User talk:Michael Snow/Archive (Nov-Dec 2005)

Junk food
 I've created the above-mentioned category. Please add any items to this category if necessary. --202.40.210.244 05:29, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Re: Sannse's Resignation
Thanks for the information &mdash; no, I was not aware. Do you have any more information? I've looked at Sannse's contributions, the history of the WP:ArbCom page, and every else, and I can't seem to find an official announcement or indication, aside from the fact that Raul654 and Kelly Martin removed Sannse's name, citing her resignation. In fact, just last week Sannse indicated that she hoped to participate more in ArbCom cases. Do you know more? Thanks a lot. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | WS 22:47, 5 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Do you have IRC, and if so, would it be possible to check IRC logs or archives? (If there is such a thing, I'm kind of clueless when it comes to IRC...) Thanks again! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | WS 01:34, 6 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I've already done so. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | WS 01:51, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Meetup?
Meetup/Seattle3. Interested? -- Jmabel | Talk 23:29, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Oops. Fixed. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:39, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Blame Game
Hrm...part of the confusion is that I merged the page history of the temp page I made. I apologize for the confusion; I guess we'll run it next week. Again, sorry about that. Ral315 (talk) 02:54, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Also, check your e-mail. I sent you the password to the Signpost e-mail address. Ral315 (talk) 02:59, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you
I just wanted to thank you for your support of my RfA which finally passed! I greatly appreciate it! Ramallite (talk) 04:29, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Another duplicate
Joseph-François Foulon needs to be merged with Joseph François Foullon. I don't know which dates are correct or which spelling is preferred. Ksnow 15:16, 9 November 2005 (UTC)Ksnow

I need help regarding copyrights
Dear Michael, I'm sorry to bother you with some mundane copyright issues. However, I'm feeling quite unsure about some images and would like to have some advice from professionals.

The first case concerns images of Paul Kane (1810 – 1871). Two such images exist on-line:, from the National Gallery of Canada and , which according to the Library and Archives of Canada catalog entry also is from the National Gallery of Canada, who have a rather intimidating copyright notice.

According to the Canadian Copyright Act, any photograph created before January 1, 1949 is in the public domain in Canada. This is a consequence of the Canadian Bill C-32: An Act to Amend the Copyright Act, which replaced the old rule for photographs ("coypright expires 50 years after creation of the work") by 50 years p.m.a., but not retroactively applying the new rule to works that were already in the public domain by the effective date of the bill, January 1, 1999 (see at the bottom). In the U.S., I believe these photographs also are in the public domain, although I do not know if and when these images were published, which, according to Hirtle's chart, might be important. In fact, the only case I see where the image might not be in the public domain in the U.S. would be if it was originally unpublished, and then published (first) in the U.S. between 1978 and 2003, which strikes me as highly unlikely.

So, shall I upload one of these images and tag as PD? Or would some other tag more appropriate? Or shall we consider these images copyrighted indeed, like the National Gallery of Canada claims, and thus not upload them at all? Do they really have a claim at all?

The second image is Image:Albert_Einstein_by_Yousuf_Karsh.jpg, on the commons as commons:Image:Albert_Einstein.jpg. There has been some discussion on this image, with an anon claiming it was copyrighted, and, more recently, another (German) user trying to get the image deleted (again) as a copyvio. I have until recently been rather confident that this image was indeed in the public domain, as the Library and Archives of Canada claim. However, I'm not so sure anymore. The pertinent discussion is in chronological order at first deletion discussion, my asking for confirmation, second deletion discussion, and then at third discussion. A decision on this image would also affect a number of other images by Yousuf Karsh that had been uploaded by various Wikipedia users to both the English Wikipedia and the Commons based on the statement by the Library and Archives of Canada that the copyright had expired and there were no restrictions on the use or reproduction of these images. I think we need some input from professionals to be able to decide what to do with these images. Could you discuss this on the lawyer's mailing list and tell us what to do? Or can you at least help figure out whether these images would also be in the public domain in the U.S., or are indeed copyrighted? Thank you.

Lupo 09:34, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I had hoped you could give me some guidance. I have now listed the Einstein photo as a copyvio on WP:CP, and if others agree with my reasoning, we'll also have to see what we're going to do with all the other Yousuf Karsh images on Wikipedia (and on Commons). Can you at least offer some insights on the Paul Kane image? Lupo 11:25, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the answer. You wrote you were "not especially familiar" with copyright legislation. All right then, do you happen to know who (preferrably a Wikipedian) is? Methinks a project like this one ought to have some experts on the subject of copyrights. If my ideas about this huge mess that informally is called "international copyright "law"" (although there is no such thing) are correct, we may have a big problem with many of the country-specific PD claims. Most people (me included, until I recently set out to actually read up on the subject) seem to operate under the vastly simplified and IMO incorrect rule "if it's PD in its home country, its PD in the US" (with an unclear definition of "home country"). Also I fear many images may be incorrectly presumed PD, which says "This applies worldwide", instead of PD-US.


 * On Einstein: if that image was even published (or should that be "first published"?) in the U.S., it would definitely be copyrighted in the U.S. While one would have to check whether its copyright was renewed to be absolutely sure, I suppose it's a fairly safe bet that the Karsh Estate did do so. And since someone has found a good image of Einstein from 1947 where the Library of Congress says the copyright was not renewed and that is therefore definitely PD-US, I see no need for us to keep the Karsh image.


 * On Churchill: that image is even worse. It was first published on the cover of Life, a U.S. magazine, in 1941 or 1942. There, too, a check whether the copyright was renewed would be needed, but I'd be really surprised if it wasn't. That image is most probably also still copyrighted. However, since that image is so important in Karsh's career and is discussed in detail at Yousuf Karsh, we could salvage it by re-uploading it to en: and making a fair use claim for its use in the Karsh article.


 * On Kane: I'll investigate more.


 * If you have any more insights or comments, I'd be interested to see them. Thanks! Lupo 08:22, 17 November 2005 (UTC)


 * If you're interested, see User:Lupo/Public domain. I'd appreciate any comments and/or help you can give. Its talk page may be the place for a "wider discussion" on the Karsh images... Lupo 09:50, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Yet another duplicate
These two: Francisco José Freire and Francisco Jose Freire Ksnow 17:15, 10 November 2005 (UTC)Ksnow

AfD
The minute I saved my article on Solar Impulse, someone marked it for deletion, and I can't figure out why. He hasn't yet given me any spcific reasons. Can you deal with this? Ksnow 14:43, 11 November 2005 (UTC)Ksnow

Where?
Where did you put your defense? Ksnow 17:08, 11 November 2005 (UTC)Ksnow

Foundation-l
I do follow the list but only every week or two, and I rarely participate.

Your comments there are insightful. It is, of course, patently absurd that we can expect to govern an undertaking of 6,000 participants with an egalitarian model which, as has been proven time and time again, does not scale beyond about 200 (that being the point beyond which everyone no longer has a shared mutual aquiantance).

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 17:42, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Nah...
I don't necessarily feel bad, but I did miss my personal deadline, which does frustrate me a bit. Thanks for the help, and note the edit summary was more of a joke than anything- it's just that I believe you did the same thing a couple weeks ago as I was editing :) Ral315 (talk) 06:22, 15 November 2005 (UTC)


 * And you got the archive link up before me! Now I see why they let you be the editor!  Ral315 (talk) 06:47, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Latter Day Saint categories
I think these should be changed to "Latter-day Saint", since the Community of Christ no longer uses this term, anyway. What do you think? Ksnow 17:02, 15 November 2005 (UTC)Ksnow

Do you know why African American is not hyphenated
It seems a little odd, since it is the most common of the "hyphenated" racial adjectives. Ksnow 19:23, 15 November 2005 (UTC)Ksnow

How do you format extended quotes?
I couldn't find anything on this after a cursory look at the Manual of Style. Ksnow 14:23, 17 November 2005 (UTC)Ksnow

Requests for adminship/Halibutt
Since you have supported me during my RfA, I wonder if you could review and comment on the RfA for Halibutt, the first person I have nominated myself. There seem to be a heated debate and votes of experienced, unbiased editors would be appreciated. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:14, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Apple Macintosh FAC
Hi Michael,

I tried to adress your objections. What do you think? -- grm_wnr Esc  21:14, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Do you know anyone who can troubleshoot Hebrew?
On the page for Abba Hushi, the Hebrew version of his name is showing up backwards, even though it looks correct on the editing page. I can't get it to show up correctly, no matter what I do. Do you know anyone who could help, or just fix it? Ksnow 14:12, 21 November 2005 (UTC)Ksnow
 * (Just chiming in here) - user:Danny is a professional hebrew-english translater (or was, until about a month ago, at least). user:Nadav knows a bit of hebrew too, if memory serves. Raul654 15:10, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Céline Dion
Thanks for your help with the copyediting of the article. Just to let you know, it is currently running for FA status, so would you be so kind as to give a few comments ect at Featured article candidates/Céline Dion. Thanks. Oran  e    (t)   (c)   (e-mail)  Make Céline Dion a FA! 20:55, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi, Michael. I just want to thank you very much for supporting my RfA, and to say also that I hope I'll make a good job of it. I'm supposed to be working on an assignment at the moment, and had been reducing my Wikipedia activity, so delayed thanking people, but I'm finding the new rollback button so easy to use that I'm just keeping Wikipedia open on my browser while working on other things, and I thought I'd like to thank at least a few of those who supported me while I'm here. Cheers. AnnH (talk) 22:04, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

lisbon earthquake?
I came across your feature about the Lisbon earthquake article... was the original author of the page ever asked about the source of the mistake?? Mozzerati 20:34, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Paralysis
I'm afraid that Wikipedia is headed for paralysis, not just because of its popularity and chronically overloaded servers, but because of stupid reversions.

Someone obviously has a watch on the Israeli politics page because my addition of a paragraph about Sharon's new party and Peres' joining him was immediately reverted. This despite the fact that the page has a cleanup notice on it. Ksnow 15:38, 29 November 2005 (UTC)Ksnow

I hope you also see why I deleted that information: it is no longer relevant. I just wish they would at least leave in the part I added. Ksnow 19:25, 29 November 2005 (UTC)Ksnow

Céline Dion &mdash;again
Hi. Ive been trying to improve on the Céline Dion article, incorporating many of your suggestions. Could you take a look (please) and maybe offer advice and comments on what needs to be done on Featured article candidates/Céline Dion? Thanks in advance. Oran  e    (t)   (c)   (e-mail)  04:29, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Ive replied to your comments. If you wish, you may continue the discussion. Oran  e    (t)   (c)   (e-mail)  00:31, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Important AfD
Hello again. Recently I've been having difficulties in getting a sufficient amount of feedback from the top caliber editors of the history and politics articles-- needed in order to establish a consensus in the vote at Articles for deletion/List of modern day dictators. I recall you taking an interest in similar category issues. So, it'll be much appreciated if you can take a look. Regards. 172 22:38, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi
I noticed on my RfA you opposed me because of the name "V. Molotov." I want you to know that I have had a name change, but am no longer interested in becoming an adm. Thanks.  ε  γκυκλοπαίδεια  *  (talk)  03:40, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you
Hi Michael,

Thanks for voting to support my RfA. I wasn't expecting an unopposed promotion (I thought I'd hit some die-hard edit-counters at least) and I'm touched by the trust shown in me. I'll try my best to continue to earn that trust. But first, I'll have to work on not sounding like a politician; that last sentence was awful. Oh well. Let me know when I screw something up with the shiny new buttons. &mdash;Bunchofgrapes (talk) 05:58, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Cnwb's RfA
Michael, Thanks so very much for supporting my Request for Admin. The final result was 38/0/0. I'm looking forward to spending my summer holidays shut away in a darkened room, drinking G&Ts and playing with my new tools ;-) Please accept this Tim Tam as a token of my gratitude. Cnwb 22:40, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

The Signpost
I just put a story on Wikipedia Signpost/2005-11-28/In the news, and then noticed that the article appears under your byline. Should I not have posted it? Feel free to delete/rewrite/whatever. TIA, -- Mwanner | Talk 01:03, 5 December 2005 (UTC) (BTW, if the article is not open to general authors, it would be good to protect it or note its closed nature in a comment.)

Wikipedia featured in College Bowl
Recently, a question was asked in College Bowl. The answer was "Wikipedia!"I do not know if you heard of this or know anymore about it, but I thought it would be an interesting "short" for the Signpost. I was slow to buzz in on the answer, unfortunately, so I didn't get my 10 points for knowing about Wikipedia.

Press release
Hi Michael, it would be nice if you could help a bit with the press release currently on development on meta. We're getting so many journalist inquiries now that a public reaction to the events is necessary. --Elian Talk 18:57, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

BD2412's RFA
Thank you, Michael, for your concisely stated support of my RfA - I'll do my best as an admin to make the reality of Wikipedia rise to the level of the dream. BD2412 T 02:15, 8 December 2005 (UTC) <--note new "admin gold" sig :-D

Awolf002 RfA
Thank you very much for your support for my RfA. I will do everything I can to justify your trust in me. Awolf002 03:17, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Deletion Review
Good evening. I have extensively revised and corrected my comments on Deletion Review. After I hit the save button the first time, I realized that there was an avenue that I'd overlooked in my analysis. I went back and challenged my own assumption that the two lists were substantially similar. I had to correct my earlier conclusion based on what I found. My apologies for any confusion I've created through the timing of my edits. Rossami (talk) 07:40, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, I do not use IRC. I also have to apologize that I'm going to have to sign off soon.  I have a 7:30 am meeting to get ready for and I've stayed up far too late already.  (It's 2:45 - I'm really going to pay for this tomorrow.)  I'll keep my Talk page open in a separate window for a little while, though.  Hope that helps.  Rossami (talk) 07:46, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
 * No, that was a reference to a comment made in the AFD discussion. One last comment and I'm out for the night.  Would you please compare the eleven sub-pages of http://www.jinfo.org/ to the deleted version?  I'd overlooked that part of the discussion the first time.  It does appear to substantiate the user's claim that the Wikipedia version was a compilation of copies of his pages.  As you said, there's still the question of whether his lists were copyrightable.  I think they were and that Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service was deliberately written very narrowly.  But if you disagree, we should bring in other minds.  Have a good night.  Rossami (talk) 07:55, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Meetup
Meetup/Seattle3 could sure use your comments on location: so far we have no clear consensus. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:59, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card game
Why did you move the page to "Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card game"? I thought everything was capitalized. WhisperToMe 07:58, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, the "Trading Card Game" part, AFAIK, is a proper noun. WhisperToMe 21:03, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

my advice

 * Example:


 * If I say: You are a germannnnnnnnnnnnnn! is this anti-German?
 * If I say: You are a romaniannnnnnnnnnnn! is this anti-Romanian?
 * If I say: You are a britishhhhhhhhhhhhh! is this anti-British?


 * Answer: Of course not.

Michael! If someone will tell you: You are a Germannnnnnnnnnnnnnnn! Do you start an RfC?

My first impresion is that I think you had overreacted.

Michael do you accept anti-romanian remarks?

There must be started an RfC against all the Anti-Romanian fellows that in this debate has offended Anittas labelling him as "sperm". Let's be honest and tell the whole truth. I don't like double standards. -- Bonaparte  talk  18:57, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Celine Dion
This is probably a bother, but could you please take another look at the Céline Dion article. Ive taken the comments at the last FA and have tried to address them: Ive found many print sources, about 4 Books, more authoritative reviews:New york Times, Billboard.com, Los Angeles Times etc. Ive addressed her music, changes in sounds/genres, motivation etc. at the end of each sub-section, and Ive also added a "Image and Celebrity status" section at the bottom. Ive sent it to peer review for two days, but no reply. Comments would be appreciated. Thanks. Oran  e    (t)   (c)   (e-mail)  02:27, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

And again ;-)
Hi Michael. Our PR firm came up with a press release - already edited a little bit by me - could you help with Press releases/Nature compares Wikipedia and Britannica? I think this should be done as a press release of the english wikipedia as it is their success. --Elian Talk 16:46, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Bernie McLaughlin
I was surprised to find 23 deleted edits on the Bernard "Bernie" McLaughlin article, esp with no explanation on the Talk page, nor comment on Copyright problems/2005 December 9 where the article was listed. If you're going to cleanup the page history, you might as well delete Bernard "Bernie" McLaughlin/Temp while you're at it, where the anon has made a legal threat. Are you aware that this is the tip of a fairly large iceberg with this anon? Personally, I think we're folding in the face of some pretty hollow threats, but really, it's not my issue-- I just stumbled across it, and started doing what seemed right. Whatever... -- Mwanner | Talk 14:35, 16 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for restoring the article from the /temp version. I think, though, you can count on the anon still not being happy with it.  I just came across Frank Salemme.  I haven't looked real hard, but at a glance, I don't see much in our article that is direct from his.


 * I think what's going on here is that we're dealing with Howie Carr, (howiecarr.com) who has a book coming out on this stuff. He's been fighting us on a whole slew of articles based on  and other sites of his, and he's convinced that if we got info from his sites, or even PD photos, that that's a copyvio.  Granted, some of our articles were copyvios originally (or at some later point) but Lanoitarus worked hard to clear those up, with limited success.


 * I'm about ready to wash my hands of the whole mess. -- Mwanner | Talk 00:52, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * If you're up for it, I rewrote Frank Salemme too, at Frank_Salemme/Temp. This should take care of any copyvios, if you're willing to restore the article from the temp version. Im relatively new here so I dont really know what protocall is for actually doing this, so I been only removing blatantly vandalous copyvio tags. Thanks! -Lanoitarus (talk) .:. 07:02, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for moving the temp article to the main page. Do you know what the protocall is in the future for replacing copyvios with new articles? -Lanoitarus (talk) .:. 17:52, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Right, what I meant was what is the procedure once there is a copyvio page and youve created a temp article for replacing the old article and copyvio tag with the temp article? Do you just arbitrarily do it or is there a process for consensus or something? -Lanoitarus (talk) .:. 18:25, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Sitenotice
Good point :) --mav 07:36, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

slashdash
Yeah, I haven't the vaguest, really. After the call to put some lipstick on the article, I ran to the library to find what I could. What I found used the slash, but that doesn't mean much. I put in the History section from my source. I couldn't find a spot for this, but if you're still working on it, by all means, I got the following:  The show has 70 permanent staff, with 18 permanent researchers; 70% of all CBS mail is regarding 60 Minutes (these facts come from Masden, p. 21; n.b. he's 1984, so the numbers may not be accurate anymore). Change it to whichever seems best to you, as I have no strong opinions at all on the matter. Geogre 18:13, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I just tried to clean up after myself. I'm sorry for any hash I made of it.  Please change as needed.  I may be a "respected" Wikipedian, but I'm not above being amazingly sloppy when I'm researching and writing quickly, and especially when I'm editing and trying to preserve text.  Geogre 18:26, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Email
I've responded on OTRS. Would you be able to take a look? Ambi 02:35, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Shelley Powers deletion
Thanks for closing the AfD on Shelley Powers, but shouldn't the deletion debate be preserved on Talk:Shelley Powers? JamesMLane 08:17, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Question re. the Signpost
How should we do the January 2nd issue...is it Vol. 1, Issue 52, or Vol. 2, Issue 1? Ral315 (talk) 21:34, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Volume 2, issue 1 :) Raul654 21:36, 29 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I figured as much. While if we had started in June, it might make sense to hold off on Volume 2 until the one-year anniversary, since it only started a week late in 2005, we might as well just go to Volume 2.  And, yes, it is extremely gratifying that the Signpost has been going a full year :)  Ral315 (talk) 21:52, 29 December 2005 (UTC)