This is an archive of past discussions with User:Excirial. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Happy easter to you as well! My, i have to say it is not everyday that someone wishes me happy easter after i CSD templated them over 2 years ago :) Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)10:18, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm really glad to see that worked out well. Seeing the amount of effort you put in each article i figured that it wouldn't receive any (Really) strong criticism or a quick-fail, but this went even better then even i anticipated. I see you already found the "X amount of Good article's" infobox so i can tell nothing new there, but perhaps you would like one display of these as well:
I am not sure what it is called among GA/FA authors, but it adds a small symbol with a link on top of your userpage (See User:NancyHeise for example. I modified hers to fit your GA article. Note that it looks like garbled text without displaying anything because i added some Nowiki tags to keep it from displaying on my own page. If you feel like adding it, all you have to do is go into edit mode and copy the code (Without the two Wiki tags) and add it to your page. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)10:18, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Unfriendly unregistered user
This unregistered user has been editing arrogantly, then leaving arrogant summaries to match. He/she recently got at Halifax Town Hall and tried clumsily to copy-edit things he/she doesn't understand - probably not realising that this is Halifax, England and not Halifax U.S. Might be worth just putting this IP on the list to keep an eye on.--Storye book (talk) 00:12, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
It seems that the edits were being made in good faith, but indeed - those edit summaries aren't exactly helpful nor friendly. It may well be that this user is an experienced editor who doesn't register / use an account on purpose, as in these cases history can be easily tracked (And so can incivility). By using an IP he or she can edit the way he/she likes without worrying about incivility warnings and the like. It is likely though that this user will not be on this IP for a very long time - only the 4 most expensive AT&T connections offer static IP's, whereas the rest of the subscriptions allocate them dynamically. It might be useful to keep an eye on it though, if only to drop a note on the edit summaries if this continues. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)10:18, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
I have to say this was really unexpected, but after thinking about it a bit i decided to accept the nomination. After some years of experience i realized adminship is not a goal on its own, and there is plenty of work that can be done without being an admin. Still, it kind of flatters me that you went out of your way to actually nominate me, and being an admin would allow me to help in a couple more area's. Besides, the (Failed) RFA i had before offered some - in retrospect - quality criticism. If it passes i can help in more area's, and if it fails i can always look at the criticism to improve myself. Either way, its a win-win situation. :) Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)14:36, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
I see Peter Symonds has already blocked you for it, but contacting editors with a clearly biased message is regarded to be canvassing, which means that you are contacting a certain group of editors in the hopes to flip over consensus. Rest assured that i will be monitoring this discussion - and in fact i already was even before reading this - but won't involve myself into it the matter for the time being. My involvement with the AFD was rather small, and mostly a result of the cleanup the AFD needed to be readable at all. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)17:34, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Page patrol numbers
Where are you pulling down the page patrol numbers (or are you anymore)? X!'s edit counter used to have them, even after the opt-in, but over the last few days I've noticed they've disappeared. Wondered if you knew anymore about this. Shadowjams (talk) 22:58, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
it seems X!'s counter got hit by some controversy where a single user claimed that the month counters and additional statistics were a privacy infringement, and X! subsequently had to remove them until he added an opt-in system for displaying them. In my own opinion it is quite silly, as this is information that can be accessed, downloaded and data-mined by anyone. Since X!'s edit counter doesn't handle "Most edited pages" for editors having more then 45.000 edits, i switched to wikichecker, a quite usefull external site. Add your username, set it to "All" edits and wait a couple of min. It will result in quite an impressive analysis with a lot of other statistics. Other sections of the site such as the editwar section are quite worthwhile as well. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)23:14, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Cool. I've used that one too, although I didn't know if they had patrol counts. I find the privacy complaint absurd as well, without going in depth on the privacy policy itself, it seems like a huge stretch to say that aggregating otherwise available data would somehow breach the privacy policy. In any case, thanks for the heads up. Good luck with the RfA too. I'm frankly stunned at some of the opposes. Shadowjams (talk) 23:19, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Evolutionists and IDists should get their own page to edit
Excirial. We both know how bias can ruin people's judgement.
And you said: "Also, seeing your comment on Intelligent Design my (perhaps completely incorrect) conclusion would be that you are a supporter of intelligent design. If this is the case you should keep in mind that you may have an inherent COI towards evolution due to it being the antithesis for that particular viewpoint. As the CoI guideline states it is best to keep away from an article you have a CoI with, due to the risk of expressing a personal opinion rather then a neutral point of view "
But we all know that the many people don't care about this policy, as the Intelligent Design page is infiltrated with those who disagree with it.
So why don't the evolutionists get their own page to edit, and the IDists get their own, and the only times both sides can edit each other's page is at the criticism sections? There must be a special system to only allow IDists to edit their page, and vice versa.
The whole point of wikipedia is to teach people about things, not to allow dissenters to edit a page and make it look bad, like with the ID page.
COMDER (talk) 16:54, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
You cannot get a pole upright if you only push from one side. Bias goes both ways - man can be positively or negatively biased towards a certain point of view, and both biases can unbalance an article point of view. Technically you are a biased editor as well, as you clearly state that you believe in intelligent design. Being biased isn't a bad thing on its own though - man must just make sure that this bias doesn't show in his or her edits. After all, a broad spectrum of opinions means that man will debate and establish a neutral central ground upon which the article can be based.
Assigning a separate page to each group is something that should never be done. Besides the fact that this would go against wikipedia's core policy that everyone can edit, we would end up with article's that lean towards a certain Point of View. A neutral point of view means that all parties viewpoints should be weighted and balanced throughout the entire article, and not just in the criticism sections. The key however, is debate and tolerance for other people's viewpoints, even if they are conflicting with your own. Wikipedia is indeed here to teach people, but offering partial information would be propaganda, and not knowledge. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)18:07, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
"we would end up with article's that lean towards a certain Point of View". <<< That's exactly what we got... the ID page destroying ID, a viewpoint in favor of evolution. How would you feel if the evolution page was severely biased against evolution?
"A neutral point of view means that all parties viewpoints should be weighted and balanced throughout the entire article, and not just in the criticism sections.
<<< But ID and evolution are naturally biased topics! How could you have a balanced viewpoint on a page about ID or evolution!!!??? That's an oxymoron. You can only have a balanced viewpoint when dealing with facts when it comes to this. COMDER (talk) 21:57, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Can you be a bit more specific which part of the article has a clear bias? Currently the article contains over 80.000 words, and i doubt you refer to all of them as being biased. A superficial scan of the article shows nothing that really concerns me - in fact, the article is exceptionally well sourced - which is most likely a result of it being a controversial topic where every statement is likely to be challenged by other editors. As for the evolution page bias - i frankly don't mind what the title or the subject of a page is when it comes to bias. If an article is not adhering to a neutral point of view it should be changed, regardless of my personal opinions on a certain subject. The only influence my bias towards a certain viewpoint should have is that i am careful when editing an article, and in case i don't believe i cannot be truly neutral i won't edit the article directly at all - instead i would discuss it on a talk page.
Second i would argue that evolution and intelligent design aren't biased topics by nature. The article's are prone to pov pushing and controversy, but bias lies with the editors writing the article, and not with the subject. But i think that i understand what you mean; i think you are referencing to the fact that some statements in the ID article seem to be opinions? NPOV doesn't mean that there should be no opinions in the article - instead, NPOV states that "articles must be written from a neutral point of view, representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources". Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and therefor everything is based upon content created by others, who incidentally might have a certain viewpoint. However, Most of the content should be based upon verifiable facts, while forming an opinion should be left to the user. Yet i cannot stress enough that opinions may be used as long as they are reliable, verifiable and representative for a group of people. Finally i would note that a bit more detail in the form of some specific sentences or sections might help to give a more in-depth response, rather then the general response i just wrote; However, keep in mind that this particular article has been discussed to death already, and that it is a featured article. Both are indications that this article is of high quality, and unlikely to change substantially unless (very) good arguments which haven't been used over and over are presented. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)22:38, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
As an encyclopedia based on reliable sources, given our criteria for these at WP:RS, particularly the mention of academic and mainstream sources, our articles should reflect the mainstream viewpoint while giving attention to alternative significant points of view. Basically you are objecting to some of our core policies and I doubt that you will be happy unless they were changed substantially, which is extremely unlikely. You may misunderstand them - 'balance' as in equal weight on both sides is actually against our WP:NPOV policy in most cases - the exceptions would be where reliable sources were balanced. Dougweller (talk) 05:09, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
"this criteria effectively oppose's anyone who has ever been (semi) active as a vandalism patrol or new page patrols "
Thanks. I hope Fastily considers changing that particular RFA criteria so that it reflects an actionable reason, instead of relying a seemingly random number. During my last RFA is was swamped with negative comments, but those were quite valid - and a good indication that i had to change my editing style (And how this should be done).
Besides, i agree with User:Dlohcierekim/On RfA. Each admin performs different functions - and because of this different requirements should apply as he or she might not need a certain set of knowledge. Someone who wrote 10 featured article's isn't the most fit person to work on AIAV if he or she never worked as a vandalism patrol. Similarly i should stay away from NFCC related discussions as i have to little experience as a user to do something worthwhile in this section. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)18:23, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Thank you kindly, i will make sure to keep it well fed - and i will assure you that the food will be the correct kind. :)
Two small suggestion for the template though: You may want to use a float:center instead of float:left on the blue one, as the left float seems to conflict with section headers (They get placed next to the award, instead of under it). A second suggesting is using height:90px in the div style on both templates. This one is mostly for visual reasons, as doing so will make sure that the blue / yellow box has an equal amount of spacing on top or at the bottom of the image. The set height doesn't work well for large amounts of text so using it would limit the template to 5 full lines of text as more will cause visual errors, but i think that will be enough in most cases. And n, lower screen resolutions don't seem to affect the amount of text that can be added. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)18:43, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
{{helpme}} What can I do to help out on Wikipedia? I am already aware of stubs and have already helped out to expand many of the automobile stubs on the list, which is a topic I know things about and am interested in. I help out on the Reference Desks every once in a while too, but I am looking for other things to do. I can help out on articles on any subject really, not just the ones I am interested in. Where can I find articles that need work, besides from the articles requiring cleanup and the stubs lists? I am already aware of just searching for an article too, but all the articles on subjects that interest me I have already worked on. Guidance would be appreciated. Chevymontecarlo. 10:18, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
Before answering that, allow me to compliment you for your enthusiasm. This isn't the kind of question i see very often. But to answer, there are many activities that can always use a hand. In fact there are so many different activities which can be done that listing them all would result in a very long list so i decided to group them by category instead.
Content Creation. Content creation is what you would expect it to be: Writing new article's, expanding old ones, adding references - all of these activities belong to this category. If you wish to start a new article you should do a quick check to see if the subject isn't covered elsewhere, and if it it notable enough. Reading your first article is also advisable as it contains some valid advice. Expanding article's works the same way, except that there is already previously written content. Keep in mind that contributions should be verifiable if possible, especially if you decide to work with biographical article's. Just remember to be bold!. If your not sure what to write about you could have a look at some requested article, and see if there is anything you might like writing about.
Article Maintenance. If someone creates an article it will need maintenance as well. Not every new editor has wiki experience, which means that quite a few new article's have room for improvement. Many of these article's are therefor tagged with improvement requests which can be found at the Wikipedia backlog. If you feel like doing so you can go trough these backlogs and see if you find an article you would like to improve. This is not the only method of finding article's though. Stub article's are also a great source to check for improvement.
Patrol related work . This particular area is the one i work in myself. Patrol related work means that one checks contributions made by other editors to see if anything malicious is present. Most times the term "Patrol work" refers to one of two areas: new page patrol or vandalism patrol. Vandalism patrols check other users edits to see if vandalism is added, while a new page patrol walks his beat on the newpage list, checking if new pages can be improved, or if that should be removed. There is quite a few automated tools available to help with these jobs.
Note that these are some example area's, as there are quite a few more. We have users checking if images meet content criteria, we have users debating whether article's should be removed, we have people manning the help and reference desks, people evaluating article quality, people discussing and creating redirect... And i can go on and on. You are free to work in any area you choose to, and you can switch at any time you like. So i would say the question is not what you can do, but what you feel like doing. Every constructive edit is a good edit, regardless if this edit created a new featured article or corrects a typo. I added a welcome template to your userpage as well which points to a few other sections. Actually i made a mistake in adding it before posting this response, but alas - no harm done :). Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)10:44, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks a lot. I feel that I can help out but I think my mistake is that I keep patrolling the same pages - the reference desks, help desk, stubs that are fairly stagnant in terms of edits, etc. I will try and look at some new pages and WikiProjects and hopefully that will point me to new content to edit! Chevymontecarlo. 10:47, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
Your more then welcome, and indeed - the reference and help desk tend to have a limited amount of questions, and they are added at irregular times so you never really know when something is going to happen. Most times it may actually be sufficient to watchlist these pages and check that list every now and then to see if something has changed. One thing i should note though. Wikipedia tends to rely little on red tape, but there are still some policies and guidelines which other users may quote at you at times. Just remember to be bold. Nothing can ever truly go wrong when editing as mistakes can be easily reverted or changed, and there is no editor who didn't ever make a mistake. Also, don't be afraid to ask questions if you have them. The help desk and helpme category are excellent places to do so, but you already figured that one out. No question is stupid, and no amount of question are "To much". Beside these help sections you are of course more then welcome on my talk page if you need some form of assistance. I patrol the help desk and helpme categorie quite often so i may see your questions nontheless, but if you would feel the need - be my guest :). Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)11:02, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
Avs5221 has given you a cookie! Cookies promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a cookie, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy munching!
Spread the goodness of cookies by adding {{subst:Cookie}} to someone's talk page with a friendly message, or eat this cookie on the giver's talk page with {{subst:munch}}!
Hi, and thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. It appears that you recently tried to give a page a different title by copying its content and pasting either the same content, or an edited version of it, into another page with a different name. This is known as a "cut and paste move", and it is undesirable because it splits the page history, which is needed for attribution and various other purposes. Instead, the software used by Wikipedia has a feature that allows pages to be moved to a new title together with their edit history.
In most cases, once your account is four days old and has ten edits, you should be able to move an article yourself using the "Move" tab at the top of the page. This both preserves the page history intact and automatically creates a redirect from the old title to the new. If you cannot perform a particular page move yourself this way (e.g. because a page already exists at the target title), please follow the instructions at requested moves to have it moved by someone else. Also, if there are any other pages that you moved by copying and pasting, even if it was a long time ago, please list them at Wikipedia:Cut and paste move repair holding pen. Thank you. /MWOAP|Notify Me\20:33, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
No problem, but if a talk page already exists at that exact location i cannot just move an old one to overwrite it. I might have added a G6 template on the in-the-way talkpage to have it removed, and then moved the non-moved page over while re-adding the new templates from the new page or i might have made a move request, but seeing it was just a talk page with handled discussion scraps based on an IRC conversation i just did it the easy way to have it fixed and finalized. I will keep it in mind for future histmerges though :). Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)20:43, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Getting Helpmebot to display other links
Whilst I'm using the IRC, how do I get the Helpmebot to show me the link to the second semi-protected edit request? For example, a minute ago Helpmebot came up with 4 semi-protected edit requests, I used !link to get the first one but how do I get the others? It doesn't work if I just write !link, it just comes up with the first semi-protected edit request again. Thanks for any help - I hope you don't mind me asking you here instead of the help page or something. Chevymontecarlo. 15:16, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
My page is always open for people with questions, though i cannot always guarantee i can answer them. As far as i know Helpmebot and its source code, i think it cannot do so other then by requesting the second and further links manually. !link will either return the link requested (Such as !link User:Excirial), or it will return the last link mentioned in the channel. Maybe Chzz knows a way for this though - he has been active in the channel longer then i am :). Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)15:40, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Chzz. I feel a bit guilty now that the IRC discussion mentioned the RFA though - It kind of feels like i'm accidentally responsible for Votestacking. O well, at least it doesn't sway the vote another way i guess. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)18:13, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
No apology necessary; I actually came across it on-wiki, days ago - I just didn't have time to !vote until now. Best, Chzz ► 18:16, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
A7 standards
This is in response to your answers to my questions at your RfA. I greatly approve of your suggestion that you would look into the issues and try to improve dubious articles with potential where possible. Thank you for that.
One point i would like to emphasize, is that the standard of "claim of significance or importance" used in WP:CSD#A7 is is a significantly lower bar than notability. Articles that clearly do not establish notability, but make some statement that might, if perused, lead to establishing notability, are not subject to an A7 speedy, and the standards of the various notability guidelines are IMO of only limited relevance to an A7 question.
I think i didn't phrase my answer correctly, as you are absolutely correct that notability is a higher bar then a claim of significance. I think that my usage of "notability" in the answer i gave is similar to the use of the word "wiki" to refer to "wikipedia", which is technically incorrect as well even though many people tend to mix both phrases. What i intended to relay was that if an article claims "notability (Read:significance)" in some way, it passes the A7 criteria. It may absolutely not be notable at all, but a claim is sufficient to pass the A7 speedy at least.
I referred to the specialized guidelines as being helpful in determining what "A claim to significance" might be. Since we have a very wide variety of subjects someone reading an article might not know what claims are valid for a certain subject area. For example, someone might easily tag an article about an academic as A7 since he or she might not realize that being a professor is by itself a claim to significance.
But i will definitely keep your advice in mind. A7 (and to a lesser extend G11) are the categories in which most mistakes are made during CSD patrol so handling these takes a bit of extra care. Seeing you are an ARS member and an admin - and seeing my RFA seems to be going well - i would like to invite you sample a few of my removals every now and then. These days i think i make few mistakes when tagging article's, but i was also lulled into thinking about my vandalism patrol during my first RFA. Therefor i am always open for a little nudge if i appear to be pointing to much in a certain direction. Note that this link doesn't apply entirely, but it is easy to rephrase the NPOV argument to "Deletion versus Inclusion".
Thanks for your through response, I have sampled some of your tags from your contribution lists, and saw no problems, although of course that was not even an attempt at a :comprehensive survey.
On A7 vs WP:N, your statement above is IMO much more accurate. I would point out that in some areas something that starts to approach but clearly does not pass an area specific guideline might still get over an A7 bar. For example, and article about a band that says they have released one LP. WP:BAND specified two, and from a major label or significant indie label. But it is possible that a single album stirs up enough buzz to pass the GNG, so i would treat it as a claim of significance, to go to Prod or Afd if it doesn't pan out as notability.
One practice you might consider, one which i promised to follow at my RFA some years ago and still do, is "tag & bag" aka "four-eyes". This means that if I find what seems to me a speedyable page, whether on newpage patrol or in any way, that now one has tagged for speedy, i will tag it myself for another admin's review, not simply delete it. I follow this except in the cases of blatant vandalism and attack pages. Other admins have slightly different exception lists, or may not follow this practice at all. I recommend it -- speedy deletes should be fairly speedy, but having more than one set of eyes checking is good, because we all make mistakes. It seems to me that you are likely to pass your RfA, so congratulations and good luck. DES(talk)12:31, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks you for your encouragement and additional advice regarding the placement of CSD templates on pages which don't necessarily meet the N criteria or its sub-guidelines. Besides, i wholeheartedly agree with the "Two sets of eyes" methodology you use and i was considering to use it myself even before you mentioned here. I mentioned the two-tier deletion system in Q13, and in general i think it is an asset rather then an inefficient hindrance. A fraction of my speedy deletes still get denied these days, thus i say it is wiser to tag as any regular user unless it is a clearly a Duck. Being able to actually delete things is just another reason to be careful not to overdo in my eyes. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)12:54, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks you this block. I was just trying to figure if it was the same user creating that article over and over but due to the article different names and my inability to see deleted contributions it proved to be rather hard to figure; Yet based on his deleted edit count i think that was the 10th re-creation or so of the article. By the way, we seem to have a User:Collegewriting2 and User:Collegewriting as well, and all three of them were created within a 7 day or so timespan. Perhaps those are two cases of WP:DUCK? Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)17:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for catching the typo in the name of the article I created. The ue/eu spelling in proper names has never been easy for me, but I really thought I had it down today. I don't know how you spotted that, but I really appreciate it! Tim legg (talk) 21:42, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
I noticed that the article was being created (There are some handy tools to monitor new pages) and i thought i could clean it up a bit. I was a bit surprised that i found only 100 or so results while searching for sources, as national parks tend to return at least a few hundred more on average. A few article's referred the other name as well, and the article mentioned "Gerald Kuehn", which made it a bit of an "Aaah, that explains" moment for me. Other then then - good job creating a quality new article. The more good quality ones, the merrier :). Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)21:55, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Low intensity edit war :)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Hello, i need your advice, Administrator guidance to be more precise. Old problems (if you remember), again :). I will try to represent the problem as detailed as possible so that I and others could get a valid advice from you about this matter. I don`t know if this enters the category of Edit war or Edit warning , so i`l just say it :).
There are 2 articles that represent the problem, first and second. The problem is the same on both articles, User:Umumu(who wrote the data) and I want to make a valid contribution(referenced) to both articles but other users(User:Squash Racket) for some while now don`t want the article to contain that data, even if it is referenced by valid sources. If you can please look here and here you can see that there is a silent edit war. Here is the 1st contribution and the second. If you can give us your Administrator guidance regarding this matter so the silent edit war can stop. Thank you in advance. iadrian (talk) 17:55, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
At the John Hunyadi article User:Umumu besides violating WP:3RR in the past few days presents Transylvania, a historical region of the Kingdom of Hungary as a "Romanian historical region". He talks about the Romanian cnezes in Hunyadi's retinue as a source of Romanian national pride without mentioning the minor fact that they were part of the Hungarian nobility by that time. He repeatedly adds "he was born a Romanian" although he very, very well knows about the disputes surrounding Hunyadi's ethnicity as he fanatically edited that section for weeks. (That if he is not User:Iaaasi, in that case longer.) User:Iadrian yu is helping him without a serious attempt at adressing the cited issues.
At the controversial article Magyarization he adds POV material based on this Romanian source(?) plus an unspecified reference. When I point out that the single referenced sentence in the new material is just a book cover, he starts revert warring.
He frequently removes Hungarian sources when they don't fit his views and adds them when they do. He also removes tertiary sources when he doesn't like what they contain and adds them when he favors their content. Squash Racket (talk) 18:39, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Could you please wait for the advice before you start throwing accusations. In my question i did`t accuse anybody so that the opinion could be valid, i did`t try to push any POV like you are. Everything you wrote here is just your personal opinion, far from facts. Please wait for the advice, as you can see, my question is presented in a neutral way. I doubt that you wouldn`t report Umumu if he would really violate the 3RR rule. Please try to represent just facts, not speculations or personal opinions. Thank you. iadrian (talk) 18:47, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
I see my name linked up in YOUR very clear first accusation ("but other users(User:Squash Racket) for some while now don`t want the article to contain that data, even if it is referenced by valid sources"), I balanced your "neutral report" a little and tried to defend myself against the accusation.
The question is not whether User:Umumu violated WP:3RR on 12-13 April but how many times he did that. Check the page history if you really insist on facts.Squash Racket (talk) 19:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
I just stated the facts, there is a referenced text that you personally refuse as a part of the article. Maybe for you that is not neutral, but how else can i say the problem? Anyway, let`s wait for the advice. There is no need for you to "follow" me around, if there is a process where are you involved, you will be informed. iadrian (talk) 19:07, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
I always stated my problems at least in the edit summary or also on the talk page, so "personally refusing" facts rather fits the behavior of User:Umumu and yourself. I wonder what kind of admin advice we would have received based on your innocent little first comment. You even point out you forgot to notify me (of course). Squash Racket (talk) 19:17, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Your personal opinion again, the fact remains that a referenced text is personally refused by you. I can talk with people without informing you, i am obligated (like i did on wikiquete) to inform you only in a matter of official process. Please restrain yourself from little remarks, try to be neutral and without any hint for personal attacks.iadrian (talk) 19:25, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Stop the false warnings please (yes, not the first time), it won't make your first comment with the situation presented in an absolutely misleading way on an administrator's talk page look better at all. The fact that you didn't notify me about this thread while linking my name in an accusation (again, on an admin's talk page) doesn't help either. The fact that you try to defend your actions and further accuse me makes it even worse. Squash Racket (talk) 19:37, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Due to the the size of my response i am still in the process of writing it and i expect that it will be done within the next 30 minutes or so. Since this is turning into a battleground already i ask both parties to hold off commenting for now until i completed my response and posted it Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)19:44, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Responce, Advice and a suggested way to deal with this
Above all, i am not an administrator - at least not yet. Even if i were my advice would be that of any other user, unless someone is sockpuppeting, vandalizing or in any other way disrupting Wikipedia. As the admin page states so nicely, an administrator is just a user with a mop and a bucket. But on to the question. First and foremost you should realize that i know virtually nothing of Romania; Dracula and Vlad III the Impaler are about the only people i link to Romania, and as of such i got no clue whatsoever which side of the conflict is right. So my advice will be entirely situation and not content based. Also, keep in mind that my talk page is not a warzone.
What i can see is the following:
Situation
User:Hobartimus and User:Umumu form one camp, while User:Umumu and User:Iadrian yu form the second. Seeing i got a grand total of 8 talk page messages about this so far without even getting a change to respond i think it is quite clear that this is already pretty heated.
What i also notice is thats accusations are flying back and forth about 3RR, POV and other general unpleasantness and to this i say: Don't. Remember WP:CIV and look into a mirror as well as i can see both parties doing the exact same thing. Dont use WP:WAX arguments if you are just as guilty. Also, i do not want a warzone on my talk page, so please keep that in mind when you respond here.
Both sides seem to realize quite well that this is an edit war, so BOTH sides should also realize that 3RR is is not an "entitlement" to revert a page a specific number of times a day. If you know you are in an edit war you head to the talk page. You don't revert each other over and over until you reach the bright line where you have to take other measures because of 3RR. Doing so is disruptive as it is simply shows that it is an attempt to game the system by deliberately staying within 3RR. I advice all parties to take this serious as there has already been plenty of unpleasantness in the past regarding this topic.
Current status
I see no discussion at Talk:Magyarization, so i am not sure why that one is being brought up here. You all know the drill from last time - stop reverting, head to the talk page and discuss. I will not be involving myself in this one unless either side is edit warring or until there has been at least some form of dialog between the involved parties.
The last discussion related to the John Hunyadi was yesterday, and i remember quite well that this was the subject of the previous edit was i got involved into. Thus i can quite clearly see that this issue has not really been resolved ever since.
Suggested solution
I cannot force you to do something, but seeing this is a long-lasting conflict i would suggest a set of rules which both parties would have to follow. Besides formal mediation such as a WP:RFC case i think most options are exhausted by now as this will simply keep moving to other parts of the text. So i would suggest the following:
A WP:1RR rule for all involved parties, with the additional restriction that any revert should be brought up with accompanying reasoning on the talk page by the reverting party. The other party should not be reverting it right back in as well to prevent it from turning into an edit war.
All content added should be inserted along with a reliable source which sources at least the majority of the lines. As both parties seem to challenge every non sourced contribution i think this would be for the better, at least for now.
Any changes in wording, removal of sourced content and the like should be discussed on the talk page prior to being removed. To prevent deadlocking by simply not discussing i would say that the content can be added without discussion if no response was given within 36 hours or so. These "undiscussed" additions may be reverted outside of 1RR without consequence once, IF the reverting party immediately heads over to the talk page afterwards, and if this doesn't happen every time.
If both parties would accept these suggestions i expect they will live up to their promises. If either party doesn't accept i would refer you to RFM to open a formal mediation case as this has been dragging on a long time by now. Formal discussions have the advantage that they are being centralized and led by a member of the mediation cabal who has handled these cases before. As said before i cannot advice you content wise so if you need assistance with that aspect i think that opening an WP:RFC is a better option. I hope this helps and with kind regards, Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)19:59, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
I apologize for posting after the template, but i just want to say that if the Squash Racket incivility continues i will ignore his comments. If he can`t respect the WP:CIVILITY there is no need to talk with such user. This user continuously violate the WP:FAITH and WP:CIV in almost his every comment, therefore i refuse to talk with such user who violate again and again basic rules of wikipedia. We already talked, but i think that here are some problems with the NPOV. In this case, Squash Racket has a problem with the Romanian origin and the Romanian legacy, therefore this text is not acceptable for him while the article contains only Hungarian POV. If Squash Racket "play nice" WP:CIVIL i will accept these suggestions. iadrian (talk) 20:07, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
WP:CIV and WP:FAITH could be cited in the case of Iadrian yu and Umumu too.
And it's hard to assume anything until I see such blatantly misleading statements as "the article contains only Hungarian POV" in the very same comment he asks for that. Squash Racket (talk) 20:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
This is incredible.. I don`t want to participate the Squash Racket`s confusion, if Squash Racket can`t respect the basic rules for civility i can`t talk with him. I have never broke those rules, like he claims , while he did on many occasions just here.. here and here... And again, the confusion is created by false accusation and incivility and there is no solution. I agree with the suggested solution, i guess if Squash Racket agree to be civil and agree to this suggestion we can start? iadrian (talk) 20:19, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
People, my talk page is not a war zone. I would ask that both groups cease debating the other editors conduct and instead focus on their own conduct exclusively, because both sides have plenty of room left for improvement on their own side. I see a lot of WP:CIV and WP:AGF quotes, and that tends to be a sure-fire sign that the party claiming it isn't assuming it himself.
If both sides cannot do anything but accuse each other i think my talk page is a passed station, as i can only provide informal advice. In that case i urge you to start formal mediation as continuation of this situation as is will only lead to blocks for 3RR, incivility and the like. And i would very much prefer that didn't happen. Also, civility includes snide remark towards the other party should not be made. Again, focus on your own conduct, and don't mention others until yours is acceptable. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)20:27, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
I understand and i want to thank you for the response. Can you please guide me how to make a WP:RFC since i can`t find where should the request be written? On my talk page? iadrian (talk) 20:34, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
I stand by those comments. You pretty easily forgave yourself for how you presented this whole thing and even argued why you didn't notify the other party after linking his name in a clear accusation.
Reading your last comment you find it civil to grab these comments out of context, picture the other party in a negative light while being silent about your part and then offer a new start?
I think a mediation case would be better, I no longer trust talk page discussion as Iadrian yu too many times pretended not to understand something, gave some not so convincing answers and then jumped into revert warring. And his false warnings... I would be happier with a third party watching the process. Squash Racket (talk) 20:44, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
This is not a war zone and i think we talked everything we had. We will continue on WP:RFC. I hope that you will keep your little remarks for yourself this time. Just a little demonstration, I wonder if you will follow this advice, based on your innocent little previous comment. False warnings ? I ask you to be civil, if you are not, i can`t do nothing about that, if i gather a number of examples i will make a new wikiquete report of course. I have opened a section on the talk page of the John Hynadi page. iadrian (talk) 20:52, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
And with that comment i will be archiving the discussion. I will gladly offer help if required, but by now i think that archiving this discussion to prevent escalation is the best help i can offer. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)21:31, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Excellent Work.
While patrolling the new pages being made i ran across the Jana Skinny Water article, which subsequently pointed me to the educational assignment you are leading. And i must say that i deem the results to be quite impressive, especially since editing Wikipedia can be quite complex at first if one has never worked with it. Compliments to yourself, and compliments to your students.
One thing that i notice however, is that quite a few of the article's don't use named references for duplicate references. Simply running the article trough reflinks should be sufficient to solve that issue, though in sometimes manual operations might be needed. It might also be worth mentioning this tool to the students as it has proven to be quite practical at times.
Thanks very much! We're working hard on editing the articles we've selected or created, but it's been a challenge. I'll check out the reflinks...I suppose it is a bot? I've done some of them by hand, but it's been a challenge to get the students to format anything wikiwise. I think they're doing very well--some better than others. Feel free to offer them comments on any of the article syou happen to read! Auntieruth55 (talk) 17:45, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
O yes, i can certainly understand that this has been quite a challenge! Writing a quality article for a classroom assignment can be tough on its own, but having to do so while remembering an entire set of guidelines that are specific to wikipedia makes it even harder. And of course teaching a large group of people to do so while also having to use wikisyntax is ever more complex. Still, i hope that they enjoyed it and that you had a pleasant time here as well. As said before, i really hope there will be another edition of this project.
As for Reflinks: It is indeed a bot - or to be more precise a script (as it isn't fully automated) which is run on the toolserver (Which is a mediawiki foundation controlled server user to run community created scripts) It has several purposes. First it can "Fill in" barebone references trough the use of the {{cite}} template. This automatically adds information such as the last access date to the article, the title of the article and so on. A second function is that it checks for duplicate references which it will then convert into named references which only show up once. I ran it against the earlier mentioned Jana Skinny Water article. Here you can see how it looked before i did, and here is how it looks afterwards. The entire reflinks process just takes a minute at most and is mostly automatic, while doing it by hand could take much longer. It may not always work equally well (It may refuse to work on some article's stating it cannot improve them) but it will at the very least save some time.
I see that the project is due in just four days, so i think i can offer little assistance with this project. Still, i might have a few extra suggestions in case there will be a new project:
The first suggestion is that the new beta interface may make it easier to teach students wikisyntax, as it is designed to be more user-friendly then the current one. For example it uses dialog boxes to guide users trough certain actions, instead of simply pasting down wikisyntax in the edit window.
I can see you have received a lot of communication on-wiki requesting help with writing the article's, and i can only imagine how much work went into this activity out-of-wikipedia. It may be worth to note that wikipedia itself has several sections to help new contributers get on their feet, and i really believe that "Give and ye shall receive" applies here. Your doing an excellent job contributing content, so other editors will happily assist with answering questions. I think there are two methods that qualify best for your student to request help. The {{helpme}} template is the first one - A user can add this to his or her talk page along with a question, and a friendly editor will respond with an answer as soon as possible, which may be very fast as the category is monitored and reported by bots at near-real time speeds. The template link itself provides a little more documentation on how to add it. A second option is using an IRC channel specifically meant for assistance. All the user has to do is follow this link with Javascript enabled, and he or she will enter the wikipedia-en-help channel on the IRC server. The advantage of this method is that it is a chat system which allows for real-time communication, though due to network policies present at colleges it may not always work. Again, everyone working on these help channels is more then happy to lend a hand, and no question is stupid. It may just take a bit of the teaching load involved with this project. (The only downside is that some editors may get a bit enthusiastic causing them to start helping with the article itself which may make grading a result a tad more difficult - but the history should shows if someone was involved with a decent amount of the work)
A third and final advice before is that besides WP:FA there are two more area's where students might nominate their article's. WP:GA is a light version of the FA criteria and thus it requires less quality to be successfully promoted. Several of the article's i have skimmed across might be good candidates to try for this criteria, though some additional changes might be required. Last there is WP:DYK. All a DYK requires is that: A) An article has been recently created (within 5 days), that it is well sources, and that it contains at least 1.500 characters. The recently created part might also be read as "Expanded in size at least 5x", so expanded sub article's may be nominated as well. If an article meets these criteria it may be suggested at Template talk:Did you know along with an interesting hook, after which it may be shown in the "Did you know..." section on the mainpage for several hours. This may be interesting for the students as DYK article's tend to attracts several thousand viewers due to the placement at the front page (the record, as far as recorded history goes, is currently 71,300 views). I always say that knowing someone actually reads your work makes it more worthwhile to create it. :). Note that these view statistics can easily be checked for every article. The link i added shows the view count for the Yellowstone National Park this month.
I realize that i have been excessively verbose, and that i might have mentioned many things you may already know a long time. Still, i feel obliged to do so simply because of the magnitude of quality being unleashed here (And no, im definitely not exaggerating - one of my main activities around here is patrolling new pages and it is quite rare to see such large contributions of such quality). Again i know that the project is nearly over but if you would need any assistance my own talk page is always open. I am mostly involved in the maintenance departments, but i may be able to assist with low to mid-level content contributions as well. And of course, don't shy away from the help channels or wikipedia - everyone is more then glad to help out a bit. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)23:00, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the insight. They have a few articles at GAN right now, and a few more going into the works in the next few days. I've taken a few DYKs FAs, GAN etc through the process. It's very time consuming. They are doing well, though, and I'd appreciate any assistance I can get in reviewing the articles and helping with wikisyntax etc. their articles must be posted by the 20th, but we have another 3 weeks or so to get them into shape, before I have to submit grades.Auntieruth55 (talk) 23:07, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Re: AMA Foundation Leadership Award The purpose of the creation of this page is for people to know about the existence of awards in medicine related to leadership, medical education and volunteerism. I have not been bestowed with any of these awards and I took the data directly from the source and the press releases from multiple years, so no conflict of interest is involved (other than my username - AMA Member -, if that was the assumption). I am new to wikipedia as an author, so I apologize if it needs "clean-up", if you can invite someone else to edit it, that would be fantastic.
Dr. Regina Benjamin, the US Surgeon General was a recipient of this award less than a year ago, and it is worth describing the criteria for its selection among the different categories. Many other individuals with recognized careers have also received these awards. If any of the readers/editors/contributors consider some of the information is biased and/or not necessary, please modify it as needed, having into consideration at least the description of the awards and their scope. Following Wikipedia's rules regarding COI, I will withdraw myself from editing this page in the future. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.99.32.5 (talk) 10:47, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
I added a lot of tags to the article, so let me give you a quick rundown as to the "Why" i added them.
References need improvement. Currently the article seems to be almost entirely based upon primary sources, which aren't considered to be reliable as they have to close a connection to the subject. The added sources seem to have the same issue, as they are in fact press releases based upon their sourcing. Good references are Secondary sources, which are further removed from the subject, and thus they have less of a conflict of interest.
Advertisement. The article contains a heavy amount of Peacock terms. Every article on wikipedia should be based upon a Neutral point of view which makes no judgments as to somethings quality. Take this line for example: This award recognizes exceptional medical professionals who go beyond the medical practice to positively influence health care. All the bolded words are peacock terms as they seem to tell "How good" something is. This is just a one line example, but these issues are present throughout the entire text.
Wikified \ Cleanup. Well, i would refer to WP:Wikify for that. This is more of a Wikipedia related issue regarding page formatting then a content issue though.
CoI. Indeed, your username being AMA Member signaled a (Very) likely CoI. Keep in mind that not being awarded an award isn't always the me thing as not having a CoI - being familiar with a certain organization is sometimes enough to have a WP:Bias.
If you feel you can correct these issues, please do so. Otherwise you can just leave the templates on which will signal other editors that an article needs improvement, while also pointing readers to issues present within the text. With kind regards, Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)11:17, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
I noticed the edit you made to the above article, and after some research i think it would seem that Journal des sçavans is just a tad older. Citation 2 which you referred to seems to claim that the first magazine came out on 6 March 1665, while this source claims that the Journal des sçavans was first published on January 5, 1665. As both sources seem reliable and very specific about publishing dates, i would say that our verifiable information seems to suggest that Journal des sçavans is just a tad older. I added the source i mentioned to the article, and reinstated the old version. Kind regards, Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)10:44, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Hi
Yes, I completely agree that JDS is older. This is not in question. My point is that Phil Trans is the first journal devoted exclusively to science. That is why I made the edits I did. If you look at the ref no.1 in the JDS wikipedia entry, you will see that this is explained. Reference 2 in the Phil Trans article also bears this out, so I think it is clearly a matter of fact.
Well, the old version seems to do a better job explaining this, as i can imagine there might be some confusion regarding the wording as not everyone may take immediate notice the "exclusively devoted to science" part. The previous version seems to acknowledge that it is the oldest "Scientific only" publication in the world, while also addressing the fact that Journal des sçavans is older - yet not entirely dedicated to science. I would say that the latter is relevant to the article as well as there seem to be some conflicting opinions about it. How about leaving both in with the reference i added? It is not conflicting information - only additional context to the "Oldest scientific journal" question. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)10:57, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Hello again. Thanks for your constructive attitude here. I agree that your addition of ref 1 is a good one. My ref 3 also makes the same point that Phi Trans was solely devoted to science, whilst JDS was clearly quite a diverse journal. Given that not everyone reads the references on wikipedia, I would still quite like to see the article point out that JDS was not really a science journal in the same way. I think it is only fair to explain the pivotal role of Phil Trans in the history of science (establishing the key principles of scientific priority and peer review). Would you be happy with that? PointOfPresence (talk) 11:06, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
May I suggest the following wording?
The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (Phil. Trans.) is a scientific journal published by the Royal Society. It was established in 1665, making it the first journal in the world exclusively devoted to science and it has remained in continuous publication ever since. The slightly earlier Journal des Scavans can also lay claim to be the world's first science journal, although it contained a wide variety of non-scientific material also.PointOfPresence (talk) 11:24, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Fine with me, it discusses the claim both magazines have to "Being the oldest" and points out the difference between them which makes each claim slightly different. With both references added i see no issue whatsoever in the wording - expect the addition of also at the end perhaps - may i suggest replacing that with "as well"? Note that if you do not agree it is not an issue that needs discussing - i am satisfied either way. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)11:33, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Your RfA was successful
Congratulations, I have closed your Request for Adminship as successful and you are now a sysop! If you have any questions about adminship, feel free to ask me. Please consider messaging me on IRC for access to the #wikipedia-en-admins channel. Good luck! --Deskana(talk)16:28, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks all of you - i will proudly wear the bucket on my head, and i will wield the mop with care so i don't stain my new shirt :). Seems i completed WP:NAS now so it is time to memorize every word of the blocking policy and handle a few other tasks before i plunge myself into the deep, deep sea. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)18:07, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Congrats from me too! If you need any mopping help/advice, feel free to message me :) And if you know anything about hungarian and polish TV, there's a request at RPP that could use your attention! GedUK18:16, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Oh, i wish i would know something about hungaria / romania. If i did i could have made some more meaningful contributes to the above discussions other then just discussing the process. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)18:19, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
A belated congratulations from me! If you ever need anything, just drop by my talk page. Best of luck! --Taelus (talk) 20:46, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Congratulations, I didn't know you were in the middle of the RFA process. It wasn't me who "identified you" as an admin and looking back the whole thing seems strangely odd. But anyway, good luck with your adminship. Squash Racket (talk) 13:00, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
i accidenly
i acidenly forgot to log in and acidenly used a ip adess on here is this ok? because i don't want to be accused of sockpuppeting! and since your a admin thats why i posted this here.sorry for putting it in wrong place if i did
p.s i get very worried if accussed
—Preceding unsigned comment added by good888 (talk • contribs)
oh yeah please don't put your answer on my talk page because i get worried there too—Preceding unsigned comment added by good888 (talk • contribs)
The sockpuppeting policy forbids a few things:
Deliberately using an IP address (or Username) during an edit war with the purpose to disrupt the normal process or to evade WP:3RR
In your case, you simply forgot to login, and i see no disruption whatsoever on this page. Hence, man doesn't get accused of being a sockpuppet unless it is a clear disruptive case. The last IP edit to that page is just fine, so don't worry about being accused for this. Everyone forgets to log in sometime, even me :). Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)13:49, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for acting so quickly on that article. Apparently it was created in good faith but then changed into an attack article by a particular user. I didn't keep a record of the name of the user but it is apparent from the article history, which is now vanished. Do you think it would be advisable to leave a warning on the talk page of that user? ScottyBerg (talk) 16:06, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I warned the user in question as he has been editing the article in question several times over the span of two weeks, which were incidentally his only contributions as well. The article was indeed made in good faith as the earlier versions were not that bad. However, there were some notability concerns as well, as the only source mentioned just used him as a 1 line example. Hopefully this solves the issue though. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)16:10, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I saw you declined speedy on this article with the reason "Adapted from CC-BY content" and was looking for clarification. When I look at the source page's copyright notice I see "The text ... may be downloaded for free-provided that credits or acknowledgement be accorded" (emphasis added), but I didn't see anything regarding distribution or creation of derivative works which would imply a CC-BY license, let alone an explicit license. Did I miss something? VernoWhitney (talk) 16:12, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Hmm, true. I interpreted "Downloaded" as "Spread", but it doesn't explicitly mention that it may be adapted, or that it may be used for commercial purposes. It may as well be BY-NC or BY-ND as permission isn't explicitly given for those. I actually asked for some feedback on the admin IRC channel, but i phrased the question wrong since i asked if CC-BY was compatible (Which presumed thought was), instead of asking if the copyright notice actually constituted CC-BY. I think you are right on this one though, as the notice doesn't explicitly allow adaption or commercial use. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)16:23, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Glad you are staying!
I only just now noticed the RFA you opened for yourself, after i came here to thank you especially for offering to nominate me for adminship, and i am really, REALLY glad that Uploadvirus and Kayou got here before i did or i might not have seen you anymore. But before i say anything else, let me do what i came to do first: Thanks. Thanks for offering to nominate me for RFA, because i wouldn't have been there without your sudden though very kind offer of support. Some candidates add a message of thanks to the talk page of every editor involved in the entire procedure, but i think there are better things to do in that time, such as removing vandalism! Even so, a message specifically aimed at you for your irreplaceable support seemed to be an excellent way to spend my time :).
Now for the less pleasant part - the RFA you created for yourself. I guess you already it figured out: RFA is an inherently negative process where you can face a lot of tough criticism, some of which might not seem fair at all. I know the feeling as my own RFA was actually the second RFA with my name on it. My first RFA was held when i had been around for around 9 months, doing what you are also doing - fighting vandalism and trying to help the wiki. Back then i thought i would make a great admin as well, and i was definitely motivated to become one. Seeing that people only oppose you in return stings, up to a point where many promising editors simply write a rant, vandalize a bit and then leave forever as they became disillusioned with Wikipedia. Personally I took a two-day timeout myself to see if the points raised in the RFA were really that bad. In my case they luckily were - it made it easier to understand why people opposed.
But never give up! A failed RFA doesn't mean you aren't doing an excellent job, because you are certainly doing that. Adminship is really what they say it is; You are handed a mop and a bucket, and suddenly you find yourself mopping the floor, cleaning the windows and replacing the toilet paper. The only real difference is that you can handle things such as WP:AIAV reports myself - but there would be no reports whatsoever if it wasn't for vandalism fighters such as yourself! Hence, an admin does little but wander towards things the community points them to :).
If i would offer any advice i would say this: Just keep doing what you are doing now, and have a look in other area's as well to see if there more activities that would seem fun (That way you can always do something else if vandalism patrol starts to become repetative, as it may become at times). What they say is true - The longer you are around here, the more you learn. Don't specifically aim for adminship; In almost two years after the RFA there was rarely a case where i wished i had admin privileges as i could get anything done trough the noticeboards. And who knows - perhaps a kind and friendly user will come around some day, offering to nominate you as well. :)
I know i have been talking a long time, but as a last comment i think you deserve this little shiny for staying around and going back to normal so soon after such an unpleasant experience. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)17:51, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for your support, Excirial. I did seriously consider leaving forever after that failed RfA, but then I realized that this would only harm the encyclopedia, as there would be one less vandal-patroller, and after seeing the overwhelming support of my staying (on wikipedia) I made up my mind that I should not retire. I probalny will not start another RfA, or at the very least not for a long while. Best wishes. Immunize (talk) 20:55, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
I ask people if we can speed things up a bit and they do it before i could even voice it - my, the average company would pay a fortune for such employees :).
Other then this, well, i got little to say. You quote reliable sources, you discuss on talk pages so i see no true red flags on that aspect. It may be wise to ask for a quick spell-and-grammar check before inserting content though, as you make some errors in that area, but even that should be manageable. Finally it may also be wise to evade the more heated debates for now by simply not giving a fuck (I know the title can be considered rude, but it is a pretty good essay nonetheless). If you meet a lot of resistance it is often easier to just ease against it, rather then trying to smash trough. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)09:46, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Hi there, I'm really new to wikipedia and my boyfriend and I wanted to create an article on an advertising agency that I did research for as part of a uni subject. They are Melbourne-based and growing momentum each day. My article was taken down by you and I just wanted to know what I can do to fix it so it remains on wikipedia? The agency may not be that well-known internationally but they are quite big in Melbourne and Australia and I learnt about them at university, so I was thinking that would justify it as being relevant to wikipedia.
If my tone was too promotional, I can change that. Do you have any recommendations on example pages that are about notable organisations that are written neutrally that I could base the article on?
Let me first say Welcome. Welcome to Wikipedia and may your stay be a pleasant one. I know the welcome template say exactly the same thing, but those are just quickly-placed templates. But on to your question. In order to remain on wikipedia an article must meet 3 core criteria: If must be Notable, this notability must be verifiable trough reliable sources and it must be written in a neutral point of view. There are more rules of course, but these are the core ones. Now, instead of pointing you to a boatload of long article's on policies, let me explain them.
Notability: As the name says, notability means that in order for a subject to be covered on, the articles subject needs to have some kind of importance (notability) which warrants an encyclopedia article on it. For example an article about Google is notable because Google is the worlds biggest search engine. However the shops around the corner around here are an example of non-notable businesses. In other words: The article must demonstrate that it is somehow important.
How would an article demonstrate this? Well, a subject is deemed notable if it "received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article.". I would detail every individual point myself, but the General notability guideline header in our notability article sums it up better then i could do. Of course i am open for questions if it is unclear.
Verifiability. On Wikipedia, merely claiming that something is important is not enough - it must be verifiable trough reliable sources as well. I kind of explained the verifiability part in the notability section; Article's should cite reliable sources that verify any claims to notability. If you based your article on reliable sources, it is wise to add those.
Neutral Point of View'. This one is simple to understand, but often hard to execute. A neutral point of view means that an article shouldn't be written in either a positive or negative sense. In company article's a non-neutral point of view often shows itself in the form of advertising or smear tactics; Both should be avoided. The easiest way to test this is by asking yourself if the information you wrote is an opinion or a fact. Stating "It it a company which is pretty large!" i would state subjective information as it contains my own judgments. If i would write "The company had over 2.000 employees which makes it the second largest company in Tanzania" i would list statistics that can be quoted from a reliable source.
The article itself
Now, a bit more specific on the article: The first problem is that it doesn't really make a claim to being notable. Yes, it has some notable clients, but notability is not inherited; To explain: If i were a paperboy delivering the newspaper to a random a-class actor that wouldn't make me notable. Thus, there should be a claim that it is notable, which is easiest to do trough citing reliable sources as i mentioned above under the notability part.
A second issue with the article is that it read like an advertisement. Take this line for example: "What sets Extension apart from traditional agencies is that Extension aims to work as an in-house marketing team or as an extension to their client’s business.". This line points out that a) Extension is better then other companies, and b) That they will the customers so well they will feel like an in-house department. This issue happens throughout the text. "ensuring the team’s knowledge remains up-to-date and relevant to the changing needs of the real estate industry" is another example. Equally that line's only purpose is demonstrating how good the advertising agency is.
I have already written more text then quite a few people bother to read, so i'll cut it short here. O hope this explanation help, and of course i am open for questions should they arise :). Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)08:13, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Hi!
Thanks so much for the info and for putting it in plain English so I could understand. Essentially, if I rewrite it with a more neutral tone and then link through to more references that are verifiable and demonstrate the notability of the company/principal the article would have a greater chance of being published?
I'll have another go at it this week, based on the above info. Would you mind before I resubmit it, if I send your way so you can let me know whether it's passable?
Thanks again,
Julia
Every article is welcome as long as it meets the criteria i wrote above, so yes - if the article is rewritten with those in mind it should have no issue staying here. Of course the change it will stay depends upon how well the article is written (in comparison with the guidelines), but only clear cases are speedily removed.
As for going over the article, sure, i have no problem doing so. The easiest way to discuss this is probably trough the Wikipedia-en-help channel on the freenode IRC network (Click the link, add a username and press connect). The advantage of this method is that it allows for real-time communication which is often preferable for pointing out small changes and besides that there are more editors in the helpme channel besides me, which increases responce time. Alternatively you can also leave me a note on my talk page when you are done. Kind regards, Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)17:19, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. Really a shame, as i was also hoping that there would be something salvageable for that user (That's why i left the SSP case open for two days). However seeing the consistent use of very-likely sockpuppets, an IRC discussion i had with him, the edits made by that IP user, the AFC article and the fact he admitted that all 3 accounts were on the same WIFI meant i ended up with some of these. Hopefully the next user is a better one though - its more satisfying to help a user then to block a sockpuppet in my opinion. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)16:42, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Requesting removal of lock for article
Hi requesting removal of lock for article bangladesh liberation war. the admin who locked it seems to be away. as per discussion changes need to be made in article. also can you put the article on semi protected status so that only registered users can edit the article thanks. BangladeshPride (talk) 04:52, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
I think that might be because i handled 6 or 7 RFPP's in a row last evening, so my name was all over that page which may have lead to this request. As for the protection: i see little to no discussion on the talk page, and as Ged already mentioned - it has only been protected for two days. Wait until there is some agreement on the talk page and request unprotected at WP:RFPP then, or wait three to four more days to make sure everyone had plenty of time to comment on the talk page. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)10:10, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Hi we have discussed the date issue and i was going to put in the proper format as you can see in the discussion that i compromised with format of uplinkansh. Also the bangladeshi hindu refugee number has to be put no one has any issue with that. the terminology still needs to be discussed for bangladesh we use east pakistan not west pakistan although we want to discuss that issue for some more time that is fine. could you unlock the article so that i can put the bangladeshi hindu refugee number in the summary and also i need to put in the proper date format. ragib has said that he had saved the wrong version so can you unlock the wrong version and put the article on semi protected. so that i can put in the 2 details and then you can put the lock back on. we will discuss the terminology of east or west pakistan for some more time. thanks BangladeshPride (talk) 11:06, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Full protection is left in place until the dispute is resolved, which has obviously not been done. Neither change seems to be absolutely critical for now, so i am inclined to keep the article in its current form during the dispute, as this will leave a baseline version every party involved can discuss - and i am reluctant to edit trough another admins protection except for vandalism or BLP issues; Especially if that admin has edited less then a day ago. Once the dispute is resolved all changes can be added to the article at the same time. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)11:44, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
