'd was warned on that IP address about adding inappropriate external links. There may well be other IPs which he's been editing under - I've identified at least by looking at Veinor's link count for 13 February 2007 where you'll see 44 links to dareland.com, of which 40 were added under Noahveil, but 4 under User:4.246.248.148.

26th March this year - a few more under the Noahveil account. 29th March, a couple more, ending with Lee Strasberg. He was warned by Delicious Carbuncle who subsequently reported the account to AIV where I then blocked. I initially blocked indefinitely, then tweaked it down to 48 hours.

Was the block punitive? Not really - preventative, if anything. It stopped him doing what he'd been doing and brought his attention to the relevant policies.

Could more, or stronger, warnings have been given? Of course - but the same could almost certainly be true of any block. From both a superficial and an in-depth look, however, it's clear that at that time User:Noahveil had only one intent - to add links to his website, in breach of any number of policies. He'd been warned in January 2008 - whilst I concede that the subsequent warning in March wasn't followed by any activity, he hadn't actually shown any intent to change his activities between January and March - WP:Block goes on to say that warnings are not a prerequisite for blocking, and that users who have been made aware of a policy (as he had) and have had a reasonable opportunity to adjust their behaviour (as he had) may not require further warning.

As for him being a poor newcomer, well, I don't really subscribe to that (and I'm not sure what trend you're talking about - he's only been blocked once). He's not a newcomer, as he's been around for years. His sole intent, during that time, has been to include as many links to his own website as possible (there's even one hiding away behind his entry in a list of personalities linked to the station KROQ-FM). If he's entered into meaningful discourse with you about participating constructively in the encyclopaedia, then that's all good, and actually (in my view) justifies my block to a large degree - if not blocked, would he have done so? Or would he just have ignored the warnings and carried on as before.

Thanks for the reminder to assume good faith, incidentally, although I'm not sure where the link provided was supposed to take me! As you touch on, the obligation is not a carte blanche one - it is to assume good faith in the absence of evidence to the contrary. I had sufficient evidence to the contrary, in my book. _GB 12:38, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

User talk:Delicious carbuncle#Lewis Arquette

Please respond to User:Noahveil's question, if you wouldn't mind helping him again here. Oh, and when are you going to bring up that misleading edit summary issue with him? Regards. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 20:53, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the heads-up.

Re: the misleading edit summary, I imagine he simply clicked the "undo" link, and then adapted the auto-summary to something that looked correct (but in this case, wasn't). I don't believe it is worth hassling him over - he is aware that his edits are being scrutinized by others now, and back in February he had very little experience with the more arcane aspects of Misplaced Pages. Hope that satisfies you :) -- Quiddity (talk) 21:49, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

It's a nice theory, but if you look at the actual edit, there's no way that could have happened. As well as undoing the previous change, he simultaneously added material. And as has been pointed out before by someone else, the user's inexperience with WP is due to the fact that it's a four year old SPA for adding links to his own site. You appear to have taken him under your wing -- for whatever reason -- so I'm not going to pursue this unless I see something egregious, but no, I'm not satisfied. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:33, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

When you click "undo", it presents the edit form, ready for editing. He could have also copied the summary from a different revision and altered that.

I find your attitude towards this dissatisfying. You are refusing to see the evidence from an outsiders point of view: This edit by you, on 29 March 2008, was the first personal message that we can definitely assume Noahveil saw, since November 2005 when he was welcomed.

Please take a look through this thread, where I've tried to explain why good faith is a complex thing, that we have to make an effort to assume (vandals often become good contributors, some even become admins eventually). If you don't give someone a chance to learn from their mistakes, noone benefits. "People are the most important resource there is, for Misplaced Pages; not frightening anyone off forever, is the 2nd most important job we have, as ideal Wikipedians (after writing an encyclopedia)." -- Quiddity (talk) 00:20, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the demonstration - I accept that your version of events is plausible. In fact, my assumption that the user undid a misspelling and inserted his web site turns out to be completely backwards, on closer inspection. The user undid the removal of his website and corrected the misspelling while he was in there. I don't disagree with your general premise that SPAs or outright vandals can become useful contributors, but in this particular case I am doubtful of it ever happening, even with your guidance. (Occasional spelling corrections notwithstanding.) I wish you well in your efforts. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:06, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Checking the "bad words" list for Version 0.7

Hi Quiddity, thank you for your kind offer to help read through hundreds of puerile attempts at humour, for the Version 0.7 release. Wizzy has finally got a "diff" version of his list, which only lists "bad words" that have since been removed - it's still over 20,000 words, but that is much more manageable than 70,000. The list is available for download

Thanks a lot! I've posted a page here to coordinate the work. I'll be away from home all next week, but I should have occasional internet so I'll try and do what I can anyway. Cheers, Walkerma (talk) 04:37, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

A question about roads

Quiddity, you reverted my edit of the Chevy Chase (disambiguation) page, stating: "(roads really need article first, and no external links in dab pages)".

Please, I do need to understand why, as you say, a road needs an article first, and also what does a "dab page" mean? (I never came across that term before, and cannot find it) In this case, I thought the coincidence of a road and a golf club --both fairly conspicuous-- having the name of an actor, was amusing. --Thanks, --AVM (talk) 02:10, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Hello. My apologies for using the unclear acronym. Here's the full explanation of my thoughts. "Dab" is just a shortened form of "disambig", or Misplaced Pages:Disambiguation. Disambig pages have a style all of their own, and are intended purely as an index for articles with overlapping names within the Wiki. Whilst redlinks are allowed, they are still need to follow from the potential for a future article. In this case, the redlink's existence would depend upon the potential for a future article about the road itself. My snap judgment was that articles about roads are rare, and I might be wrong; Check up at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject U.S. Streets#Notability guidelines.

The other part was the style and link. Dab entries are meant to be as short as possible, only long enough to clarify the target of the entry from the rest of the entries on the page - often no description is required beyond the article/link title itself. We never use external links (or references/citations) in dab pages. See WP:MOSDAB for the rest :) Hope that helps. Ask if not. -- Quiddity (talk) 04:01, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

EOL template

Hi, the EOL website appears to have changed their site structure from /taxa/ to /pages/ - could you update the template you made to reflect that? For example, I wanted to add the exemplar page of the Tokay gecko to its Misplaced Pages page, but the number, 794412, wouldn't work with the /taxa/ system. I'd do it myself, but was wary of breaking old links. Thanks! -kslays (talk • contribs) 18:58, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Currently asking for help at Misplaced Pages:Bot_requests#Encyclopedia_of_Life_url_updates. Thanks. :) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:54, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Question for you there :-) ] 21:03, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

And done. ] 10:27, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Sole primary-sourced information

Hi Quiddity. A problem with subjects with single primary-sources is that by definition, they are almost certainly non-notable. Now I'm not saying I'd speedy or prod nominate them, but I probably wouldn't defend such topics at an AfD. Bongomatic 01:51, 3 April 2009 (UTC) I'll watch here—no need for {{tb}} or reply on my talk page.

Hi. I completely agree, as far as articles go. Lists are another animal though. Further up that discussion, I had pointed out that items within a list do not need to satisfy WP:N individually. See Misplaced Pages:Categories,_lists,_and_navigation_templates#Lists and Misplaced Pages:Lists#Listed_items and Misplaced Pages:Lists_(stand-alone_lists)#Lead_and_selection_criteria and Misplaced Pages:Lists_(stand-alone_lists)#Appropriate_topics_for_lists and WP:NNC to satiate the wikilawyers ;) -- Quiddity (talk) 02:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, thank you!

Wow - thank you so much for the infobox on the Anthropology page! It's like magic. I am just so impressed and happy. Made my whole week!Levalley (talk) 21:54, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Also, thanks for reminding both me and SLRubenstein to fill in the box for the edit comments. I find it really hard to recover things I've written once SLR has reverted, but I'm learning to cut and paste the relevant parts somewhere I can find them. I'll check out your comments on the Project page. You're very patient!--Levalley (talk) 23:11, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

meta:Eventualism makes the world go 'round. (I've been here 4 years - I'd have gone nuts long ago if not for a pinch of patience). -- Quiddity (talk) 00:14, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Re: Portal:Featured content/Lists needs a maintainer

Regarding the message you left at WT:FL, what exactly needs doing to get it up-to-date? I'm happy to take on the maintenance of the page, but what exactly needs to be done? I looked at the source code for the page and saw the numbers 1-168 and page titles; do they just need to be checked against the current Featured lists? How many pages should be included? Not all 1300, surely?

Also, does anything need adding to each article? How does the portal manage to only display a few lines of text and six table entries? Matthewedwards :  Chat  02:59, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Essentially, I'm not sure. I think it used to use <includeonly> and <onlyinclude> tags within the lists themselves (which was problematic, as people would remove them by accident, or include too much content). I'd recommend asking admin User:Circeus, as from the history he is the most recent active updater. -- Quiddity (talk) 04:21, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

(feel free to copy this to the WT:FL thread, if you'd like to keep discussion there)

thanks

ofr pointing out that weird goof, to me. I do not know what happened but would never have corrected it had you not taken time to call it to my attention. I appreciate that. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:08, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Noprob. I've been enjoying reading some of your threads with Levalley. As I said at your talk, let me know if I can help, and I'd appreciate some feedback on the template (at its talk or the anthro projecttalk). :) -- Quiddity (talk) 18:13, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Books and Portals

Hi, there's a new toy out there I'm sure you'll love! Would you care to share some of your thoughts at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Portals#Selected Books? :-) Regards, RichardF (talk) 19:34, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility

On April 17, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Dravecky (talk) 00:47, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Further reading

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction! The only guidance I found about content of a Further Reading section is: "A list of recommended books, articles, or other publications that have not been used as sources and may provide useful background or further information." That does not seem very helpful in sorting out library laundry lists such as and . Any suggestions? -- The Red Pen of Doom 17:33, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

A few thoughts:

The list at Racism#Further reading is much longer, so that might be a better example to use in your discussions/considerations.

Essentially, I think WP:NOTPAPER means we don't need to worry about length of a resource list. The only concern would be whether the entries are particularly useful or not. (which is contextual, and should be asked at the article's talkpage, or researched).

I always recommend searching a few WP:FAs to get an idea of what is normal. For example Enigma machine#Further reading is long (but compressed).

Hope that helps. -- Quiddity (talk) 22:08, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! -- The Red Pen of Doom 04:15, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Neil Young

Hi this is random and sorry if this violates Misplaced Pages ettiquete to ask, but I saw you modified the Dead Man soundtrack page (Neil Young) saying that the main theme was available on some promo CD. Was just wondering if you knew more about this CD or what it's called. I am guessing it's pretty rare but I wouldn't know where to find more info on such a thing.

Thanks! MDuchek (talk) 21:53, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi. I didnt actually add it originally (that was here), I just replaced it a couple of times when anon editors deleted it and other info.

But, I just found a mention at Neil Young's Rare & Unreleased Songs, so there's two potential leads for you :) Let me know if you find a copy, I'd love to hear it. -- Quiddity (talk) 22:16, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Re: Badagnani

I've gone to what I feel are extreme lengths to work with Badagnani. I've found that my efforts to do so are futile, as many others have. Now, I'm simply documenting some of his more blatant attempts to disrupt my work on Misplaced Pages.

Meanwhile, I'm following WP:BATTLE and working with others who do the same. I would hope that you'd be one of those editors.

I know I can rub some editors the wrong way. However, I'm happy to explain my self, or refactor my comments when asked. I tend to stick close to policy and guidelines when there's a dispute, which annoys some people. That does not mean that I ignore or disagree with WP:IAR, only that I want good reasons for doing so. The more policies and guidelines I'm asked to ignore, the better the reasons should be. --Ronz (talk) 23:37, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

That's very reasonable, thank you for that. I'm happy to engage in a friendly collaboration on an article or three - it's the demands of immediacy that tend to get under my (and I think B's) skin.

I realize that some editors stand in very different perspectives with regards to how prominent external links should ever be allowed to get in Misplaced Pages. A few extreme people want to create a whole new tab next to article-discussion-history to fill with their personally-disliked aspect of some Wikipedian item - navboxes, infoboxes, external links, pullquotes, image galleries, portal links, wiktionary links, categories and hidden categories, are all hated-to-disliked (on a spectrum of course) by a large handful of editors each. We also all apply different measures/guidelines with different levels of strictness. From the above, I think you completely get that, and I feel much better now :)

Regarding Badagnani, I'm really not sure. Frankly, with the few strong-characters I have tried to advise, it has either backfired on me (they thought that I was coming off as lecturing and inflexible, when I was trying my damndest to be friendly and explicit and helpful) or has just been ignored. I'm a bit burnt out on helping those who can't adapt to our fastmoderngeeky ways, or methods of dialogue, or the minutae/critical-subdetails of policy coverage. He does do a hell of a lot of good stub writing though, and the bulk of his (recent) edits seem to be overwhelmingly positive. I've asked at the ANI thread what the worst actual problems are, outside of polite-cantankerousness and impatience-with-the-impatience-of-others. Whenever someone makes a friendly inquiry on a talkpage, he seems to react well - but if someone just deletes things and he doesn't understand why, then he kneejerk reverts and starts a bad cycle.

He definitely needs to stop repeating things but I have no idea how to phrase that politely, and I'd guess he won't until he feels that the issues have been addressed. (eg. the accusations of (and original acts of) stalking with the few EL editors is essentially shrug-worthy, though a bit rude, in both directions. You know all this , but I understand how your ability to check up on no-doubt-about-it-spammers (which most of you folks whom I get in grumbles with at EL, are incredibly good and useful at) leads you to investigate people with good-intentions-but-a-few-bad-habits). We need an faq for dealing with these archetypes... *sigh* -- Quiddity (talk) 00:35, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Cults

A source has to support the statement and be authoritative. Those sources do not support the "five major statement" and they are not authoritative. --Snowded (talk) 00:48, 23 April 2009 (UTC)