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Category:Food and drink by country

This seems like an important category, as the "Cuisine of Foo" categories should not include articles on food that are NOT regional cuisine, such as breweries, food banks, fast food outlets, etc. I will probably add "food and drink in the United States", and then possibly some states. Do you think this is the best term? I think its good, and you seem to as well, but can you think of any better?(User:mercurywoodrose)50.193.19.66 (talk) 16:44, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Category:Food and drink in the United States would be the best page name. That is the format that a lot of categories follow. Category:Food and drink by country needs to be built up. I had tried to get the WikiProject interested. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 19:05, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

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Proposed deletion of Aisle (political term)

The article Aisle (political term) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Unsourced dicdef. Can't possibly be expanded.

While all contributions to Misplaced Pages are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Ten Pound Hammer • 23:05, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I think I am neutral on it. I split it out of the Aisle page to clean that page up. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 23:20, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Untitled

Hi Alan! Just a question. You have deleted an image in the article "Dolychandra unguis-cati" with the explanation "rm redlinked image". What does it means?

Ciao. Hectonichus

The image with the filename that was in the article does not exist so it showed as a red link. I therefore deleted the link. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 08:49, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Question re Alan Ruddock entry?

Hi Alan- I got a Wiki msg saying "The Misplaced Pages page "Alan Ruddock" has been created on 3 October 2012 by Alan Liefting, with the edit summary: - This is a new page. See http://en.wikipedia.org/Alan_Ruddock for the current revision." ...I don't quite follow what this means as I don't see any changes?? ( forgive me if this is a dumb question as I'm new to WP with the Ruddock entry being only my second..); > can you please clarify? cheers & many tnx NortSide505 (talk) 16:39, 3 October 2012 (UTC)68.39.178.193 (talk) 16:18, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Category deletion

Alan, you deleted categories from an article in my sandbox. I had not realised this was not allowed, but I can see the reason now. May I respectfully suggest that an explanation of why you did this edit in the first instance would save work for both yourself and the other editor. Thanks also for sorting out the reference in Overview of discretionary invasive procedures on animals‎__DrChrissy (talk) 20:11, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

User sandboxes and categories

I hate to say this so bluntly, but if you continue to remove categories from user sandboxes, rather than commenting them out or using colons, as you did at , I will block your account from editing. You have been blocked two times for this in the past. Moreover, the use of a "vandalism" reversion message, as you left on the talk page I linked, is not appropriate, because the edit was clearly not "vandalism". I was truly surprised to see that you have re-made two edits of this kind today after they were reverted. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:56, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

October 2012

Please do not "revert" my edits calling them vandalism. Look more carefully at this edit where I restored the categories you just removed and commented them out. I will remove rollback from you if you make any further errors like this. Further problems of this nature will result in a block and I will reopen the discussion to topic-ban you from any category edits. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:14, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Maybe you should give a proper edit summary rather than simply calling it a revert when that was not the case. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 07:23, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I didn't call it a revert, and it wasn't vandalism. As for providing proper edit summaries, perhaps look a little closer to home. In any case, accusing me of vandalism and misusing rollback is unacceptable. Any more "mistakes" like this and I will block you and remove your "privileges". The Rambling Man (talk) 07:35, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

The Rambling Man, you were there NOT undoing the edit by Alan Liefting, you were doing something completely else. That is just misleading. You may be right that Alan is incorrect in suggesting that your edit was vandalism, your edit was equally inappropriate. And it is in an conflict with someone with whom you are involved highly inappropriate and extremely chilling to threaten to block and remove priviliges. --Dirk Beetstra 11:42, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I undid his edit. I didn't call it a revert (as he falsely accuses me). I then just commented out the categories he is determined to just delete. I didn't change the edit summary, but he should have checked before incorrectly using rollback and incorrectly accusing me of vandalism. My edit was in _no_ way inappropriate. Misuse of tools is the first step to them being removed. You find the comment "extremely chilling"? You clearly live in a whole different world from me! Fear not, your chill can warm, I'll take it back to AN/I should he do this sort of thing again, and there he can expect a block, a topic ban and his "rollback" revoked. Cheers! The Rambling Man (talk) 11:49, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Administrator tools can be misused without actually blocking someone. Threatening to block someone with whom you are actively involved is an abuse of the tools. I strongly, strongly suggest you find other avenues for raising this issue than threatening to place (or worse, following through on) blocks against Alan. Outside of Alan himself and bots, you are the most active editor on this talk page. That makes you involved per this ArbCom decision. Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 13:36, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Hey, good to see you here. I've struck that comment, but as you'll have read above (if, indeed, you did read above), I'll just return this whole sorry saga to AN/I again. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:56, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Thank you for striking it. I do note that you could have approached Alan with "Alan, you might not have noticed, but when I re-instated the categories, I commented them out. I reverted your removal because of that, and I'd be happy to discuss this." Instead you chose an aggressive approach, including threats, which is highly unlikely to achieve the results (I hope) you desire; the categories remaining commented out and everyone walking away happy. Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 16:54, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• I do note that Alan has been blocked for precisely this bitey behaviour before. During that period he stated he would continue to disrupt Misplaced Pages to make his point. I see little reason in being so kind and gentle as you suggest (which many have tried) because it makes no difference to Alan's editing behaviour. He has deliberately edited in exactly the same manner that got him blocked. Thanks again for your interest in this, perhaps you could convince Alan to stop being so bitey and unnecessarily "procedural" (sans explanation). I spent some time explaining his "raison d'être" to one of his sandbox category victims, and she was particularly grateful for an explanation as to what she had done "wrong". Such a shame that Alan thinks driving new editors away is helping the encyclopedia. And a double-shame that you and others seem to think his behaviour is justified and good. A real shame. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:44, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• As I've noted in prior discussions with you, I was not referring to nor discussing Alan's behavior, but yours. I have no comment on Alan's behavior other than what I wrote in the section below. My concern here is that approaching an editor with an aggressive attitude is not likely to achieve what you want to achieve, regardless of who it is, and regardless of past experiences. I'm hopeful you will change your approach. Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 18:53, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, hopefully Alan will change his approach to new editors. Alan has over 100k edits now and should know what is expected of him, and I'm glad you acknowledge that his approach is aggressive and unnecessarily bitey. That's what caused his previous blocks. If he continues to edit this way, I'm sure he'll find it more difficult to contribute. Which is a shame because some of his edits are very helpful, he just needs to work harder on dealing with other editors. Hopefully you will change your approach to his obstinacy. Thank you. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:07, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• I did not "acknowledge that his approach is aggressive and unnecessarily bitey", thank you. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:43, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
  • But it was, as proven by the people he's recently "bitten". Thank you! The Rambling Man (talk) 20:59, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Maybe or maybe not. My point was I didn't voice agreement with that. I've not been commenting on his behavior, other than asking him to change his edit summaries. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:03, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• His biting (and our notes to him) means he needs to do more. He needs to help people understand what he's doing. I've done a little to recover some good faith with one of his victims, but he doesn't change his habits. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:21, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Edit summaries when removing categories

Alan, regardless of the above, it would be in the best interests of everyone for you to explain what you are doing when removing categories from non-article space pages. Per WP:USERNOCAT you are no more right or wrong for removing as opposed to commenting out categories (both are equally acceptable under that guideline). However, as witnessed by this sandbox history, explaining yourself in the first instance would smooth the way and avoid conflict. This is good for you and the project. Even something as simple as including a "per WP:USERNOCAT" in the edit summary would help. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:50, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Alan, Kia ora! Despite what Hammersoft has said, it is most definitely not "regardless of the above". You need to explain your edits to newcomers, to those who don't understand your crusade. It's your duty to stop biting new editors with either no edit summary or one which is frankly indecipherable to a new editor here. You have over 100k edits and that makes you one of our more "experienced" editors. You do need to work on talking to other editors, rather than just quoting policy, guideline or worse, nothing, in your edit summaries. On many occasions your edits create confusion, and then hostility (I tried to undo some of the damage with User:DrChrissy for example, which was well received, have a look at the talkpage). I know you don't want that to be the case so please try a little harder to help the editors you're "helping" understand precisely what you're doing and why. Thanks! The Rambling Man (talk) 19:30, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• And you've just proven my point. My approach to Alan above was cordial. Yours included accusations of him being on a "crusade", biting people, and being indecipherable. Could you please tone it down? This aggressive stance just isn't necessary. Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 20:41, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks, but no need for me to rephrase my approach. At least my approach actually states the issues, unlike Liefting's edits which give new editors little or no chance of understanding what "they did wrong". Could "he please tone it down"? Your aggressive defence of his passive-aggresive edits just isn't necessary. Cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:02, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Would you object if I removed all but my initial posting in this thread? Everything after it has nothing to do with my initial post in this thread. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:05, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Yes, keep it here. You're a keen proponent of Liefting and his methods, worth keeping the whole story intact for everyone esle to read. The Rambling Man (talk)

• And what does it have to do with my suggestion he change his edit summaries? You've commented on his behavior thoroughly in the thread above. It is necessary to repeat it here? I never said I was a keen proponent of Alan's methods, thank you. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:17, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• I'm more than happy to keep all the thread going here, it's important that Alan realises the damage his mass edits are doing to users he encounters but treats indifferently. You didn't need to say how keen you were on Alan's methods, that much is clear. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:21, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• You've stated this case in the thread above. Is it necessary to repeat it in this thread and the thread below? --Hammersoft (talk) 21:22, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Cool, close this thread, close one of the others, and we'll focus in one place. And then we can move to WP:AN if this whole sorry waste of effort repeats again and again... The Rambling Man (talk) 21:26, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• I do not see a reason to close this thread, as the original post in it has yet to be read and responded to by Alan, if he so chooses. I do think it would be useful to contain commentary about his action to one thread. I hope you agree. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:29, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

No worries. Next time Alan bites an editor, I'll be heading to WP:AN for further block etc. Cheers! The Rambling Man (talk) 21:32, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• No, if Alan acts inappropriately your first step should be to bring it here or the talk page of the article in question, per Misplaced Pages:Dispute resolution. Noting WP:DISENGAGE, I think it would be best if you simply disengaged from Alan. If there is anything pressing about his editing that requires attention, I'm confident someone will step forward to address the issue should it arise. There are 154 editors who have watchlisted this talk page. There are plenty of other volunteers who can assist. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:35, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
  • No, no, not at all. Alan summarily deletes issues here so there's not point in that at all. I will never disengage from an editor who is driving new editors away from Misplaced Pages, I will do whatever is necessary to reverse that trend. It doesn't matter how many people have this page on a watchlist, what matters is that Liefting has been blocked before for precisely this behaviour and has shown no inclination to change, indeed he himself stated he would continue to edit disruptively to prove a point. In the mean time, innocent, new, good editors will be discouraged by his crusade. I will not stand by and watch that happen. My next step, if he transgresses again, will be to seek a consensus at WP:AN to stop him doing it again. Full stop. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:44, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
    • Alan is not your personal responsibility. Coming here, approaching him aggressively with threats to block, remove rollback, etc. and then apparently leaving in anger is a non-starter. You are more than experienced enough to know this is not the way to engage a fellow editor. You have an opportunity to disengage. I recommend you take it. --Hammersoft (talk) 00:05, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
      • Yes, yes, see my post at 21:32, 4 October 2012 (UTC). Cheers! The Rambling Man (talk) 07:18, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
        • Disengaging doesn't mean quietly watching for the slightest screwup and then reporting it out of step of the DR process. There is no emergency. Please, drop the sticks and walk away. Please. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:19, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
          • Please stop telling me what to do. I will take the issue to AN as I please. You can have your say there as and when. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:20, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
            • Please note that, just as here in this post, I am asking you to do something. I am not telling you to do anything. If you wish to take the issue to a noticeboard if Alan does something you find objectionable, there is nothing anyone can do to stop you from doing so. If you should be the person to do so, I would think it important that someone note your highly aggressive approach here, unwillingness to disengage, and willingness to use your tools even though you are blatantly involved (though I grant you seem to have backed off of that approach at least). I understand you are (correct me if I'm wrong) angry that Alan removes content categories from userspace pages. You prefer to have them coloned out. That's your preference, which is fine. Equally fine is Alan's preference they be removed. Both of you are right. See Misplaced Pages:USERNOCAT and note that guideline does not stipulate a preferred method. Though Misplaced Pages:User_pages#Categories.2C_templates.2C_and_redirects has been referenced before, it contains no guidance as to the preferred method either. You seem angry (again, correct me if I'm wrong) that Alan accused you of vandalism, yet you had an equal violation in the improper use of edit summaries making it appear that your edits were flat reverts when they were not. Further, you accuse Alan of causing disruption , You accuse Alan of being on a crusade , and then later make this post which reads very much like a crusade. In short, it appears that much of what you are accusing Alan of you are just as guilty of. I am not the only one suggesting you walk away from this . You responded appreciatively to that, and negatively to the same advice from me. I understand why you are responding negatively to me. Regardless of the quarter from which the advice comes, it is on the face of it valid. It is why it is part of WP:DR. Please, if you won't hear the same advice from me, at least take CBM's advice to heart and do as he suggests. With this last said, I'm going to take my own advice. I hope you have a wonderful day (meant sincerely). --Hammersoft (talk) 13:58, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
              • Just a couple of corrections and notes. Alan has been blocked three times in the past six months for this kind of behaviour, so he's fully aware that what he does incurs blocks, per both individual admins and a community consensus to block (note, I didn't block him on any of those three occasions in the past six months). He has even been proud enough to declare that he will continue to engage in the behaviour for which has been blocked three times just to "prove a point". Preference or otherwise, there is an agreement by the community that his edits in other users' sandboxes are disruptive and he should cease and desist. His biting of new editors is entirely unacceptable. I was angry to be accused entirely falsely of vandalism during Alan's flagrant misuse of the rollback tool (note, it should never be used in content issues, I would hope you know that?) and yes, I didn't embellish the edit summary where, note, I did not revert Alan, I "undid" his edit (important distinction). I did not revert Alan, per your accusations above. Cheers! The Rambling Man (talk) 16:11, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
              • Also, for third party readers, I have asked Hammersoft to redact the numerous false accusations, lies and incorrect statements, but to no avail. Hammersoft will not retract the false accusations and the incorrect characterisations of this discussion, which I find to be beyond comprehension and disgusting considering Hammersoft's experience here on Misplaced Pages. Note, this has nothing to do with the issues of Alan's editing, it is simply a demonstration of Hammersoft refusing to do anything about their inaccurate edits and false accusations. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:19, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

User privileges

Alan, a suggestion; I've seen it many times across the project that the lesser extra privileges one can have (such as 'reviewer') become the target of people wanting to influence your decisions. As witnessed with your forced removal from AWB privs for something having nothing to do with AWB, the threat of revocation of extra privileges is used as a bludgeoning tool. There is a way to undermine such threats before they even happen. I have no extra privs. The only ones I have are those you can't vacate. I do not have autoreviewer, filemover, reviewer, or rollbacker. Someone once tried to give me rollbacker without asking me, but after I asked for it to be removed it was. The impact on my editing by not having such flags has been a great big whopping goose egg. There's been no effect. I also do not use any automation of any kind, whether it be the tools available via preferences, or anything else. No automation assists my editing. I've accomplished north of 37k edits this way, and it hasn't hampered me in the slightest.

I heartily recommend you do the same. Per Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_permissions#Removal_of_permissions, a simple request of an administrator can have these extra flags removed. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:50, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Alan, despite Hammersoft's baseless accusations above, your misuse of rollback and edit summary accusing me of being a vandal was not because you're a "target of people wanting to influence your decisions". I understand why you inadvertently hit the wrong button (I use "undo" much more often with normal editors than "rollback") but I don't understand why you then accused me of vandalism. Sure, I didn't embellish the "undo" edit summary but my undoing of your category removal edit wasn't vandalism, moreover I tried to help the editor who had added those categories to a non-mainspace article. Fingers crossed that you'll not rollback reasonable edits with a "vandalism" warning in future. Thanks! The Rambling Man (talk) 19:35, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• My commentary above made no accusations towards anyone. Therefore, there's nothing for it to be baseless about, thank you. I intentionally omitted any reference to particular events other than to removal of AWB privs months ago. Regardless, this particular thread is about user privileges. If you're concerned about his user privileges and the discussion I started in this thread, please feel free to continue. If you wish to continue to discuss Alan's actions with regards to your edits, that has already been discussed a couple of sections above. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:47, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Alan should not be allowed to use Rollback if he misuses it and accuses editors' of vandalism when the edits clearly are not vandalism. Accusations of people "reverting" his edits (when they were simply undone) compounded by further accusations of vandalism are indicative of an editor out of control or one who does not understand the tools he/she is using. Your adamant defence of his actions is very interesting and in some ways quite admirable, but I don't get it. He bites newcomers. He doesn't use the tools appropriately. Next stop, WP:AN and a more comprehensive ban on his editing privileges. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:07, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Is this related to my suggestion that Alan give up all privileges other than 'editor'? --Hammersoft (talk) 21:15, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Yes, it is related, you seem to give him some idea that others are "targeting" him which is nonsense. He misused the rollback tool and, to make matters worse, accused me of being a vandal at the same time. The only target was created when Alan misused the tools given him. There was no-one around trying to "influence decisions", and no-one was trying to use any "revocation of extra privileges as a bludgeoning tool", just a reminder that no-one should use rollback indiscriminately, worse, they shouldn't accuse people of vandalism at the same time. 86.178.213.250 (talk) 21:18, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• And how is this related to my suggestion he voluntarily relinquish privilege flags? --Hammersoft (talk) 21:20, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Once again, your passive attempt to bias the discussion, e.g. "the lesser extra privileges one can have (such as 'reviewer') become the target of people wanting to influence your decisions" which, of course, is bullshit. Liefting has abused his privilege as a rollbacker by flagrantly using it with a "vandalism" summary which is abundantly incorrect. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:24, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Since I did not mention anything to do with Alan's recent use of rollbacker, I fail to see the connection. I have been witness to people bludgeoning others with threats of revocation of rights. I have also been quite happy to observe a complete absence of such threats against me, since I have no rights to revoke. This thread was started by me to convey this idea to Alan, in the hopes that he would find editing more peaceful with not having any special rights. I don't see a need to continue to comment on his behavior here in this thread. In fact, there are now three threads going in which you are commenting, repeatedly, about Alan's behavior. This does not seem productive to me. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:27, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Agreed. The community have asked Alan to modify his behaviour numerous times, nothing really changes. It doesn't seem productive to me either. Any more issues and we're back at WP:AN with blocks, revocation of privileges and topic bans. Thanks for the chats Hammersoft. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:31, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Nomination of Aisle (political term) for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Aisle (political term) is suitable for inclusion in Misplaced Pages according to Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Aisle (political term) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Ten Pound Hammer • 18:25, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:AFDFORMAT

I commented on this back in August, but I came across a few recent AfDs such as this one and this one where it looks like you're still doing it in this manner, so I wanted to kindly ask if you would please not place your rationale on a separate bulleted line per WP:AFDFORMAT's practice, specifically that "Nomination already implies that the nominator recommends deletion (unless indicated otherwise), and nominators should refrain from repeating this recommendation on a separate bulleted line." The reason I ask is because I was looking at the AfD wondering where who the nominator was, and the way you present the AfD it looks like you are agreeing with the nominator, as opposed to being the nominator of the AfD, and it's rather confusing that way. - SudoGhost 22:03, 5 October 2012 (UTC)