Misplaced Pages

Beware! This user's talk page is monitored by talk page watchers. Some of them even talk back.

Column-generating template families

The templates listed here are not interchangeable. For example, using {{col-float}} with {{col-end}} instead of {{col-float-end}} would leave a <div>...</div> open, potentially harming any subsequent formatting.

Can template handle the basic wiki markup {| | || |- |} used to create tables? If not, special templates that produce these elements (such as {{(!}}, {{!}}, {{!!}}, {{!-}}, {{!)}})—or HTML tags (<table>...</table>, <tr>...</tr>, etc.)—need to be used instead.

My talk page is also my "to-do" list

No really, I do read all my messages in a timely manner. I also archive fairly regularly once the subject of the message has been resolved. I keep things on my talk page until they've been addressed, so stuff tends to be out of date order. Consider the top half of this page my to-do list. Some things just take time. See also User:Risker/Copyedit Requests. Risker (talk)
ough to rid me of before I even get around to logging on. Risker (talk) 12:32, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

"Trust me, I'm an admin"

That's from our Famous Last Words Department.

Unaccustomed as I am to browsing other than as an admin, I temporarily forgot that a non-admin who lands on a deleted page, e.g. by clicking this, sees more than a note of just the latest deletion. In that state of ignorance, I thought that the fix to this would be very simple. Well, I was wrong. Sorryyyyy.

Personally I don't think that the slur (if that's what it is) is oversightworthy, but I also don't think that the history merits protection from oversighting. If I were the autocrat of WP, I'd just zap the history without hesitation. But I'm not, and rules are rules, and you're surely more familiar with them than I am. (Plus you've got all those super gee-whiz buttons to play with.) What's the best way to proceed? -- Hoary (talk) 03:37, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Why don't you just move the page to an obscure place and delete the redirect? Or wouldn't that solve the problem? --Hans Adler (talk) 09:03, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Ah, but the redirect would have a history.... Arguably, it would be an improvement; however, somebody might well object to mess involved. The cleanest way to do this would I think be to OS-delete the last three or so edits, and then to redelete the article in an innocuous fashion. (Incidentally, I'm not entirely sure that it was speediable, but I'm glad that nobody is contesting that.) -- Hoary (talk) 09:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Fascinating discussion, gentlemen, and one close to my heart; thanks for bringing it to this page. On doing a bit of research, it appears that (when not logged in), the Misplaced Pages page that shows the edit/log summaries for the deleted edits is the #2 Google hit for the subject of the article. It's not very pleasant to have that #2 hit saying that you are self-promoting; it's easily perceived as a slur upon one's reputation and, if it appeared in an article's text rather than the edit summary, most administrators would delete that particular edit at the request of its subject. Of course, as it currently stands, admins aren't able to "delete" the content of edit/log summaries, but those of us with oversight permissions can "hide" it. As there is a request that the information be removed being made by someone who we can reasonably assume is the likely subject, I will "hide" that edit summary. Your "trust me, I'm an admin" isn't problematic in my mind, though, Hoary.

A somewhat larger issue is that the edit/log summary is derived directly from the text of the nomination for CSD. This is intended to be a MediaWiki "feature" but has caused issues in the past (e.g., first sentences of attack articles automatically winding up in edit summaries, inappropriate comments in nominations being imprinted on logs). This is probably worthy of further review outside of this specific case, and I will try to formulate some thoughts on the subject. If one or the other of you beats me to it (which would be pretty easy given my time constraints), please link me to the discussion. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, Hoary. Risker (talk) 17:46, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

automatically archiving Misplaced Pages talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard?

I think that setting up automatic archiving of Misplaced Pages talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard would be a good idea, and possibly Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard as well, but I don't know where the proper place to make the suggestion would be. The most logical place seems to be on the talk page itself, but that page has (so far) been used solely for discussing the contents of the noticeboard. So I'm not sure what to do. I desperately want to create Misplaced Pages talk talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard, but I doubt that my suggestion would get much of a response if I did that :P J.delanoy_adds 22:13, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, there's been some sort of discussion about this on Misplaced Pages talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard, but the clerks will probably remember better than I would. Probably the best place to raise the question is on that page itself. Personally, I'm inclined to having a rather extended period before archiving (a couple of weeks at least) for most posts, although I concede that some announcements are less ...umm... memorable than others. Risker (talk) 22:50, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard#Archiving--Tznkai (talk) 14:02, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Tznkai! Risker (talk) 15:29, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Thurbert Baker vandalism

You may already know this, but the same POV, undue-weight (and copyvio) edits that have been repeatedly done by multiple IPs on the Baker article have also been done on Sonny Perdue and Michael F. Adams. I just reverted it on those articles. Thanks. Ward3001 (talk) 19:13, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I've SP'd Perdue and fully protected Adams for the time being, requesting that discussion happen on the Adams page to determine proper weight of any additions. If problems continue after the full protection on the Adams article expires, please let me or another admin know so it can be reprotected. Lar has a special subpage for BLPs that require additional eyes and possible protection, if you haven't seen it. Risker (talk) 19:21, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Your note

It's a question of trolling, Risker, not sockpuppetry. This is someone who used to do it, and has arrived again. I've been ignoring her as she made her way through several articles I edit, but I resisted at AR, because I'd like to get it to FA. Then Lar, who is attacking me on and offwiki, arrived to give me a "warning." What readers think does matter, yes, but it would be good if this could be a decent place for contributors too. Anyway, others have joined in the discussion at AR, so the content issue will resolve itself, and now that more eyes are on the editing patterns, I hope and believe the whole thing will stop. I will send more details when I get a chance. Best, SlimVirgin 01:59, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Request re terms nationalism/nationalistic

Hi Risker - could we talk a moment? Could you try and discourage the use of the words nationalism/nationalistic at the ArbCom? By committee members, at least. I know it's not the most pejorative term on the block, but it's certainly not productive. I doubt whether it's used by UN negotiators. Novickas (talk) 13:26, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Do I get a blue helmet if I undertake this mission?  ;-) Joking aside, I do understand your concerns, but would be interested in hearing alternative terms, because most of the ones that are coming to my mind on short notice are more pejorative than "nationalistic". Risker (talk) 13:31, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

That looks likely to give a person hat hair. Well, this author describes patriotic as more neutral . But I could try and cough up some more, maybe from UN sources...Novickas (talk) 13:38, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, it looks like the words are used in a fair number of UN documents. . And I suppose editors will say they are just calling a spade a spade. Altho we can't be in on the highest levels of diplomacy, do you not agree that they probably describe it as something like "disputed terminology" rather than "competing nationalistic claims" when they discuss it? Novickas (talk) 14:00, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Jack McClellan

I noticed that last month you deleted the article on this guy. I found out because I was reading an article about him from CNET Network news here and thought it would make a good reference to add. But when I went to add it, it was deleted. I am really confused about this, how much time did you give people to improve it? Do you have a copy of the former contents? I would be willing to host it on my userspace until it is adequately developed to be considered for inclusion in an article. I figured it would be better to contact you about this first, as opposed to simply recreating it. This way, I can understand what happened and not go through similar problems. Previous to you, a redirect or something was deleted so I am guessing it was developed after that.

The thing is, this guy does seem notable. Reporters interviewed police, he was on talk shows, and a UCLA teacher was commenting. If there were problems with the article, couldn't they have been sorted out without deleting it? If you thought he lacked importance, perhaps you could make a list of seminotable people and put him as one section on it, but to outright delete it just seems a bit wasteful. Due to this, an entire editing history on the article would be lost. I will go read the vote for deletion and stuff to learn more I guess. Tyciol (talk) 03:03, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

In answer to your key question, much of the content in the article was completely unsourced, several of the sources used did not meet WP:RS, and many of the references used did not support the statements they were being used to reference. There is nothing special about this man, as is true of the overwhelming majority of people subject to court injunctions. Being mentioned in news items, primarily as an example to illustrate the subject of the article, doesn't establish notability. In other words, this article was not meeting any standards for inclusion and was essentially violating our BLP policy as it stood. Given all of the above, I am not prepared to userfy the content as it existed at the time of deletion.

I would have considered emailing you a copy of the article as it existed at the time of deletion, had you been an editor involved in its development; however, I don't see any contributions by you in its article history, so I can't really entertain that option. I don't want to close the door on this discussion, though, so if you have other suggestions, I would be happy to respond. Others watching this page who have an interest in the subject might also chime in, and I'd welcome further comment all around. Risker (talk) 13:25, 21 April 2009 (UTC)