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No signs yet that the Arbitration Committee is in any form willing to change for the better (as expected).

Please leave me a note by starting a new subject here
and please don't forget to sign your post

I will respond to talk messages where they started, trying to keep discussions in one place (you may want to watch this page for some time after adding a question). Otherwise I will clearly state where the discussion will be moved/copied to. Though, with the large number of pages I am watching, it may be wise to contact me here as well if you need a swift response. If I forget to answer, poke me.

I preserve the right not to answer to non-civil remarks, or subjects which are covered in this talk-header.

There are several discussions about my link removal here, and in my archives. If you want to contact me about my view of this policy, please read and understand WP:NOT, WP:EL, WP:SPAM and WP:A, and read the discussions on my talkpage or in my archives first.

Hence, I will remove external links on pages where I think they do not add to the page (per WP:NOT#REPOSITORY and WP:EL), or when they are added in a way that wikipedia defines as spam (understand that wikipedia defines spam as: '... wide-scale external link spamming ...', even if the link is appropriate; also read this). This may mean that I remove links, while similar links are already there or which are there already for a long time. Still, the question is not whether your link should be there, the question may be whether those other links should be there (again, see the wording of the policies and guidelines).

Please consider the alternatives before re-adding the link:

• If the link contains information, use the information to add content to the article, and use the link as a reference (content is not 'see here for more information').
• Add an appropriate linkfarm (you can consider to remove other links covered there).
• Incorporate the information into one of the sister projects.
• Add the link to other mediawiki projects aimed at advertiseing (see e.g. this)

If the linkspam of a certain link perseveres, I will not hesitate to report it to the wikiproject spam for blacklisting (even if the link would be appropriate for wikipedia). It may be wise to consider the alternatives before things get to that point.

If you have other questions, or still have questions on my view of the external link policy, disagree with me, or think I made a mistake in removing a link you added, please poke me by starting a new subject on my talk-page. If you absolutely want an answer, you can try to poke the people at WT:EL or WT:WPSPAM on your specific case. Also, regarding link, I can be contacted on IRC, channel .

I convert inline URL's into references and convert referencing styles to a consistent format. My preferred style is the style provided by cite.php (<ref> and <references/>). When other mechanisms are mainly (but not consistently) used (e.g. {{ref}}/{{note}}/{{cite}}-templates) I will assess whether referencing would benefit from the cite.php-style. Feel free to revert these edits when I am wrong.

Converting inline URLs in references may result in data being retrieved from unreliable sources. In these cases, the link may have been removed, and replaced by a {{cn}}. If you feel that the page should be used as a reference (complying with wp:rs!!), please discuss that on the talkpage of the page, or poke me by starting a new subject on my talk-page

Note: I am working with some other developers on mediawiki to expand the possibilities of cite.php, our attempts can be followed here and here. If you like these features and want them enabled, please vote for these bugs.

I am in general against deletion, except when the page really gives misinformation, is clear spam or copyvio. Otherwise, these pages may need to be expanded or rewritten. For very short articles there are the different {{stub}} marks, which clearly state that the article is to be expanded. For articles that do not state why they are notable, I will add either {{importance}} or {{notability}}. In my view there is a distinct difference between these two templates, while articles carrying one of these templates may not be notable, the first template does say the article is probably notable enough, but the contents does not state that (yet). The latter provides a clear concern that the article is not notable, and should probably be {{prod}}ed or {{AfD}}ed. Removing importance-tags does not take away the backlog, it only hides from attention, deleting pages does not make the database smaller. If you contest the notability/importance of an article, please consider adding an {{expert-subject}} tag, or raise the subject on an appropriate wikiproject. Remember, there are many, many pages on the wikipedia, many need attention, so maybe we have to live with a backlog.

Having said this, I generally delete the {{expand}}-template on sight. The template is in most cases superfluous, expansion is intrinsic to the wikipedia (for stubs, expansion is already mentioned in that template).