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Polly Toynbee edit

hi CIreland. Regarding Polly Toynbee edit, the information of her political leanings is in no way pejorative. She openly aspouses both left-wing views and socially liberal ones in the National Press in the UK. It is important that wiki gives as much informtation as possible and that it doesn't filter anything out to satisfy certain predjudices. I ask you to stop the content deletion being performed and leave my valid information in tact.

Formal Mediation for Sports Logos

As a contributor to Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content/RFC_on_use_of_sports_team_logos/Archive_1, I have included you in a request for formal mediation regarding the subject at Misplaced Pages:Requests for mediation/Use of Sports Logos. With your input and agreement to work through mediation, I hope we can achieve a lasting solution. — BQZip01 —  06:36, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

The Patrick M. McCarthy article.

You deleted the Patrick M. McCarthy article, back in September. I didn't understand your explanation of your deletion, at the time. I still don't.

You said, at the time, that you had deleted articles before, in similar circumstances, using the same reasoning. Now, ten months later, do you still believe your actions were justified by policy? Have you continued to undelete articles, using the same reasoning?

You told me, at the time, that the normal channels for requesting undeletion were closed for that article. I didn't understand that explanation either.

The option you laid out for me, for requesting undeletion through another channel -- is it still your position that normal undeletion is still closed for this article? Is it still your position that the only choice for requesting undeletion is that special undeletion process? Geo Swan (talk) 18:02, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Hello once more. I'll try to reply to your questions in the sequence they were posed:

• I have deleted other articles using the same broad principles laid out in policy; except in the most trivial cases the precise reasoning tends to be specific to the article. The McCarthy article was slightly unusual insofar as I first needed to get the agreement of the admin that closed the AfD to overturn his decision; for this reason and for transparency I logged the deletion at WP:BLPLOG; this particular set of circumstances has only arisen in this particular case.

• My understanding of policy is that when an action is logged at WP:BLPLOG, the correct community channel to discuss it is at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement. That's not my "position" as such, I was and am simply telling you what it says at Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons/Special enforcement log. If there are other options, I am not aware of them; you could ask at the Administrator's Noticeboard if anyone else has any other ideas.

• It's not my "position" that normal undeletion is still closed for this article; I'm simply repeating the instructions laid out at WP:BLPLOG. You could try to go to Deletion Review if you wish, but in my opinion you will likely be directed to Arbitration enforcement. CIreland (talk) 18:28, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Brand Hong Kong

Hi CIreland. I presume you work for Misplaced Pages? I hope so as what I presumed to be a relatively straightforward process is becoming a nightmare. As you may have picked up if you read through my thread, I work for BrandHK but I am acting as an individual in trying to update the BrandHK page, which contains out-of-date and inaccurate material.

Firstly, are you saying that it is necessary to re-write everything that can be found in Brand Hong Kong text? This doesn't make good sense as it is tantamount to reinventing the Brand.

For example, take the following sentence:

The BrandHK identity comprises three elements: a stylised dragon, the logotype “Hong Kong” and the brandline “Asia’s world city”. This is a statment of fact about the Brand. To rejig the sentence seems absurd - what should I do? put the brandline before the dragon?

In actual fact, as I was at pains to point out to Mr Hong, I have already re-written most of the material that I posted up yesterday, so I remain at a loss as to why this copyright issue has come up in the first place. Can you please identify which elements or sentences are regarded as breaching somebody's copyright?

Another point: Some of the material on Misplaced Pages's current BrandHK page is being used without BrandHK permission - the dragon logo, for example. How did this come about if Misplaced Pages is so picky about what goes on its pages? I want to upload the correct BrandHK dragon image, which is supposed to be inseperable from the tag "Asia's world city" and the logotype "Hong Kong".

Please clarify! I have lost a lot of time on this. Many thanks PMJ Regan (talk) 03:36, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I have replied at your talk page. CIreland (talk) 13:06, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Use of self-published websites?

Recently you helped arbitrate a matter concerning Possible legal threat on Talk:Supermarine Spitfire

Fair enough, I was in the wrong and I admit it; I was in the middle of a stressful time. Unfortunately I allowed this to colour my comments in that discussion and elsewhere. However, since then Kurfūrst has insisted on using a self-published website as a reference; when challenged on this in http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Messerschmitt_Bf_109 16: Continued use of self-published websites he resorts to a classic red herring by drawing attention to my error, without attempting to explain why a self-published website should stay, then he starts attacking my editing

15:15, 22 June 2009 Kurfürst (talk | contribs) (139,574 bytes) (→F-3, F-4, F-5, F-6: restore bad-faith edits removing references; no evidence of self publishing) (undo) 09:06, 24 June 2009 Kurfürst (talk | contribs) (138,506 bytes) (Undid revision 298254290 by Minorhistorian (talk) reverting bad-faith edits removing references from respected author) (undo) (cur) (prev) 09:05, 24 June 2009 Kurfürst (talk | contribs) (138,388 bytes) (Undid revision 298253576 by Minorhistorian (talk) reverting bad-faith edits removing references) (undo)

and continues to use this material. He has also removed material from Supermarine Spitfire (early Merlin powered variants) article which I thought was appropriate according to a comment by Stifle (talk)

"There's no legal threat here at all. The use of references such as the one removed here is not appropriate; the reference should point to the original document in the archive, not to a photograph of unclear provenence on some random amateur website."

As a result of this I changed the disputed links to the third party website to a link to the National Archives at Kew which, according to everything I have read, is a legitimate source to use on Misplaced Pages. I have used the same link for another article. This link has now been removed by Kurfürst with the comment:

15:06, 22 June 2009 Kurfürst (talk | contribs) (78,749 bytes) (→Mk I (Type 300): unverifiable source, verification needed. Possible miuse?

I would have thought that Kurfürst, who was involved in this discussion would be aware that such a link can be used, as long as it is not interpreted. As you can see there is also secondary, published material cited. Instead, because he disagreed with the information, he removed it without further discussion. This editor is constantly at loggerheads with others, as you can see by his history. He insists that other editors follow the rules while he does not, thus creating a great deal of tension on various pages. He is also very good at citing Misplaced Pages rules to attack other editor's work. Personally I have no wish to be wasting my time in this way; I ask for your help, as a neutral administrator. Thanks Minorhistorian (talk) 12:04, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Hello, I'm trying to look into this at the moment. Please could you provide me a list of articles/talk pages where the disgreements have occurred. CIreland (talk) 12:12, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

The main pages are

here I admit that I was under pressure because of events that were external to Misplaced Pages so I could have negotiated in a better frame of mind. Still, in this article he has removed the link to the National Archives in spite of both you and William M Connolley both saying you could see no problem with using it.

On the latter page Kurfürst attempted to make a rather bizarre claim about my "ownership" of a website (instead of merely being an "associate", which he claimed elsewhere) and continued to push the theme in spite of my assurances that this simply is not true. I found his attitude offensive and aggressive and reacted accordingly. Other pages where he has used similar tactics

I have not been involved in editing either of these articles. What is clear is that Kurfürst lays down the law, demands other editors not rely on websites or primary resources and warns them that they may be "reported" for abuse, yet, when it comes to being challenged, he too resorts to abuse and continues to use websites which are not backed up by reliable, published sources.

This claim

09:06, 24 June 2009 Kurfürst (talk | contribs) (138,506 bytes) (Undid revision 298254290 by Minorhistorian (talk) reverting bad-faith edits removing references from respected author) is not backed up by facts; I cannot find any publication by the website owner Michael Rausch

I am all too aware that passions can be raised and strongly held opinions will be challenged on Misplaced Pages but this kind of behaviour does not help anyone. His latest arrogant and casual dismissal of my legitimate concerns on the Bf 109 talk page is his typical way of dealing with such issues. Personally I am not much bothered by such things except that I am clearly wasting valuable time trying to negotiate with him in any reasonable way and his latest nonsense is not worth the trouble of answering. Cheers Minorhistorian (talk) 23:04, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

While I am inclined to disagree with the somewhat heavy handed removal of the sources by Kurfurt, I would restate what I said earlier: cite the original source, not a photographic reproduction. This is the only correct option from both a scholarly and a legal/copyright perspective. Also, when using primary sources, be very careful that you do not do so in an interpretative manner; referencing primary sources should only be used in an encyclopaedia to verify unambiguous facts and ought not to be used to draw conclusions. For the interpretation of primary source material (i.e. the activity of professional historians), you need to cite a secondary, preferably scholarly, source.

My overall opinion is that Kurfurst has been overzealous but his reversions are not really contestable until the referencing is improved. CIreland (talk) 11:37, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Could you please provide some examples of how to cite a primary source such as the National Archives at Kew, with such a secondary source? I attempted this but, according to Kurfurst this in still unacceptable. Also, could you please explain why this http://www.beim-zeugmeister.de/zeugmeister/index.php?id=38 is acceptable source material? Kurfurst continues to cite this while he demands other editors remove such websites. Regards Minorhistorian (talk) 23:11, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

It's a little complex but the best way is to use {{Citation}}, there are full instructions on the page but basically you just fill in as many fields as possible, miss out any that don't apply and leave blank any fields where the information applies but is unknown. As for , I am afraid the little German that I learnt at school makes it hard for me to determine the suitability of the source so you would be better asking someone else. CIreland (talk) 14:31, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Request for mediation not accepted

A Request for Mediation to which you were are a party was not accepted and has been delisted. You can find more information on the case subpage, Misplaced Pages:Requests for mediation/Use of Sports Logos. For the Mediation Committee, Ryan Postlethwaite 02:20, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

bans

re: the Topic Ban on CoM page. Ahh ... I see, in the Clerk Notes the comment by Coren. Apologies for my lack of understanding. I have never spent much time reading much of the Arb Com stuff, but I looked over the "sanctions" of the CoM/Obama decision, and hadn't seen any mention of the XfD areas. No offense intended, and thank you for the clarification. — Ched :  ?  13:43, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the comment removal at that AFD discussion

My main concern was over the break in discussion continuity. There were comments made after his comment which referred back to his comment made by other editors in good faith who were unaware of the details of the arbcom decision. So yes, I concede that he violated his arbcom sanctions here. However, in the interest of preserving the discussion continuity, removal of those comments was not particularly helpful. If no one had commented after he had made his comments, then perhaps it would have been OK to remove them. However, enforcement of the sanction without regard for how it would screw up later events is probably unwise here. Again, if he needs to be admonished for breaking his arbcom sanction, and if such break needs to be documented, go ahead. I'm not sure as yet its a blockable offense, but perhaps a warning and documentation in the enforcement section of the arbcom page in question would work here. However, in this specific instance, removal of his comments probably did more harm than good. I have no other opinion on any future violations and how they should be dealt with, but in this case the removal caused problems. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 13:43, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Does this work for you? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 13:51, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

And again, just to clarify my position; it was not my intention to offend you by undoing your actions unilaterally. I merely was interested in preserving the discussion continuity. I think we have reached a reasonable compromise here, n'est ce pas? --Jayron32.talk.contribs 13:54, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm wasn't offended; I've thicker skin than that. All sorted now. CIreland (talk) 13:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Can you look into.

On Ani there is a thread on the spamm articles you just got through deleteing. Can you look into this, in my opinion a short term block is very apprpriate. thread is called spammerHell in a Bucket (talk) 14:11, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll keep an eye on him but for the moment I am not inclined to block the user unless the warnings are ignored. CIreland (talk) 14:13, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok they have been several times so far but as long as someone watches i'll be satisfied. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 14:15, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Please stop threats of blocking on my talk page

Your comment on my talk page was unnecessarily provocative and disruptive. Threats of blocking do not help this situation. Please stop this. Thanks. Peter Damian (talk) 15:01, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I have now commented on this on Misplaced Pages Review. Threats like this are counterproductive as they suggest to the large audience now reading this thread that Misplaced Pages is trying to suppress good-faith and conscientious dissent by those who are wanting reform. But of course you weren't trying to do that, were you? Peter Damian (talk) 15:04, 28 June 2009 (UTC)