User talk:Kasamoto

Major edit, May 2012
I restored Alice Ripley's page to what it was prior to a Feb. 21, 2012 major edit that left 12 errors, mostly in the wake of its cutting-and-pasting. In other words, the edit was really just a rearranging of existing information, rather than a contribution to the article's accuracy.

The only contributions made were: 1) gossip, and incorrect gossip at that, and 2)  the creation of a Music section, which was placed so that it is separate from the Career section when it should have been a sub-category of Career.

Factual errors included: 3) the deletion of both the Off-Broadway and Regional productions of Next to Normal. 4)  All awards were moved to the Broadway section. However, none of Ripley's Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, or Helen Hayes nominations/award were for the Broadway version of Next to Normal. 5) The release date of the Daily Practice album was changed from Feb. 2011 to 2011, which then led the editor to list the albums not in chronological order. 6)  Lack of consistency: albums were italicized, but not RIPLEY, the EP. 7) Under Film, the Isn't It Delicious? information is repetitive. 8)  When information was added, no citations were provided, yet the editor asked for citations on other items.

Typographical errors included: 9) the single "Beautiful Eyes" being changed to Beautiful Eye, which is the incorrect title and also, by its italics, denotes it to be an album when it is a song. 10)  the Off-Broadway section starting with "Additional roles..." 11) the phrase "Ripley's has acted in The Adulterer" 12)  and double punctuation in the Off-Broadway section.

Kasamoto (talk) 22:21, 22 May 2012 (UTC)Kasamoto

A note
The discussion below is about the "External links" section of the article about Alice Ripley. -- Kasamoto (talk) 03:16, 21 February 2012 (UTC)Kasamoto

External links, Feb. 2012
Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, your addition of one or more external links to the page Alice Ripley has been reverted. Your edit here to Alice Ripley was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to remove links which are discouraged per our external links guideline. The external link(s) you added or changed (http://twitter.com/ripleytheband) is/are on my list of links to remove and probably shouldn't be included in Wikipedia. If the external link you inserted or changed was to a blog, forum, free web hosting service, fansite, or similar site (see 'Links to avoid', #11), then please check the information on the external site thoroughly. Note that such sites should probably not be linked to if they contain information that is in violation of the creator's copyright (see Linking to copyrighted works), or they are not written by a recognised, reliable source. Linking to sites that you are involved with is also strongly discouraged (see conflict of interest). If you were trying to insert an external link that does comply with our policies and guidelines, then please accept my creator's apologies and feel free to undo the bot's revert. However, if the link does not comply with our policies and guidelines, but your edit included other, constructive, changes to the article, feel free to make those changes again without re-adding the link. Please read Wikipedia's external links guideline for more information, and consult my list of frequently-reverted sites. For more information about me, see my FAQ page. Thanks! --XLinkBot (talk) 20:41, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Question about official links
Hello XLinkBot and others,

Before putting up Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and YouTube links on Alice Ripley's page, I made sure to read about external links, including Links normally to be avoided. Thank you for the additional information you provided. Thanks ahead of time for clarification regarding the following:

1) Under Links normally to be avoided, the guideline provides an exception, "Except for a link to an official page of the article's subject [...]" Is this not applicable?

2) I put the links up as Official links after reading that "These links are exempt from the links normally to be avoided, but they are not exempt from the restrictions on linking."


 * In response to this, "An official link is a link to a website or other Internet service that meets both of the following: The linked content is controlled by the subject of the Wikipedia article", Alice runs her own Facebook, Twitter, etc. She is the one posting and reading/responding to messages.
 * "The linked content primarily covers the area for which the subject of the article is notable." Content covers her various genres of work: musical theater, solo career, band, photography, and artwork.
 * "Official links (if any) are provided to give the reader the opportunity to see what the subject says about itself." Alice's Facebook, etc. provide this exact opportunity.
 * Many bands use their MySpace page as their official site. Alice does this; her MySpace is listed in various theater and concert programs.  Is she not allowed to do this on Wikipedia?

3) I read through your XLinkBot and (talk) pages to learn what I could.  Given that the links are taken down by an automated bot, is my message/appeal here moot?  As in, even if the links fit the Official links criteria, will they be taken down just by virtue of the revert being automated?

4) In the guidelines, is it stated somewhere why Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace links are not allowed?  I haven't been able to find that info.

Thanks for your assistance! -- Kasamoto (talk) 01:13, 20 February 2012 (UTC)Kasamoto


 * For clarification check out Identifying reliable sources.  Tide  rolls  05:03, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Hey. On WP:LINKSTOAVOID, Facebook is one of the links not to go in the encyclopedia; that's why your edits were reverted by the bot. However above that, it says that a link to an official page should be fine, so re-adding it won't do any harm. Either that or I could do it for you. -- andy4789 ★ ·  (talk?   contribs?)  12:54, 20 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Tiderolls. However, I need to ask: Which part of  Identifying reliable sources were you citing and which part of my question were you clarifying?  My basic question is, Are official Facebook, Twitter, etc. links ever allowed as official links?  I read the article, Identifying reliable sources, but 1) I'm not seeking to use Alice's Facebook, Twitter, etc. as sources to cite, as in, those that would fall under the References section of Alice Ripley.  2) The article explains why one can't use other people's Facebook, Twitter, etc. as sources.  I'm seeking to use the Facebook, Twitter, etc. of Alice Ripley, the subject of the Wiki article.  Here, Biographies of living persons becomes relevant.


 * I read that, as well as Self-published or questionable sources. Quoting from those: "Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject (see below)." [italics mine] Yes, the Facebook posts, Tweets, etc. are written by the subject, Alice Ripley.


 * Quoting: "Using the subject as a self-published source: Living persons may publish material about themselves, such as through press releases or personal websites. Such material may be used as a source only if: it is not unduly self-serving; it does not involve claims about third parties; it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject; there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity; the article is not based primarily on such sources." [italics mine] Alice's links meet these requirements.
 * Thanks, -- Kasamoto (talk) 03:53, 21 February 2012 (UTC)Kasamoto
 * I apologize for not directly addressing your concern in my original post. Please understand that my answer was not meant to dismiss your concern or portray your inquiry as undeserving in some way.  My aim was to present the general scope of verifiability.  As you have already seen, much of Wikipedia is in the interpretation.  Each case is unique; each case should be determined on its own merits through discussion and analysis.  Personally, I think its entirely possible that the sources you mention could be used as "official links".  This is the raison d'être for article talk pages, and in some cases more visible forums such as WP:RSN and WP:BLPN.  Thanks for your patience and understanding.  Tide  rolls  03:25, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi, no need to apologize! I did not take your reply to be dismissive at all.  It was just broad and happened to be a guideline I'd already considered.  -- Kasamoto (talk) 03:53, 21 February 2012 (UTC)Kasamoto


 * Hi andy4789, and thanks for your help and offer. Do you mean I can re-add Alice's Facebook, Twitter, etc. links?  Or that you could do that?  Won't they just get taken down by an automatic bot?  Would using the "undo" function instead make a difference?
 * I know I wrote a lot, but my basic questions are 1) Are official Facebook, Twitter, etc. links ever allowed as official links? and 2) Let's say they are allowed, per WP:ELOFFICIAL, WP:BLP, and WP:TWITTER, will this not matter since it's an automated bot? As in, am I wasting my time?
 * Thanks again, Kasamoto (talk) 02:38, 21 February 2012 (UTC)Kasamoto

Hi Kasamoto. You raise an interesting question, and one which is not directly covered by policy - what happens when an individaul designates their Facebook page as their official site? There are several parts of the External links policy to consider: Much as I dislike linking to Facebook on Wikipedia, I think that under the above policies a link to her Facebook page (although not Twitter and other links, per point 4) would just about be appropriate. XLinkBot can be overridden by reverting - if it keeps on removing the link, you can contact the bot owner (which from memory I think is Versageek) to get the site whitelisted. Thanks for initiating this discussion; I for one will let the Facebook page stay up if I see it there again. However, we could really use a specific, or at least clearer, guideline on this, since lots of minor celebrities use their Facebook page or Twitter feed as their official website nowadays. I'll raise a discussion at Wikipedia talk:External links, to which you'd be welcome to contribute. actually I won't, the matter has been discussed to death in the archives Yunshui 雲&zwj;水 08:25, 21 February 2012 (UTC) I saw your remark on XLinkBot, and I'll answer here:
 * 1) Per WP:ELYES: "Wikipedia articles about any organization, person, website, or other entity should link to the subject's official site, if any."
 * 2) Per WP:ELOFFICIAL, an official site is one where: "The linked content is controlled by the subject (organization or individual person) of the Wikipedia article." and "The linked content primarily covers the area for which the subject of the article is notable."
 * 3) In addition, per WP:ELOFFICIAL: "although links to websites that require readers to register ... to view content are normally not acceptable in the External links section, such a link may be included when it is an official website for the subject."
 * 4) Again, per WP:ELOFFICIAL: "Wikipedia does not attempt to document or provide links to every part of the subject's web presence or provide readers with a handy list of all social networking sites."

Yes, official links to Facebook, Twitter, etc. are allowed. If they were not, they would be blacklisted.

However, it is not in the aim of Wikipedia to list all possible sites of a subject. Most subjects on Wikipedia have an official site (something like 'subject.com'), and that almost immediately invalidates all other official sites as suitable - often because .com already links to their other sites, or because the other sites offer nothing extra. There are some exceptions to that, some subjects don't have a .com but use myspace or facebook as an official site (though then regularly there are questions of notability of the subject), other subjects have an official site, but are very known for their, say, twitter feed, then a twitter feed may be a second addition. But it is by far not within Wikipedia's goal to list all of them.

The bot is designed to revert such additions, and to leave you a message regarding its revert. It there also suggests to re-do the edit (or undo the bot edit) if the bot made a mistake (which already suggests that the bot will not re-revert there), or to partially undo the edit leaving out the 'offending' links.

So why the revert? Many, many of the additions of links to twitter, facebook, myspace, youtube etc. are inappropriate, some case:
 * They are not the official site of the subject of the page (impersonations happen quite a bit on twitter and facebook, twitters of band-members on pages of the band, non-existent pages ( does not use facebook.com/ but an alias)
 * They are superfluous since there are other official sites (often .com links to the youtube, facebook, twitter, myspace in a quite prominent way)
 * They are plain copyvio (quite often true for YouTube, sometimes for others - yes, the video is interesting, but it was (often) copied from a TV broadcast - only a few bands upload their videos to YouTube)
 * They do not tell anything substantial (almost always true for twitter - it does not tell anything encyclopedic about the person - we don't need to know that the subject is on their way to the beach, or going to eat cake somewhere)
 * They are official (if they are official, most are self-proclaimed official fan sites) fan-sites (myspace)

There are exceptions, but they are pretty minor (quite some time ago I checked 30 MySpace reverts of XLinkBot - I found 1 that I would not personally have reverted, though I would also not have added it if it was my choice; a more recent quick-check of YouTube-reverts found 2 out of 10 to be very likely copyvios). Here, I would have chosen either the facebook or the myspace, and left out the others. The bot is mainly designed to notify you of its concerns, not necessarily to really keep out the links. It also focuses on new editors and IPs, as they are likely not familiar with the policies and guidelines. It will not re-revert on undo/revert actions, it will also not re-revert to its own edit (it may re-revert if others edit the page in between). I hope this clarifies a bit. --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:46, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

After edit conflict: yes, the owner is Versageek, I am an operator of the bot. Yunshui, any admin can override the bot for a user, see User:XLinkBot/UserWhitelist (where I have added you, Kasamoto). --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:46, 21 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Kasamoto, to sum up the conversation above, I'd say it is OK to add a link to Alice's Facebook or Myspace page (choose the most relevant), but only that, per WP:ELOFFICIAL. So feel free to add it now, and hopefully the bot won't revert you (considering the fact you've been whitelisted). Hope this helped. -- andy4789 ★ ·  (talk?   contribs?)  16:05, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks, everyone, for the information! Very helpful. Kasamoto (talk) 19:39, 21 February 2012 (UTC)Kasamoto

Next to Normal edits, Feb. 2014

 * Moved bipolar details to section about mental illness.
 * Clarified that much of the drama and trauma depicted comes not from the illness itself, but from the misdiagnosis and unsuccessful efforts to treat Diana's condition (mental illness as a manifestation of unrecognized/unresolved grief).
 * Added citations.
 * The term "suburban life" has no significance if it's not about peeling back the shiny veneer (sliding away the house's walls) to reveal what's actually going on inside.
 * Added Alice Ripley's name to national tour information, only because it's a rare occasion that a lead actress from the Broadway production takes that show on the road. It was particularly rare for Ripley to helm the national tour while the Broadway production was still playing.

TOU's Paid contributions amendment, 2014 pending
Not applicable. Service uncompensated.