User talk:Madman/Archive 3

ANI question
I've asked a question at ANI which is yours to answer. I feel the answer is important and hope you will append your reply there. Best regards = My76Strat (talk) 03:59, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I have replied at AN/I. &mdash; madman 04:20, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Need help with deleted article
Hi, I'm trying to recreate a Wikipedia article on Adam Bryniarski aka Adam Windsor that seems to have been deleted. You deleted the Adam Bryniarski part and Adam Windsor is unable to be edited. Last time I looked the article had sufficient citations and references, however this was back in late December 2011. Can you help in retrieving this article? I'm not a Wikipedia expert and need some help from you if possible. Sportsfan5000
 * Sportsfan5000, that article was deleted per a deletion discussion and as such, it may not be recreated in its original form. You may feel free to pursue a deletion review to get the original article back, or write a new article; however, any new article must address the concerns raised in the original deletion discussion. Please let me know if you have any further question. Happy editing! &mdash; madman 20:55, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your response! Is there anyway you can help me get a deletion review going for it? To be honest I have no idea why the article would have been deleted in the first place. I would write a brand new article as the subject is a notable person but I am unable to write it under Adam Windsor. Is there a way to get permission at least to rewrite the article under Adam Windsor? If you take a look at the article under Adam Bryniarski you will be able to see that there is a lot if factual information. The article published in late December had numerous citations abd references. Like I stated, I'm not sure how to use wikipedia very well, so any help would be great. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sportsfan5000 (talk • contribs) 22:00, 23 January 2012 (UTC) Also, I'm not sure what concerns the article would have brought up? It was properly cited and referenced — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sportsfan5000 (talk • contribs) 22:04, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Please read the deletion discussion to which I linked. It appears that it was not properly cited or referenced, or at least what references there were did not satisfactorily establish his notability met Wikipedia's requirements. If after reading the deletion discussion you want to go through the process of deletion review, I'm actually as unfamiliar with the process as you are, but I'll do my best to help you. &mdash; madman 22:10, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I read the deletion review. I would like to either have the deletion discussed, or better yet, rewrite the article with sufficient citations and references. Even though it says the article was deleted on October or November it was republished with a lot more citations and references so why it was deleted again I have no idea. So if the article is rewritten how can I publish it to Adam Windsor? Right now it needs an administrator I guess to to either publish it or unlock it so it can be published. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sportsfan5000 (talk • contribs) 23:21, 23 January 2012 (UTC) Hi there. Just wondered if you had looked into this any further and if there's a way I can rewrite the article under Adam Windsor? Also maybe you could restore the article under Adam Bryniarski for now so that I can rewrite, make edits and add sufficient citations and references? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sportsfan5000 (talk • contribs) 14:57, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm going to look into this as soon as possible, Sportsfan5000. &mdash; madman 15:25, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Sportsfan5000, you may need another admin or editor to help you out with this; you can do this by placing the helpme or adminhelp templates on your talk page along with the request. I'm experiencing some health and personal issues at the moment that will be cutting down my contributions to Wikipedia for a few days. I'm very sorry I wasn't able to help more. :( &mdash; madman 19:29, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Sportsfan5000, I think I have more time to help out now. Have you looked over Deletion review and do you have any questions? There are directions there for starting a new DRV; I could start one on your behalf, but I'm sure you'd be able to make your case much better than I could. Cheers, &mdash; madman 05:11, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * If you could start one on my behalf madman that would be great! I have the article I originally wrote saved with all of the coding. If I can get it up and going again all will have to do is add citations and references.
 * I am honestly not very familiar at all with how wikipedia works and only can do the very basic stuff. I still cannot understand really why the article was deleted in the first place, I then edited it and it was deleted again even with sufficient citations and references. It almost felt like someone had a personal problem with the article to be honest.
 * Like I says though, any and all help you could give me with this is truly appreciated. My time is very limited right now but I truly feel this article about this person was deleted unfairly and unjustly so I've been trying my best to find someone like you that can help me sort the issues out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sportsfan5000 (talk • contribs) 03:13, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi madman,
 * Just wondered if you had any updated on this? I was also thinking that as an administrator I could always forward you the article with wikipedia coding over email and have you post it under Adam Windsor from there and then do a redirect from Adam Bryniarski to it and also make sure then it's referenced and citated perfectly? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sportsfan5000 (talk • contribs) 17:48, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Happily I'm able to edit more regularly now. I can review the deleted revisions too, and actually, if you have a new version of the article that's not the same as the version that was deleted, you can in fact create the article yourself without risk of it getting speedily deleted. Also, if you'd like me to e-mail you the version that was deleted, I'd be happy to do that too. Thanks, &mdash; madman 18:18, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Madman,
 * Thanks for getting back to me! I don't know if you are able to find it, but there was a version of the article under Adam Windsor at the end of December 2011 or beginning of January 2012 that was put up that was speedily deleted. That version had a lot more citations and references than the very last version thas was speedily deleted. It was up for around a good month I would say. I could not see any issues or problems with that version. If however you cannot find it, I can e-mail you the one I have saved and if you could put it up from there I will citate and reference until suitable. The quickest and easiest way to go though is if you are able to find that deleted article. If not, I am not sure of the best way to get your e-mail address, but I will happily e-mail you what I have. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sportsfan5000 (talk • contribs) 19:44, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I can put the most recent version in your user space (e.g. at User:Sportsfan5000/Adam Windsor. Just please keep in mind that even though you saw no issues or problems with it, it was deleted per consensus, so you can't put it back in article space without doing something to address the concerns raised in the deletion discussion. Cheers, &mdash; madman 19:59, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I have restored the article to your userspace. Please note the following revisions: revision before deletion per AfD, revision before speedy deletion 1, revision before speedy deletion 2. I'd recommend starting with the revision before deletion per AfD (you can revert to it by clicking that link, clicking Edit, then clicking Save), and then addressing the concerns in the deletion discussion (not enough references for a BLP). Thanks! Please let me or another administrator know when you'd like it reviewed to be moved back into article space. &mdash; madman 20:26, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Madman, I took a look through the articles. Can you take a look at the revision before speedy deletion 1 - If you take a look it has a lot more citations and references than the other versions and I think it would already have enough references for a BLP? If possible could you just take that version and post it back into the article space and address that the concerns had been taken care of in the deletion discussion? apart from adding some more content with references and citations (which I am able to do), just taking a scan over that particular version I can't see any notable concerns that would cause for deletion if it were to be put back? Let me know your thoughts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sportsfan5000 (talk • contribs) 22:59, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Madman, I have now edited the article in my userspace and added even more references and citations. Could you please take a look at it and if you feel is adequate move it back into the article space. Could you also redirect Adam Bryniarski to point to Adam Windsor too? Also, I am really not sure how to address the concerns in the deletion discussion. As an administrator and also knowing more than I do, would you be able to put in the deletion discussion that you have republished the article once you do and that any and all concerns have been completly addressed? I will continue to add more content to the article as I continue my research. I can't see any reasons now why the article may not meet any kind of standard or criteria, if there is any thing that you see, please let me know. Thanks again for all your help, you have been great. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sportsfan5000 (talk • contribs) 18:19, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I've run the article by a couple people; there are definitely formatting issues and there's still not a lot of sourcing. Unfortunately, requirements for biographies of living persons are a lot more strict than other articles due to how they can affect the subject. One thing you could try to do is contact a relevant WikiProject like WikiProject Professional wrestling and see if some other editors want to collaborate with you on the draft. :) &mdash; madman 01:56, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree on the formatting issues. I will work on sourcing some more too. I would definitely like to try and find some editors who would help me collaborate on the draft. Its funny, I have followed professional wrestling and wrestlers for many years and some of the editors to be honest in WikiProject Professional wrestling seem to be very opinionated in their own points of view just from reading some of the items in there. Some of their viewpoints and desisions don't really seem to be unbiased. Thats just my opinion, so I am not sure how helpful they would be. I looked up many other professional wrestlers and there are hundreds (if not thousands) of profiles out there which have a lot less sourcing, formatting etc than this project too. Do you have any suggestions on anywhere else I could go to help find editors that could help me? Even if its in sports and/or entertainment. Maybe you know of some good editors in general too that could help me with making the page up to a good standard? When searching in yahoo, google etc there is plenty of articles, interviews, pictures, profiles etc out there so sourcing is not an issue. I think its more my lack of knowledge of wikipedia and editing skills too that I am having an issue with. Any help from any people you could find to help me with this would be great.... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sportsfan5000 (talk • contribs) 02:25, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * If you don't want to work with WikiProject Professional wrestling, you could also work with WikiProject Wikify or the Guild of Copy Editors. They may not bring expertise with the subject to the table, but they can certainly help you clean the article up. &mdash; madman 20:57, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

random thanks
Just wanted to say "thank you" for your attention re: the class-B block. That was done quickly :) draeath (talk) 19:37, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * No problem. :) &mdash; madman 19:38, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Watching your user page...
Hello madman!

That statement needs a comment; if - at any point in your life (or all the rest) - you need an additional watcher in order to get up to 42 again, please contact me - I would be happy to fill the gap! But now may be I should go and abuse my zem... ;) Greetings --DrTrigon (talk) 00:43, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Haha, thanks, but someone's already bumped the count to 43. That's what I get for telling people not to stuff beans up their noses. :P &mdash; madman 01:50, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Don't Panic! ;))) --DrTrigon (talk) 12:31, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

DR robot
Hi there. We had a chat a few weeks ago about a potential ClueBot style robot to detect and flag content disputes, and you said this was something you may have a few ideas or be able to assist with, but I'm still a bit stuck on just how to develop something like this. We could try a bot based on heuristics, but these generally have high rates of errors? Got any ideas? The other idea is the one that detects the most and least active threads on DR noticeboards, wraps tags around them and updates every 6 hours or so. Then we could transclude the noticeboard somewhere, like here. Steven  Zhang  Join the DR army! 03:12, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, I intended my level of support to pretty much be implementing any ideas you came up with. :P Thoughts off the top of my head: Could have heuristics based on how often an article's getting reverted, how heated the talk page discussion is getting (like Eudora's "Mood Watch", though I just realized that isn't open-source), maybe Bayesian filtering based on disputes in the past, etc. It could just be a pipe dream on both our parts, and WikiProject DR may find it unnecessary if it's likely to be inaccurate or it just gives them more work to do. But I do like the idea as you proposed it; it presents an interesting technical challenge. :) &mdash; madman 17:53, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Hm, I dunno if heuristics would work tbh...I was thinking a setup similar to CluebotNG. Tricky, indeed, but theres heaps of disputes out there to use as data. Although they're not as clear cut as vandalism like "NIGGER NIGGER" or "joe bloggs has a tiny wang" but still detectable nonetheless. Steven   Zhang  Join the DR army! 10:07, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Hm? ClueBot NG certainly uses heuristics (User:ClueBot NG). Using heuristics just means you learn from prior experience in order to produce an approximate, fast solution; at least, that's my take on it. Learning can be "manual", as in administrators adding to and removing from a blacklist, or it can be automatic, as in Bayesian filtering and neural networks. &mdash; madman 18:12, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, then call me a moron. My take on it was that we'd make a list of words and it'd flag everything using those words as a dispute. Well, we've got plenty of data (disputes) that a bot could analyse, but I'm not really sure how to proceed from here. Steven   Zhang  Join the DR army! 20:46, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * That's okay; it's a common misconception that anything involving heuristics is inevitably going to fail a lot. I guess proceeding from here I'll just experiment a little. I've only done a little programming involving Bayesian filtering in the past. If you could point me at prior disputes I could use as data that'd be appreciated. This will of course take a good amount of time, and may not produce any results at all. But it's a fun challenge for me. &mdash; madman 20:49, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Hm, you could start with everything in MedCab and MedCom, there's a lot of disputes there I am sure :-) There's also Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_1 through to Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_19. Cheers. Steve Public (talk) 03:04, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * No progress as of yet? Steven   Zhang  Join the DR army! 00:09, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Not yet, unfortunately; I've been working on a long-running semi-automated task that's helping me hammer out some edge cases in the bot framework I'm working on. It's for the benefit of all later tasks, really. :) I wouldn't expect too much too soon, as I'm going to be working with some machine learning concepts in this task with which I'm not that familiar. I am still interested in the task, though. :) &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 00:23, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * OK. Keep me posted. Steven   Zhang  Join the DR army! 00:28, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * It's also worth noting that I might be taking some time to mirror CorenSearchBot as he's been dead for almost two weeks and he's very important to the encyclopedia. x.x Basically, I have more responsibilities at the moment than I anticipated. But I'm sure I'll have at least some results soon. :) &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 00:30, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * It's alright. No real rush. I imagine this bot will be a tricky one to put together. Steven   Zhang  Join the DR army! 00:32, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Re: Southern Territory of Libyan Sahara vs. Territorio Sahara Libico
Please have User:Margate92 checked at WP:SPI whether they are User:Brunodam first. This is less of a copy&paste, but it's still their typical pattern to open a new sockpuppet account and do this. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 13:05, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Jesse Kraai
Did you mean to take so much out of the Jesse Kraai article? (Now it is one sentence.) Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 00:13, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Oops; no, I did not. Thanks for catching that error so quickly; I'll reverse it. Apologies! &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 00:15, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

My bot
Just FYI, 2 or 3 editors and a couple of accidental edits do not present a lack of consensus. But I will respect your decision. I will cease using my bot and submit requests for others to do the tagging. I have no desire to spend another 2 months going through the approval process. --Kumioko (talk) 21:21, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry you've been frustrated by the process of operating your bot. In the course of operating a bot, these issues will sometimes arise (and they have for me as well) because the threshold of contention for bots' edits is a lot lower than that for human editors' ("harmless"). If there's an issue with the bots' edits, it needs to be sorted out. This doesn't mean you have to go through the approval process again (I'm not sure where you got that idea); it just means some discussion needs to take place before that particular task (and not all of the bots' tasks) can be resumed. All I'm attempting to do is redirect that discussion to a better venue. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 21:32, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I am frustrated because we are stopping the train for a couple rabbits on the tracks. The task is not contentious nor does it lack consensus. I left it on the WPUS talk page for 3 months with few comments and none to the negative. If these yahoos failed to comment there or at the BRFA that was open for another 2 months that's their fault as is their very narrow scope issues. There were a couple of articles tagged accidentally but I haven't been able to fix them because I can't stop typing long enough to do the research. Of the 11, 000 articles that I tagged there were less than 150 errors and some of those are borderline. Its no problem to me it just punishes the project. --Kumioko (talk) 21:48, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I understand, and I think it's possible consensus will agree with you at WikiProject United States, in which case you can and should carry on. You're just unlikely to get an informed consensus at WT:BRFA, I'm afraid; that's not the page most people who manage the scope of the project and its child projects are likely to be watching. I hope that helps you understand the change in venue and that certainly no ill will is intended; rather the opposite. Cheers, &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 01:11, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * As I mentioned it already took place and the discussion is archived at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States/Archive 7. If you are wondering why it took so long to tag them its because I tried for months and 5 different bots to get them tagged and finally just decided to do it myself. If you notice there are 3 red links. These are groupings of articles that I have already tagged, including the American group. The only ones left to do are US, and the individual groupings for the specific projects (I have about 25 done or close to done so far). So to say I didn't have consensus isn't correct. There is always one or 2 editors who complain and this is no exception. Most of the grounds for complaint now are based on article ownership issues and turf wars. --Kumioko (talk) 01:59, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

It should also be mentioned that I have helped several US related projects that opted not to be supported. I helped Oklahoma, Virginia and several others without ever pressuring them into joining WPUS. I spoke recently to several others including Chicago about tagging articles for them. I frankly don't care if they are supported I will still try and help I jut try and support the US supported projects first. --Kumioko (talk) 02:04, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm glad to hear you've helped those projects and I see no reason why you can't continue doing so. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 18:21, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I wished I could too but it seems to me that the community would rather let them die. At this point I am inclined to agree. --Kumioko (talk)

Thanks to you and your MadmanBot 12
Thanks for fixing the broken links! (CongLinks template) Sorry, 34 pages was a lot less than I expected. But I did quite a few random manual checks and I couldn't find any errors, so I guess it all went very well. Ddnixx (talk) 05:11, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Closure wording
I just read your closure wording on the banner related dispute. While closing was probably a good thing, objections to an existing bot task cannot be allowed to throw over consensus. It is a fact of life that on Wikipedia there will be objectors to everything, including to, for example, using bots at all. That is precisely why we have BOTPOL and BAG. That is not to say reasonable concerns should not be addressed, nor that it isn't sometimes tactful to stop a bot until a discussion is concluded. But we have at least one example in the past where discussion was filibustered for over a year. Rich Farmbrough, 15:18, 16 February 2012 (UTC).


 * I get what you're saying, and perhaps saying that "there does not seem to be consensus" was a bit strong. I didn't see any evidence in the discussion at WT:BRFA that the lists Kumioko was using were produced by consensus, but that doesn't mean that they weren't. I also agree with you that there will be objectors to everything, especially when bots are concerned; in fact, I made that point above. (I would say, though, that while objections are ongoing it's more than "tactful" to stop a task; it's necessary.) The main reason I closed the discussion at WT:BRFA was because as stated, it wasn't a bot approvals issue. There was an incorrect assumption that the BAG put its stamp of approval on the lists that Kumioko was using; it did not. If there are problems with the list, they should be worked out, but WT:BRFA isn't the proper place to do so; that's not where discussion about the scope of WikiProject United States takes place (and it's that scope that seems to be the larger issue). I hope that makes more sense. Thanks, &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 15:53, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Addendum: Now that I've caught up on the new AN/I thread, the Village Pump, and various talk pages, it seems pretty clear there wasn't and is not consensus for the method by which Kumioko was generating the lists in question. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 18:23, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Just to clear the air I want to comment on one thing from the above discussion just for clarity. When people started complaining abotu the bot, it had already finished tagging the list. So when I "stopped" the bot, we weren't affecting that run, we were affecting the assessment of redirects within WPUS, the merging of WPTexas to WPUS and several other tasks. The List tagging was already done. Additionally, I admitted to Sarek and several others and I agreed there were some errors and was working on a list to fix it. The problem though is that Sarek, Mark and a couple of others assumed that every article containing American that got tagged was in error and started blindly reverting them. Then they started opening up discussions all over the Wiki and turned things into a witchhunt before I could even fix the problem. Several are now being discussed on the WPUS talk page and some can be seen in Sareks deletion log. A couple were valid, most were not and Do pertain to WPUS. Since the project members completely left me holding the bag and only a couple even commented about the situation and the events that followed I have to confess that the consensus I thought existed was just a figment of my imagination. That's partly why I will no longer be working with the project, I no longer need or desire to have a bot or AWB and my deisire to even edit in Wikipedia has, at least for the moment, been removed. At this point Sarek can fix the article problems himself as far as I am concerned. I also want to clarify that the reason I used the method I used was because the Category structure is a mess. I either couldn't get the categories to pull down because they were a dozen layers deep or I got garbage because some unrelated thing was linked to a category. Pulling a list of Articles containing US, United States, etc. and then manually removing the extras was pretty straight forward. I also want to clarify that I had created several other lists such as Texas, North Dakota, Omaha (for Omaha nebraska) and others and am deleting those as well so that they don't fall into the wrong hands and cause more problems. If in the remote possibility they are needed an Admin can restore them. --Kumioko (talk) 00:11, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Kumi-Taskbot
I just wanted to stop and say thanks for revoking the bot tasks (no sarcasm intended). I have no desire to run a bot anymore and this will save me from being tempted to and will save others from asking. Just to be clear again, it wasn't the bot nor my negligence. It was simply a few bad articles that were easily fixable and multiple editors showing signs of article ownership started crying after the bot had finished the task. Before I could even fix the problem I had editors carrying pitchforks and torches looking for a tree with plenty of strong branches for a rope. Its clear to me that the community has no patience for an easily fixable and simple mistake from a very experienced editor trying to make improvements. --Kumioko (talk) 17:07, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
 * As an additional note. Someone should remove me and my bot from the AWB list. That should help prevent any mistakes by my "negligence" or bad bot coding in the future --Kumioko (talk) 17:10, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I also went ahead and scrapped the code I was working on for article assessments and auto population of maintenance categories for WikiProject banners (I finally figured out how to read the data on an article or talk page and apply a change to the other) and the approximately 3200 line module that I was working on to automate adding Infoboxes (only person, politician and Military person though). It only populated about 10 fields and then added a couple more as blanks but frankly it does make a mistake about 1 in 250 articles so the error rate is too high for the community to be accepting of it. For what is worth I was going to submit the BRFA earlier but it relied heavily on the Persondata template which was recently recommended for deletion so I waited. --Kumioko (talk) 17:19, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
 * If you'd really like to be removed from the AWB list, I can do that for you, but I don't really see it as necessary. I'm sure AWB can still aid you greatly in your contributions to Wikipedia. Also, bots automatically have AWB access as long as they have a bot flag, so the one can't be removed without the other. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 23:18, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you, please do I would prefer not to use AWB or any other automated tools. If I edit the edits I make will few and specific. My days of trying to wipe entire lists of problems or making sweeping improvements are over, at least for a while. --Kumioko (talk) 23:30, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah, I was wrong about the bot flag automatically granting access to AWB's automated mode. I'll remove both usernames from the AWB access list per your request; I hope that in the future you'll re-consider. Thanks, &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 23:42, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you, anything could happen. --Kumioko (talk) 23:49, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Welsh peaks
Hi. I've done the first 3 here. I hope you can help. Our list of 2,000 Scottish peaks here (Scottish Peaks); a geotag on each one of these articles would be wonderful!!! There's only a handful of us on the Welsh Wici; please help. Thanks. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 07:12, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

This has now been sorted. Thanks. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 06:42, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, okay! Sorry I didn't get to it in time, but if you need anything else, please feel free to let me know. :) &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 19:38, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you

 * Thanks! Happy editing! :) &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 17:47, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Baseball Reference Bullpen
I just copied text from http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Pablo_Ortega to create Pablo Ortega on this wiki, and your bot caught it and flagged it as a copyvio. I'd like to point out that the Baseball Reference Bullpen is a wiki, and all text is in the public domain. I added the Bullpen template at the bottom of the Wikipedia page that acknowledges this. Perhaps you can update your bot to clarify that this isn't a copyvio. Thanks. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:23, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Done. Though it looks to me like it's licensed under the GFDL; it's not in the public domain. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 22:22, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the article knowledge based community sharing system
Dear madman!! I already sent the original document to wiki which u mentioned to do last month. Please revoke the page as soon as possible. Give me a tip otherwise what shall be done to revoke my article in wikipedia again in quick time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.238.50.42 (talk • contribs) 20:30, 21 February 2012‎ (UTC)
 * If you submitted a declaration of consent to permissions-en at wikimedia.org and still haven't heard back, you may want to send it again. Unfortunately, I cannot restore the article until an OTRS volunteer has verified permission. Thanks, &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 23:32, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I have searched the permissions queues and do not see your e-mail; you may want to resend. :( If you can e-mail me with the From: address you used or other details about the e-mail, I may be able to track it down more easily. Thanks, &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 21:51, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * 2012012810010555 is for you. -- DQ  (ʞlɐʇ)  09:04, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Bot query
Could you look at my comment at Articles for deletion/Valyoo technologies? Your bot tagged a copyvio, but by the time I looked into it, only the first sentence was in existence at the source. I'm wondering if the bot didn't read further, or if they blanked out their 'about us' page to make it appear non copyvio here. (Has happened before...) Peridon (talk) 18:51, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: Answered question there. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 19:40, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Bot slapps
Is it necessary to tag a copyright violation of another wikipedia article in the very same minute the article is created? Sounds fine for web copies, but a species article will often begin with information from the genus article. In this case, I think the user just made a mistake, while creating the article and using the existing article's taxobox. It might be more welcoming to users to show them how to use the sandbox than to propagate a copyvio all over wikipedia due to a slapp happy bot. 68.107.135.146 (talk) 18:41, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * It is, in case the contributor didn't know. A lot of times this happens due to contributors not knowing how to properly move pages and the template gives guidance on how to do so instead of cutting and pasting it. Plus even if the article is changed after it's created, the revision with which it was created is in violation of Wikipedia's licenses; it's not properly attributing the contributors to the original article, in your hypothetical that being the genus article. So in summary, yes, the notification is necessary; it's best to start with the intended content or at least a bare-bones outline of it instead of another article's content. Thanks, &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 19:17, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * All that being said, back to the question "is it really necessary to tag a copyright violation of another wikipedia article in the very same minute the article is created?"
 * Your bot slapp, by the way, did not add the correct attributions; it just added a tag that is now gone. So, the copyright violation, the loss of edit history for the correct licensing of the original article is a permanent situation not dealt with by the bot. So, the bot interfered with the editing of the article, did not correct the problem it is being used for, and what was the value? Oh, maybe suckering me into improving the article--after all, manipulation of editors in a volunteer project should count for something.
 * Oh well, every time I come to Wikipedia I think I am editing an article and creating an encyclopedia, but, really, all I'm ever doing is racing against the points scored for tagging and deleting articles. Once more, I give up. This is, however, the fastest I have given up in many years of trying. Maybe I can find you a barn star for that. 68.107.135.146 (talk) 19:31, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * My answer, as above, is yes. It is really necessary. And while the bot doesn't know enough to give proper attribution by itself, it reports every tag it places and every tag is reviewed by volunteers who follow up and try to help the page's creator out (or apologize for false positives as necessary). I'm sorry you've been frustrated by this process, but it's necessary to ensure Wikipedia is and will remain a free encyclopedia. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 20:23, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not frustrated. It's just a complete waste of time and interference in editing as so much on Wikipedia is: let's categorized means of doing something instead of correcting problems. No volunteer has reviewed the article, followed up, and given attribution. It's almost the opposite: it's a Streisand effect. The copyright violation, unattributed, is now spread all over Wikipedia courtesy of the bot link, unreviewed, unattributed, but extensively linked. Righteous. 68.107.135.146 (talk) 00:01, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I didn't say the problem was corrected immediately. No volunteer has reviewed the article yet because those who do such reviews are volunteers; there are only twenty-four hours in a day, and there are lots of tags to go through. Personally, I wait about twenty-four hours before following up as the tags are in fact informative enough that most problems will have been resolved in the meantime. You've stated multiple times now that the bot propagates copyright violations, which is the opposite of what is true. You've also stated that the lack of attribution is a permanent situation, which is likewise untrue. Are you suggesting that if the bot didn't exist and these copyright/licensing violations passed unnoticed and untagged that that'd be better for Wikipedia? &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 01:45, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, oblique is going nowhere. You do realize that your bot is assigning a copyright to a bot created boilerplate while it is interfering with a human editor creating an article? The latter is the most important point, however, the text that you tagged as a copyright violation isn't. It's a boilerplate created by a bot, by defintion, not copyrightable.
 * Yes, it is better for wikipedia to not tag as copyright violations sentences that are not sufficiently original to begin with, "Lower taxon is a member of next higher taxon." It just adds to the copyright idiocy on wikipedia when doing so calls attention to the fact that we have a bot tagging human editors as copyright violators less than a minute after article creation, when the human editor probably just mistakenly hit preview while editing, and did not post anything of substance that could be copyrighted, and the human editor copied and pasted a boilerplate created for a bot who created the article by scrubbing a database to which Wikipedia is attributing copyright.
 * I read Featured Articles with copyright violations in their main page lead paragraphs. Please put things in perspective.
 * And let's be fair. If you're going to go after the human editors, PolBot has a 100,000 articles that require your copyviolation bot to hit them. 68.107.135.146 (talk) 16:36, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Looking into this further, Copyright violations on history pages seems to imply that the owner of the copyright may complain, but barring that, a copyright violation in the page history isn't a problem. If you had waiting a minute, instead of less than a minute for your bot to tag the article, maybe you could have guessed that PolBot is not going to complain about the copyright violation.

And, if PolBot complains, you can fight that at the source, the bot task that allows it to complain can be strongly contested!

So, I suggest you stop tagging a problem that isn't by tagging "X is a genus of the X family" as copyright violations. 68.107.135.146 (talk) 16:42, 4 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Bots are notoriously poor at guess-work, so I rather suspect that Madman's bot would have been no more successful at predicting PolBot's reaction after five minutes or fifty than it is in one. The copyright bots on Wikipedia are far more likely to catch actual issues than to flag falsely, but some degree of false flagging is inevitable. I'm sure we all regret the inconvenience of having to remove an incorrect flag, but it's preferable to missing actual copyright issues which can cause legal danger for us and our reusers as well as economically harming copyright holders. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:15, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * But you cannot remove an incorrect flag. Once the bot has flagged the article as a copyright violation, it sits forever in that page of copyright violations--I tried removing it from that page. If you could remove the copyright violation flag then it would be a simple matter of correcting the bot action. But, when there are so many real copyright violations on Wikipedia, leaving a page forever, a page that isn't a copyright violation, in that category is a waste of editing time.
 * You do good work by the way, Moonriddengirl. You might be surprised how many people know this. 68.107.135.146 (talk) 17:20, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you mean by the article being flagged as a copyright violation forever. It's not. It's listed in the page of suspected copyright violations, and if it's a false positive, it's marked as such. The tag is removed and the article is no longer in the category in question. No harm, no foul. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 18:07, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

EC
 * This is a false positive, and it's not marked as a false positive. The copyright violation tag is forever in the article's history; it's not marked as a false positive there, either. Yet it's not a copyright violation.
 * Polbot created the text that MadmanBot marked as a copyright violation. Either the text is a copyright violation for being copied by another wikipedia editor or it's not. If it is a copyright violation for a human editor to copy that text from another article, it's a copyright violation for Polbot to copy it from one article to the next. It's about the text, not who copied it. But, it's also about originality (it's not), and about copyright holder.
 * Wikilawyered to death. You tagged an article as a copyright violation that isn't. You put it on a page identified as possible copyright violations where it doesn't belong. Boilerplate species articles created by bots have no copyright. 68.107.135.146 (talk) 17:55, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, 68.107.135.146. :) I try. I have to agree with Madman, though, that it's a "No harm, no foul" situation--at least, it should be. False positives are much lower than actual issues, but we still get them - what do you think, Madman? A couple a day? There's nothing wrong, if you're worried about it, with leaving a note at the talk page explaining, or asking somebody else to. But as Madman says, it's not kept in any kind of category of copyright problems. Its listing at WP:SCV actually exonerates it - or will, as soon as the day is closed. And there is actually nothing in that tag that says it's a copyright violation: . It says, "It will soon be reviewed to determine if there are any copyright issues" (emphasis added). --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:04, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't think either of us is fully understanding what the other is saying: either that, or we're talking at cross purposes. As Moonriddengirl says, any bot is prone to false positives; this bot's benefits, however, far exceed its cost. (I'll also note that I didn't write the bot; I'm just running it since the original operator went MIA). Regardless of what you may think, or of any frustration I may have expressed above, I do value your feedback and I am going to look into tweaking the code, either to establish a threshold amount of text that must be copied (more than a couple sentences) or to ignore content within common templates such as infoboxes. Note that right now the bot does have a threshold of text that must be copied, but it's best expressed as a percentage and a degree of confidence. (Also please note that identifying the original contributor of the text in question is unfortunately practically impossible from a technical perspective as the bot would have to review every single revision of the original article to see when the text was added.) I wouldn't expect results of this tweaking immediately, as I'm going to have to have the bot re-review problematic articles of the past month or so to see if there will be an unacceptable false negative rate, but I'll do whatever I can to decrease the false positive rate. Thanks, &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 18:07, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I hate to see editors working in topic areas where English Wikipedia does poorly (plants of non-English speaking country) get put in his/her place by a bot. I work mostly in non-English primary topics on Wikipedia and the treatment of editors in these areas by other editors is bad enough without adding bots treating them badly.

Yes, identifying the copy vios is more important.

To exclude species stubs from bot copyvio positives, exclude the taxobox text from registering a positive, then write an exclusion for "Oncosperma is a genus of flowering plant in the Arecaceae family. It contains the following species:" Exclude "Taxon contains the following TaxonRank-1" and "taxon is a taxonRank" and "in the taxonRank*1." TaxonRank can be obtained from the taxobox.

You should be able to figure out the algorithm. 68.107.135.146 (talk) 18:20, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Note I did determine there is not copyright issue. I attempted to remove the article from the page for this reason. My edit was reverted, but not information noting this is not a copyright violation was added. You're saying it works like this in the face of the supporting evidence that it does not. There is no means of noting that it has been checked, to keep other editors from wasting time investigating it, or removing it from the page. 68.107.135.146 (talk) 18:23, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I actually was just about to respond to that exact point on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup, but Moonriddengirl quite rightly points out that it's probably best to keep discussion in one place. I can reduce false positives by either establishing a different threshold for copying within Wikipedia or a lower degree of confidence for copying within common templates such as infoboxes. Adding custom code for species articles and the like is impractical; custom code for each type of article that could possibly be created and their commonalities would quickly render the bot unmaintainable. There has to be a balance struck here, as unfortunately the ideal of zero false positives is quite literally and mathematically impossible. But I do hope that the work I do to reduce false positives over the next couple weeks will address your concerns satisfactorily. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 18:24, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Copyvio bot to check AfC submissions
There's a request at User talk:Moonriddengirl that the copyvio bot also check new AfC creations. I have a feeling that CorenSearchBot was doing this for a while (although I'm not 100% sure) so it may be something they added since the version of code you based the new bot on. Dpmuk (talk) 05:15, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Replied there. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 15:05, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Madman @ ko.wikipedia
Your request was done. I renamed 'ko:User:Madman (SUL)' to 'ko:User:Madman'. Please match your passwords with SUL passwords. If you have any opinions to me, you can do in ko:User talk:Ha98574. Thanks. -- Min&#39;s (talk) 16:19, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Merged successfully with kowiki. Thanks! &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 16:30, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Bot Stats
Hello madman...I just wanted to check in and see if you've had a chance to collect that data that we discussed on bots. No rush really...just wondering. Thanks again for the help (and really, no dire rush on this...I'm sure you're busy). UOJComm (talk) 20:04, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Not yet; I'll be able to as soon as I get out of the approval process with some of my new bot tasks. :) Thanks, &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 21:08, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Cool...thank you very much for your help! UOJComm (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:38, 27 February 2012 (UTC).
 * As of this morning, I have the raw data; I'll play with it in the morning to add some pivot table summaries and pretty charts, then I'll post it online. Cheers! &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 00:43, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Awesome...thank you! UOJComm (talk) 18:57, 29 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Preliminary data for bot edits have been posted with a summary here. Final data are being generated now. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 17:12, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Regarding data for BRFAs, I used the date a request page was added to a category as the date approved/denied/expired/revoked/withdrawn, which doesn't require parsing the request pages, but it seems this is only accurate after 2/28, as that seems to be when the categories were created and existing request pages mass-added. I don't know if that will be useful to you (there are about 769 bot tasks approved, 130 denied, 92 expired, 14 revoked, 142 withdrawn after that point). Let me know; I can parse the request pages, but it'll take longer. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 17:20, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Final data for bot registrations have been posted in the same location with a summary here. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 17:49, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Highlights: Yes, bots now make anywhere from 5.5 million to 7.0 million edits per month across Wikimedia projects. No, I do not know why 750 bot accounts were registered in October 2006. Also note that all these data are for bots flagged within a project; I don't believe it accounts for globally flagged bots (though it may). &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 17:53, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much for these stats Madman. A few questions:
 * So the Bot Edits data does not include English WP? (enwiki_p)? I'm guessing there will be a sizable number of bot edits there that might move these overall numbers a bit? I know you said those numbers would be coming, so I just wanted to see if you think I should wait before digging in to these stats.
 * I'm not quite sure what you mean by "I used the date a request page was added to a category" and "but it seems this is only accurate after 2/28, as that seems to be when the categories were created and existing request pages mass-added". Could you please explain that just a bit more for me?
 * Am I correct in assuming that the Bot Edit data includes all actions by bots (changes in any namespace, additions as well as reverts, etc.)? UOJComm (talk) 19:20, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
 * No, the bot edits data does not currently include English WP, but it will. That query has been running for eight hours now, I think, and it probably has a bit to go. I assume as you do that it will change the aggregate data significantly. The bot edits data includes all bot edits, which includes reverts. I can't think of any bot that significantly uses non-edit actions (delete, move, protect, etc.).
 * Update: I killed the query and reworked it to run about a hundred times faster. The final data's ready but I actually can't pull it right now to compile a report as the server's dead/suffering from heavy load. Sigh... But judging by the sheer size of the English WP data, I think it might be a significant outlier, so I might do a report with and without it. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 07:35, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
 * When a request for approval is approved, it is added to Category:Wikipedia approved bot requests. MediaWiki stores a timestamp of when it was added to the category, so that's a really easy way to query exactly when the request was approved without having to parse anything. But those categories didn't exist until 2/28/2009, at which point they were created and all pre-existing requests were added to them. You can see the problem there, I think: It looks like hundreds of requests were approved in a couple days. Let me know if this makes sense and which approach you want me to take. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 20:31, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the update and all the work. So 1) the data you have on Bot Registration is strictly for when the account name was registered (is that correct?), and 2) the BRFA data will only really be accurate after 2/28/09...in which case, it will give a picture of BRFA approvals/denies etc. since then, but not before. That is at least some data, though if there is another way to parse the request pages to get accurate data all the way back, that would of course be more telling for me. I really don't know how much of a pain a parse like that is, so I will defer to you...if it is a big job that wouldn't produce anything particularly interesting for you and you'd like to skip it, I totally understand.  UOJComm (talk) 19:47, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
 * 1.) That is correct. 2.) I'll see how difficult it'll be to parse. Probably not too difficult for a script, it's just a matter of time to write the script. 3.) Final data are posted for bot edits; I don't think enwiki was more significant an outlier than some of the others (commonswiki, dewiki). &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 05:00, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Awesome...thanks so much for the help, and let me know if you get time to parse the data. UOJComm (talk) 03:56, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Hey...just wanted to check in again. When you get a chance, let me know if you think that parse is possible. Thanks!  UOJComm (talk) 22:16, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

UnitBot
Hi,

Several years ago, you closed the approval for UnitBot, on account of it being vaporware. However, UnitBot is now nearing completion, and is ready to make supervised test edits. Can you reopen the approval?

Thanks,

&mdash; H y p e r d e a t h ( Talk ) 17:01, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll check with someone else in the BAG, but my impression is that the best thing to do is just to create a new BRFA and reference the old one, copying over whatever you need. This helps us keep track of the disposition of the old request and the new request, especially when the older request is a number of years old as in this case. I'm happy to hear that work on this task is almost complete! Please let me know if you have any further questions. Cheers, &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 14:12, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Deletion
Hi, I'm writing to inquire about the deletion that you proposed for the article on Lieutenant General Tadesse Werede Tesfay. I wrote the article and it is factually based on the United Nations official press release (http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/sga1301.doc.htm). I referenced the source at the bottom of the article under external links. In fact, I work for the UN, which owns the content of the Press Release. Would you please let me know what I can do exactly to improve the article and prevent the deletion? Thank you. Asdfjklo (talk) 14:02, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * If I recall correctly, this article was deleted as a copyright violation of the UN press release. Presently, UN press releases can not be contributed to Wikipedia because the UN specifies that they may not be used commercially, which is incompatible with Wikipedia's licensing (CC-BY-SA). If you are the copyright holder and you are authorized to license the press release, you may do so by following the instructions at Donating copyrighted materials. If you're not so authorized, you can recreate the article but you'll have to do so in your own words (you may still reference the press release). Please let me know if you have any further questions; I'll be happy to answer them. Thanks! &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 14:09, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Helpful Pixie Bot
I notice this bot User:Helpful Pixie Bot is going around adding hyphens to ISBNs. At least two of us are objecting to this at Wikipedia talk:ISBN, but the bot continues to operate, and the bot's operator makes unsubstantiated arguments in favor of it and essentially ignores those who don't agree with him. I'm unfamiliar with how one is supposed to object to these bots. How does one find whether this is an approved activity? How can we object before things like this get started? --Robert.Allen (talk) 03:33, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * This task was approved in 2006 here. There may or may not have been consensus at that time that supported approval, but it's true that consensus can change and if concerns are raised about a task (on the operator's talk page or Bot owners' noticeboard), the operator should suspend it until the concerns have been mitigated. If this is not done, I suppose it should be brought up at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents as a task operating without consensus should be suspended by an administrator if there's a protected page allowing such or the bot should be blocked. Thanks, &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 14:17, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the help. First I'm trying to negotiate a compromise solution with the bot author. --Robert.Allen (talk) 22:43, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Erasmus at CorenBotManual
Hi, Madman. Where's the best place to note false positives like Desiderius Erasmus? It's not really a mirror; it's more like just a copy. Thanks. --  Kenatipo   speak! 16:01, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd say the best thing to do is to put the Backwardscopy template on the article's talk page. That way if it's listed at Copyright problems or Suspected copyright violations, that can be cleared up very quickly. Cheers! &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 19:09, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you! --  Kenatipo    speak! 20:19, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Usurp at no-wp
I have moved the old account on no-wiki. Haros (talk) 23:13, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks! :) &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 23:35, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Nomination of Future (rapper) for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Future (rapper) is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Future (rapper) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Orange Mike &#x007C;  Talk  01:18, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
 * All I did was fix a cut and paste move. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 04:47, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * yes Cinoeco (talk) 18:32, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Mail
Ocaasit &#124; c 18:28, 25 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I've responded to your thoughtful comments and questions here: User_talk:Ocaasi/Turnitin. Cheers! Ocaasit &#124; c 16:01, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I don't think I have any further notes on your replies except that I'm working on a tool similar to the Duplication Detector that will load both pages in separate frames and highlight where the similarities are. This would not be associated with MadmanBot, but could be linked from MadmanBot's templates and any other templates that currently link to the Duplication Detector. Cheers! &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 16:11, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

826 Naval Air Squadron
Your bot has wrongly identified this article as copyright infringement. Could you put a short leash on it in future to avoid un-necessary heart-ache. (forgot to sign)Petebutt (talk) 20:25, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I haven't looked into this particular article (I'm on call for work and haven't been able to look as suspected copyright violations for some time), but it looks like the bot made the right call as a human copyright clerk has also flagged it for investigation. I apologize for any inconvenience. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 04:47, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

You have invited comments on the style to be adopted when writing to contributors.Here are some of mine:


 * Treat contributors as adults, not primary schoolchildren being told to sit on the naughty step.


 * Don't say Welcome to Wikipedia to people like me with 30 thousand plus edits. We are not novices.


 * Don't make threats as your colleague did like "This is your final warning" to contributors who have given up hundreds of hours of their free time for the greater good. Its not the best way of raising morale amongst the troops


 * Don't send messages threatening to delete hours of work by a contributor with suggestions to go off and rewrite their article and then end with "Happy editing". Bad psychology. Get someone else to rewrite it.

We all appreciate the problems of copyright infringement. But I cannot believe that dates, places and events are copyright. A sentence like "The squadron fought at Matapan" surely cannot be forbidden for 50 years just because someone put it into public print. I wonder if Jimmy Wales appreciates the adverse effect on contributor loyalty such tactless remarks from his trusted administrators can have. I may not be the last to throw in the towel if the only feedback I get is so negative. Plucas58 (talk) 13:08, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I have looked around to try to determine where the current wording came from, and it looks like it was at least partly developed here. It might be worth restarting the discussion there; for one, the Wikimedia Foundation is actively engaged in that project and I'm not totally comfortable changing the wording of the templates myself in case it undoes some of their work.
 * As for the rest, I assume that when you're addressing me you're addressing administrators as a whole as I've done none of the things you mention. I haven't been involved in the copyright investigation of the article either, but I can say that while facts are not subject to copyright, their presentation is. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 18:08, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
 * For what its worth Corensearchbot is notoriously wrong in its assessment that an article contains copywritten material. This often happens when text is copied from Government sources, to a website like this (such as technical specifications of ships and aircraft, Award citations, etc). It does this commonly for Medal of Honor recipients. Then the bot thinks its copywritten text and blocks it. Of course the users got mad a frustrated because they can't see it or change it. I recommend userfying the text so that the information can be viewed to determine if it is or isn't subject to copyright. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 15:08, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
 * In point of fact, the bot is correct much more often than it is incorrect; you just don't see the articles it's tagged correctly for long because they tend to be deleted very quickly by the New Page Patrol, to which the bot is invaluable. I think there's a lot of needless frustration with false positives because contributors don't understand that if content may be copied from a certain site (such as a government source), that site can be added to a "white list", after which the bot will never tag content from that site. I hope to be able to make this clearer in the template soon. I also think you misunderstand the copyright investigation process; the bot did not block the page, it merely tagged it. A human contributor agreed with the bot and blanked the page. The page is still available for editing, just not for reading. Thanks, &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 15:22, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh no I completely understand the process having fallen into the scenario many times myself. I do admit that the bot catches a lot but I think that for a variety of reasons it does indeed make a lot of mistakes. I also agree that a human editor probably verified the content, it has been my experience here as well that those checks are subjective also. I greatly doubt that the individual checked to see if that info came from anywhere else (such as a public source) and simply blocked it immediately. After looking at the source site there is very little info, basically just bullets of technical data, dates and locations so it would easily trigger a bot. Also in regards to the white list. I repeatedly asked fro several sites to be added because the bots fallged it every time I added a Medal of Honor citation because the bot cannot tell and the reviewer vrequently doesn't verify, that American military award citations are NOT subject to copyright regardless of what some homemade website may indicate. The Home of Heroes website is a good example of this. Of course I cannot see the article to verify any of my conjectures but again due to personal experience and having read the source I find a lot of room for question. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 15:31, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, after reviewing this myself I only see a couple phrases that might need some revision but mostly I see the bot pointing out a lot of places, dates and things. I see a whole lot of false positives in this and I find it hard to argue that the bot did a good job on this one....sorry. Also, just to provide another example, here is one that I just identified that would seem to meet the criteria of undo copyright. I set the threshhold at 5 words and as you can see there are several that exceed that. This article is featured and was on the main page earlier in the month. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 15:39, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I sometimes wish that a link to the Duplication Detector weren't on the CorenSearchBot tags, though it's sometimes helpful to human reviewers. Just to clarify, Duplication Detector is completely separate from CorenSearchBot and the two tools don't detect infringement in remotely the same way (CorenSearchBot calculates a degree of confidence based on both pages as a whole). I understand what you're saying though. &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 15:56, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

well i see this issue still isent resolved, since the brain deads are still deleting Lineage and Honors certificates. even after I created a page trying to explain them, as a section header, is it that no one can read? or are we just having a chicken or egg argument? Brian in denver (talk) 15:46, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
 * You know, I don't really appreciate being called brain dead. You may not have known I was the one who deleted the Lineage section of 142nd Infantry Regiment (United States), but perhaps to be safe and avoid putting your foot in your mouth you should avoid calling anyone brain dead. In any case, I could see that that section duplicated content at, which has a copyright notice, and I could not find it in the public domain sources linked in the article. If you could point me at a source for that section that's licensed appropriately for Wikipedia, I will restore it post haste. Thank you, &mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;">madman 16:23, 29 March 2012 (UTC)