User talk:7tharmddiv

Hello, 7tharmddiv, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: Introduction The five pillars of Wikipedia How to edit a page Help How to write a great article Manual of Style

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Regarding your edits to 7th Armored Division (United States):
Your recent edit to 7th Armored Division (United States) (diff) was reverted by an automated bot. You have been identified as a new user or a logged out editor using a hosting or shared IP address to add email addresses, phone numbers, YouTube, Geocities, Myspace, Facebook, blog, forum, or other such free-hosting website links to a non-talk page. Please note that such links are generally to be avoided. You can restore any other content by editing the page and re-adding that content. The links can be reviewed and restored by established users. Thank you for contributing! // VoABot II 00:31, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
 * (reply from Help Desk) I've left a note on the reversion bot's talk page (I was reverted as well, by a different bot) so the links should be put back in soon. As for new information, you should be able to add new information/corrections safely; just don't include any external links to AOL-type pages, these are automatically reverted as they are the most common types of linkspam. Mr.Z-man  talk ¢ 04:00, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
 * i see you made two edits to that page (at least from this ID). The first is this where you added two external links, one a members.aol.com site, and the other a home.comcast.net site. Both of these domains indiacte that these are personal pages. Such apges are rarely reliable sources and are very often spam so this edit was automatically reverted by a script (or "bot"). Anothe editor has re-added these, and we'll get them in if they seem approptiate. Your second edit deleted the nickname "Rattlesnake Division" and that edit has not been undone. DES (talk) 04:04, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't even know how to reply to this message other than to edit it. So I hope that you receive this. Regardless of what other sites on AOL and Comcast may have on them, these are the locations of the official sites for the 7th Armored Division, and if they cannot be posted, then something is seriously wrong with Wikipedia's ability to reflect reality and truth.7tharmddiv 14:09, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi, I managed to put the Comcast site up. Unfortunately, the spam bot keeps reverting the AOL link. Is it possible to link to the AOL site from the Comcast site? -- Hdt83 Chat 22:36, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


 * It has apparently reverted the Comcast site. The real problem is that Wikipedia is imposing a reality on the world that does not reflect the real reality of the world. It is sort of like saying because some people in Kentucky have done bad things, we are going to reject anything anyone from Kentucky does. Until Wikipedia can reflect reality instead of imposing its own reality, the problem with Wikipedia's own credibility will persist.7tharmddiv 23:16, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, I've re-added just the Comcast site. The bot reverted both of Hdt83's edits as it rolls it back to the version by the previous editor. The problem with AOL sites is that (with rare exceptions such as this) they are generally unreliable personal websites. People will post links to personal fanpages on Wikipedia articles about celebrities. Wikipedia isn't quite as "free to edit" as many think. We have many rules about what can be added to articles and under what context, to try to maintain some semblance of professionalism. If we didn't have all the rules (and people and bots to enforce them), because of the popularity of Wikipedia, the site would quickly deteriorate into some sort of Uncyclopedia-Myspace-Youtube website. Mr.Z-man  talk ¢ 23:35, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I can understand that desire to keep out the frivolous. But there has to be some way for the bots to be told that there are exceptions to the zap-all-AOL rule. In the meantime, I have an idea that I am going to try. Rather than posting a live link, I am going to simply post text in the links section, so that if someone wants to copy and paste that into their browser's navigation pane then they can do so. At least that way they can find the web site. I don't want to copy and maintain everything from the web site in Wikipedia. I do want to see that the information in Wikipedia is accurate and that anyone seeking deeper knowledge can do so. So here goes ... we'll see if this idea works.7tharmddiv 10:37, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems to have worked for 8 hours without a bot zapping it. I did have one problem with the implementation: when I put the text in but left the Comcast link that Z-man had successfully posted, the bot rolled it back to pre-Comcast, wiping out both what I had entered and what Z-man had entered. So I tried again, this time leaving out the Comcast link that Z-man had entered. And so far it has survived without being bot-zapped. I just went in again to remove some text about copying and pasting, since the links are in fact live, so that my text was irrelevant. But the bottom line is so far so good.7tharmddiv 10:37, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Regarding edits to 7th Armored Division (United States)
Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia, 7tharmddiv! However, your edit here was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to remove spam from Wikipedia. If you were trying to insert a good link, please accept my creator's apologies, but note that the link you added, matching rule \bmembers\.aol\.com\/.+, is on my list of links to remove and probably shouldn't be included in Wikipedia. Please read Wikipedia's external links policy for more information. If the link was to an image, please read Wikipedia's image tutorial on how to use a more appropriate method to insert the image into an article. If your link was intended to promote a site you own, are affiliated with, or will make money from inclusion in Wikipedia, please note that inserting spam into Wikipedia is against policy. For more information about me, see my FAQ page. Thanks! Shadowbot 02:20, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Apology
I'd like to apologize for the confusion and frustration that Shadowbot has caused over the last couple of days. I added the aol.com link to the bot's whitelist, but apparently it ignored the order and continued to remove your edits, which I wasn't aware of until the block was issued. This will not happen in the future. Shadow1 (talk) 14:10, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
 * At what level was the AOL link whitelisted? There are actually three relevant pages on that site and one on the Comcast site that deserve to be there. As of right now, though, all four links seem to be working okay for about 15 hours.7tharmddiv 15:26, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

links on 7th Armored Division (United States)
I have posted a comment on the talk page of this article about the links. In future if you have any problem with an automated script (known as a robot or "bot") here are some suggestions. A script typically edits from a "'bot account", in this case User:Shadowbot. That account has its own talk page User talk:Shadowbot. Messages on that talk page should be read by the bot operator. The bot's user page should also give the user name of the operator, and a msg can be left on his or her talk page. The bots user page will often explain what the bot does and why. If none of these methods work in getting the problem dealt with, ask an admin or experienced editor for help. Try The admins's incident board, or the help desk as you did in tis case. I hope the problem is now completely fixed. DES (talk) 19:20, 30 April 2007 (UTC)