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Thank you

Thanks for reverting vandalism on my RfA. I think it's unfortunate that semiprotecting it was necessary. —Cuiviénen on Friday, 9 June 2006 at 21:37 UTC

WP:DATE

Would you add a note to Talk:Switzerland explaining why on 1848 and the other pre-1848 dates were delinked. Thanks. -- User:Docu

Your userpage

Cyde your userpage is scaring me :o . I don't know which way is up anymore. JohnnyBGood t c VIVA! 23:03, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Would you mind changing your userpage to render up and down? Thank you very much, Chuck 05:23, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I was bold and changed it myself (please don't take offense). In the past, user's with confusing userpages have been asked to change them. Later, Chuck 07:35, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

And someone else was bold and changed it back. So my original request to change it stands. Later, Chuck 07:52, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

you can always opt to change it and "show preview" -- you reap the benefit of a cyde's userpage being rendered the way you like without inflicting your change on cyde or anyone else. frymaster 18:58, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Userpages are supposed to be readable, not sideways. Chuck 22:29, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

i concur. which is why i keep my userpage in an uppy-downy fashion. however, cyde likes his sideways for whatever reason and who am i to give him grief over it? -- frymaster 15:44, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Sig

You don't think changing the user's cursor is kind of obnoxious? Stevage 15:34, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

don't go there. trust me. frymaster 15:39, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

My Sig

Used to be:

 NikoSilver 

Now is:

:NikoSilver:

I shrunk about half. Please vist my signature shop and its talk for details on the issue. (I am a little bit of a deranged schizo myself so don't push it further please!) :-) :NikoSilver: 17:05, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Kent Hovind article

Hello Cyde. Love your name. You reverted a number of edits I made to the above-referenced article, with the edit summary "Why were all of Hovind's political views removed from the article?!" I explain my reasons for removal on the talk page. In short, I did not think they were relevant, as Hovind is known for advocating creationism, not for his other views. If you do not agree, please discuss this on the talk page. Most of my edits were aimed more at making the article better organized and deleting material that was repeated. I also added a section on the Hovind and the Big Bang. Please review these changes and explain why you think they should be deleted. --JChap 19:55, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Have you been to a Kent Hovind performance in person? I have. Or, hell, you can just download one online (he releases all of his stuff into the public domain). Half of Kent Hovind's shtick is on topics other than evolution. He rants, at length, about exactly the kind of stuff you excised from the article. Kent Hovind is notable for being a lunatic, not just a specifically anti-evolution lunatic. It's relevant. --Cyde↔Weys 20:08, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I watched some of his stuff while researching the changes for the article and I agree that he talks about politics a lot (mostly in relation to evolution). However, my non-original research was unable to establish that anybody pays much attention to his views on these topics, other than on the websites dedicated to him. I discuss this on the article's talk page. Most of my edits did not even involve the discussion of his political views, though. I was trying to make the existing article read better by organizing it and deleting repetitious material. I also added a discussion of his "refutation" of the Big Bang theory. I don't understand why you found it necessary to revert these edits as well. Best. --JChap 21:08, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Reply to your comment on ANI 19:51, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I was going to reply there but realise that isn't the place for this (especially after the edit conflict comment that appeared by JDoorjam in between), but I still feel it should be said so:

Well if you feel that why don't you delete the LGBT one? After all in your delete summary you said you were not biased... (disclaimer: I am not really suggesting you go and delete that one out of process, it just seems like you're being inconstant, which could lead to accusations of bias, which is why we have 'proper processes'.). It does not seem to be an 'outrageous violation', at least not to everyone. Violation possibly, but people are disputing the point, and the debate should be allowed to happen. The proper place for that debate is MFD. Petros471 20:00, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

BOT for Vandalism

I was looking for blood hound (dog) which redirected to 50 cent's Get Rich or Die trying.

WP:CFD/W

you tagged some that bots cant do, Why cant they? Betacommand 22:56, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Because they can't. Try it. Bots can't (yet) figure out templated category syntax, e.g. {{foobar|Category=U.S. trains}} on the article and ] in the template. --Cyde↔Weys 13:01, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

substing {{deleted page}}

What's the deal? Do we do it? Do we not? It's on low traffic pages, and template talk says not to subst to save diskspace - so I started adding long comment tags to prevent appearance on Special:Shortpages. Any particular reason why you are substing it? Thanks for clarification. - CrazyRussian talk/email 15:12, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Huh? Disk space? Don't be silly. The full text of the template is less than 3KB. I could substitute that template 100 million times and it'd fit on a single hard drive. In general, don't worry about hard drive space or CPU utilization or whatever; the dev team worries about that (since they actually know what's going on), and if they actually see a problem, they will let us know. But it isn't worth worrying on their behalf over such trivial things as a few kilobytes. Hell, everytime you save a revision to WP:ANI you're using up an amount of space equivalent to one hundred substitutions of {{Deletedpage}}. So instead of coming after me, go after the people posting nonsense or trivial contents on there.

As for substituting {{deletedpage}}, I do it because userspace templates should be substituted unless there is a compelling reason not to. Templates change over time ... and old deletedpage templates that weren't substituted are now pointing to Afd rather than Vfd, which isn't correct, because the article's deletion discussion was held on a Vfd subpage, and those subpages weren't moved over. Substitution preserves the exact look of that page which won't change over time ... for stuff like user page templates, this is a wise idea. --Cyde↔Weys 15:30, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, that made it clear. Except it's not a userspace template. But the rationale would be the same anyway. - CrazyRussian talk/email 20:04, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Sidekick

Cyde, what was your rationale on the deletion of the Sidekick AfD? Could you expand it, since I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion. Thanks. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:28, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

this edit

I think your bot missed. --Bachrach44 18:39, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Procedure?!

Unfortunately, like most things I see in your admin actions, the latest rather alarmed me for procedural reasons. You just closed the AfD at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/How NOT to steal a SideKick 2; but you had participated in the AfD discussion, so were not a neutral administrator. This is just wrong.

FWIW, I completely agree with the action to delete. I voiced that opinion myself (and also did some work to refactor the AfD to indicate more clearly the large number of brand new editors who were recruited from outside WP to express "keep" votes). It was clearly the strong super majority opinion. And moreover, "delete" is just plain the right action per WP notability guidelines. But someone else should have taken that right action to close as delete. LotLE×talk 18:43, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

What the hell do you mean "someone else"? For Christ's sakes, you're never going to get over it and you're never going to trust me to handle anything, is that it? --Cyde↔Weys 18:45, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Not when I keep seeing this sort of thing, no I'm not. A closing admin on an AfD should be one uninvolved with the article and the AfD discussion. Period. This is pretty basic Admin 101. There are hundreds of admins who never contributed to that AfD discussion... one of them should have been the closing admin. This is my major problem with your pattern of actions: it's not really that your actions are wrong per se, but that you show such complete contempt for procedural fairness; I believe you have a belief that you are so much smarter or better than all other admins that you have some right to act even when you have a direct conflict of interest.

Likewise with that AfD about the GWB impeachment thing. You were a strong partisan of the issue, and also closed it prematurely. In fact, I believe that after it was reopened, the reasonable "keep" turned into a "delete" largely in reaction to your improper action. I voted the same way as you, so it's not about the outcome, but the procedure.

And also likewise with your vindictive 3RR on me. As you'll recall, I activiely solicited my own block from another admin who had no conflict of interest when I realized I got carried away and, in fact, 3RR'd. So again, the outcome wasn't wrong (well, you also 3RR'd several others without justification simply because they were on "my side"). But given your very recent history of animosity towards me, this also should have been something carried out by any other admin.

And also likewise with your modifying protected template pages to advertise for your own semi-bot tool. If anyone else had done it, it wouldn't be a direct conflict of interest... but it was you.

And... ad nauseum. All of this adds up to extremely irresponsible use of admin powers. A good admin should recuse him or herself from issues s/he is directly involved in. With 1.2 million pages to choose from, that leaves plenty of places to use an admin hat... but instead you use it primarily as a form of bullying. LotLE×talk 19:08, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Those templates were protected because they were high-visibility vandal targets, not because there was any sort of editing dispute. Administrators can edit permanently protected pages at will. --Cyde↔Weys 19:19, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I still don't understand your closure, and he does have a point, it is suggested that those involved with the debate not close. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:02, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

The subject of the article is incredibly non-notable. I do suppose this questioning of motives is inevitable anytime a "hotly contested" Afd is closed. --Cyde↔Weys 19:04, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

So how did you judge notability in the close? Because by any relevant standard or guideline, this met it. That's where my personal confusion lies, and you didn't expound much in your closing statement. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:05, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

As I say above, I firmly and absolutely believe that delete was the correct action. I wish, wish, wish, Cyde that you could get it through your head that procedure matters. There were plenty of admins who never voted in the AfD, nor edited the page. You were not one of them. LotLE×talk 19:08, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not even sure if delete was the correct action. I didn't even realize he was involved in the debate until I saw this comment. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:10, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I'm sure about the outcome. If you look at the votes, there were a number of keep votes, but virtually every single one of them was cast by either an IP address or an editor with fewer than 10 edits (usually just one or two total; obviously joining just to vote in the AfD). Of the voters with an established history, well over 90% voted "delete", and many of those "strong delete". Moreover, even if you look at the "established" voters, you might notice that most of the few "keep" votes come from editors with rather brief edit histories: more than 10 prior edits, but mostly in the 20-50 edit range (in other words, definitely not sockpuppets or meatpuppets, but also not editors well steeped in WP's conventions). So the outcome seems pretty clear, and would have been a no-brainer (IMO) for an uninvolved admin. LotLE×talk 19:15, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and of those 90% or whatever who voted "delete, nn," all of them were wrong - notability was firmly established by a variety of media attention taht would get any other article that didn't involve a web meme to be kept. We don't vote count, contrary to popular myth. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:18, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Media attention doesn't make something notable. The media reports on lots of stupid, non-notable shit. Every week there's some random cat in a tree that gets national media attention. This is an encyclopedia, not a news compendium - can you honestly say that, down the line, this little theft of a PDA is going to be remembered by anyone? --Cyde↔Weys 19:20, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Undoubtedly yes, I can. Every single possible applicable guideline for notability was met by this article, I have no idea how you come out with saying this isn't notable. If you can explain why either a) the guidelines don't matter in this case, or b) what guideline(s) the article didn't meet, then I'll be glad to drop it, but you have to offer a little something to work with. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:25, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Lulu - here's a problem with your little set of restrictions. Rather than having a comment in that Afd, I could've just closed it then (it had already run long enough). Would that have made me more or less "evil" from your point of view? Getting to close Afds is much, much more power than a simple comment (which is all I had previously made, a simple comment). I wasn't involved in the large argument over that page in any real way. --Cyde↔Weys 19:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it had quite run long enough when you opined. You also refactored the AfD slightly by changing the titles about "new/established" editors; which is a minimal "involvement". But, yes, if you had waited a day or two, not commented, and then closed it as "delete", I would have been utterly happy with the behavior. The point of recusal isn't that someone with an interest will necessarily reach the wrong result, it's that they cannot be sufficiently neutral... even the appearance of conflict is disruptive (both to more important things like judges on courts, and to less important things like admins at WP). LotLE×talk 19:22, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Collective nouns

Btw. my "little set of restrictions" are known as "policy for administrators". LotLE×talk 19:22, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

s/are/is/ for great grammar --Cyde↔Weys 19:24, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't grade you down if you used a singular verb with "set" in my class, but I'd circle the error.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters (talk • contribs)

It's a collective noun, it takes the singluar, not the plural. Good thing you're not an English professor .. --Cyde↔Weys 19:34, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

• The gaggle of geese is*/are crossing the street.
• The bunch of grapes is*/are tasty.
• The Congress is*/are considering a bill.
• The data is*/are conclusive.

See the pattern? Your error is common though. What on earth gave you the idea I'm not an English professor? LotLE×talk 19:37, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

See the pattern in what? The first one is "is", the second is "is", the third is "is", and the fourth is variable depending on whether you take data to be singular or plural (theoretically the singular form of data is datum, but really no one says it that way). The only pattern I'm seeing is that you're consistently wrong. --Cyde↔Weys 19:44, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Seriously? You'd use "is" in (1), and consider it in (4)!? The plural does tend toward British-ism, but the singular sounds absolutely dead wrong to my American ear in (1) and (4). In a more formal style, I'd definitely always use plural in (3), but I think newspapers split on this. I can "get" the singular in (2), though it wouldn't be my first choice. I wonder if the trend toward singularization is a mid-Atlanticism (you're from Maryland, right?). Oh well, I've been in New England for 15 years, and I still can't imagine standing "on line". LotLE×talk 19:56, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

"The geese are crossing the street", but, "The gaggle is crossing the street." Gaggle is a collective noun, thus making it singular, not plural. "Of geese" is just a modifying clause. You're doing the plural agreement to the modifying clause rather than to the actual subject noun, which is incorrect. --Cyde↔Weys 20:01, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh well, I mourn the decline in American university education. Thankfully, at least my publishers still have some editors with a good sense of the English language. And I suppose I'll be dead before spoken language is entirely doggerel, hopefully occasional mellifluous sentences will survive until then. LotLE×talk 20:54, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

It's funny how you're being so melodramatic about grammar rules while at the same time so wrong about them. --Cyde↔Weys 18:04, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

AntiVandalBot blocked due to malfunctioning

I hated to do this, but I've blocked AntiVandalBot (talk · contribs) due to malfuctioning. It was reverting edits outside of the article namespace, which it was not supposed to be doing. Several legitimate editors had been warned for testing on the introduction page. Tawkerbot2 also made some reverts outside the main namespace, but I didn't block it since it wasn't making bad reverts unlike AntiVandalBot. After all, we should still have at least one anti-vandalism bot running. Could you please look into this? Thanks. --Ixfd64 16:33, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that was a recent change we made to increase the number of namespaces it fixed vandalism on, obviously it needs some work, so I've reverted the change and I'm running him just on main namespaces now. --Cyde↔Weys 18:12, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

• him? you gave your anti-vandal bot a personal pronoun?--172.167.8.165 19:31, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Well he does have a boolean variable in his source cade named "isMale" that I have set to True, so yes, I do call him a him. --Cyde↔Weys 19:40, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

The William H. Block Company

As a first time contributor, please enlighten me as to why I am blocked from the web site after posting a historical reference article on a defunct department store company. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EssEff (talk • contribs)

You're not blocked and you never have been blocked. Also, plese sign your posts. --Cyde↔Weys 19:50, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

• could it be an autoblock?--172.167.8.165 20:17, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Could be. This guy just hasn't given me enough information to act on though. He doesn't cite the edit that he was supposedly blocked over nor does he cite his real account name or IP address that he edited from. There's nothing I can do because I have no idea what he's talking about. --Cyde↔Weys 20:20, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
    • He seems to have only ever edited William H. Block, which btw looks a bit too much like an nn-bio/advertising, so I'd guess he's referring to that--172.167.8.165 20:23, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
      • I've never even seen that article before and thus I haven't taken any admin actions on related editors, sooo, I'm wondering if this guy is confusing me for someone else? --Cyde↔Weys 20:26, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

User:172.167.8.165/monobook.js

would you mind terribly if you could create this page for me? you're an admin so you should be able to not only create a new page, but edit a page that in theory is protected by defualt. Once you create it, I should be able to edit it myself--172.167.8.165 20:18, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Monobook.js isn't even going to work on an anonymous account. You're going to need to register a real user account. --Cyde↔Weys 20:21, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

If you don't clear your browser cache after logging off, they actually seem to keep working for a little while, I've been vaugly curious if they would work on an ip, I guess you answered my question--172.167.8.165 20:24, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh, it might work, I have no idea. We just don't give JavaScripts to anonymous users for entirely different reasons. User interface scripting is limited on a per account basis, as there's no guarantee multiple users aren't going to end up using any single IP address (even static IP addresses end up being re-assigned after someone cancels their account). The potential to allow setting user interface adjustments is too dangerous, so it's strictly limited to registered accounts. --Cyde↔Weys 20:29, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Category:Dead People

Is there a point in recreating this category as {{deletedpage}}? That way, it exists, and can be added to articles. Kusma (討論) 22:11, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I was trying to prevent against recreation, but actually, pages can be inserted into categories whether the category exists or not. --Cyde↔Weys 22:13, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I know, but a redlinked category at least alerts editors that it doesn't exist. Too bad we don't have a way to mark a category as "This category shouldn't exist". Kusma (討論) 22:17, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

AntiVandalBot

Yay! More bots on the patrol! (which is also bad since it steals my reverts =]) I'm just curious; how did you get around to running...well...an anti-vandal bot? — Preceding unsigned comment added by M1ss1ontomars2k4 (talk • contribs)

I'm just sort of heavily involved in Misplaced Pages's inner workings, and I'm pretty good at programming, that's all. There's all sorts of back channels of communication for Misplaced Pages if you're really interested ... try starting out with the IRC channels. --Cyde↔Weys 03:10, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Your bot

seems to be malfunctioning and is doing something weird to this page: I've posted on alerts and hopefully someone can block it until you can fix it. --Crossmr 03:48, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

• Actually it's working perfectly fine, there's just a lot of categories that have been deleted. --Cyde↔Weys 03:49, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

• you couldn't find a way to put that in a single edit? Its making a mess out of the history of that page.--Crossmr 03:52, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

• I'll look into modifying pyWikipediaBot to allow it to remove multiple categories at once, I already did so for templates. --Cyde↔Weys 03:55, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

• That is a good idea because its very easy to mistake for a malfunctioning bot in that circumstance. --Crossmr 03:56, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

• Yup, a lot of pages on popular models got very interesting today. Also, running this bot revealed some pretty weird errors wherein some pages were included in the same categories multiple times! That really doesn't make any sense. --Cyde↔Weys 04:02, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

• Ouch, well I'd certainly hope that you can find a way to make it a single edit. Otherwise I'd question how much benefit a bot is that needs to sit on a page for what looks like 3 hours making edit after edit after edit. It makes it hard to revert vandalism with that going on (which is what I was there to do) because you can't do a simple revert while you sit there trying to figure out what that thing is doing. --Crossmr 04:08, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

• It shouldn't be too hard to figure out ... the bot is quite obviously explaining what it is doing in every single edit. It is kind of sad I had to go through and delete all of these categories though ... someone did spend a bit of time populating them. I just wish they had consulted with someone first, and they would've realized this wasn't exactly a good idea to start off with. --Cyde↔Weys 04:10, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

• I'll know the next time I see that kind of flood whats going on. Glad it was working as it should have been. --Crossmr 04:13, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

• Hopefully there won't be a next time. I've done a lot of Cfd work and this was the first time I've seen pages that have been in literally dozens of categories that all needed to be deleted. It's really an edge case - not exemplary of typical Cfd work at all. --Cyde↔Weys 04:15, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you can help with some advice

I've run into a problem user. I've posted it on a couple abuse boards but I haven't received any feedback, but this one I know there is a problem. I found this person User:Eep² over-linking pages. It goes against manual of style, and I consider it abuse when he goes through and links every single word he can find even to wikitionary if there isn't a wikipedia article on it. He marks every edit as minor Special:Contributions/Eep² and has done this to a lot of pages. I've started to clean it up..but its a mammoth task, and its not simple reverts because people have just added to the pages without bothering to revert first. He's expressed a disdain for wiki policy on his user/talk pages and was previously noted about not doing this. --Crossmr 04:18, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Can you give me some specific diffs? Thanks. --Cyde↔Weys 04:21, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Yup sorry. This is where I first discovered the overlinking. SOmeone on the talk page mentioned it had to be cleaned up so I dug through the history to find out who did it and found that it was him this is when I started digging through his contribs and noticed that he had a history of doing this to a tong of pages. I'll dig up some others for you. Thats a pretty solid example of what he's done to big articles. --Crossmr 04:23, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

here is another example of his handywork here: one edit.

3 more if you want them to establish a definite pattern here:

Oh wow, I didn't realize it was this bad. I've left him a stern warning. I have a lot on my plate to deal with, so if you'd just keep track of him and let me know if he continues with this, that'd be great. Overlinking is actually one of my pet peeves. --Cyde↔Weys 04:31, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

This is only the tip of the iceberg from what I can see on his contrib list. I just noticed he edited again now. I'll keep an eye on what he does. This is why I'm saying its going to take a mammoth task to clean up and it may be worth a mention somewhere that someone will pay attention to it because its probably well beyond me to revert all the damage he's done. --Crossmr 04:49, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

if you want a complete list, I've gone through and tagged the rest of the articles that need clean up with explanations and citations what this user did on each page, along with a note saying I'd try to clean them up as soon as I could, but making readers aware. There are a handful of additional pages but they were small and I quickly edited the few overlinks he put on them. plus about 6 pages I haven't linked that were small. SecondLife is now completely cleaned up. But there are still about 10 pages that need cleaned up, and his most recent seems to be about 10 days ago. So it doesn't appear to be something he's gotten out of his system. There are also 2 or 3 more pages that might be overlinked but I don't know enough on the subject matter to be sure. --Crossmr 07:44, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

AOL range vandal

I noticed that we were getting frequent vandalism from the vandal's IP range 207.200.116.0/24. The telltale sign for now seems to be closely spaced vandalism originating from 207.200.116.*, usually one every 30 seconds or so. Most of the recent edits seem to have fallen into the category of intentionally screwing up Wikimarkup or adding nonsense . It is possible that the recent edits from this range were simply a coincidence from different users, though the fact that they occured within a few seconds of each other seemed suspect. The vandal's last confirmed MO (earlier today) was inserting gibberish or malformatted equations across multiple articles. The vandalism seems to have stopped following the expiry of a 15 minute block I stuck on the IP range. This and past patterns exhibited by the vandal leads me to suspect that we are not dealing with a bot. The most recent edits from that range seem to be mostly okay so far. This would appear to be consistant with his/her past behavior of disappearing for several minutes to hours after a range block. -Loren 04:32, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

I appreciate you removing the Incident report launched against me. Not because I believe it wouldn't have been resolved overwhelmingly in my favor, but because it's a huge waste of time for everyone. Haizum 05:13, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Haizum

You just deleted my complaint at AN/I. I would like to know what you suggest if a user vandalizes a user page, personally attacks repeatedly, incites others not to assume good faith and refuses to resolve the conflict on his talk page? Añoranza 05:15, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

As you can see, the first link goes to an innocent question I was asking this user, the second set of links go to harmless comments that clearly aren't personal attacks, and the third set of links go to my own talk page that has been bombarded with empty NPA and AGF tags with unenforceable blocking threats. I'm sorry and embarassed that your talk page is now home to this clutter. Haizum 05:21, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

All of you involved, please bring this to WP:RFC or Mediation or something. It doesn't belong on ANI, which is the administrator's noticeboard. We don't work out disputes between users there. --Cyde↔Weys 05:24, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Simply look at this user's recent contributions; it's systematic reversion. If anyone dares challenge these actions it becomes an AN/I or RFC. Haizum 05:31, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to have to agree with him here, the use of the link text 1982 Lebanon War makes a lot more sense (and is a lot less POV) than the use of the link text Operation Peace for Galilee. Frankly, the latter just smacks of propaganda, and I've never heard of it ... is it a charity? Is it an ironically named war, and if so, where was it and who was involved in it? "1982 Lebanon War", however, tells you everything you need to know, and it does so neutrally. --Cyde↔Weys 05:38, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, but I think that is a separate discussion. Just look at the frequency of these reverts. This user obviously has these pages marked so that reverts can be made periodically without violating 3RR, in other words, "Gaming the System." On top of that, the focus of this user has been on US actions, not the actions of militaries all over the world. If this user is truly acting in good faith, where are universal corrections? I'm not seeing anything that would allow me to AGF...not to mention the TP spamming. Haizum 05:47, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, look at the contribs now, they are clearly focused on US operations and US military equipment. I refuse to believe this is done in good faith. I mean come on. Haizum 05:50, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Cyde, please, RFCs lead nowhere, they just end up with users throwing mud at each other. I listed very specific violations of Haizum, vandalism, and severe and repeated incivility, justifying a block. This can be done on sight, no RFC needed. Añoranza 06:02, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, just trust me on this one. I've been around for awhile and I've been involved in a fair number of these things myself, so I do believe I know what I'm talking about. RfCs may seemingly end up going nowhere, but in the end, they actually do quite a bit. You'd be surprised. Especially when it comes to arbitration (if it has to come that far), having a previous RfC is a pretty important requirement for getting the RFAR accepted at all. And there are a fair number of admins who will act on RFCs ... it's not uncommon that, if bad actions are conclusively established in an RFC, that admins will pay very close attention to the user and reign him in if he continues. --Cyde↔Weys 06:04, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I do not want to spend half of my wikipedia time answering to innuendo posted on RFCs. Just look at what Zer0faults does since the complaint has filed. Just as before, only a page more to look at where he tries to mislead others. Haizum violated some very specific policies. If a user is blocked for such things, he won't do it again. If he is invited to more spread more mischief, he will spread more mischief. Añoranza 06:11, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

You can file an RFC, spend a good amount of time on it over the course of a week and then be done with it, or you can continue this squabbling and edit-warring for months to come with out-of-place comments on WP:ANI and such where nobody will actually do anything about it because it is the wrong venue. Please, for the love of God, use the dispute resolution process, including but not limited to RFC, RFAR, MedCab, and Mediation Committee. Anything is better than the status quo, which is causing a lot of strife but is solving nothing. --Cyde↔Weys 06:15, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

You're assuming bad faith here. Let me rephrase your argument so you realize how absurd it sounds. He's making corrections to a bunch of pages, but because he's not doing it across the entire encyclopedia, he's doing it in bad faith? Huh? The encyclopedia is huge. He's making some good edits in a field that he's interested in. Remember, this is a volunteer project ... you cannot reasonably expect him to take on this mammoth task. I'm not commenting on any alleged talk page spamming or revert-warring, but I do think these edits to remove propaganda names are reasonable. --Cyde↔Weys 05:51, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I am deductively assuming bad faith here; just look at what he is reverting. You're telling me that the UK, Frace, Germany, etc don't have military operations with code names that could be considered propagandistic? Haizum 05:54, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure all countries have propaganda military operations names. And all of them do need to be cleaned up. But I don't understand how Anoranza correcting a few of them in a certain subject area immediately qualifies as bad faith. I happen to live in Maryland. Let's say I go around editing on Maryland-related articles and modify the categorization scheme. Are you going to accuse me of being a bad faith editor because I'm only editing Maryland-related articles? Would I only be a good-faith editor if I went around and took on the monumental task in all fifty states? --Cyde↔Weys 05:57, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I understand your point, but I don't believe the analogy is fair. You really don't see a whole lot of active interstate criticism going on outside of the court system, or situations where one state is singled out for abuse. The United States on the other hand...well, in your analogy is just another "state" of the world. But let me even counter that analogy. With regards to states, my personal interest on Misplaced Pages is to see that gun laws in various states are accurate; that covers states like my own, VA, which has very lax regulations; it also covers states like MD, which has some of the strictest regulations in the country. However, you won't see me making edits in only the restrictive states, and you won't see me making edits in only the lax states. Haizum 19:06, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

So what if his edits are focused on US operations and US military equipment? I mainly edit evolution-related biology pages and steer clear from pages on other scientific disciplines ... does that make me a bad-faith editor? No, it just means I'm editing the stuff that I'm interested in and that I have know-how in. It's entirely reasonable to think that this guy has know-how on US military operations but not on the operations of other countries. Hell, that describes my knowledge, and if I was interested in editing military articles my editing pattern might well be similar to his. --Cyde↔Weys 05:53, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

It's entirely reasonable until you actually get a taste of the rhetoric. If it were possible to prove it, I'd bet $1000 these edits are not done in good faith; mainly because I can only afford to bet $1000. Haizum 05:57, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

We can agree to disagree here. I just want you to know that I'm very set on my position regarding this user. Haizum 05:58, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I hate to say it, but you are coming off as unreasonable here. You seem intent on assuming bad faith without providing any actual evidence of this other than "you would bet a bunch of money on it". And you're being stubborn about this user. We cannot possibly hope to determine the intent of a user's edits; we can only judge the user on the merits of his edits alone. And in this case I do believe all of the edits were quality edits that helped improve the quality of the encyclopedia, because "1982 Lebanon War" is a much better, unbiased term to use in articles than "Operation Peace for Galilee". P.S., I find it very ironic that the name of a military operation has the word "peace" in it. That is classic propaganda. --Cyde↔Weys 06:01, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

There are, of course, reasons to question whether the motivation for these edits might not be somewhat misguided. (Sorry to see that you've been dragged into this, incidentally.) Kirill Lokshin 06:03, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I think you may be misreading that comment. I don't think he's actually sympathizing with Nazis, he's simply (rightfully) pointing out that hardly anyone feels sorry that the Nazis have vanished. --Cyde↔Weys 06:07, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

No, I meant the fact that he seems to be basing his decision of which names to replace on how people feel about the conflict in question, and the fact that he seems to think that using any term invented by one side is a priori unacceptably biased. Kirill Lokshin 06:10, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Because only the US (its military operations, its equipment, and its supporters) are being targeted for edits and criticism, I'm going to assume bad faith. I know there is little I can do to prove it, and nothing I can do to change it, but nevertheless, I'm assuming bad faith. Haizum 06:08, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I can't believe how brazenly you are admitting to violating one of Misplaced Pages's policies. And frankly I really don't understand how editing in only one topic area is a bad thing. Correcting the usage of propaganda terms is a good thing. So what if he's only correcting certain propganda terms; this is an all-volunteer project, so we accept the help we get. We cannot reasonably tell this guy, "Hey, I see you're correcting propaganda terms, but you're only focusing on the United States, so I'm ordering you to take on all propaganda terms used by the more than 200 nations on the face of the Earth." --Cyde↔Weys 06:11, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm admitting to violating it in my mind, and I have no problem saying so on talk pages. AGF was created so reverts wouldn't happen based upon assumptions, not so people wouldn't have an opinion. Haizum 06:20, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I strongly urge one of you to file a general subject RFC on the usage of propaganda names for military operations. This needs to be solved with wider community input, something you aren't getting with the current "style" of argumentation. --Cyde↔Weys 06:16, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I somehow doubt your suggestion will be accepted; guess how far mine (admittedly somewhat more limited; to discuss it at WP:MILHIST) got? Kirill Lokshin 06:21, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not interested in playing guessing games. Please link to exactly what you are talking about. --Cyde↔Weys 06:22, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean the initial suggestion (repeated here by another user)? Or the shortcut (which point to the Military history WikiProject)? (It was, in any case, a rhetorical question on my part; sorry for not making that clear.) Kirill Lokshin 06:27, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, now I know what you're talking about. It might be a good idea to talk to the military WikiProject organization to get some ideas, but you can't really make a decision with just them, as WikiProjects are entirely informal. RFC, however, is part of the formal dispute mediation process, so that's why it'd be a better idea to go through there. Of course, there's no reason you wouldn't post a naming conventions RFC on this topic and then post a notice to the MILHIST guys, who may be interested. Actually, that's probably the best route to go through. I strongly recommend it. --Cyde↔Weys 17:11, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Inflammatory Comments

Please cease making inflammatory comments on my page, I promise that the next personal attack you make will be deleted.--GorillazFan Adam 05:32, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Would you stop accusing other users of making "inflammatory comments" and "personal attacks", especially when they've done nothing of the sort? You seem to think anything anyone says is an attack against you, and you respond in a really inflammatory manner that only serves to escalate conflicts. You need to look inwards and adjust your attitude. --Cyde↔Weys 05:39, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

rm threatening nonsense

Plenty of other users have disclaimers on their talkpages so why can't I? Myrtone

Try something like this <!--Personal attacks are not welcome on this page.--> rather than something like this <!--Personal attacks will be deleted.-->--GorillazFan Adam 23:42, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Or how about just not assuming bad faiths and not say anything about personal attacks. That "warning" implies that you are going to be perceiving any sort of criticism as a "personal attack". There's no need for the disclaimer, as real personal attacks can just be deleted anyway. --Cyde↔Weys 23:47, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

ok

lmao ok. well, how long does it usually take a person to get a bot? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.23.82.33 (talk • contribs)

Well you have to get an account first, that's a given. Then you need to make enough positive contributions that people will trust you. Then you write a bot proposal and write all of the code, go for a week trial period, and then the bot is evaluated. If the botmeisters like it, it gets the full bot flag, and the process is complete. Otherwise you need to keep working on it, rewriting it, etc. By the way, please sign your posts. --Cyde↔Weys 21:03, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

• Write it as in with html code? I don't know how to do that. 63.23.82.33 21:17, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

• I beleive it is written in javascrpt not html, you can go to this site to learn javascrpit: --GorillazFan Adam 21:19, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Gahhh!! Both of you are wrong. HTML and JavaScript are used for writing websites. If you want to use a bot, you have to use a real programming language ... pyWikipediaBot is written in Python. There's also a bot framework written in Perl. And yeah, if you don't know how to do this ... you won't be running a bot. Just like how you wouldn't be allowed to fly a plane without a pilot's license. --Cyde↔Weys 21:44, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

• So, how long does it usually take to learn Perl/Python?63.23.19.225 22:00, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I dunno, what other programming languages do you know? It took me about a week to get familiar with Python ... but that's after the benefit of ten years experience working with literally a dozen other different programming languages. If you're trying to learn Python as your first language it might take awhile, because you'll have to learn all of the basics ... what a function is, what conditionals are, what loop structures are, how arrays and lists work, etc. --Cyde↔Weys 22:38, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Can we use C++?--GorillazFan Adam 23:39, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
      • Yes, you can use any language, but I would highly recommend Python. Why? The pyWikipediaBot framework is very extensive, and using it saves a lot of time. It happens to be written in Python. Duplicating it would take months of effort, time which is better spent actually programming bots than duplicating effort on writing the framwork. I didn't know Python at all before I started my work with Cydebot (and I know C++ fairly extensively), but I went with Python anyway, because learning Python took a lot less time than rewriting the entire framework from scratch in C++. --Cyde↔Weys 23:49, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

3RR RFD Closure

You closed the 3RR redirect as a delete (ref: Misplaced Pages:Redirects for deletion#3RR .E2.86.92 Misplaced Pages:Three-revert rule). However, within that debate, several other redirects were included (Three-revert rule, Three revert rule, 3 revert rule, 3RV). Since you closed the debate, something needs to be done with these as they are still tagged with {{rfd}}. If you don't believe the debate conclusion was sufficient for them, they should probably be re-listed. Thanks. -- JLaTondre 22:05, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks for bringing them to my attention, I just hadn't seen them the first time around. --Cyde↔Weys 22:37, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Your userpage

You may want to consider semi-protecting your userpage. It gets vandalized quite often.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 00:01, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Awww, but if I protect it then I won't be able to update my vandalism counter as often. --Cyde↔Weys 01:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

True, lol. My vandalism count amounts to 1 (which happened today, or yesterday according to UTC :P).--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 02:16, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you much

For this edit. The links on your page work again. -GTBacchus 00:46, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Template:1500e

It didn't show up on my page. Can you help me, or give me the code? GangstaEB EA (comments welcome!) 12:23, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Huh? --Cyde↔Weys 12:56, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Problem on Gülen article

I've run into an odd problem here. As you probably remember, User:Rgulerdem was blocked from editing after an RFCU I initiated a propos his sockpupetteering on the Fethullah Gülen article. He has subsequently returned as User:TheLightning and with 2 ip addresses, editing the same article, and tried to edit-war over it on the talk page. I had his new puppets blocked too. Still he managed to file on WP:AN/I against me and got the attention of admin User:Nandesuka, who then wanted me to work together with Rgulerdem's new puppets and compromise with them.. I managed to convince Nandesuka that this not an acceptable option for me, but Nandesuka continued to claim that I have no right to mark the article with a NPOV tag. I repeatedly and in great detail presented my objections to the article as it stands now, and said that in order to substatially improve it with proper sources instead of just my recollection of things, I'd have to consult a bunch of books and articles on the subject, which will take some time that I don't have right now. Nandesuka then alerted (with very uncivil wording) User:Aaron Brenneman, who now threatens to block me for disruption should I reintroduce the NPOV tag that Nandesuka removed, because "he hates it".. I'm not only not disrupting anybody with the template (except Rgulerdems sockpuppets, nobody else it editing the article at the moment), but I also feel I'm in conformance with Misplaced Pages:POV_Cleanup. Now what? Thanks, Azate 14:18, 19 June 2006 (UTC)