User talk:Lazulilasher/Archive 7

Copying and pasting
I am aware of Wikipedia's policy on copying and pasting. However, right below thios edit box is the words:

Only public domain resources can be copied without permission—this does not include most web pages or images.

I have copypasted before, but except for the case of Beth Wambui Mugo (I was unaware of the copyright law in her country of Kenya) they have all been public domain resources, usually the USGS. I am not alone in this process; many GAs and FAs on tropical cyclones are primarily copypastes from NOAA or NASA. I would, however, like to know how I can attribute that I copypasted from this site in the citation templates. ~  one of many editorofthewikis ( talk / contribs / editor review ) ~ 03:48, 18 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I replied on your talk page. To note, I was referring to the two DYKs recently in the queue, both of which were copy/pasted from the LOC. According to the DYK rules, work should be original to Wikipedia; not a paste from a data source. Second, I was referring to the GA for Mary Meader which contained many unattributed incorrectly attributed direct quotations from the New York Times, a non-public domain source. Regards, Lazulilasher (talk) 04:25, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll rework the article considerably. If my memory serves me, I think I was ill with the flu at the time and (well, I really shouldn't have been on the computer at all!) my creative ability was impaired. Thank you for your time I was unfamiliar with that section of the DYK rules, but as they say, you live and learn. Regards ~  one of many editorofthewikis ( talk / contribs / editor review ) ~ 04:32, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks again for understanding. Best of luck to you. Lazulilasher (talk) 04:34, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for being so helpful and kind. I think the article is suitable now. Since I know you translate from the French Wikipdia, I was wondering if you could look at 1964 Gabon coup d'etat -- originally a translation from there, then I gatered the sources and added som new material. I am planning to take this to FAC by Halloween, but any copyediting would be nice. ~  one of many editorofthewikis ( talk / contribs / editor review ) ~ 05:11, 18 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll hopefully be able to look at it at some point, but I've got a of wheels spinning now. However, my recommendation: take it very slow. I've been working on an article for FA for 11 months--and I'm still not ready to nominate it. When you get close, drop me a line and I'll see if I can help.


 * If you need anything translated, however, I'd be more than happy to take a look at it. Lazulilasher (talk) 15:54, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I think I scraped together everything that was written about the coup in the article. It's not exactly easy to find a lot on it, and I think I was lucky to find this much. I'd say I'm pretty close now - it probably needs a copyedit before submission. ~  one of many editorofthewikis ( talk / contribs / editor review ) ~ 00:01, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

1964 Gabon
Thanks for your com,ments. I have fixed the quote and replied to your queries. I'll take a look at Marquis de Lafayette, though one cannot call me a "good copyeditor". :) ~  one of many editorofthewikis ( talk / contribs / editor review ) ~ 00:21, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
 * First, There is no more research to be done. The article only failed the A-class nom because no one responded. Second off, I wasn't even the one who nominated it - that was User:Catalan (who by the way has 7 FAs to his name). Thirdly, after the first FAC closed but before my second nomination two editors (including Catalan) supported it. Fourthly, look at the volume of supporters before the FAC was restarted - don't you think they reviewed the article thoroughly? Fifthly, the category of articles that can never be Fas are mostly limited to articles like Gondjout, where not much information is available. articles at FAC aren't meant to be perfect, just our best work. I just tried my absolute best. This is why I'm not withdrawing. Anyway, I'm hitting the sack, I'm tired of this. ~  one of many editorofthewikis ( talk / contribs / editor review ) ~ 01:36, 21 October 2008 (UTC)


 * That's the problem: we can't know if the article is correct, because we can't verify the sources. This is none of your doing, and not your fault. It's just a silly star; you made the article better. Be proud of that. Lazulilasher (talk) 02:45, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
 * You can verify the sources, which is what I really don't understand why people don't get. Just pick up the book at the library and read it. Oh well, I'll be withdrawing the FAC. The only reason I want this article to be an FA is because I know a bunch of people that only trust Wikipedia FAs. The DYK thing was not to collect "brownie points", as Malleus calls it, but to educate people on an important topic undercovered on Wikipedia. I did cheap out by directly copying and pasting, with a bit of wikifying, but I also did not know of that section of the DYK criteria. I'm too tired of working on this: it's time for earthquake related articles (which as opposed to hurricane's don't have much to copy from! :)) ~  one of many editorofthewikis ( talk / contribs / editor review ) ~ 20:39, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

An invitation
I'd be absolutely delighted if you formally signed up as a Milhist member. Your very sensible discussion contributions would be very welcome. How are you enjoying the tools? (Oh, I did appreciate your RfA "thank you". It's so nice when people take the trouble to personalise their greetings: it's a knack many great generals have :)))) -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 14:34, 21 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, we need reviewers :) One of the other downsides to admin stuff is the emails. Have you had any yet? They're often (usually) for outrageous requests, generally advancing equally outrageous positions. If you want some quality Milhist grunt work, by the work, you can sign up as an admin in the Logistics dept :) -- R OGER D AVIES  talk 15:23, 21 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll take a look...now back to biting my nails over at FAC :) Lazulilasher (talk) 16:20, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd agree with the invitation, I thought you were a milhist member already when you helped me so much on Frederick III, German Emperor at its A Class review. Hope you can still find the time to concentrate on content building as an admin! Good luck. --Banime (talk) 12:29, 22 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah, you guys are kind :) Lazulilasher (talk) 18:08, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Lafayette
See the FAC. This is not neutral, not comprehensive, and ill-written; you would be well-advised to consult any of the standard histories of the French Revolution before trying this again; indeed, American National Biography would have been a start. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:41, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh. Thanks....um, ok... Lazulilasher (talk) 17:23, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * lol speaking of "that horrid man", i reckon i like your writing just fine, but the subject illicts a janus response from the reader. maybe some legacy essay at the end about the "compromised idealist" that we project our loves and hates on.  or on to more fertile ground. < > Pohick2 (talk) 22:43, 23 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The dating is a pet peeve of mine. We have had various editors who have made it their mission to install AD/BC, or CE/BCE, or international style dating (all dates must be formatted 23 October 2008). The latest of these I met when he was revert warring on 2008 South Ossetian war, which had more than enough other problems; he installed his pet system on a number of other articles, of which Lafayette was one. I think he wrote you and not I. My position on this is that it rarely matters, never matters much, but that users who Date War are disruptive and should be discouraged.


 * I trust the FAC is clear that this is a minor preference, not in itself worth an oppose, which I brought up largely because I thought FAC should consider the matter. With your permission, I will at some point tweak back to American dates.


 * One problem with Wikipedia is that people who know anything about any given subject are rare. The French Revolution is not actually my field, but I have read some of the standard secondary texts; User:Jmabel may be willing to help, or to recommend other reviewers.
 * You have, to my ear, chanced into one extreme of the wide spectrum of views on the Revolution; the corrective is to read several books, by several authors. I would commend R. R. Palmer's The World of the French Revolution or The Age of the Democratic Revolution, Vol. II. which should still be widely available.
 * Note that Palmer is fairly neutral; the opposing PoV would be Albert Mathiez.
 * The rest of the criticism is the result of collating this article with another standard tertiary source: the American National Biography article on Lafayette.
 * This is probably a good article (for Good Articles, so called, ask User:Dank55). But it is not our best work; I think this does have embarassing flaws, and should not be on our front page. Then again, I think that of many articles which have been. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:56, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I am judging on the basis of the article I see, not on the progress it has made; I am perfectly willing to believe it used to be much worse, but that's not what FA cares about. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:21, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Why don't I just clean it up? Because I have a queue of four other articles to clean up first. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:47, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Verbatim use of text from other sources, etc.
Laz: I made an inquiry here on where to best approach the general subject of copying and pasting across the various projects. You may want to watchlist and contribute. Kablammo (talk) 20:06, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Not sure who to ask...
Hey, thanks for all of your help earlier with Frederick III, German Emperor. It's going through a peer review right now and I'm getting lots of great tips. Anyway, I'm not really sure who to ask and I figured I'd ask you simply for the fact that you helped on the article before, are an admin, and are loads more experienced than me. A few of the points the reviewer brought up are about formatting. Do you know anything about formatting, or know anyone who is good at it? To be specific he mentions fixing the layout of the userbox and making an image appear correctly on higher resolutions. I really have no idea how to do that sort of thing. You can see for yourself at the peer review page here. Anyway like I said if you don't know then that's okay too. Thanks if you can help or point me to someone who might know. --Banime (talk) 23:31, 25 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Banime: Sure, I'll take a look at it in a few days. I happened to be robbed a few days ago; thus, I don't have reliable internet access. My new computer should arrive on Tuesday, at which point, I'll take a look. I do know a few users who excel in that area. I'll see if they'd be able to help. Regards, Lazulilasher (talk) 18:42, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Good luck on your real life situation, sorry it happened. Take your time, and thanks. --Banime (talk) 19:02, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

NYC Meetup: You are invited!
In the afternoon, we will hold a session dedicated to meta:Wikimedia New York City activities, finalize and approve bylaws, interact with representatives from the Software Freedom Law Center, and hold salon-style group discussions on Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects (see the June meeting's minutes and the September meeting's minutes).

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In the evening, we'll share dinner and chat at a local restaurant, and (weather permitting) hold a late-night astronomy event at Columbia's telescopes.

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French Revolution
Since you seem to be one of the main people working on the French Revolution recently, I thought I'd call your attention to my recent remarks on two slightly stale threads on its talk page. - Jmabel | Talk 18:12, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Dear Lazulilasher and others, I am new to Wikipedia but am concerned that a student of mine plagiarized a paragraph (about Napoleon's coup and the 18th Brumaire) from the French Revolution entry. When I confronted him, he said he hadn't given me the correct version of his paper with proper citations. he then gave me a version of the paper with Wikipedia cited, but the same text. I am wondering if he could have "copyedited" the Wikipedia article so it doesn't look his paper any more. In other words, he could have submitted the same phrases, but now they are not from Wikipedia since they aren't on Wikipedia. I am virtually certain that was where he had borrowed his text from. How do I find out? (elizwood@mit.edu) 18.186.0.226 (talk) 21:15, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXII (October 2008)
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Thanks!
Thanks. :) Yes, I do know I can archive my old messages... I was considering posting a little reward on the reward board to have someone dig up the past, say, year's worth of messages and turn them into archives, and then start archiving from there. Rainbow Of Light   Talk  06:46, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Interesting but fully correct
Firsy it was really nice to see that thought was put into the recent MfD closure. However a few items. One is that it was not that I felt we should wait one year, my full point was that we should wait longer than 3 weeks. Unlike some people, myself included, there is a real world out there that prevent people form making daily visits. I myself edited very little over the course of the first three weeks I ever used WP, and I did not even sign up until later and even then it was a while before I was making daily edits. So no, I did not suggest one year as a defacto standard, I simply used that to point out that making an MfD after 3 weeks was wrong. Per the same guidelines that were the basis for the nom - "Seems like a violation of WP:USER..." is how it starts out. My qestions are still unanswered. Seriously show me where that set of guildeines, or any Policy, states any of the following:


 * 1) As long as an editor makes COI main space edits they can create a user page to self promote their projects and their selves and have a myspace/facebook/resume user page.
 * 2) If a new user does not make any main page edits within three weeks their user page will be sent to MfD for deletion.

Also can you please clearly suggest a better way to define "a user page may not contain Excessive personal information (more than a couple of pages) unrelated to Wikipedia" as that was the sole argument that convinced me that, based on WP:USER, the content, not the users notability (or lack of it), length of time on WP or past edit history, dictates what may is what should be looked at in these cases. I am trying to learn as well but when, now, two like worded userpages (User:Sikh-history and User:Johnbuckman) have been a "keep" it really does open up valid questions about content and the actual wording of various policies and how it relates to new users.

I am finding that selective enforcement of the Policies and guidlines is fairly common. Soundvisions1 (talk) 23:32, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Soundvisions:


 * First, I like the thought that goes into your MfD comments. I might not completely agree, but I am impressed by your thoughts. I especially liked that you brought up a prior MfD (almost like case law!).


 * After reading everyone's remarks, I read the userpage guidelines. This argument of that guideline illuminated the situation for me:


 * I feel this gives us guidance when evaluating these situations; and, provides a way for us to balance various factors. I felt the other contributors' echoed this statement: the userpage is not compatible with the project, nor did it provide information on what he was doing on Wikipedia. In your alternate case: the editor was editing in an area which, as you said, reflected his COI statements. This would meet the above criteria of "helping other editors understand with whom they are working" and illustrated the "work that [he was] doing on the articles".


 * Regardless of this case, I think you have hit on a larger issue of Wikipedia. To be precise: varying editors contribute to deletion discussions, and each editor interprets the guidelines/policies in their own manner. Then, one of the 1,000 admins closes the debate. Each admin interprets consensus/guidelines/policies, and the application may not be consistent across the board. I attempted to evaluate the arguments presented in this MfD in light of applicable policy. I acknowledge that many may view the policies in a different manner.


 * Lastly, I did leave a note explaining the closure and deletion to the user. I hope that he does return to Wikipedia and sees my note. This would hopefully lead him to begin project contributions.
 * I hope I was able to explain my reasoning. Please do not hesitate to leave any further questions you might have about the way I closed that (or any other) debate. Regards, Lazulilasher (talk) 03:00, 25 November 2008 (UTC)


 * yes, no, maybe. :) Seriously though - you still did not provide me with a direct answer about where it says that after 3 weeks, if a new user has not made any main space edits, their user page is sent to MfD. As for the portion of the guideline you said helped you the most, that is exactly what I went by when I made the Buckman nom. Any user that has a "blog, webspace provider, nor social networking site" type of userpage is in violation. And right there is the issue. Lets go back in time, so to speak. When I made the nom for User:Johnbuckman it was because the userpage was a resume/facebook/myspace type of page. It listed his business's and his work. It also has the personal info and it is all about "I". Not once does it say "I only work on my own articles in order to promote my business and the people whose products I sell". It is worded too cleverly and you have to actually read and than see that is all the user has done here. Now lets come forward to about a month ago. Two new users and both simply start off by creating user pages. They too list what they have done and they talk about their business and some of their products. However, many of those business do not yet have Wikipedia articles but they will be coming soon - in other words the indications is these users will be working on them. Ok, so at face value, to me, these are also exactly like Buckmans page. But because I was shown clear guidlines that have nothing to do with edit history but only about content I feel, and I clearly state, that while I do not agree the guidlines do allow for this.
 * Now to use your exact words - "the userpage is not compatible with the project, nor did it provide information on what he was doing on Wikipedia." that is a wrong assumption because you have no idea, nor do I, of what this editor is doing yet because, at the time of the MfD, it had only been about 3 weeks. How many full article did you create or work on in your first three weeks here? Or your first eight weeks? But beyond this - I invite you to look at the page again. Now look at User:Jason E Ramsey and you will see comments such as "Landmine Entertainment [wiki page coming soon] dvxuser [wikipage coming soon] reduser [wikipage coming soon] scarletuser [wikipage comin soon]" And to again use your own words - "the editor was editing in an area which, as you said, reflected his COI statements. This would meet the above criteria of "helping other editors understand with whom they are working" and illustrated the "work that [he was] doing on the articles" To me there is still zero difference outside of the time of membership and I really do not see, nor have I been shown, any policy of guideline that says there is a time limit.
 * I do have a very strong opinion against users self promoting themselves, such as these users have done. I believe that Wikipedia has strong policies and guidlines in place against these sort of users and, on the one hand, scolding them for being an SPA and making COI edits but, on the other hand, rewarding then by allowing them to post their resume is flat out wrong. But, as far as content goes, the guideline in question does allow for it. You brought the SPA and COI issues into perspective, although that is implied not stated, but yet it now is really coming down to an unwritten Policy or Guideline that says "New users should not make user pages first. New users work on and create article about themselves for a year of so and then they can post resumes with links to those articles."
 * I have maintained the thought that these policy's and the guidlines that spring form them either need to be enforced with consistency or they need to be overhauled extremely. Soundvisions1 (talk) 04:08, 25 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Soundvisions: Let me think about what you've written for a bit before I reply. Lazulilasher (talk) 04:23, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:Mattobluey
You appear to have forgotten to end the close with {{subst:mfd bottom}}, just a reminder, I've added it.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 23:42, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Calvary Chapel
I want to reassure you that this close was correct. I probably would have speedy closed it without any discussion had I seen it the moment it was nominated and I wouldn't have hesitated to keep it even if there had been several deletes unless one had come from someone like User:PhilKnight or User:Vassyana or another experienced MEDCOM/MEDCAB mediator, in which case I'd have to think twice.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 16:25, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * However, you forgot to remove the MfD nomination tag and add the oldmfd tag to the nominated page. Note, you have to use the long form of the oldmfd tag in order to get the correct link or it will default to the associated project page rather than the talk page.  I always use the long version by the way, since it prevents a broken link if something moves later.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 16:34, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

RfA thanks
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