This is an archive of discussions past. Please do not edit this page, and instead visit User talk:ST47 if you want to leave me a comment.
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Just a short note about user:GrinBot: yes, he's running, but based on huwiki's content, not enwiki, so ranges aren't a problem; a full run finishes in less than a week for example, even with pretty high delays. --grin✎22:54, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have read the description. It seems your bot is making automated interwikilinks. This is sacrificing quality over speed. The bot is bound to make more errors. Are you aware of the work being done at http://tools.wikimedia.de/~flacus/IWLC/start.php? It automates interwikilinks finding and editing, but it requires humans to check if the articles are really about the same subject. I have done quite a lot of checking there, and I have seen lots of instances of two articles having the same name about different people, who happen to have the same name. I would urge you to at least stop making automated interwikilinks for articles about people. S Sepp20:09, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The same goes for articles about places. Often when using interwikilink-checker it finds articles with the same name about places which are actually different places. For instance one of them is in France, the other is in Swiss, but they have the same name. Place names are often not unique at all. S Sepp20:13, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
[1]. The entry removed was zh:英格蘭銀行 (traditional character), but actually it has been moved to zh:英格兰银行 (simplified character). Both are still valid on the zh space. There are something funny about the conversion between two scripts in the zh space. I think it's a little more complicated than redirect... but I'm not sure. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 13:30, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
looks like three of them were linking to articles. Links to those pages should be done from the actual article they describe: link to the de: biased sample article from biased sample. The fourth looks like an incorrectly labeled disambiguaton page. ST47Talk12:59, 28 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I disagree. While some of the interwikilinks didn't point to the exact same topic, they point to a closely related one, and in some cases to the closest one available in the relevant language. If I were a native Spanish or German speaker reading the bias (statistics) article and looking for a translation, I would prefer to be directed to a related page, which would at least give a translation of the term (bias -> Trend, for example), than to have no interwikilink at all. If your bot can't make a better suggestion for a link, then at least don't delete the links we have. Besides creating a lot of revert work for all of us, I am afraid your bot might be deleting other important links to pages that happen not to be on anyone's watchlist. Please make it stop! --Zvika07:37, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
S Sepp is correct, that is the japanese version of badtitletext - because it interpeted your link as an external link, and you can't use the | in external links. However, [2] does not exist. ST47Talk13:49, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am Bentong Isles, the bureaucrat at ceb-wp. I've noticed that STBotD has the capability of removing interwiki links to nonexistent articles. I would like to invite you to run the bot at ceb-wp. But perhaps, before deleting the interwiki link, we could also be informed in our village pump or we could also create a page which will contain the reports from the bot. It will be great help to our wp. Thanks! --Bentong Isles03:09, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi! Correct, my bot can do that, and I can send it to your wiki, looking for bad links and creatign a log. I'll mention it on your VP(in english :( ) if I find anything. ST47Talk13:10, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi! Thanks for the run through of your bot at ceb-wp. I realize how many broken there are in our wp. :) As to policy: we still don't have a policy about that, and other bots are doing things to our wp like modifying interwiki links. (Although we haven't noticed any of them removing the links.) Anyway, I think it does not serve any purpose for an interwiki link to exist if the target page does not actually exist, right? So I think if the target page is not there, we might as well remove the link. OTH, if the target page is a dab: does someone have to manually edit the link? Can it be done by the bot? (Sorry, I know very little about bots :)) --Bentong Isles11:07, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
no problem, running the bot is the easy part :p Now if you want, I can run through and fix all of those? That's just be removing all the bad links to other wikis, and would be easy to set up. Let me know if you'd like me to do that. ST47Talk11:45, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please read the article and then tell me if you still believe that the term is "non-neutral, irrelevant to the article and its subject." Military brat is an accepted term and a highly studied subject. The term is used by researchers and the community it describes. It is relevant to the subject because it does have a bearing on the individual as is supported by the research. Balloonman20:55, 1 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
While I see from the article that is it indeed a commonly used term, and not the derogatory "brat" that I'm more used to hearing, I don't believe that we need a listing of "brats". I'm sure that most of these articles already say that their father was in the military, and I can't really think of a use of categories to say it again. ST47Talk21:54, 1 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Could you go back and undo this edit of yours? I'd hit "rollback" if you for all the subsequent edits. Just as with Wikipedia's most famous of all topics lists, the links to talk pages were made invisible in order that when you click on "related changes" they'd be included, but would not add clutter to the list. If the links to talk pages are to be made visible, then it should be clear what they are, so it should say "talk:this topic" instead of just "this topic".
This most heinous and regrettable edit, which has stood for three months, is obviously so incredibly destructive that it couldn't even sit for fifteen minutes more, lest the wiki face imminent destruction. ST47Talk19:37, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Good luck deleting them! I'm just using an approach with AWB and a database dump, I'm surprised that so many were allowed to accumulate. ST47Talk00:10, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh dear, I'll have to hurry up and tag some more ;) - I'll wait, since I don't want to overload the queue and push out all the important ones all at once, there are somewhere around 3000 on the list I created, though there are a lot of duplicates, false positives, and archives. ST47Talk01:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ha, just came here to check that you wern't going to be going through doing them all at once. Around 100 or so at a time max please!!! ;) --Robdurbar11:50, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you're going to go around adding more dead weight to talk pages (which unfortunately seems to be the standard practice), can you at least configure your bot not to add the template above {{skiptotoctalk}} (the template that lets you skip directly to the actual content of the talk page). Also, why are you adding three blank lines along with the template? Christopher Parham(talk)20:42, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
it seems like that template is used by a minority of talk pages (under 500), so, it doesn't seem worthwhile, I can simply fix all of them after this run is over. Perhaps that template can be modified to display at the top of the page, no matter what, like the status template on my userpage, if it is really a problem? ST47Talk21:37, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's not entirely my fault. The other guy INSISTS on editing the page with false information. Tell HIM to stop editing out other people's posts. Don't blame this entirely on me.CBFan14:45, 6 January 2007 (UTC)CBFan[reply]
Feel free to remove it, I was asked by the wikiproject to add CAT:France and all subcategories in, and the fact that his poems are in french puts him in that list. ST47Talk18:08, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Your Franco-bot recently tagged Crimson Fox, a comic character, as being under the provenance of the WP:France. Please see the talk there to give an explanation for why a fictional french character, in american media and american-created, should be in the French WP. Thank you. I suspect your bot got enthusiastic, or the article hit enough parameters in it's search protocol. ThuranX20:31, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Further to the bot's rather strange tagging tendancies, it recently tagged a numerous amount of Spanish players why play for Athletic Bilbao. Not sure why it did so... Either way, it obviously needs to stop doing so...--Tiresais23:08, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've further limited the wikiproject's request to go only 2 levels deep, instead of the 4 I previously limited to. I've restarted the bot, 8000 pages, some already done, and all in a category related to france. ST47Talk01:00, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You have also tagged Navarre national football team which is a Spanish football team. I think you need to stop adding this template and rethink the categories it is picking. It seems to be making lots of mistakes. Since many of these are new talk pages, they cannot simply be reverted which takes extra effort to clean-up. -- JLaTondre21:39, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The Basque region covers two countries, Spain and France. Please remove the Basque sport category from your Bot. I dread to think of how many other Basque categories you have also tagged incorrectly.
Iggi03:08, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have a response for that: several dozens, all Spanish-Basque articles. Yes, the Basque Country spans France and Spain and your bot is messing up everything. Example: the Basque mountains are part of the Spanish Basque Country, none of them is in France, so the article is entirely out of the French project scope. David15:30, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
So why come to me? I didn't make the request, and the bot certainly isn't checking each article. If you're in the wikiproject, advise whoever made the request at WP:BOTREQ to revise it, or feel free to run AWB on your own. ST47Talk21:48, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The archives were created with parenthesis in the name, then moved to a name without parens. The redirect is needed because people very, very frequently refer to older discussions when an editor who is new to an article brings up something which was previously discussed. See WP:RTA. The redirects need to be left in place, or referral links made prior to the move will simply go to No page found. For example, I might refer you to Talk:Abortion/First_paragraph#Definition_of_abortion if you bring up the definition, so you are familiar with all the reasoning involved in the current definition. If that sub-page is moved to an archive name, say Talk:Abortion/Archive_99, a redirect would be necessary for you to find the referenced discussion. For that reason, don't add a speedy tag to any redirect unless it points to a page which does not exist - unless it is a double redirect, in which case fix rather than tag for speedy. KillerChihuahua?!?10:59, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The dutch/german/whatever article is an article, not a disambiguation, so they are not about the same subject. That interwiki would be better in the articles linked to from the en: article. ST47Talk11:28, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I see now why a bot would do this. However, in this case the German article is a de facto disambiguation article dealing with various Alpine foothills regions in different countries just as the English page does (though not necessarily the exact same ones). — AjaxSmack 00:20, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am providing this notice because you recently (Closed January 1, 2007) provided an opinion concerning keep/delete or other comments relating to the AfD for the article 123 Pleasant Street. This AfD had an announced result of a consensus to "Keep." A User or Users dissatisfied with this outcome have intitated a process other than the public AfD to overturn this result. The article is presently once again listed on a AfD discussion. To assure that your original comments and opinions are considered you should immediately again expression them in the Current AfD
I must say I'm torn between my wish not to overrun the new sections you've created by keeping any comments I make to only the most relevant as as concise as possible, but I must say that Olivierd and Benio76 are using their quoting in a way which is to me misleading, whether they are doing it intentionally or not. I would like to correct the slant, but as I said, I'm afraid this would again spark up such wordy reactions that they would overrun the sections very quickly (if that isn't done already). As mediator, I need your advice on the best course of action in such a case. Your counsel is appreciated.--Ramdrake16:28, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Olivierd has now added [3] something that looks very much like a pure personal attack. Just wanted to know if you felt this was indeed a personal attack which should be removed. As I am involved in this, I dare not remove it myself. Again, thank you for all your efforts.--Ramdrake15:24, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The wording of your checkuser request, and that request itself following one-sided discussion with one of the parties ([4], [5]), appear to be in violation of the What mediators are not guideline:
2. Mediators are not Private Investigators. Mediators do not "work for you," nor will they work to build a case against someone or research the facts in an article. (...)
3. (...) Mediators work with all parties as a neutral third party; they cannot and will not counsel or give advice to either party involved in the dispute.
4. Mediators are not Advocates. Mediators will not take sides or promote one person's point of view or request over those of another person. (...)
In my opinion, you have handled the foie gras mediation poorly, through the above violations and on the counts that I have stated on the checkuser case page. That mediation case was a difficult one, and I am not implying that you cannot be a good mediator. I do feel it important to note those shortcomings.
I disagree with both of your diffs. The first one was a response to a question asked to me, the RFCU had cause and I was contacted outside of the mediation with suspicions and was simply asked for advice. The second one was also a friendly suggestion to one of the sides, just like I suggested that you all try to come up with helpful suggestions with my edit this morning to the mediation page. I don't see how these situations can be resolved without more interaction beyond "look, here is a page, feel free to nuke each other on it, I'll sit over here and watch", especially when one side is suspicious of foul play. Until those concerns are alleviated I do not see how this can be resolved. ST47Talk20:02, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The first diff seems quite acceptable, except that you suggested that user Apankrat email you behind the scenes regarding his suspicions of sockpuppetry. (That diff was a double edit, I am not questioning the second part of it.) Any user can request checkuser, it is not up to the mediator to "work to build a case against someone". It was not your role to "counsel or give advice to either party involved in the dispute". That you clearly did; you gave advice to one party on how to mount its sockpuppetry case against the other; and you are found doing it even more openly in the second diff (second diff, not second part of first diff): "there may be a way to determine it (...), possibly through writing style - typos, grammatical errors, and the like - all of which would be excellent for RFCU." Then you went as far as requesting the checkuser yourself, acting on behalf of one party. In that request, you use heavy language, that is not only biased but offensive - calling our edits "ongoing, serious pattern vandalism" and "disruptive" - if that is not "taking sides and promoting one person's point of view and requests over those of others", I don't know what would be!
What you say about the difficulty of resolving the situation is no doubt true. I recognize mediation is a difficult task in general, and that the foie gras article is a particularly difficult case. I am not competent to advise on what you should have done, except this: to do your work correctly, you would have had to pay much more attention to the arguments. You would then have realized that any resolution of the conflict implies obtaining of Trevyn, Ramdrake and the others that they accept to act in a less blatantly POV manner.
And also, if you had read the arguments, you would have realized how different the writing styles of Benio76, Zelig33 and myself actually are, and how implausible it is for there to be sockpuppets among us. Instead, I believe you panicked, and in substance allowed yourself to become the sockpuppet of one side. That is not a good outcome for a mediation.
Sorry, I got bored after the first 50 KB of bickering, and lost my faith in humanity after the first 100KB. It is obvious both sides don't need my help, if all you plan to do is what you've been doing on the article for weeks. I am going to read some stuff then I will be back. ST47Talk11:41, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi ST47, I just took notice of your request for checkuser concerning me and the editors of my party in the controversy about foie gras. Well, it was plainly incorrect to do this without even saying it in the mediation page, i.e. in hiding. I see now that the other party contacted you, that they alerted each others when it was needed to charge against us, that you have had contacts all the time. Personally, I never dared to contact other editors who contributed to foie gras (not even to alert those who did not come to the Mediation Cabal, to ask them to come), fearing that it would have been incorrect; I never even thought of writing to you indipendently of the Mediation Cabal page, because it was obvious to me that all the discussion - and making questions, and raising suspects eventually - was supposed to take place there, and every attempt to contact you would have been dishonest. I see now that I've been too naive.
You say that you got bored: you should have said it before. Instead, you stayed silent for a while, then you choose to reduce our request to have precise and verifiable statements in the article (concerning historical facts and scientific definitions) to a question of sockpuppetry. From the very beginning of this mediation, the other party has repeatedly tried to remove attention from the poorness of their sources and the speciousnees of their arguments by making speculations about the identity of their opposants, before accusing everybody to come from PETA, now accusing us to be sockpuppets. And you got bored, you followed their suggestions and your priority now is to help them to see if I'm a sockpuppet or not. You don't care if I contributed to disveal an historical fraud, if I showed the unreliability of a book which was listed as an historical source despite its author was clearly biased and incompetent. You didn't even express your opinion about this, about the necessity to remove that stupid book from the sources, to edit more carefully, to give not speculation for truth. Your priority is just to see if I'm a sockpuppet, because you got bored.
Well, I don't now how many mediations you take, maybe this case is specifically hard or annoying compared to the others, I don't know; but I think that if there were serious problems in our case, you should have said it openly. I worked seriously to demask deliberate disinformation, I wrote a lot, yes, but I always thanked you for your attention: you stayed silent and I thought that you were thinking. Now I see that you lost your neutrality, now I read that "you got bored": it's me, really, who have lost my faith in humanity.
ST47, you are accusing me, among other things, of "several 3RR near-violations and edit warring" [6]. Could you please substantiate your claim ? Please provide evidence supporting this accusation, or please publicly apologize for false accusations. I don't think you can any longer be a legitimate mediator after this. Anyway if you want to act as a mediator, you cannot just ask editors "to compromise" without looking somewhat into the issues involved, into why for instance some editors refuse to accept that claims not grounded on credible sources be inserted into the article. You have to look at the arguments themselves, not just ask people to compromise. If that is more efforts than you want to put into this, fine, it is you right, then just say it and don't pretend you want to be a mediator. To me contributing to a Wikipedia article is not about making editors compromise, it is about stating facts that are grounded on credible sources.
Hello ST47 just wanted to let you know that, after speaking with my colleagues, we decided best to continue the conversation on the talk page of the article (which has been severely archived already) rather than going back to the mediation page. I guess you can close that one right now, and say it was successful, but in an unforeseen kind of way. Please feel free to jot down any remarks or such you feel are appropriate. Thank you again for all your help.--Ramdrake12:44, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I reverted your bot there because the edit seemed faulty, it added a nowiki-category to a stub template that appeared in the articles with that template, just didn't seem to be formatted correctly.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 19:37, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, first of all I wanted to thank you for you help on vandal patrol :). I don't know if you are aware of it, but starting today, there are new unified user warnings in place. The idea behind this rewamp was, among other things, to add some consistency to their look and wording. Check them out at WP:UTM! You can of course continue to use the old test templates, but please give a shot of our shiny new{{uw-test1}}, {{uw-vandalism1}} and {{uw-delete1}}. The numbering is still 1 to 4. I hope you'll appreciate them! Happy vandal fighting! -- lucasbfrtalk22:56, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your support in my RfA. I withdrew when it became clear that the uphill climb had crossed the snowball threshold, but I appreciate your support and the process gave me some good ideas for other ways I can be contributing to Wikipedia. I'll work on the areas that came up in the discussion, and try again after I've gained wider experience. -FisherQueen (Talk) 12:24, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for closing the debate. I think you're right about no consensus. I started a long reply to one editor (Agent 86) and by the time I was done you had already closed the debate. (This happened just a couple of minutes ago) My addition remains on the page, but perhaps not on the version that was archived. Could you please include my final comment in what gets archived? I'd appreciate it. Best, Noroton19:21, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Thanks for helping out at AFD. Just a small request, if you relist an article, could you please also remove it from the log for the original date.
Also, when closing debates you might want to stick to ones that are "unambiguous keep decisions" per the non-admin guidelines. I'm sure that most of the ones that you have closed fall into this category, but closing ones that are non-consensus, might raise some questions. Anyway, thanks again. Cheers TigerShark20:40, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the tip! Regarding no consensus, the one had equal votes either way, i didn't think it would be deleted, and it was one of the last few for the day. ST47Talk20:43, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm slightly puzzled by your message that my edits to the Synergistics Boston article had removed content. Can you clarify which part of the edit you were referring to? I tried to remove only hyperbole, and restate only verifiable facts about the gym. Was it something in the owners' CVs? Thanks in advance for your help.
Sorry, it's probablydue to the program I've been using - sometimes it shows one thing but then goes and reverts random stuff, feel free to re-insert your edit, and thanks for contributing. ST47Talk20:49, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I thought i would just come over and say hello and that i am know you from guild wiki, and that i am rather bored, which is mostly likly the real motivation for saying hello :).--JWJWTalk Long Live Esperanza! :) 22:05, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
oh i do, but the vandals chase me down with spears and pitchforks, its a nightmare, so in an effort to stay away from vandals, i went on a welcome spree, however i greeted someone today in the hope that they would become a well rounded user and one of them has already got themselves blocked permantly. gg.--JWJWTalk Long Live Esperanza! :) 23:05, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Editors that don't provide an edit summary tend to look like vandals
I have noticed you commonly don't enter an edit summary as you didn't when you edited Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism (see this edit). This causes me problems. When I patrol for vandalism, I use the summary to make a preliminary decision on whether or not the post is a vandal edit or not. If the summary is present (or at least a section header, the part inside the /* */), I commonly decide the edit is legit and move on.
However, if no edit summary is available, I typically resort to loading the diff for the edit. This takes time. For that reason, if your edits are all valid, I ask that you provide edit summaries. For more on how to enter an edit summary, please read Help:Edit summary.
Incidentally, it is not just me that appreciate having edit summaries. When you omit your summary, you may be telling various bots that you are vandalizing pages. For this reason, please consider providing that summary. It is very important. You can enter that summary via the edit summary box on edit pages (as shown below).
The edit summary appears in black italics in the following places:
Page history - list of changes to the page you edited
That percentage is less than .1%. About 5% do provide a summary, but those vandals provide something like "lol" for the summary. Dead giveaway. Will (Talk - contribs) 07:04, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I believe the categorizers should be more careful - that is a third-level category to Category:Georgia (U.S. state). The articles are being added at the request of Wikipedia:WikiProject Georgia (U.S. state), which requested on WP:BOTREQ that articles in there and all subcats be added thusly. I set it to go to the requested category, the subcats there, the subcats of those, and any articles up to 2 levels deep, which should be fine. Feel free to remove any articles from any wikiproject you are a member of. ST47Talk16:31, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It is entirely appropriate that Category:Hurricane Katrina is contained in a category which is subordinate to the Georgia categories; you should have checked that these were valid before the run. As an aside, where is the authorisation for the bot to do wikiproject tagging?--Nilfanion (talk) 17:33, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There were 6000 articles listed for tagging, surely the operator should not be responsible for the request being correct? Someone involved in the wikiproject should have a look at 2.txt and drop a list somewhere - perhaps a user subpage - I'll take pages from the categories and run the bot on them. I can also remove the templates if need be, give me a list of categories to do so from. ST47Talk17:54, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You can check if someone's been blocked by going to their page, clicking user contributions on the left, and clicking block log at the top. ST47Talk02:22, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
STBot is adding {{WikiProject GeorgiaUS}} to numerous articles. [7][8] Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't these tags go on the talk page, rather than the article itself? auburnpilottalk19:44, 28 January 2007 (UTC) </nowiki>[reply]
Because of some over-zealous categorization, quite a few pages were miscategorized - today was not STBot's best day :(. I think I've reverted most, at least from the categories that I noticed. Go ahead and remove it, or I can have the bot do it if there are too many. ST47Talk02:18, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hello there. What was the specific reason you removed the link to the flickr photos from this article? I know they weren't particularly outstanding photos, on the other hand, they didn't seem to do any harm. I'm just curious, sometimes I come across pages that have an excessive number of links but often find it hard to judge which should be culled. Any guidance would be appreciated. Look at Orangutan for example. One day I will get around to going through all those. Merbabu00:38, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Can I have a link to the article you're referring to? Mostly, and see my response two sections below, they aren't the greatest things to have linked to. I'm helping out with a project that removes the external links, if you see anything bad or want more info, hop on WP:IRC at irc.freenode.net/#wikipedia-spam-t ! ST47Talk02:20, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there. I have reverted your deletion of a flickr link from John Hemming (politician), on the grounds that the link was to the article subject's own personal flickr album. Hence, the external link was directly and symmetrically relevant to the article. I note you've worked hard in removing inappropriate flickr links, however it might be worth checking before deleting willy-nilly to avoid removing the few appropriate flickr external links. Cheers, DWaterson00:57, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi! Welcome to my green page! I removed it as a not-that-notable personal web page, similar to a myspace. That is more or less a bunch of pictures that he likes with little explanation - I'd refer you to WP:EL regarding social networking sites. ST47Talk02:16, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you're here because I deleted a link to flickr, then read this first. We allow and prefer uploading of images to wikipedia or wikimedia commons over linking to external websites because it gives us more control over the images and prevents server overload if we link to smaller sites.
Commons is our preferences yes, but I don't see how that gives you a mandate to remove all links to flickr. In many articles and contexts Flicker does not fail any part of WP:EL as far as I can tell, and many of the images over there are releases under licenses that would make them completely inappropriate for upload to wikipedia. (Ie, a CC-Noncommercial is incompatible with wikipedia's GFDL and can't be uploaded) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by J.smith (talk • contribs) 02:01, 29 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]
Hi! In fact, I can think of quite a few reasons not to link to flickr - first, we have our own upload places - en.wp or commons - which are on our servers and therefore not being bashed and which we have control over the content of, whereas linking to a gallery gives us no control over its content. Yes, it can be removed, but is someone checking each one monthly? Also, regarding copyright, shouldn't we be using free images anyway? If we want to release something, we can't link to an unstable gallery, and then we have no images. Some were direct links to images. Does flickr like that? Some were easily images that wouldn't be included on an article were they uploaded, even ignoring copyright, because there are so many of them. Quite a few were used as references, which I do not believe is valid. Those are more or less our reasons for that, I suppose I can stop or limit further removals - you should also visit #wikipedia-spam-t on freenode, as the bot that runs there may be watching flickr. Thanks, ST47Talk02:12, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with J. smith. Can't figure out why you have interpreted WP:EL this way. In my case you deleted flickr links from Olympic Sculpture Park, where there are many fine photos of the park. People have elected to upload their photos there for whatever reason; yes it would be convenient for us if they had uploaded to Commons but they did not and we don't have many good pictures yet. -- Brianhe06:10, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
ST47, yes all of that is valid... we want free content, we want content uploaded to commons, and flicker would fail WP:RS, but none of that is a reason to remove a link to a valid website (in the EL section) that litteraly passes the "What should we link to" guidelines of WP:EL (Number 3&4... and occasionaly 1). This isn't like a huge deal, but I think it's a mistake. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 21:54, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not in favour of the mass removal of links to flickr. Articles should be dealt with on a case by case basis, as links to flickr can be quite a handy resource in some cases. - Gobeirne02:40, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You just did a mass delete of a bunch of Flickr links on several Unitrans related articles that I put up. I've got three issues that you should consider and I think that you should revert your edits:
1. These were not "external links" but in were actually cited sources. I sourced lot of technical information on the Unitrans bus fleet from the photos and captions on Flickr. In your quest to remove all links to Flickr, you've actually erased a lot of my cited sources (which is why with only a few exceptions they were in the "references" section rather than under "external links").
2. There were some formatting errors made in your edits. For example, there's a gap (a blank line) where the cited reference used to be, and in the case of pages where certain photos where listed under "external links", you removed the links but left the section header (i.e. an "external links" section without any actual external links).
3. I understand your wish to have the photos on Wikipedia so that you can control them more easily, however the specific Flickr photos that I included a link to are pictures that I did not take myself and which therefore I cannot post on Wikipedia with any sort of a free license. I've already contacted the person who did take the photos and they have not indicated a desire to post their pictures on Wikipedia. To me it seems better to have a link to the photos in question rather than to not have access to them at all (and Flickr isn't a small site whose servers will be overrun by Wikipedia users).
Hi! Cited sources or anything that links to another site is an external link, they're just there with different purposes. Most of the time, I thought the links were removed properly, I must have missed a few, and I apologize. Regarding the images themselves - I'm not too familiar with flickr - but do we really want to be linking to images which we wouldn't be allowed to upload? True, we don't have legal accountability, I think, but free-use is favorable in this case, hasn't anyone taken images of this? ST47Talk12:07, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Flickr is probubly not a reliable source under WP:RS... "but do we really want to be linking to images which we wouldn't be allowed to upload?" - Yes. Most things we link to we can't upload. nytimes.com for example. :) ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 21:59, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
J:Smith: When it comes to something like stating the color of the bus in question, or the fact that it is a low-floor model, or the range of fleet numbers, or any number of other similar things, a photograph is in fact a reliable source (it's worth a 1000 words in fact!).
ST47: Your statement that you're "not too familiar with flickr", makes me think that perhaps you acted too hastily in doing a mass delete of a bunch of links/sources. Again, image gallery or not, I stand by my statement that it is far better to have an external link to pictures than to not have access to them at all (when uploading them to Wikipedia is not an option). The pictures in question for the most part would not qualify for fair-use because I or anyone else could take a trip up to Davis and take our own photographs (but I'm not about to do that anytime soon). I remember how enlightening these (and other) pictures were to me when I first found them, and I would like to share the knowledge gained from them (which is of course one of the core tenets of Wikipedia). Spicoli22:57, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've got some more thoughts that I'd like to add: You refer to WP:EL as your justification for mass deleting all external links to Flickr, however nowhere can I find anything that even remotely seems to imply this supposed policy. In fact, WP:EL#What_should_be_linked #3 seems to completely contradict your point wherein it says that "sites that contain neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues" should in fact be linked. Furthermore, as at least 95% of the links that you deleted were actually cited sources, your mass deletion runs contrary to WP:REF and WP:V. Also, as Wikipedia is "not a mirror or a repository of... images" as per WP:NOT#MIRROR, it would seem that an external link to a site that is a repository of images is appropriate when relavant to the article in question. I certainly appreciate your efforts to keep Wikipedia clean and I share your preference to have photos on Wikipedia itself rather than via an external link, but due to licensing restrictions (and the fact that I don't want to be rude by posting somebody's pictures when they don't want them posted), I think that in some cases an external link to Flickr is ok. On a separate matter, I just reread Wikipedia:Civility and felt that I should edit my "sloppy" comment in my original post - sorry for being a little too hot-headed. Spicoli07:16, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have looked at the article you reference and would like to discuss if all links to MySpace are banned. Reading thru the main article I see that MySpace is listed as Item 10 "Links normally to be avoided" as opposed to being totally blacklisted. And in that context it mentions MySpace in it's use as a "Social Networking Site". Further reading thru the MySpace discussions on the article's Talk page, they mostly pertain to entries in MySpace "Blogs".
Hi, on the bot request page, you said it was possible to get all the permuations I needed from Excel (I have OpenOffice Calc) and use AWB to make all the redirects. I was wondering how? I have already recieved permission to use AWB and I am awaiting your instructions! (Thanks) --SeansPotato Business07:04, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, this will make a lost more sense if you've taken any sort of probability, but here's what I would try:
First, multiply the amount of possibilities for the second word/part by the amount for the third. In column B, make this many of the first possibility for the first word, followed by that many of every other possibility.
Second, take the second possibility. Paste it in the third column, each of the possibilities once for each of the third words - if you have 3 possibilities for the third word, then put #2 down three times, then the other possibility down 3 times. Copy those 6 cells and go down to the next empty space in the column and paste, and repeat until these two columns are equal in length.
Finally, take the third set of possibilities and put them in the third column, once each. Copy them all and paste, as in step 2, until there are 3 columns of equal length.
Copy the whole thing and drop it in notepad and make sure there are spaces. If not, insert the 2 columns and add them. Go in AWB, make list from...text file, and it should load. move eyes to the right. check that "Skip non-existent pages" is NOT checked. You should check "Skip if contains..." and add there REDIRECT|redirect|Redirect - exactly that, to make sure it isn't case sensitive, and check "Are RegExs" at the top of this box.
Proceed to section 2, select prepend and add your redirect in the box.
Hi. You removed the official MySpace page links to Plow United and Crossover (band). You cited Wikipedia:External links. But if you look at the subhead "Links normally to be avoided," you'll find that links that constitute "an official page of the article subject" are exempt. Many MySpace pages are run by the actual subjects of the articles or their delegates and provide a rich source of first-hand information about them. They often function as a subject's only official page or as a supporting page with unique content. No, I don't work for MySpace -- I just think it's a mistake to overlook this resource. If you disagree, let's discuss it. Jessesamuel22:21, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly, we can't prove (in most cases) that it really is their site, I could pretend to be anyone, and really, anyone who has a myspace as their only site should probably be AfDed. It is general practice to delete these. Why don't you hop on irc.freenode.net/#wikipedia-spam-t if you want to discuss it, because it will be much faster than this since I'm installing and rebooting a lot, and will have food-time soon. ST47Talk22:30, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As I tried to discuss above, the same thing happened to Rachael Sage, a notable Indy musician and poet. Meaning no disrespect to anyone, but in many cases we can't prove that most non-MySpace related Webpage's are "official" and do not contain bogus information either. MySpace is a software tool and should not be taken as a blanket indictment of the veracity or notability of all entities that use it. As a tool, it is used for two distinct populations: (a) Social Networking - to be avoided (b) a variety of "Professional" entities, which under current guidelines seem to be OK. However due to an excess of courtesy and caution, instead of just reverting the deletion and leaving a curt note pointing out the actual wording of the guidelines, I have put a discussion of this particular topic here. I urge everyone to please read and participate in same. CyntWorkStuff00:08, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
ColoringBook's MySpace page is clearly maintained by Clayton Counts, who links to the page directly from his blog as "My MySpace Page." If you want precedent for the inclusion of official MySpace pages, take a look at Bjork, Girl Talk, Madonna, and Octopus Project. It is pertinent to the article, as Counts is the songwriter and producer of the project, and the band is mentioned (as it should be) in the body of the article. If you keep deleting it, it will be reported as an act of vandalism. TrevorPearce00:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
First, WP:AGF. It isn't vandalism, it's common practice and accepted by all of the people I spoke to on #wikipedia-spam-t on IRC before I started. There are over 10,000 links to myspace. Please readd the link if you would like, and when you do, add an HTML comment that says it's maintained by the band. ST47 Talk00:31, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Just so you know, I was responding in such a way because the page in question has been vandalized quite a bit in the past. The blanking of pages or the deliberate removal of any part of a page that is pertinent to the article is vandalism, if the decision to remove the item is biased. In other words, it seems to me (based on some of the comments on your talk page) that your removal of MySpace links is somewhat arbitrary. Instead of making people re-add the links, you should first propose the removal on the article's talk page. There was no reason to think that ColoringBook's MySpace page was unofficial. Yes, it's true that many MySpace pages are maintained by other people, but if you had bothered to follow the link in the first place, instead of deleting it on blind assumption, you would've seen that it links to Counts' website, and that there is a link on his website to the MySpace page, which he claims as his own. Then we wouldn't be having this discussion, and I wouldn't have had to waste time re-adding the links. Just something to think about. No offense to you, but if fairness is your aim then I would hope that you wouldn't go around deleting items with impunity. I re-added the link, and mentioned that it is an official page. TrevorPearce01:01, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sir, there are 10,000 links to myspace alone. About 30% of those are to groups, which are social networking and are unreliable. About 5% are to miscellaneous pages - home, policy, help. 65% are to profiles. That means that there were 6,500 articles with links to a myspace profile. Most are unconfirmed, those aren't reliable. That's down to below 3,000 now. Surely some would be caught in the crossfire, but out of almost 7,000 links removed, between my talk and those of the others who were helping it, nowhere near even 1% were contested. Surely 70 mistakes are a lesser evil than having even one fake link which happens to get caught by someone involved with the band, or than having viewers see 3,500 links to myspace groups they can't even access, or than giving out false information. ST47Talk01:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You're right. I was just miffed at having to re-edit it. Nothing personal. It was nominated for deletion recently by somebody who obviously doesn't like the guy, and having to defend the article when it clearly has enough references to merit inclusion was tiresome, to say the least. Anyway, when I said "no offense" earlier, I meant it. You're obviously a good contributor here. TrevorPearce04:01, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
... has been reverted, by me ([9]). There is no mention in WP:EL for or against linking to an external image gallery on Flickr, nor is there any justification for removing such a link. Could you explain why you did so? Proto::►15:49, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
ST47: That's really not an answer. You've deleted 1000's of links (by your own account) rather indiscriminately (by my account), without first posting something on the offending subjects’ discussion pages, and yet myself and several other people have asked for an explanation as to the reason for your actions without receiving a clear response. As I stated above, I think that there is a pretty fair argument in WP:EL#What_should_be_linked #3 to in fact keep the links, along with WP:REF, WP:V, and WP:NOT#MIRROR. Additionally, WP:EL is a guideline and not a policy ("guidelines are not set in stone and should be treated with common sense" - WP:PG), and in fact at the very top of WP:EL is a notice regarding YouTube and Google Video which states "there is no ban on linking to these sites as long as the links abide by these guidelines", with (as far as I can see) the main concern appearing to be one of copyright infringement rather than "because it gives us more control over the images" as you state. If there is, in fact, no ban on links to YouTube and Google Video, then why would there be a ban on links to flickr in cases where there is no fair-use rational or a free license available for the image(s) in question which would thereby allow the image(s) to be uploaded onto Wikipedia? I can certainly understand why in many (but not all) cases, links to Myspace might not be appropriate (particularly when used as a reference), but as long as it’s relative to the subject being written about, I don't see how the same could be said for links to flickr. And in any case, I think that it is irresponsible for anyone to just unilaterally delete all such links without first verifying the individual applicability of each link to the page it’s posted on, and to start a discussion about it before taking such a broad action. Spicoli21:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Images on Flickr are not free of copyright. I do not own the image, nor do I have the right to upload another's work. I am baffled by this line of thought... what makes you think this would be acceptable? Proto::►00:05, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you would like, I can set it to appear on every user/user talk page, or on every page, and then go straight to your sandbox, if there's only one, or possibly to a list of "commonly blanked pages". Also, you can muck about in there to perhaps not watchlist the sandbox or to change the edit summary. ST47Talk23:33, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you can't take the time to decide, one by one, which articles belong in your project, then PLEASE don't use a bot to plaster templates all over talk pages. This has ended badly in the past. Frex, the India bot decided to claim a few Sassanian rulers for India, to which the Iranians took extreme offense. The presence of the word Afghanistan in the article is not a reason to claim it for that country. Zora21:56, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Then why is it in Category:Afghan clothing? If you'd read the link up there, that says something about going somewhere if talking about the Afghanistan run, you'd see that it isn't my project anyway, that the project requested this, and that there are 2.5K such articles. You'd also see a link to a list of categories that were used to generate those 2.5K articles, and that that list was approved by the wikiproject. You'd also see that this is one of 4 such requests on that page. You'd also have been able to discuss the issue of such a single article out of 2.5K without freezing the bot. ST47Talk22:06, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Time to terminate it :). It has made many article that had nothing to do with Afghanistan as related to Afghanistan. For example a Pakistan University [[10]] Holiest sites in Islam (has to do with Islam), Ghulam Ishaq Khan (Pakistans president, nothing to do with Afghanistan). Time to undo all what he has done otherwise I will post it on ANI and will try to block it. :) --- ALM12:50, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have blocked the bot for now per complaint at WP:AN. Please fix the bot before you get it unblocked. Additionally, the bot is making edits at a very high rate. The normal edit rate per minute is 5-6. Is the bot authorised to function at a higher rate? — Lost(talk)13:15, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The rate looks like it was about 8 - the reason is that AWB doesn't actually have a 6edit/minute limit, it's just a timer. I set it to 4 seconds last night before I went to bed, and that was ok, but once the servers sped up and my internet was unclogged, the pageloads become faster, so instead of a 4 second load and 4 second timer, we have a 2 second load and a 4 second timer. Regarding the categories themselves, I do not consider myself in any way intelligent about mexico/spain/aztec (the aztecs were in europe, right :P) There are lists of categories at User:ST47/AfghanistanSandbox and at User:ST47/SpainSand that were reviewed my the members of the relevant wikiprojects, and I reformat them and plug them in, except for obvious wrong ones caused by miscategorization. I've used this system for the last two runs, since I had an issue the time before that with a category that shouldn't be there being in there. ST47Talk13:36, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well I had similar problems with User:LostBot before I realised that one parent cat may have many irrelevant subcats causing collateral damage. Best to undo the edits and ask for more refined categorisation. Infact my suggestion would be not to select subcats automatically. Just stick to the cats. Any sub cats needed to be tagged should be specified by the project — Lost(talk)14:00, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
How would you like to proceed on that WikiProject Spain? It appears that our little project is getting caught up in the larger issue created by other users! Should we just take a breather for a few days, and let the dust settle? EspanaViva16:12, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thought: is there a way to send me that edits that the bot made? Perhaps I can see if there is some systematic error that is creating over-inclusion. That will help generate a more compact list. EspanaViva16:14, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The bot is running WP:AWB - you can actually download it and request bot access yourself, it just takes a while to do, but I can show you what to do, if you want to run it, the interface is pretty straightforward. Essentially, it just gets all the members of a category into a list, and goes one by one doing the operator's bidding. ST47Talk16:31, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that's a thought - do you mean that you would show me how to create the list of categories and subcategories, or would show me how to take a list of categories, and then use the bot to add the tag in the right places? EspanaViva16:39, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Right here is good :D First 2 things you need to do are: bot account and AWB. go over to WP:AWB. You also need the .NET framework, you can get that from MS here. AWB is a .zip, extract it to a folder somewhere. As for the bot account, pick a name (I used STBot from ST47, though anything that has bot in the name works). Register that account as you would any other and then we can get the botflag. ST47Talk18:05, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Tell you what, I'm definitely interested in doing this, but these next few days are going to be a real crunch at work , etc. Don't forget this project. I will circle back with you within several days, and I shall return triumphantly as EVbot or something similar, with my cape blowing in the breeze! EspanaViva07:05, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for acting as the contactor! I'm going to keep a close eye on those two reports, as something needs to be done about all of the group vandalism. Thank you! Wikipedian2720:59, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, your robot is tagging many Iranian articles as being part of the Afghanistan project. This is not correct. Have a look at Shabdiz, Arash, Rudaba and the others. These articles are not easily justified as being part of the Afghanistan project. Could you please explain! Thanks. Shabdiz09:26, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I just would like to thank you for your support in my recent request for adminship, which passed with a final tally of 54/13/11. I appreciate the trust expressed by members of the community, and will do my best to uphold it.
Naturally, I am still becoming accustomed to using the new tools, so if you have suggestions or feedback, or need anything please let me know. - Gilliam20:41, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You have "greatly" improved since you last RFA, your name is springing up everywhere and from what I see you have been civil. I think that you would pass an RFA now, I would nominate you if you would like. Email me okay if you accept my offer. I will take a larger scope of your "editing" tomorrow. Just continue to be active in XFD's citing "policy", and keep up the vandal/spam fight. Cheers! ~ Arjun01:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi ST47,
I'll be happy to share my thought with you regarding your upcoming RFA.
So here it is, Approval, Criticism and things that made me go "hhhhhm?"
You are a valiant vandalism fighter. Me like.
Your contribution level seems nice and stable, a couple of spikes downward and upward at time, but good overall.
The January Myspace link removals. A couple of the removed pages were offical myspace hompages of the artists, which are AFAIK exceptions to the "links to be avoided rule". Still, only very few of the removals were undone, and looking at the content of them not much was lost. Personally I'd call them borderline cases, but I think you might watch out for these, least wikidrama ensues. Still serious props for wading through that swamp and filtering out a majority of pointless links.
You are getting pretty good with AWB, from what I saw in the history, though there have been some hickups in the past.
One issue that may (again) be raised during the RFA that a large number of your edits are semiautomated or anti-vandlism, though personally I feel the whole issue a varation of the old "a wikipedian should use use half of his edits to improve articles, half of his edits to create new ones and half of his edits to fight vandalisms" "but that are three halves" "so he'll have to edit a bit more" joke.
All in all, you have grown nicely in the last few months, and unless some editor presents some compelling reasons that you should not be admin, I have not problems with giving you my support. CharonX/talk03:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hey there ST47. I'm on a bit of a wikibreak right now (but I still check my messages regularly, how sad is that?). Once the weekend rolls around and I have a bit of time, I'll go through your contributions from the past 3 months and pass on whatever advice I can. Cheers! --Brad Beattie(talk)03:58, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You look like your doing an OK job but your mainspace contributions are a bit spartan, a lot of people doubt it but contributing to articles/copy editing is very important. Mostly because to be a good sysop you need to still be an editor as well, as for example if you help mediate a dispute between two users its always going to be best to approach it from an editors perspective to understand bot of their problems, etc. Anyway, if you did some small edits here and there you'll receive my support :-) thanks/Fenton, MatthewLexic Dark52278 Alpha 77108:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Small edits it shall be. I was actually looking at the category of articles needing copyedits the other day, I'll look into it more come the weekend. ST47Talk21:05, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to nominate you to be an administrator: I've been watching your edits over the past few weeks, and I think that it's time for another try. Please visit Wikipedia:Requests for adminship to see what this process entails, and then contact me to accept or decline the nomination. A page has been created for your nomination at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/ST472. If you accept the nomination, you must formally state your acceptance and answer the questions on that page. Once you have answered the questions, you may post your nomination for discussion, or drop me a message and I'll do so.
Good afternoon (GMT time); thanks for your comments in my RfA. I'm currently compiling a list of objectives for the future, and I am curious about one of your posts: "...unfamiliarity with policy...". I'd like to do my reading and I'm wondering if you could graciously provide a few examples?
Your co-operation in this is greatly appreciated; some of those fancy "RfA-thank-boxes-with-big-sad-face" will follow later :).
Don't hesitate to call on me if you need anything!
Mostly, the misuse of AWB and VP may have shown you as someone who could use tools in unaccepted ways, and there were a few diffs presented by myself and sagacious that showed incivility, so WP:CIVIL and definitely WP:NPA, and perhaps WP:POINT to a degree. ST47Talk19:02, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your support in my RfA, which closed at 111 / 1 / 2. I am humbled and rather shocked to see such kind comments and for it to reach WP:100. Please feel free to leave a note if I have made a mistake or if you need anything, I will start out slow and tackle the harder work once I get accustomed to the tools. Thank you once more, I simply cannot express in words my gratitude.
You posted a request on my talk page for me to comment on what you could improve on further since your last RfA. Well firstly, the above (albeit sarcastic humour) notices about balls of fire & signing posts would probably be of some concern to some people at any future RfA. Although I don't particularly have anything against it, some people have been known to oppose for that sort of thing & even for things as mundane as those joke "You have new message" bars at the top of pages. So I'd advise you either to tone it down a little bit or move some portions of it to a subpage based on your Wikipolicies & such where it would be out of the spotlight. It may also be seen as some sort of problem to newbies & such - Don't worry, if there's a problem with anything you do, someone will argue it.
Further, although your edit count it way up, from your edit stats, you seem to make smaller edits to many articles, rather than small & large ones to just one or two. This may seem to some people that you partake in "gnommish" (See WP:Gnome) activities rather than large substantial edits. A testament to this would be the fact that you don't have any GA's or FA's under your belt. Some people could, & quite rightly, argue that you have made no substantial edits to Wikipedia & only make smaller edits that only count as edit count stacking. This may or may not be correct, but I'd suggest that you pick one or two articles & try & make as many edits to them as possible. This way it will show that you can stick to a single project & that you can make meaningful large edits to better a page. Getting an article to GA or FA would do wonders for your future RfA as well.
Other than that, don't forget that quantity is no substitute for quality, so again make sure you don't only stick to gnommish work. So, as you'd probably know, keep your cool in tough situations & keep out of trouble, be civil & helpful & knowledgable about different laws on here & you'll be an admin in no time. It wouldn't hurt socialising around the place too, as the more people you know, the more you're likely to be elected (which is unfortunate, as RfA's are turning into popularity contests nowadays...). I'd have no problem supporting you in a couple of months if you continue on your current track & maybe take into consideration the points I've made above. Have a great day man, :) Spawn Man22:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks - there were opposes last time regarding my talk page, perhaps I'd better remove that. I really don't know where to contribute to article building, I was going to try to grab a few pages and copyedit one of these days. Thanks for your comments and I'll keep them in mind! ST47Talk23:04, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Why not pick an article you know a lot about or that you really like. Add a few paragraphs & in your RfA, you can link to them to show that you can add large amounts of writing rather than just small edits here & there. If you can do that, then you can discount all objections raised by people pointing at your large amounts of smaller edits. Hope this helps. Good luck. :) Spawn Man23:12, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Would you please stop reverting this back to Algerian Muslim Scouts. A debate about this has been raging for weeks. I am trying to mediate it. Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Scouting/Translations mediation. There is one user who argues strongly that this translation is not verifiable as being used by the organisation. I am hoping we can side step the disagreement by a different solution. I would prefer it if it was left as the French title, which the organisation does actually use, for now. The application of WP guidelines for the naming of scout organisations is not straight forward. Thanks. --Bduke22:27, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Word of thanks for ST47 Good morning (GMT time); I'd like to thank you for supporting, opposing, taking a neutral stance to, closing, suggesting I close or otherwise contributing to my recent RfA; unfortunately, I felt that although there were more support than oppose votes, the weight of the latter was too great for me to accept the promotion with so many not trusting me with the janitor's trolley - I therefore decided to end my nomination prematurely. The feedback I received was invaluable, and I am striving to start afresh with all of the advice my fellow Wikipedians offered. In order to meet the aim of adapting to your advice, I've drew up a list of aims (located here) which I intend to follow from this point onwards.
If you have any further advice or comments for me, don't hesitate to post me a message
at my talk page where it will be graciously and humbly accepted. Once again, thank you and I do hope to bump into you around the encyclopedia!
I'm just about to speedy User:Sir Walterhouse, as there's no original content on the page (it's all copies of articles or other user pages, concatenated) save for a homophobic rant. I've nixed the MfD, since it's unnecessary process for a useless page.
Hello, thank you for your recent contributions to an article relating to graffiti or graffiti culture! You may be interested in WikiProject Graffiti, a group working to improve Wikipedia's coverage of topics relating to graffiti. We would greatly value you joining our WikiProject, or adding some input at our talk page.
Thank you for your support in my request for adminship which closed successfully last night. Feel free to let me know if I can help you with something or if I have made a mistake. I would also like to encourage you to vote often (just in case you don't) on other candidates since we need more admins. Happy editing, Garion96(talk)23:52, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there, I've been working on the article Guigemar, an article that I wrote from scratch. I noticed that your bot had removed the poetry and France stubs from it, and I was a little curious how your bot works. I imagine that it must check the file size, and if it exceeds a certain threshold, the bot removes any stub markers. Anyway, just curious. Thanks. --Kyoko14:50, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Listed in April 3 births but has April 30 at the beginning of the article. I would have made corrections but unable to determine (after some web page searching) if it should be the 3rd or the 30th.
Can you help? Thanks, Daytrivia03:17, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The information was relevant, as it was about the personal life of Tracy Jordan, the subject of the srticle. Is this ST47? or Will? BabuBhatt07:04, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I may not know the exact reasoning used, but I can certainly spot one reason. Besides, you can wait for ST47 to drop by and see it, or I can work with you on it now. You might as well get something. Will (Talk - contribs) 07:31, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
