Sandbox

Are you planning to do anything with User:Elvey/Universal Savings Bank-NeedsRestoredContentKeepHist? It hasn't been touched in 2 years. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • 16:56, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes. For one thing, as noted

could someone get an admin to provide copies of the pages including the sources therein?

and I plan to make that happen. Willing to help, or just trying to delete stuff? ---Elvey (talk) 22:10, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • 22:24, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Not sure if you read User:Elvey/Universal Savings Bank-NeedsRestoredContentKeepHist or what you do or don't understand. Explain what you do and don't understand. --Elvey (talk) 03:30, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Good example.

Plagiarism

Hi there, you left two warnings on my talk page, and I am not entirely sure what they relate to. Could you please explain.--SasiSasi (talk) 18:27, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

As I noted in the warning I left, this is apropos http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Copyright&diff=409361899&oldid=408616763. That edit in turn references a talk page, which in turn has extensive comments from that editor, as well as myself, regarding your edits, and providing quotes from the original and the close copy as well as a link to the diff in which you introduced it into wikipedia. You may wish to closely read/reread the warnings and comments and policies referenced. --Elvey (talk) 21:16, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Undeletion request

I'm going to have to decline your request. The image would not meet WP:NFCC#1 since it is replaceable because the subject is a living person (and there's even already a picture of him in the article). However, if it's used not to illustrate the subject himself but more because it is a mugshot, I can't see how it passes WP:NFCC#8. I can't really help you with the rest: I'm not familiar with the discussion, but I presume the images using that template would have to be deleted as non-free. Maxim_(talk) 01:05, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Tracfone Wireless Article.

Hi Elvey :)

JasonHockeyGuy here.

I noticed that you may have been involved with the article on this site. This article is totally out of date and they have different support options and features since the last time the article was written. There has been also several so called claimed things associated with the company that are simply not true. I am not a employee of this company or anything but I have hopped around their different services for a while and kept tabs on their internet support offerings and the article just simply reflects the good old days of them. If you want proof of the new changes, please let me know and I can link them on your talk page so they can be updated. Even though I have been signed up with WP for some time now I still have not learned how to fully edit and do the fancy stuff some of the other editors have done. So Ill provide you with refs and other things and you get the credit for editing :) Let me know. If you reply, please let me know so on my talk page so I do not miss it. Thank you , have a wonderful week!

JasonHockeyGuy (talk) 08:27, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. I suggest you post to the talk page, noting the untrue things and the links you mentioned (but only if they are 'reliable sources'). It's suggested that you use the standard format for citing sources, but the particular formatting is not mandatory. Respect for RS policy is. Sorry, working on other things these days. --Elvey (talk) 17:40, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi again :) Ive turned on some editing tools on WP that I think will be able to help me as far as editing goes plus I did some copy editing in Microsoft Word. I plan in the next few days to replace the whole article with a brand new , refreshed version of it that should bring it up to date for 2011 as far as offerings and things goes. And a Tracfone Wireless first, 2011 saw 2 new phones, a QWERTY and a touch screen phone for the first time in the companies history :) Hope things are going good with you and thanks again for being so kind to me :) JasonHockeyGuy (talk) 06:51, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Malfunctioning bot annoying uploaders!

(Bot-spam edited by Elvey) ... You don't seem to have indicated the license status image copyright tags to indicate this information; to add a tag to the image, select the appropriate tag from this list... --ImageTaggingBot (talk) 19:05, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Malfunctioning bot - and it can't be shut off; WTF? I already had added this tag 20 min earlier: "{{Non-free use rationale |Article = Fine print" when this comment was made!!! "{{Non-free fair use in|Fine print." is 100% redundant.

FURTHERMORE, there are a TON of unanswered queries on the bot's talk page that merit a response. For example, see User_talk:ImageTaggingBot#Why_are_all_the_images_I_upload_being_wrongly_labeled_as_untagged.3F--Elvey (talk) 19:26, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Re: Copyvio of your original photograph by scammers

Where is my photo? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 15:47, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

<answered here>. -Elvey

Your comment in Digital Blasphemy

Please respond.Talk:Digital_Blasphemy#Why_is_the_importance_tag_needed_in_the_article.3F_More_opinions_please Do you agree that it is now "well sourced"? Do to the way you worded things, I'd like to get confirmation. Thanks for your third opinion. Dream Focus 00:30, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

3O on Digital Blasphemy

I would point out that the tag on Digital Blasphemy was not {{failed verification}}, which would have indicated a WP:Verifiability problem, which is the 'question' you seem to have answered. It was rather {{importance-inline}}, which indicates an issue with whether the material is of any importance to the topic. The point was that it was only a bare mention, in a television show, making the not-particularly-informative and apparently hyperbolic claim that a piece of third-party computer wallpaper was "essential". Do you think that mention of this claim adds to the reader's understanding of the product and/or the company selling it? Hrafn_Stalk(P) 05:29, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I understood that. I don't know how long the site was discussed, or if "essential" was said sarcastically; the show isn't archived anywhere, AFAIK. I do. A 3O was sought and I provided one. The importance tag should go, that is my 3O, based on the available information. --Elvey (talk) 17:53, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification

Hi. When you recently edited Fine print, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page FTC (check to confirm   fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 10:44, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

What a great and well-implemented idea for a bot - introduced me to a great tool I wasn't aware of! (I'm off to say thanks on the talk page.) --Elvey (talk) 18:07, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:REFUND

Just a note that I moved your comment at WP:REFUND to the board's talk page which I'm guessing is where you intended to post it. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:27, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I understand the intention, but the change is problematic, as the move changed the truth of what I said from true to untrue, as what I said referenced the page on which I said it.--Elvey (talk) 17:41, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Edittools proposal at Village pump

Hi. I fixed the Misplaced Pages: prefixes on your MediaWiki:Edittools proposal at WP:Village pump (policy)#Proposal re.: Wording change needed to stop forbidding copying of properly licensed free content. Flatscan (talk) 04:20, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

The Great Revival: CVU Vandalism Studies Project

Hi! We're dropping you this rather unexpected message on your talk page because you signed up (either quite a while ago or rather recently) to be a member of the Vandalism Studies project. Sadly, the project fell into semi-retirement a few years ago, but as part of a new plan to fix up the Counter-Vandalism Unit, we're bringing back the Vandalism Studies project, with a new study planned for Late 2012! But we need your help. Are you still interested in working with us on this project? Then please sign up today! (even if you signed up previously, you'll still need to sign up again - we're redoing our member list in order to not harass those who are no longer active on the Wiki - sorry!) If you have any questions, please leave them on this page. Thanks, and we can't wait to bring the project back to life! -Theopolisme (talk) & Dan653 (talk), Coordinators

Coren's dogs?

You might swing by Talk:Earthquake prediction#Coren's dog findings?; I have a question about your recent bold edit. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:02, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Sure, done. Will keep an eye on it.--Elvey (talk) 03:42, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Talkback: you've got messages!

Re.: User_talk:ClueBot_Commons#Please help me set up auto-archiving of this talk page that has extant manual archives

Replied. --Elvey (talk) 00:39, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Re.: Talk:Advertising Self-Regulatory Council

Replied. --Elvey (talk) 00:39, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Still not exactly clear on what we need to do

Hi Elvey. Could you clarify exactly what we need the archiving bot to do? —Theopolisme 17:52, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Honestly, no. I gave a lot of detail (even including some flags) and don't have more to offer. If I knew EXACTLY what it should do, I'd tell it to do it. I think if you get it to do what I did say I want it to do, you can't go wrong. Is it not enough? --Elvey (talk) 18:23, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

There's no need to get sassy; rather, I just don't this bot is capable of doing the rather complex task you want it to. If all you want is for it archive threads marked with {{done}} or something to a /Month Year, that could be done. But if you want split apart...etc etc, it's less doable. Could we 'dumb it down' a bit? —Theopolisme 18:31, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Sure, dumb it down 'till you find it doable. I really just want it do do some kind auto-archiving of long-inactive discussions without breaking what's been done. Full stop. Didn't mean to be disrespectful at all; was trying to communicate well instead of just saying no or not answering. Cool? --Elvey (talk) 18:41, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

No problem. Do we just want to, say, archive threads >6 months old or something like that? —Theopolisme 18:53, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like you missed the detail I gave; I said "I guess I'd say archive threads aged more than 2 months." here 11 days ago, and linked to it from your talk page... So yes, 6 months, 2 months, whatever... Take another look? --Elvey (talk) 20:21, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

2 months seems a bit short--considering some threads lie unanswered for longer--I'm going to set it up now, 3 months. Thanks, —Theopolisme 20:23, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done —Theopolisme

Thanks for answering my call for help; this is great! --Elvey (talk) 21:06, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Anytime! Let me know if I can help out again. :) —Theopolisme 21:10, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

December 2012

To avoid being blocked, instead of reverting please consider using the article's talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. See BRD for how this is done. You can post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection. Dougweller (talk) 15:57, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Instead of a warning accusing me of misusing the 3RR warning you really should have asked me why I warned you. I've replied on my talk page explaining why and explaining that discussion doesn't override 3RR - 3RR, even with accompanying discussion, is a bright line rule. As you yourself noted, your 3rd edit says it's a revert although it wasn't. I've raised the issue at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (technical)#Adding a new see also showing up as a revert. Automatic edit summaries should be trustworthy but that one wasn't. Dougweller (talk) 07:48, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm striking out my warning. I note that you are now saying that you weren't even at 2RR although and are clearly reverts. It's no good making accusations that I misused the template as I didn't, I simply didn't recognise that the edit summary could be wrong. And as I said, I've raised that at . What you need to understand now is both how 3RR works (ie discussion doesn't matter, you still can't breach it), and that as you have now been warned and even had it explained further, no one needs to warn you again so you mustn't assume that without a warning you can breach 3RR. I'm not suggesting that you would, I'm just trying to make this explicit as some people in my experience haven't understood this. Dougweller (talk) 12:32, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

For the record, the edits cited immediately above do not show a violation of 2RR. I would ask that anyone who doubts that confirm that 3RR states, "An editor must not perform more than three reverts". For those who aren't good at math, confirm that the truth value of 3 > 3 is false and the truth value of 2 > 2 is false too! (But the truth value of 4 > 3 is true and the truth value of 3 > 2 is true.) That's why my two reverts (which is more than one revert only) didn't violate 2RR or even come close to violating 3RR. I warned Dougweller because I hadn't violated 3RR or 2RR. Where's my gold medal for having the patience of a saint, continuing to AGF, and taking the time to explain that? I guess my vacation shored up my tolerance. Speaking of horses, hopefully there will be no further beating of this dead nRR horse!--Elvey (talk) 00:39, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Ford Museum/Presidential Libraries

Here's my first attempt at {{PD-USGov-PresLib}}

This photograph/scan/photocopy is a work of an employee or sub-contractor of the Presidential Libraries, a branch of NARA (National Archives andRecords Administration, taken or made during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain (17 U.S.C. § 101 and § 105).

The subject of the photograph (artifact, document or other media) has no known copyright restrictions, and NARA and Misplaced Pages are not liable for any rights infringements (44 U.S.C. Chapter 21 § 2117)*

• (44 U.S.C. Chapter 21) § 2117. Limitation on liability

When letters and other intellectual productions (exclusive of patented material, published works under copyright protection, and unpublished works for which copyright registration has been made) come into the custody or possession of the Archivist, the United States or its agents are not liable for infringement of copyright or analogous rights arising out of use of the materials for display, inspection, research, reproduction, or other purposes.

I'll run this by the NARA Lawyers when we get far enough. Thoughts? Bdcousineau (talk) 01:59, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Commons administrators don't always agree with each other. But, there are commons admins who have deleted work work that is believed to have been done by NASA subcontractors, and my requests that this work be undeleted have been denied; closely read https://commons.wikimedia.org/Commons:Undeletion_requests/Archive/2012-12#Request_for_undeletion_of_public_domain_work_from_NASA_HQ_on_flickr. So your uploads marked as work of an "... or subcontractor" could be in a precarious position if you used the license you've drafted... unless further steps are taken. Perhaps the a NARA lawyer would approve the license that included, "sub-contractors of the Presidential Libraries are not permitted to assert copyright in such works" or "NARA's Contracting Officer has not provided express written permission to any contractors to assert copyright in any work done under contact." I would expect the lawyers to be aware if any exceptions had been granted to the FAR, and thus comfortable signing off on such a statement.

If you create this license AND then ask a NARA lawyer if it's OK for you to use, and get a yes, I think works from the Presidential Libraries you uploaded and tagged with it would be pretty safe on Commons. Whether you will get approval, I don't dare predict.

Re the quote from the US Code: I would suggest you put it in quotes add a link to http://www.archives.gov/about/laws/nara.html#limit . This is a great find! I think you MAY have hit a home run with this one.

Oh, and I changed the subject of this comment; we're talking about a tag for all the Presidential Libraries (you could use a separate one for the Ford stuff, but let's see if just a {{PD-USGov-PresLib}}) will do).--Elvey (talk) 21:42, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

It's amazing to me that these questions are coming up all over Misplaced Pages at the same time. I'm now determined to concentrate on pre-1978 materials until I gain a little more experience/can be more authoritative.

Also, our subcontractors are not regulated by FAR - each of the Pres Libs have a non-profit foundation attached to them that fund projetcs like this as part of their education mandate. These tend to be college kids paid stipends for their work. This will be the first time we have a paid youngster doing photography, and we are having language drafted by the NARA lawyers stipulating she gives up all reproduction rights/copyrights.

I like the "sub-contractors of the Presidential Libraries are not permitted to assert copyright in such works" . I'm curious to see what the NARA lawyers say.

As for that quote from the US Code, I thought it pretty great too, but another WikiAdmin was not too convinced...like you said! Bdcousineau (talk) 00:07, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

HFCS and Health

Hello Elvey. Please review the updated conversation on Neutrality at http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:High-fructose_corn_syrup_and_health Thank you. Jtankers (talk) 23:34, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

OK. I fixed your post so I could read/use it.--Elvey (talk) 22:21, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Pledge seal

Here you are: I think this should be what you were asking about at Misplaced Pages:Media copyright questions/Archive/2012/December#Impossible?. If not, let me know and I'll see what I can do about getting more/different images uploaded. VernoWhitney (talk) 20:57, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Welcome back

Hi, Elvey, welcome back from your vacation. I hope you're not having any problems editing. Bishonen | talk 16:13, 25 January 2013 (UTC).

No, I've successfully avoided editing - 'till today! Thanks again for the break! --Elvey (talk) 23:29, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Links

Hi, In the article County of Santa Clara v. California First Amendment Coalition and in its associated talk page, I see that the links for the references pointing to the website opendataconsortium.org are all broken, i.e. the reader is simply redirected to that website's home page. I tried to search that website with the terms CFAC and Santa Clara, with no result. Do you know if the documents are still somewhere on that website or if they were removed from it and/or if they are available somewhere else on the web? Thanks in advance if you can help. -- Asclepias (talk) 18:05, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Have you checked the usual web archives? (See https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Preventing_and_repairing_dead_links.) -Elvey

I see you have, and were able to repair the dead links. :-) --Elvey (talk) 07:35, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

JJ ANI

I've removed your copy of my comment. I did not mean it for the ANI, and you should have at minimum notified me, or more appropriately asked my permission.

The outright dismissal of you and your complaint without addressing any of the issues is exactly what to expect. Take their advice: write up a much more concise complaint, provide many more diffs, be sure that most are directly related to the sanctions and past rulings from ArbCom, then take it to ArbCom enforcement. --Ronz (talk) 05:27, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

<the following two comments copied from Ronz's page.>

Sorry about the copy. JJ had gone so far as to notice which notices I'd signed, but I could have considered other issues. I don't feel like I know how to/can do what you suggest - for multiple reasons. If you can do it, you're more than welcome to (assuming my effort fails as you seem certain it will). --Elvey (talk) 12:15 am, 7 March 2013, Thursday (1 month, 1 day ago) (UTC−8)

Not a problem. --Ronz (talk) 8:54 am, 7 March 2013, Thursday (1 month, 1 day ago) (UTC−8)

I repeat

I'd still like to know if you think a 3RR warning is meant to be given to an editor who has made 3 reverts or to an editor who has made more than 3 reverts. In the discussion about the 3RR warning I mistakenly gave you, you wrote "I didn't break 3RR"(I never suggested you did) and " So even if I had violated 2RR <sic>, which I hadn't and you acknowledge I hadn't, you abused the template by using it to accuse me of edit warring." But that's wrong. If you'd "violated 2RR" ('violated' is a confusing word here as there is nothing to violate) you would be at 3RR and the template would have been appropriate - that's what it's for. Are we agreed on this? It's a bit much that you are still badgering me to do something I consider I've done and yet won't answer this question - since you are still maintaining your accusation that I abused the template. Dougweller (talk) 22:10, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Long since answered:

I'd still like to know - do you accept that you falsely accused me about half a dozen times long after I'd shown I had NOT violated 2RR (as I believe the diffs above show) or that "Clearly the 'failure to get a clue' was yours?" I see that you retracted one false accusation but then reverted that retraction. Yes, you said "sorry for the confusion", but you didn't say sorry to me, rather, you did continue to assert that the confusion was mine. I have not said anything that actually showed I was confused or wrong about what the warning you misused is for; if you think I have, feel free to provide a diff/link. You haven't acknowledged or apologized for your confusion. Would you please explicitly (e.g. state here that you) retract the ~half dozen false accusations I linked to above? (rather than doing so in place but then restoring them?) --Elvey (talk) 1:07 pm, 10 March 2013, Sunday (17 days ago) (UTC−7)

Admin ridiculousness

I'm sure we all agreee ... There are lots of ridiculous claims out there ... made by fellow editors. But, we have WP:V. Few admins think WP:V doesn't apply to their contributions to the encyclopedia itself. Unfortunately, a stupid decision made by many administrators is to decide that WP:V doesn't apply when it comes to telling regular editors what to do or not do. They think that to respect their authority, other editors must take their advice, even when it isn't supported by policy - even when it is flatly contradicted by policy. If editors don't do so, they are, ironically, accused of not listening, or REFUSING to read.

I've seen them abuse a few editors in this way. If these mere holders of the mop are called on this, they may get hot under the collar and, unable to mount a legitimate defence, they may make effective but illegitimate, ridiculous accusations (of sockpuppetry or some other trumped up and/or hypocritical charge), and force editors to comply by abusing their authority, even when their use of force isn't supported by policy - even when it is flatly contradicted by policy.

Far too many admins demand, and insist upon unquestioning obedience, which is an abuse of their authority. Those that do should be desysopped. But they aren't. --Elvey (talk) 07:35, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Next steps

I don't actually expect the above to fall on anything but deaf ears at best, retaliatory ears in all likelihood, but it needs to be said. 2+2=4. Copying one's own words on-wiki is never a copyvio. It's like having respect for the first amendment. It's easy to follow the rules when dealing with an editor you agree with. The sign of a good admin is one who can do so when dealing with someeone they don't agree with. --Elvey (talk) 07:35, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Newish

Possibly unfree File:Jerry Rosenberg 1424049c.jpg

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Jerry Rosenberg 1424049c.jpg, has been listed at Misplaced Pages:Possibly unfree files because its copyright status is unclear or disputed. If the file's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. You may find more information on the file description page. You are welcome to add comments to its entry at the discussion if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 23:06, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Grr! ShakespeareFan deleted the FUR I'd added, then SFan deleted the license template, and now this. Dealt with. WAS KEPT. --Elvey (talk) 07:35, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

The evidence at this PUF shows that people can so bad at interpreting the US constitution that the idea that NSA staff actually believe that they haven't been trampling over the constitution starts to become credible.--Elvey (talk) 01:49, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks...

...for the "updatification" on github. I'm just getting started with regex, so your help was very much appreciated! It's definitely a powerful tool, and I'm looking forward to doing more with it in the future. —Theopolisme (talk) 00:34, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

TUSC token fcc5883c9446e2f1d6160777e470e532

Filemover

You referenced filemover here. Would you like the permission? (It is as a general rule not a good idea to rename a file during the IFD itself because if the redirect gets deleted, then the bot will close the discussion ... but if you would have a use for it in general, you certainly are a sufficiently trusted user for the permission.) --B (talk) 22:35, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, please, B (talk · contribs). I'll use it responsibly, though I won't promise to use it often. --Elvey (talk) 16:37, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Breakage at User talk:Misza13

Hi, this edit broke the page because you put an exclamation mark immediately after the {{subst:Bump}}. Because of the way that template operates, the exclamation mark was taken by the MediaWiki parser as occurring at the start of a line; and since User talk:Misza13 is laid out as a table with a single row containing one huge cell, that exclamation mark was processed as the start of a second cell on the same row. Hence the two columns where there was only one before. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:11, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for responding to the edit summary of the edit where I fixed the problem by reverting everything that looked suspicious. The explanation makes sense. I wonder how many people have added {{subst:Bump}}! to articles that are giant tables too. Probably not too many.--Elvey (talk) 15:29, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

Thanks!

Re: Mobile Phones SAR List

Hi! I looked into the history of the article in question and it looks like the author actually did request that it be deleted. He commented that he was going to create it on the page and nobody said anything. He then created it and after a while, put it up for AfD himself. The article doesn't have to be blanked for it to be speedied under this context and another user can tag the page as such if they notice that the author is asking for the page to be deleted. If you want to take a copy into your userspace then that's an option, or if you want to have it recreated and run through a full AfD, I would probably recommend that you go through deletion review rather than re-create the page with a complaint over the article's deletion. That doesn't really accomplish much in the long run, whereas deletion review could end with the page being re-created. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) …

Thanks, Tokyogirl79 (talk · contribs). I agree - yes, "it looks like the author actually did request that it be deleted". But it's not true that "the author actually did request that it be deleted" because the apparent author isn't really the author. The deleted content was actually authored by a whole bunch of people adding SARs for various devices. I'm not sure the deletion should be reversed, but it deserves a proper chance and notification of the ACTUAL authors.--Elvey (talk) 17:25, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Copyright problems help request

This is a known problem that can only be solved by clearing the backlog. MER-C 12:39, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I made some follow-up comments there to inform others encountering that and related issues.--Elvey (talk) 18:04, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Alicia Berrios help request

Hello Mr. Elvey, My name is Alicia Berrios and I have worked hard and requested assistance for the Article, Luis A. Cordero. I was able to read your note and I don't quite understand. I am new to Wikipidea. I would greatly appreciate any help or recommendation. Thank you! Alicia De Los Angeles Berrios 16:13, 25 June 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aberrios13 (talk • contribs)

Reply at Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Luis_A._Cordero. --Elvey (talk) 17:45, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Paid editing

Hey Elvey, just to move this off SlimVirgin's page: I think that an RfC or some other measure is a good idea. However, my experience with this issue is that editors are happy with the lax and loophole-ridden guideline that currently exists. When Misplaced Pages received a trouncing in the press for letting BP in effect write large swaths of BP, Wales and the community circled the wagons. I notice that the "paid editing" policy did not get community support. Coretheapple (talk) 20:09, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I think it's likely that editors with a CoI have been the swing !vote, and that off-wiki canvassing occurs. I think SlimVirgin's new Essay is wrong, so I'm following up on that on her talk page.--Elvey (talk) 21:56, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I saw that. Intriguing. Coretheapple (talk) 22:55, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Coretheapple (talk · contribs), I'm thinking of an essay, (WP:NOFCOI?) along the lines of what I wrote at Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest/Archive_14.

AN/I discussion

(trimmed discussion) Kim: Re. Carnildo's comment - come on, suggesting a page that is on the whole misleading, and therefore unhelpful be deleted is some sort of policy violation? I doubt it. Seems like a constructive effort. I didn't even notice or look to see who owned the bot. --Elvey (talk) 17:46, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

tweaks

Consider reapplying these suggested tweaks to your post.--Elvey (talk) 19:34, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Yeah sure! Thx for the cleanup. Cheers, --Gego (talk) 20:18, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

at WT:COI

I responded to your comment. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:17, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Done. I'm pleased with the improvements made to COI. (I even got a thanks from SlimVirgin!)--Elvey (talk) 07:46, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Questions on the "List of atheists in science and technology" inclusion discussion

Dear Elvey, I remember we both had a discussion on the rules of including scientists into this list. Anyway, there is a Misplaced Pages user named "Pgarret" who is removing some well documented people (like Alan Turing and Steve Wozniak) from this list because he/she is commenting that Misplaced Pages's policy states that scientists must labeled themselves as atheists. "Pgarret" is also removing atheists who had said some nice things about religion (which I don't understand). Like I said before, if we were to take this guideline in a strict fashion, even Richard Dawkins would not be included in the list since he also called himself an agnostic as well. Source:. Anyway, you could please take part in the discussion in this article talk-page: "Talk:List of atheists in science and technology". Or could find and contact other administrators to take part in this issue? If not, could you please tell me how to alert other wikpedian users/administrators into this debate? I would appreciate it. Ninmacer20 (talk) 18:38, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

You can find the discussion on the archive page, here. Take a look. While I don't think his edits improve the article, they are defensible in terms of policy, which should be changed. Should you attempt to change it, please let me know. As I implied, if I'm around, I'll support you. Misplaced Pages policies ARE changeable. I've changed 'em.

P.S. Renaming the page to "List of atheists and agnostics in science and technology" might help things too. I can do the move. --Elvey (talk) 09:11, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry for not responding to you sooner. Anyway, I actually would like to change the policy of this article (and possibly for other atheist lists as well). By the way, I tried to make an attempt to rename this article to include agnostics as well. However, there was a consensus among other Misplaced Pages administrators saying that it would be redundant as there already is a "List of agnostics" page for scientists. Ninmacer20 (talk) 05:00, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Local policies generally can't override global policies… So if you want to change the policy for this article, you have to change BLPCAT. You could, for example, propose that "question, and" become "question, or the identification is treated as an exceptional claim, and is verifiable in multiple high-quality sources and in either case" in BLPCAT. --Elvey (talk) 07:40, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Question about copyright status of University of California work

Hi Elvey,
I think that some time ago you mentioned that material created by the state of California is usually in the public domain, but that there are exceptions which allow the University of California to own the copyright on its material. Could you please let me know under which law the University material is protected? I found many sources which confirm that the University material is under copyright protection, but so far I was not yet able to find the respective law. If you know it, I would be very thankful for the citation of the respective law. Thanks!--Casecrer (talk) 23:19, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Casecrer. I don't recall saying exactly that. For the general law, start with the template at and read my 2012 comment at https://en.wikipedia.org/Template_talk:PD-CAGov. On this matter, sources that aren't law are not to be trusted; posted policies of the universities in particular. (Even Misplaced Pages policy has had major copyright puffery embarrassment. I'd point you to http://leginfo.ca.gov/ but its search is broken. http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes.xhtml works. I didn't find anything authorizing copyright; I did find this, which does not. In Florida, the law is more explicit that everything the state creates except where there is statute that carves out a specific extension, is PD. BTW, what are you planning to do with the info? --Elvey (talk) 21:02, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Re: protection

I unprotected the earthquake prediction page as you requested as your argument is definitely valid. Also, sorry for the late response but I've had to work quite a bit of overtime the last couple of weeks and between that and christmas, I haven't had much free time. It also appears that the discussion about Belorussian americans is stale, so I took no action on that. Thingg 19:35, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry? Late? Not at all. Thank you! Happy holidays! It would be good if constructive edits by users other than that page's owner had more than a slim chance of survival.--Elvey (talk) 23:00, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Revert warring/troll

Hello,

As you suggested, I didn't put Johansson or Korbut in the Belarusian American and started a discussion regarding who should be in the collage. I did the same thing in the Russian American article.

User:Mankiw2 reverted my removals, as before the page protection, without explaining his edits and without turning to the talk page. As you can see from the history, he does it all the time and it looks like he is being a troll. It's not normal behavior to ignore the talk page and to constantly revert-war without even writing why he is reverting.

I looked into his edit history on other matters. What he does is go to pages of Russian people and changes the country of birth from USSR to the Soviet Union, or from the Soviet Union to USSR. What of the point of such weird edits? It doesn't look normal.

Could you please look into the matter? 90.214.121.50 (talk) 08:50, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

I guess you're responding to this edit I made. It's clear from Mankiw2's edit history that @Mankiw2: is edit warring and a single-purpose-account. But I don't know if you are edit warring as well, as you are editing from multiple IPs, and either logged out or without an account, so I can't identify a fair way to respond. Perhaps someone else is willing to look into it further. I'm no WP:DR guru. It's not clear to me what the core issue underlying all this edit warring really is. What is the core issue underlying all this edit warring; why do you care? Conflicting patriotism? Do you still believe that US "citizenship is not a requirement" to being a *-American? (I see you accuse Hmains of having a sock, at Talk:Russian_American but which account(s) do you believe are socks? In any case, I don't think it is helpful to fork the discussion further, please consider this discussion on my talk page closed and reply in an appropriate forum, such as Talk:Belarusian_American, or at Talk:Russian_American. If the IPs that recently posted there are you: KUDOS! If that's the case, it seems Manikw2 is edit warring and you are not. Continue to use the article talk pages, and edit in line with consensus reached there. (If you defend a reverted edit on talk, and there's a revert with no further discussion, re-doing your edit is often not edit warring in my view, but Misplaced Pages:Edit warring has conflicting definitions; under some of them, you could be cited for doing what I feel is "trying to resolve the disagreement by discussion", and not edit warring. You can always pursue WP:DR. At the latter talk page, the assertion "There were many discussions in the past, non of them reaching a consensus by the way" suggests I would be wading into a complex dispute I probably don't have the cultural expertise to understand without much further study if I took further action. I think the recent action of semi-protection is probably for the best and may be needed long term; if I'm not mistaken, semi-protection will block both new accounts such as Manikw2, and IPs. Please move or copy this section (starting with Hello) to the article talk page if you reply, when you reply there.--Elvey (talk) 20:26, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Comparison of SAR list title

Ivanvector (talk) has given you a cup of coffee, for taking the time to weather a dispute. Thanks for staying calm and civil! Coffee promotes WikiLove and hopefully this has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a coffee, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or someone putting up with some stick at this time. Enjoy!

Good morning! Thanks for keeping the discussion civil at the AfD for Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/List of low-radiation smartphones. The list has been partially recreated in a somewhat different form, and I am attempting to start a discussion on its future on its new talk page. In particular I am interested in coming to consensus on the article's proper title, since the list has been moved many times and has created a number of redirects and fragmented discussions. Since you've been a key contributor to the SAR article I think your input will be valuable. Cheers!

Spread the lovely, warm, bitter goodness of coffee by adding {{subst:WikiCoffee}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Thanks! (Color changed for visibility reasons.) I ask that all conversation continue at Talk:SAR instead of the sundry fora it's spread to. --Elvey (talk) 22:19, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

SPI

(A)Please don't file a largely unfounded SPI against an editor you are in conflict with, particularly since there is already an open case concerning the account and IP range you included. Thanks. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 23:24, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

@DoRD: I wasn't aware there was an open case when I filed the SPI. It's far from unfounded; another user even said the account was a sock. The alleged sockmaster of the open case is obviously not the master account either. It's quite possible it's not Guy, but that's what SPIs are for - further investigation from experts. That IP is a sock puppet and I think you know it, as it's patently obvious. So there has to be a puppet master, and there's but one suspect. Is it improper to file a (well-founded) SPI against an editor you are in conflict with? Isn't that who normally files SPIs? The sockpuppet attacked me; I'm supposed to suck it up, I suppose. --Elvey (talk) 01:24, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

(B)I said "largely unfounded" due to the editor you were accusing of being the master. (C)The other account and range of IPs may be another story, but like I said, they are covered by another case. And no, it is not a good idea to accuse someone like that of sockpuppetry unless you have rock-solid evidence, and even then, you're best off getting a second opinion beforehand. A word of advice: Just because two or more accounts disagree with you doesn't mean that it is sockpuppetry.

(E)In reference to your note below, please be aware that WilliamH has left the project, so it is highly unlikely that he will see it, and even less likely that he will do anything about it if he does. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 13:30, 7 January 2014 (UTC) (A), etc added for referencing.

@DoRD: Re. (E): Thanks. It's a shame WilliamH retired; I didn't catch why. Who is a better choice? DocTree? Also, someone should block 2001:558:1400:10:b9ff:ab59:868a:de42 (talk · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log)) and the /64. I recall I asked you or @Geni: about it. Will you please do it?

Re. (C): It is NOW, but the IP was covered by another case at the time I reported it? (How would I know if it was covered by another case then?) How would one get a second opinion without falling afoul of policies against talking the wrong way about socks or going off-wiki? You are telling me I should have done things that, if I'm not mistaken, it's not reasonable to expect me to know, as they're not something one is informed of when one looks at the instructions on how to report suspected socks. I reported using Twinkle, and I can't go through the preliminary steps now as I'm blocked, but I recall I read everything it linked to. This is full of reports that lack "rock-solid evidence"; (e.g. many are marked "possible") if it was a bad idea, why, and according to what policy? From WP:SPI: "Before opening an investigation, you need to have good reason to suspect sock puppetry." Check. "include diffs of edits that suggest the accounts are connected" Check. "provide this evidence in a clear way" Check! And yet, I see you completely deleted the the SPI! Please only offer advice that you back by quoting policy. True/False: One shouldn't replace "good reason" with "rock-solid evidence" when describing a policy.

Re. (A), etc.: You still haven't provided any justification for the "you are in conflict with" or "and IP range" bits of your instruction. Willing to retract 'em?

Re. (B): If I'm not mistaken you accept that that IP is a sockpuppet and that there has to be a puppet master. T/F? Sorry, I am still trying to imagine why someone uninvolved would go through the trouble and risk to set up and use that sockpuppet account, to do that, though I have a fine imagination.--Elvey (talk) 01:17, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

I understand why you edited my comment, but I would appreciate it if you wouldn't do that. I don't know who is editing through that IP range, so no, I do not accept that. Frankly, I haven't really looked at the evidence, but the editor who filed the SPI apparently thinks that it is Gregory Kohs. I also haven't been following Jimbo's talk page very closely, but when you are making incredible accusations against an editor, and multiple other editors are asking you to stop, you really shouldn't be filing something like this. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 01:51, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

@DoRD: Thanks for replying to Re. (B), but what about Re. (E), Re. (C) and Re. (A)? --Elvey (talk) 08:41, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

E. I don't know. Most people who have had much contact with the Morning277 case are reluctant to ever touch it again. Blocking a single address out of a /64 is pointless, and I'm not going to block the range unless abuse can be proven to my satisfaction.

C. The range and account were covered by the SPI I just linked before you filed your SPI.

A. No. Please see the last sentence of my previous response. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 14:20, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

E.Yes, I sympathize; I wonder what fraction of my headaches are a result of my contacts with PAEs like Morning227 and my active opposition to PAE in general, and the various specious alleged transgressions I've been plastered with as a result. I think the PAE problem infests all the way up and can only hope that all the user purging going on lately is a removal, rather than concentration of power among the PAEs. (Rhetorical question; please don't answer.) @Geni: did block one of the IPv6s, so I think blocking the rest of /64, which seems to be the normal response would be appropriate because Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/I'm not that crazy lists 8 sock IPs in that range. Why are you refusing to do so? As you've deleted my request for response to the abuse, DoRD, I feel it's incumbent upon you in particular to address the abuse by blocking the /64 of the abuser, or get help if you are afraid to do so without more support.

@DoRD: C:I'd like to understand what you are referring to. What "SPI just linked" are you referring to? this search turns up no linked SPIs.

@DoRD: A: It's not reasonable to assert that no user may file an SPI about anyone if they have raised any other concerns about the user which resulted in conflict. It's not a valid justification for the "you are in conflict with" bit of your instruction. So please retract or justify that bit of it, since that's the only justification you've presented I see. --Elvey (talk) 23:17, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

@DoRD: You haven't replied to the above. As you refuse to defend your unreasonable assertion (A), I will nuke it shortly. --Elvey (talk) 19:12, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Since DoRD has implied fear of taking related to the Morning277 case, perhaps one of the admins who appears less fearful, e.g. @Mark Arsten: who recently moved a related SPI is willing to block 2001:558:1400:10/64, and widen the two /16 blocks to the /12s that contain them that have been assigned to Amazon.--Elvey (talk) 22:29, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm a bit behind on all this, I haven't really been following the Kohs or Morning SPIs very closely. But note that MediaWiki only supports blocks up to /16 ranges though, so we can't block the /12. We could, of course, block multiple /16 ranges though if need be. I don't have a lot of experience dealing with IPv6, but I'll take a look at it. Mark Arsten (talk) 22:42, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

F:@Mark Arsten: Kudos for blocking the /64 and the user, and a question: why anon. only? (Over 90 IPv6 IPs were editing from that block, most not noted in the SPI; archive to facilitate future monitoring after Apr 15, when the block expires.) @Atethnekos:Kudos as well. G:54.240.196.185 is an IP that you've warned twice, once recently, that's in the /12. 15 more /16 blocks would block the rest of each /12. H:I guess no block for 173.161.202.37 cuz it hasn't edited recently?

@MLauba: You haven't replied to the above requests for clarification. --Elvey (talk) 19:12, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

WP:NPA - comment on edits, not editors. MLauba 17:36, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

@MLauba: You (still) haven't addressed the above requests (now in bold) for clarification. --Elvey (talk) 02:13, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

I actually did. But it appears it's not what you wanted to hear. I'm afraid I can't help that. MLauba 11:05, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

@MLauba: Well, let's evaluate. 1) You didn't delete anything. 2) You didn't even say whether it's permissible to note what I noted or not, let alone 3) quote anything from policy to support that view. 4) You didn't provide an example of discussing the substance of the issues that is acceptable. So, of the four things I asked of you, you did zero of them. You did what you felt like doing. I believe that I am commenting on the edits, not the user, when I say, The content the user in question inserted was written by a user with a declared financial conflict of interest per COIN. I've explained the reasons for my view that the content inserted is highly slanted in favor of the funder. Your actions lead me to believe you recognize that, but don't want me to say it anyway, and your intent is a chilling effect that keeps me quiet. Your steadfast refusal to take any of these steps to clarify what it is I'm allowed / not allowed to do are evidence of that; I see no other plausible way to interpret it. Rather, your last comment continues what I see as either a calculated chilling effect campaign to keep me from talking about at all, or something that coincidentally closely resembles one. --Elvey (talk) 17:08, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

For the very final time, you were blocked for gross personal attacks. You can discuss the nature of edits at leisure. When you start calling other editors criminals, supsect, or perpetrators, you will get blocked. That's what I mean by "comment on edits, not editors". MLauba 18:20, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

@MLauba: Is that so? Again, my last edit before you blocked me was to remove the suspect's name from my comments on Jimbo's talk page! If I'm not mistaken, you have not disputed that I am commenting on the edits, not the user, and so I CAN say, The content the user in question inserted was written by a user with a declared financial conflict of interest per COIN. I've explained the reasons for my view that the content inserted is highly slanted in favor of the funder. And yet, I see your latest comment as continuing either a calculated chilling effect campaign to keep me from talking about content in Credit rating agency paid for and written by Moody's (or something that coincidentally closely resembles one) because, even as the comment says I "can discuss the nature of edits," it avoids replying to any of the above specific clarification requests. You chillingly dredge up that you blocked me, for gross personal attacks (though already retracted/not personal), and dredge up terms that, I remind you again, I have struck, or never used. And I am not distracted from your non-responsiveness to even one of the four specific clarification requests that I actually made, to which you could easily and directly respond, if you chose to. What you dredge up does not in any way clarify the line between comment on edits, and editors. You accuse me of calling another editor a criminal. I expressed suspicion that an edit involved criminal activity, which is different in not one, but four (italicized) ways. And you even just told me one must "comment on edits, not editors". I have seen a user add content about the powerful credit rating agency (Moody's) that a paid advocate has written. Jimbo himself has said that "FTC 16 CFR Part 255 is relevant" to showing that "PAE (Paid Advocacy Editing) is flat out illegal." I said that I strongly suspected I'd witnessed involvement in criminal activity. I assume (per AGF) that the edit by Guy Macon himself was NOT compensated, it was NOT PAE and did NOT break the law, as far as Guy's liability is concerned, but I see no reason to conclude that with respect to Moody's liability. Do you claim that NPA bars expression of suspicion that an edit involved criminal activity? I believe that what we do whenever we flag a copyvio. --Elvey (talk) 22:28, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

here may be times when it is unavoidable to raise issues of bad conduct... In these cases, it is best to be certain that your accusations are well-founded and directly relevant to the discussion, and to state them in a polite and unemotional manner. Most importantly, it is best to raise them only as part of your argument, not as its entirety. --WP:RIPPED

Morning277 IP ranges

Speaking of SPI: It looks like at least one of the Morning277 investigators aren't familiar with CIDRs/whois. This suggests it; the size of the blocks is off:

54.215.0.0/16 is listed here and at the above link but the appropriate range, per whois, is larger:
54.208.0.0 - 54.221.255.255
Likewise:

54.241.0.0/16 is also to small and thus missing a lot of activity

54.240.0.0 - 54.255.255.255 is appropriate

tl;dr so perhaps the checkuser folks don't care or some such, but I figure I'd post about this since it could be quite helpful, as a much smaller net may have been cast than was appropriate. The one year range blocks by WilliamH should probably be widened to match:

54.208.0.0/12 and

54.240.0.0/12. --Elvey (talk) 06:47, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

54.208.0.0/12 (talk · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))

54.240.0.0/12 (talk · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))

54.208.0.0 (talk · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))

54.240.0.0 (talk · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))

{{checkip|2001:558:1400:10/64}} - /64 does not work (WRT the contribs link), while * does : 2001:558:1400:10* (talk · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))

Newer

RFC at WP:PUF

There is an RFC at Misplaced Pages talk:Possibly unfree files/Header that you might find relevant as you have participated in past discussions about the use of {{pufc}}. Thanks, -- ТимофейЛееСуда. 14:44, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I know there was previous discussion about opening an RFC, and I waited until tensions died down because I feel we all have reasonable points to make. I hope you see you join this discussion. Cheers, -- ТимофейЛееСуда. 14:46, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Your question

James F (finally) answered your question. You can see the log at the end of meta:IRC office hours/Office hours 2014-02-15. I'm sorry it took them so long to get to this, but they prioritize questions from people who are present at the chat, and the last few have been unusually well-attended. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:01, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! Happy to see his answer to "What does engineering see as the major technical issues that led to the en.rollback from opt-out back to opt-in? What's the current status of fixes to those issues?" Based on his answer, it's appropriate for en to revisit the rollback - consider reversing it. Perhaps ask a few of the more eloquent critics take another look…--Elvey (talk) 22:15, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Who would you put on the list of "eloquent critics"?

Also, what do you personally think was the biggest problem for the community? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:53, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

No views on either at the moment; I don't recall what made me think it was humorously inadequate when I tried it and opted out. What's your POV?--Elvey (talk) 22:36, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

The most common reason for needing to revert or cleanup an edit made in VisualEditor was unwanted nowiki tags. This declined quite a bit after they put up the warning about using wikitext, but even though the number of errors declined, it didn't immediately change people's perception. I think that the sheer volume of this problem was probably the most significant issue among non-users—because I don't really care (or even know) what software you used, as long as it's not creating problems for me, and this definitely caused problems for the non-users. When tens of thousands of users have access to it overnight, and almost nobody knows how to use it (and we all know that WP:Nobody reads the directions, you can easily get hundreds of errors a day.

Having said that, there was a lot of diversity in people's responses, ranging from ideological disagreement ("it will attract the wrong kind of people") to politics ("community sovereignity") to a wide range of specific bugs or pending feature requests. Some people thought the nowiki bug wasn't important any more (after the warning appeared). I don't think you could say that there was a single issue that everyone would agree on as the blocker. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:23, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

I worded my question carefully. The "What does engineering see as..." part was a critical part, as was the term "technical issues". Obviously, the problems you noted, are not "technical issues", so could not have answered my question. James F started on the wrong foot when he wrote, "enwiki community is really best-placed to explain what it saw as the failings"... I think engineering would do itself a favor if it carefully considered and answered the question I actually asked. I did NOT ask what engineering saw as the major technical issues facing the tool, or what the major issues were, overall...  :) --Elvey (talk) 05:13, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Why do you say that corrupting pages with unwanted nowiki tags is not a technical issue? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:07, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Whoops; I was focused on your second paragraph - the ideological disagreement ("it will attract the wrong kind of people") to politics ("community sovereignty") part. Added . --Elvey (talk) 20:27, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor: We're chipping away at a long tail of requirements that will make VisualEditor a great default editing environment for new and experience user alike. Once we have those out the door, we'll restart the conversation about default state in wikis where VisualEditor is currently opt-in.

That's a quote from a January WMF Board Meeting presentation. (source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/5/5d/2013-14_Year-to-Date_and_Lookahead_to_Planning_for_2014-15.pdf)

Sounds like a good plan. --Elvey (talk) 06:03, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

That statement about "a long tail of requirements" only refers to four Wikipedias (of which, only the German Misplaced Pages has actually identified specific features that they need, notably support for creating tables). More than 100+ are waiting for an initial opportunity for deployment, because there are language-related issues that have caused the devs to refuse them access beyond opt-in. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:57, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

File:Rabbi Yitzchak Abadi on Purim 2013.jpg

I won't edit war it - but when that image gets moved to commons, I'll wager it won't last a day with Previously published: http://oheltorah.com/about-us/ in the description.  Ronhjones  23:44, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm glad you're not going to edit war. --Elvey (talk) 01:37, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Coren's dogs?

I still say Coren's dog studies are junk, but my opinion need not deter you if you want to add that to Earthquake prediction; I won't oppose it. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:41, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

J. Johnson: OK, thanks for the FYI. Why the change? --Elvey (talk) 01:28, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

J. Johnson: I hear crickets. Your apparent conclusion that I thought they weren't junk is erroneous. The flat earth theory is junk too. I did some reverting of 3 of your edits. Considering reverting

Aha! diff on your talk page notifying you led me to AN/I discussion... Seems you continued to violate WP:OWN since driving me to abandon Earthquake prediction and someone finally called you to account for it Good for them. I wish I'd noticed the ANI discussion before it closed, but it looks like a lot of good points were raised. Hope you listen. I'm glad you have committed, apparently, on ANI, to be OK with whatever happens to the article, and particularly have no desire to do any reversions. --{{U|Elvey}} 23:55, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

ANI notification

There is currently a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Egregious section heading at Talk:Earthquake prediction. Thank you. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:10, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Reference for your addition to Classified information in the United States

Do you have reference(s) for anything in Classified information in the United States, especially for what you just added?

I see there are no references in the section on "Sharing of classified information with other countries", which contained your most recent edits. The article could be improved with such.

Thank you very much for your many contributions to Misplaced Pages. DavidMCEddy (talk) 18:45, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

It's generally best not to post such requests to users' talk pages. The appropriate place to post 'em is the talk page of the article, and/or use {{citation needed}} in the article. Please continue discussion there, not here.

User:DavidMCEddy, I think what I added is itself containing multiple references - Leak by Bradley Manning via Wikileaks of thousands of classified documents with many of the markings discussed herein.. and "File:Nsa-ant-waterwitch.jpg...Leaked NSA document still classified TOP SECRET//COMINT//REL TO USA, FVEY". Furthermore, the article already contains a bunch of references, and the talk page contains more, so the answer to your question is 'yes'. You can find more citations at the pages and file I linked to, and NSA ANT catalog; feel free to copy them to Classified information in the United States.--{{U|Elvey}} 20:49, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

ebola outbreak 2014/ west africa

I would like to thank you for your support, it means a lot to me, and the ebola article.thank you.--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:38, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Newest

Eitrea page, and cultutal page of Eritrea

Hi, Ive seen that you have been engaged in the discussion regarding the FGM prevelance in Eritrea. Since you are involved in discussin an issues regaring Eritrea I hope you can take a look at this discussion regarding pics in the culture section in the Eritrea page. . In the Eritrea page I have added new sections such as wildlife, music, and sports section. I have also tried to update one old picture in the cultural section with a pictures of the famous Eritrean singer Faytinga since I added a new music section that mentions her. I explaned my motivation for adding the picture and thought the pic could compliment this new section. However another user is deleting it giving unreasonable explenations. I also added a picture of an jebena (coffe pot) that is an cultural item of Eritrea and is mentioned in the section culture of Eritrea. However when I added this pic same user removed it and replaced it with another one claiming it was of poor quality, it was actually better than the one mine got repalced with. My changes are being reverted for no good or reasonable reasons. Can you please have a look and leave your thought on this since a third opinion is needed. Thanks. Vetrisimino0 (talk) 23:00, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

I can, though I'll stay away from the health section.--Elvey 20:35, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Policy for dealing with an apparent racist? Advice for dealing with an apparent racist?

My last post to Talk:Eritrea - I cut the following before posting:

It seems that your reason for excluding the Kunama singer Faytinga from the article is simply that "The Kunama are a Nilotic population representing a tiny fraction of Eritrea's population. As such, they and their culture are not representative of the nation's Afro-Asiatic majority." That reasoning sounds racist to me, so I have been giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming that you actually had some other reasonable explanation for excluding Faytinga and have been trying to suss out what it is. It seems clear that you don't, rather that your rationale is indeed a racist one: you're saying she's not fit to be an example of an Eritrean musician because she's not of one of the larger ethnic groups.

I am struggling to figure out how to better deal with what to me seems to be obviously racist editing. Would it be better to simply put back the image of the singer and say that policy does not consider racist justifications for the removal of images from an article to have any weight? Should I just drop the issue and let the removal for racist reasons stand? I don't know either of the artists - Faytinga or f Helen Meles, and I'm not allied with any of these ethnic groups, so I don't really care which one is in the article, but it seems wrong to let overt racism guide the decision. Am I misreading the situation? --Elvey 02:04, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

I absolutely think you should say exactly that. Misplaced Pages should not be in the business of adding facts to articles only if they are about the majority population of a country. In fact an argument could be made that, considering WP:NOTPAPER, we should include as much material as possible on minority populations for posterity's sake. I'm leaving the {{help me}} template in place so you can get more opinions and assistance with this matter. —    Bill W.    (Talk)  (Contrib)  (User:Wtwilson3)  — 13:47, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, there is the concern that the images should give readers an understanding of what is typical, in this case about Eritrean music. If Faytinga is among the most renowned and/or popular Eritrean musicians, or a proponent of one of the typical styles, by all means we should have an image of her (and her serving as a "cultural ambassador" for her country would indicate that, but that claim seems rather overblown). On the other hand, if she's just one member of a notable ensemble, or if her style of music is highly uncommon and not at all what would usually be considered "typically Eritrean" music, why should her portrait be used to symbolize all of Eritrean music? If I give Middayexpress the benefit of the doubt, he's trying to argue something similar, though I'd say for the "music" section prominence in music, not ethnicity, should be the deciding factor. If we were discussing, say, the images in a collage in the infobox, as German people or Arabs have them, then he might have a point that the people chosen should roughly represent the ethnic composition of the country. Huon (talk) 21:04, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

To add to that, I think you were absolutely right not to add the para you list above, and you should resist the temptation to cry "Racism!" It is possible that the other guy was motivated by racism, but it is also possible that he was considering the sort of issues Huon describes. To decide that it was racism involves you making an assumption about what was in his mind, and goes against WP:AGF and "Comment on content, not on the contributor"; moreover, such an inflammatory accusation is not likely to assist in getting resolution or improving the encyclopedia, and much more likely to create unproductive drama. JohnCD (talk) 22:40, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, User:Wtwilson3, and admins Huon, and JohnCD. Hmm. Yes, the next step is to figure out if Faytinga is more like the former or latter characterizations of Huon. John: yes, I'm glad I didn't post it. But you've only suggested what I should avoid/NOT do. It's fine that you disagree with Bill, but: What I'm posting here asking for, is advice about what I should do. What IS likely to assist in getting resolution or improving the encyclopedia, John? I'm not assuming it was racism, though you say I am, John. Rather, I think the discussion makes clear that I'm concluding that the rationale seems racist because all other possible interpretations I can think of, after further inquiry, seem implausible. If the reason for excluding Faytinga isn't racist, tell me this: why is Middayexpress so unwilling to say whether one Kunama photo is OK? I'm still at a loss as to what to do. AGF says, "Avoid accusing other editors of bad faith without clear evidence". Look at the whole thread; look at the latest response and my findings responding to Huon's questions. --Elvey 06:50, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I found some excellent general advice at Misplaced Pages:Navigating conflict. Surprised I'm having such trouble finding policy that speaks more directly to racist content. I did find that WP:CIVIL says: "For ... bigoted attacks or other hateful speech,... use the Administrator's Noticeboard Incidents page to contact the site's admins." --Elvey 01:58, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm considering simply putting back the image of the singer Faytinga and saying that for the "music" section, prominence in music, not ethnicity, should be the deciding factor. Faytinga has 3 albums on Amazon; Meles has none. Faytinga has international recognition (prizes).--Elvey 06:50, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Google search for "Eritrean music" doesn't pull up either of them as the results tend to be focused on pop music. It's like saying Woody Guthrie is more American then Beyonce because he sings more "traditional" music. —    Bill W.    (Talk)  (Contrib)  (User:Wtwilson3)  — 14:00, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I think the argument I'm opposing is akin to and as abhorrent as the argument that "Beyonce is not a valid representative for American Music because she's black, and most Americans are caucasian". Well, Interestingly, the folks repeatedly removing Faytinga haven't yet added Meles to the article. Any further thoughts on how to proceed, User:Wtwilson3, Huon, JohnCD, etc? Is the recent article talk page discussion making the situation or way forward more clear? How can I search just policies and guidelines, e.g. for terms like racism, bias? My only reason for coming to this topic was the request for a third opinion, which you can see just above this section. --Elvey 21:25, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I've left a comment at the talk page. If we can't form a consensus, ultimately dispute resolution may have to be employed. Huon (talk) 22:29, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for participating. I hope your style of discussion is more fruitful. The article and talk page are active. I realized that I made one comment in a series of discussions that take up the entirety of Talk:Yemenite_Jews/Archive_1 all about a similar issue - whether it was OK to include an image of Dana International in that article. Is it time yet to call for an uninvolved admin to step in with their admin hat on, as User:Writ Keeper did there? I see a lot of advanced wikilawyering and possible tag teaming . See new comment above too. --Elvey 00:26, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Jack Seiler

Hi Elvey,

Recently I've added the following text to Jack Seiler's page:

>> On November 2nd 2014 the 90-year-old Arnold Abbott was stopped by the police for handing out four plates of food to homeless people in a South Florida park. Abbott and two pastors in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, were charged for feeding the homeless in public, the city's first crackdowns under a new ordinance banning public food sharing. They face possible jail time and a $500 fine. Abbott has been helping feed homeless people in the area through his Love Thy Neighbor nonprofit since 1991.

Mayor Jack Seiler will keep on enforcing the laws in Fort Lauderdale and is not satisfied with having a cycle of homeless in the city of Fort Lauderdalem, stating that providing them with a meal and keeping them in that cycle on the street is not productive. After an ordinance limiting the storage of personal property in public, came the restrictions for food sharing.

Police told Abbott anyone who touches a pan, anyone who is involved, will be arrested. It's a battle Abbott has fought before. In 1999 he sued the city for banning him from feeding homeless people on the beach and won. <<

User 74.191.76.114 thought the info was untrue and than FortLauderdale1911 removed it time after time without reason. The latest removal by Bbb23 was done because on an infringement of the biogtaphies of living persons policy. I absolutey disagree with all the removals because CNN is a reliable source, my text isn't colored + gives a factual overview of what happened and there's no defamation or what so ever.

I'm a not a Wiki-pro and I don't know what to do to get my addition back in the article. For the moment I remain with this feeling that some people in Fort Lauderdale don't want to acknowledge all Jack Seiler's contributions to society. The good and the bad should be described and people must judge for themselves whether they see his behaviour as something positive or negative. I wouldn't even be surprised if Jack Seiler's team is behind this heist of my addition.

Please me restore the page. --Deinemutti85 (unsigned)

Indeed, the sloganeer in me notes that starvation does seem a cruel and unusual punishment for the "crime" of homelessness.

Yes, what you want to do, User:Deinemutti85 is correctly use {{edit request}} on the talk page, including just the CNN-verificable stuff, while respecting NPOV, which, it seems, you do. Some of the stuff (added on after your edit at least) was problematic. Most important: read this. He alleges a copyright violation somewhere. Were your words original? Hope that helps.

Yeah, it looks like you copied from the CNN source without proper citation. Law was enforced again. If you wrote the CNN article, there's OTRS, otherwise ,see especially the big green check marks halfway down the Misplaced Pages:Plagiarism article.--Elvey 17:02, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Update:  Done! I have fixed the article to reflect the events, as reported in the most reliable, sound sources I could find, like the New York Times.--Elvey 09:40, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Copyright checks when performing AfC reviews

The issue is in rather large numbers of copyright violations ("copyvios") making their way through AfC reviews without being detected (even when easy to check, and even when hallmarks of copyvios in the text that should have invited a check, were glaring). A second issue is the correct method of dealing with them when discovered.

If you don't do so already, I'd like to ask for your to help with this problem by taking on the practice of performing a copyvio check as the first step in any AfC review. The most basic method is to simply copy a unique but small portion of text from the draft body and run it through a search engine in quotation marks. Trying this from two different paragraphs is recommended. (If you have any question about whether the text was copied from the draft, rather than the other way around (a "backwards copyvio"), the Wayback Machine is very useful for sussing that out.)

If you do find a copyright violation, please do not decline the draft on that basis. Copyright violations need to be dealt with immediately as they may harm those whose content is being used and expose Misplaced Pages to potential legal liability. If the draft is substantially a copyvio, and there's no non-infringing version to revert to, please mark the page for speedy deletion right away using {{db-g12|url=URL of source}}. If there is an assertion of permission, please replace the draft article's content with {{subst:copyvio|url=URL of source}}.

Some of the more obvious indicia of a copyvio are use of the first person ("we/our/us..."), phrases like "this site", or apparent artifacts of content written for somewhere else ("top", "go to top", "next page", "click here", use of smartquotes, etc.); inappropriate tone of voice, such as an overly informal tone or a very slanted marketing voice with weasel words; including intellectual property symbols (™,®); and blocks of text being added all at once in a finished form with no misspellings or other errors.

I hope this message finds you well and thanks again you for your efforts in this area. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:20, 18 November 2014 (UTC).

       Sent via--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:20, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Mass message issue

There isn't a problem with the Mass Message system. I received the same message without incident on my talk page. However, something on your talk page caused it to display a template instead of the template code within <nowiki>...</nowiki>. I'm not sure what the issue is with your talk page, but the system has performed fine with this message on other pages. Imzadi 1979 → 02:05, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

We disagree. I don't claim it never works. I claim it fails enough that two users complained about the same mass message failing on their talk pages. I agree that part of the blame probably lies with the content on my page and perhaps that's the case with the other user. Imzadi 1979, If you think my warning is too strong, feel free to soften it, but I think a warning is appropriate. --Elvey 02:18, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi. This edit was appropriate. It's not really a disagreement. In the case of this talk page, there were a bunch of mismatched curly braces (e.g., {{ without a corresponding }}). Generally MediaWiki doesn't care about these and will just output them directly, but Fuhghettaboutit's message only put {{ in nowiki tags and not }}. When the message was delivered here, the unclosed {{ met an "unclosed" }} and you saw the weird parsing behavior. The message has been restored above just to demonstrate that it's not to (fully) to blame here.

User talk:LukeSurl was probably a similar issue, though I haven't fully investigated yet. In any case, not a MassMessage bug. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:05, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for figuring it out. Agreed, the problem was with Fuhghettaboutit's message and with mismatched curly braces in the messages already on my page - not a MassMessage bug, though perhaps an enhancement opportunity. Kudos.--Elvey 05:43, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Apologies. Apparently then it from my editing error.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:37, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Accepted, and sorry, I didn't mean what I wrote to sound all blaming of you, Fuhghettaboutit. My goal was just to prevent lots of future problems with a tool that gets used a lot and I (mistakenly) thought had a new bug likely to cause widespread damage, some of which would go unnoticed, even if only a small fraction of its edits were doing damage like what resulted on my and LukeSurl's pages. Also, no one had initially responded to LukeSurl's message for several hours, or mine, so I felt it appropriate to wave a flag, so to speak, 23 hours after the edits had been made, which was (too?) effective. Anyway, I see the problem in both cases was mismatched curly braces. Perhaps BracketBot should be directed at draft mass messages. Suggested. --Elvey 14:20, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

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PR, FCOI and PAE - OK or not? - Jytdog discussion

so you read it. don't know if you are satisfied or not. but i am really concerned that you think i misrepresented the wifione case in our discussion. i may misunderstand something and am interested to see what you think that is. you may be right, but i won't know til you explain. it is an important case and i don't want to be going around with misconceptions. so i look forward to your reply in our discussion. thanks. Jytdog (talk) 02:51, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

I replied and explained. I softened my criticism - removed the "grossly". Also, sorry if my comment is hard to follow - I made several points in a bit of a run-on sentence - and it looks like a clerk dropped the ball - not your fault - and so you have repeatedly quoted a stricken finding. The other thing is that while it's true that ARBCOM at one point said "paid editing as it is not prohibited by site policies", it did NOT say "UNDISCLOSED paid editing as it is not prohibited by site policies" and yet it feels like you were saying that ARBCOM had said the latter.

I'm pretty well satisfied re. your COI on GMOs, Jytdog. (Your comments/attitudes about/conflict regarding PAE are confusing to me - you sorta seem to be OK with PAE (or at least the lack of policy against it), and I'm not, but I've not read enough to feel conclusory about that.) I also strongly agree with you in that GMOs are largely good and get a bad rap - mostly because of fear of the unknown plus scads of unscientific fear mongering! (But I also find when I drill down that Monsanto's bad rap is also for some heinous shit! For example, you don't think they've sued and collected damages from farmers when a small fraction of their seed was GMO, probably through no fault of the farmer? I drilled down and found that but perhaps I didn't ran the claims far enough to ground...) Let's continue the COI conversation at least mostly over there where I started it - at Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest#WIfone_case.--Elvey 03:31, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

i am glad you are satisfied with the COI thing. that is a relief. i replied to you over at WT:COI so won't go further into that here. (dif to save you the digging)

my stance on paid editing is as follows. i am a practical guy and i don't ride any high horses.

• what matters is NPOV content. advocates (and I deal with scads of FRINGE medicine and anti-GMO advocates) and editors with a financial COI both screw up WP. I don't know which is worse. I really don't. Passion and money are both powerful fuels.
• But WP absolutely needs to manage financial COI. it is a basic responsibility of any knowledge producing organization.
• in academia, we manage COI by forbidding it (and firing people who engage in forbidden COI activities) or we manage it through disclosure and various levels of oversight
• WP has been unable to come to consensus on forbidding paid editing (the most blatant kind of financial COI) .... unable to bridge the tension between the desire to manage COI and what i call the "content not contributor" nexus deep in the guts of WP. banning is not going to happen in our lifetime. it is just not realistic (fwiw, i voted in favor of banning it the 5 proposals after the Wiki-PR scandal, but I really listened to what those opposing it were saying. the proposals all failed to gain consensus by a long, long way, and divisions were clear and consistent)
• WMF stepped in and acted when we could not and made paid editing OK if and only if paid editors disclose and follow community PAG. In WP, our PAG is the COI guideline, which says that paid editor should not directly edit articles, but should make edit requests on Talk pages. that again, is just the real world. So paid editors are really at the community's mercy - if some editor works with them, their stuff can get into an article in some form. Thats' as far as that goes. (this is academic option #2 - manage via disclosure and oversight)
• in my work at COIN, that is what I do - I try to get editors with a pattern of COI behavior to disclose, and follow the COI guideline. I watch articles that are reported. If someone who was reported says they have no conflict, i warn them of advocacy and tell them about NPOV, and if they make NPOV edits I revert. If they keep doing it, i bust them eventually on edit warring or something else, or they give up and go away. it takes attention and time, but this is where a lot of the real work of managing COI actually happens. (i also end up filing SPI cases sometimes, but i don't have my head far enough out of the weeds to see all the networks - folks like Doc James are pursuing that)
• when i have some extra time, I sometimes look at paid editors edit requests. sometimes they are freaking great. when they suck, i tell them how to fix it, and keep trying to teach them until they get it right. if it is really great (NPOV and well sourced) i implement it. i generally don't take too much of my time letting other people exploit me, though.  :) just when i think their work makes the encyclopedia better... which it can do. (see Jerry Yang (entrepreneur) for an example).

that is my approach. no big Principles or high horses. Just practical, and doing what i can to follow and protect PAG and the ToU, both of which are very important to me.

on the Monsanto farmer thing. what you write there is a misconception. Monsanto only brings cases if there is intentional and significant infringement going on. (it would be a waste of their money to do what the internetz says they do... just bad business) A lot of the misconceptions stem from Monsanto Canada Inc v Schmeiser - please have a careful read of that, and you will see what really happened there. but yes they have done some bad stuff. i will not deny that, ever. but their badness is wildly exaggerated on the internet, i'd be happy to discuss that more.

thanks for talking! Jytdog (talk) 03:55, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

It's great that you do that stuff you list doing at COIN. Also, I like your new NPOV part 1 section on your user page - great points - except for this at the end - "If you have inserted content into an article based on a primary source and I have deleted it, it is not because I disagree with the content." - surely often you disagree with the content and at least some of the time it's deleted at least partly because you disagree with the content. It's not a credible claim for anyone to make.

Happy to agree to disagree - yes, passion and money are both powerful fuels, but money is worse than passion, IMO. "PAG"? Paid Advocacy Guideline? I don't think it's true that the WMF "made paid editing OK if and only if paid editors disclose and follow community PAG". Rather the WMF said it's not OK if they :::*don't disclose

• if they don't not follow PAG
• if they engage in PAE.

That's very different.

You sometimes look at paid editors edit requests. Kudos. I've been frustrated in the past when I've found paid editors edit requests that sucked and got implemented anyway (not by you, that I recall), and been attacked when trying to get the sucky stuff removed, nominally because i didn't follow some rule that someone wikilawyered about in a way that preserved the sucky PAE.

Will read Schmeiser. Thanks.

You have a valid approach. It sounds like you want to continue to allow editors who are paid to do PR - to represent an entity well on WP, and feel that using existing rules to police their contributions is better than having one that bans it. I hear that it works for you. It hasn't worked for me.

Take care. Thanks for talking, Jytdog! --Elvey 04:27, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

I just realized that what i wrote there might get you worried b/c it sounds like corporate-speak. when i say "intentional and signficant" i am thinking like i do at work... i deal with companies and intellectual property a lot, and i understand how companies think about patents. you don't waste money suiing somebody (especially not your customer!) unless you are pretty sure you are going to win. so the "intentional" thing has to be there. and there needs to be something at stake - a big chunk of money now or down the road, or you wouldn't waste your money suing somebody. hence the "signficant". sorry if that was freaky. Jytdog (talk)

Scaring many other farmers into buying your seed results in a big chunk of money down the road, even if Monsanto sued and collected damages from a farmer when just a small fraction of their seed was GMO. So we need to take the claim that they've sued and collected damages from farmers when a small fraction of their seed was GMO to the ground to see if it's true. You can't explain it away as implausible because it isn't implausible at all. I'm disappointed that you tried to do so. --Elvey 18:25, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

thanks for answering! sorry too wiki-slangy, "PAG" = WP:PAG (policies and guidelines). i agree with your description of what WMF did. many people were furious that they didn't outlaw paid editing and they describe the WMF as "legalizing" it or making it OK, but your description is more accurate.

on the primary source thing, when new content is added to articles i watch - medical ones especially - i look at the source even before i look at the content that was added. really. b/c my bar for the content totally changes if it the source is primary and my cursor starts moving to toward the revert button... and only if the content fills some important gap will i go look for a secondary source to see if i can properly fill that gap. using primary sources in the life sciences (which is where most of my editing happens) is just crazy.

If you think i want to allow paid editors to do PR you have really misunderstood me. that is sad. PR = getting the company's message out. NPOV = WP articles say what reliable sources say (which has nothing to do with what the company wants). ONLY if a paid editor's proposed content is NPOV (in my judgement and I have pretty high standards and even higher in that context) and well sourced (and again i have pretty high standards) will i use it. ONLY. again, see the Yang article and especially its Talk page. see also the LinkedIn talk page. those are two i did not too long ago. and neither of those did i copy/paste of the whole thing, but did a lot of integrating and extra work of my own. please do - you really got the wrong idea there. yikes. my point was that paid editors ~can~ come up with acceptable content. often what they want most, is to update or correct the article (and a lot of articles have incorrect content - i just fixed a pretty serious error in article that made GA status just last week). when i make it clear what the content has to be like, they comply - the more important thing to them is getting it corrected or updated (they would like to spin it, but will "settle" for updating/correcting it, in NPOV well sourced fashion)

but yes absolutely if some sloppy editor schwoops in a paid editor's edit request, the whole thing collapses and effective oversight is lost. WP is what it is.

i would rather that paid editing were banned. i would. but i don't see the community reaching consensus anytime soon, and really wise/experienced Wikipedians have tried to craft solutions. so.. it is about trying to achieve the best we can in the world that exists and do our best to make it excellent. that's what i am trying to do anyway. Jytdog (talk) 05:31, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't think I've misunderstood you, though I DO think you want to allow paid editors to do PR. I think that because of what you've said. Reading what you've said, it sounds like you want to allow paid editors to do PR, as long as it's the kind of PR you support - edits that respect NPOV. In other words, you want to allow paid editors to do PR, unless their edits don't respect NPOV. So when I say "You want to allow paid editors to do PR", it's not like I'm saying something untrue. You want to allow paid editors to do PR, as long as their edits respect BLP too. You want to allow paid editors to do PR, as long as their edits that respect policy. See where I'm going? The "as long as their edits that respect policy" part is pretty damn superfluous in any sentence of the form "Editor X wants to allow editors to do Y, as long as their edits that respect policy. See where I'm going?

Sometimes what reliable sources say is what the company wants. In which case, it still may well be in violation of FTC regs when it's added by a paid editor doing PR. Yes, of course paid editors ~can~ come up with acceptable content. No need to look at the examples you link to. But it's the exception. Paid editors ~can~ GREATLY stymie and drive away valuable users and content too.--Elvey 18:25, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

i appreciate you talking with me, but there are way too many balls in the air in this conversation, and all of them are under the umbrella of this hounding of me about COI that is going on. Too many layers, too many topics. And the paid editing thing, and the Monsanto thing, are both complex topics and based on what you have written so far, you are misinterpreting me. I will say this with some emphasis, as I am now frustrated: I do not want to allow paid editors to do PR. The misinterpretation is not surprising, given the context and the many-balls thing. I don't see how to go forward here, sanely. Shall we just discuss one at a time, or should we just stop? What do you suggest? Jytdog (talk) 18:30, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

I will try to clarify one thing, on the paid editing front. I said that paid editors need to follow PAG, which means that they cannot directly edit articles. They can propose content on article Talk pages. I will not consider content proposed on Talk pages, unless it is NPOV and well sourced. And even when I take that up, I do not copy/paste the whole thing into an article, but rather integrate it, as I see fit. (I gave you two examples to show what I mean) I serve the encyclopedia. I have no idea what you mean about paid editors stymieing anything, if they are restricting themselves to the Talk page. They can just be WP:SHUNned there, if they become POV-pushers and do IDHT. I could see a paid editor being a pain in the butt there, but I see advocates being a pain in the butt there too, and advocates are also free to directly edit. So I have no idea where your response to me is coming from. It is not based on what i have written here or elsewhere. Jytdog (talk) 18:54, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Since you asked and feel hounded, I suggest you stop posting here; I won't mind at all. I'm certainly not wikihounding you; you're on MY talk page, discussing topics in a discussion you started, and I believe I haven't followed you anywhere but here to my talk page. I feel for you if others are hounding you. I hear that you feel I interpreted your statement that "ONLY if a paid editor's proposed content is NPOV and well sourced will I use it" overly broadly. Sorry for what the incorrect official statements on what was stricken from the arbcom case led me to say about you, incorrectly. --Elvey 19:07, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

I originally posted here asking you to explain your claim that I was misinterpreting the arbcom case, as that concerned me, especially since you explicitly noted that your perception that i had misinterpreted it, had made you more skeptical of me. thanks for noting here, that i didn't misinterpret it. fwiw, in the context i am in, it would be kind if you noted the same at WT:COI. The other matters that we are discussing, are things that you brought up here, and that i have responded to here. If you want to stop talking, that's fine. again, i appreciate the discussion... it has just gotten messy. Jytdog (talk) 19:17, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Were it true - your claim that "paid editors need to follow PAG, which means that they cannot directly edit articles". IIRC, it says that they should not directly edit articles. Please please please edit it to say that they cannot directly edit articles. After all, and I've taken this one to the ground, PAE is illegal in much of the world. You seem to be taking what I said about paid editors GREATLY stymieing and driving away valuable users and content personally. Please don't take it as being about you. --Elvey 19:21, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Use of File:WW2 Iwo Jima flag raising.jpg

I have reverted your restoration of the non-free rationale for use on Joe Rosenthal. Misplaced Pages:Non-free_content#Images_2 #6 is quite clear about this; since we have an article about the image, we do not need to replicate it on Rosenthal's article. Instead, a link should be provided (which it is). Please do not restore the rationale, nor use the image on other articles. If you have questions about this, please ask. Thanks, --Hammersoft (talk) 17:46, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

• Saying you don't understand the above isn't a reason to restore the rationale. I've explain to you above why this is not acceptable. Quoting Misplaced Pages:Non-free_content#Images_2 #6 "An image to illustrate an article passage about the image, if the image has its own article (in which case the image may be described and a link provided to the article about the image)". Our guideline on this issue is that if an image has a host article dedicated to it, we do not then allow the image to be used on other articles. Instead, a link to the image's article is included. That link exists _three times_ in the Joe Rosenthal article. The only reason to add a rationale for this article to the File:WW2 Iwo Jima flag raising.jpg image is to use it on that article, where it would not be allowed. That is why the rationale is removed. Simply being able to create a rationale does not mean it becomes acceptable to use in the way you wish. This is why we have policy and guideline to govern this. Am I being clear? If not, please ask rather than re-adding an invalid rationale to the image and/or adding the image in other articles. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:48, 30 March 2015 (UTC)