User talk:Mikeblas/Archives/2007/December

Prodding of Companions of the Hall
I was surprised to see that the AfD debate for Wulfgar ended with a delete because the merge target Companions of the Hall had already been deleted via prod. It's now been undeleted, and people are working on merging the info from Wulfgar there, so no permanent harm has been done, but I would have appreciated it if you had notified me of the prod (or mentioned it in the Wulfgar AfD discussion) since I had already proposed merging Wulfgar there before you prodded the article. It probably wasn't your intent, but using a process intended for non-controversial deletions to quietly delete the article when it was already being considered as a merge target for something you had put up at AfD makes it look like you were trying to sneakily ensure that the AfD succeeded. Anyway, like I said, since prods are easily undone, it's not a big deal, but please be careful when using prod to consider whether the deletion might be controversial. Thanks! Pinball22 14:26, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think these deletions are controversial, as the articles pretty obviously fail notability for fiction because they have no secondary sources. People studying literature study notable characters and write about them; they don't study the Dungeons and Dragons universe. Even that withstanding, I'm not sure how I would have known to notify you, specifically. If you're interested in an article, you should add it to your watch list and keep up with the edits made to it -- including deletion and merger discussions.
 * In case you've not onticed, with the contested prod, I've taken the issue to AfD. -- Mikeblas 17:40, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what your source is for the statement that "[p]eople studying literature...don't study the Dungeons and Dragons universe." As a matter of fact, the amount of scholarly work across dozens of fields (particularly those in the "liberal arts" familis) would fill a large warehouse.  I understand that you seem to have some disdain for these works of modern fiction (you seem to be keen to nominate D&D fiction related articles for deletion...), but your disdain should not be what determines whether or not something is notable.  I refer you to  and suggest you do a cursory search of JSTOR (or your preferred repository).  Thanks, and I appreciate your further consideration of the merits of modern literature.  --Geofferic (talk) 04:43, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You would have known to either notify me specifically or post something in the discussion at the Wulfgar AfD from the fact that I mentioned Companions of the Hall in that discussion as a potential merge target, in a comment which I assume you saw, since the next comment in that discussion was from you, and you didn't prod the article until after you made that comment. I was agreeing that the character might not be individually notable, and so proposed to merge it and the others to Companions of the Hall, thinking of it as an appropriate supporting article on characters for The Icewind Dale Trilogy, clearly a notable series of books. Pinball22 17:53, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
 * They're pretty obviously controversial. I'd suggest refraining from using prod on Forgotten Realms articles for the time-being and just take them all to AfD.  Powers T 16:46, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * With this warehouse at our disposal, why are the articles so poorly referenced? Why are so many written in-universe, instead of written as well-supported literary critiques or analysis? Odd, that. -- Mikeblas (talk) 05:08, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Forums as sources
Re Valve Anti-Cheat: I originally reverted your removal of two of the article's forum sources, arguing that since the threads were statements of official policy made by officially-sanctioned moderators on the official web domain they were verifiable in the way that forum posts are not. Do you disagree with this? --Tom Edwards (talk) 16:25, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I do. WP:SPS offers no exceptions to the self-published rule. The only sanction the moderators in the forum have are moderators; they don't work for Valve, and are volunteers. Even if we want to consider an exception to Wikipedia's verifiability and reliable sources rules, I don't think we can do so in this case because what forum moderators say isn't official company policy. -- Mikeblas (talk) 17:04, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * With respect, whether or not they're on the payroll is irrelevant. Like any employee, they would lose their privileges very quickly indeed if they abused them. To go along with your argument for a though, Valve employees do audit their moderators and can be seen posting in the fourms themselves.
 * Halfway through typing this, I've realised that you're a Valve employee, working on Steam no less. Surely you know definitively whether or not the posts are reliable, and if so, why are we having this conversation? I'm now very confused. --Tom Edwards (talk) 23:08, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Whether or not they're on they payroll is, indeed, irrelevant. Wikipedia says that forum posts are not viable references, period. Similarly, what I say doesn't matter, either. That's because I Wikipedia requires verifiable third-party sources. -- Mikeblas 00:19, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I've had a look at WP:SPS. It's about self-published sources, not forum posts in general, and it's pretty much my argument that since the moderators have been selected by and are being audited by verifiable authorities on the subject (i.e. Valve) their posts don't fall under its jurisdiction. Although this is now clearly an academic dispute, I can also add to my argument the fact that the sources are at least partially under your control, and that if they are unreliable it is within your means to have them removed.
 * There's a discussion very similar indeed to our own going on at Talk:Verifiability. Let's move over there. --Tom Edwards (talk) 10:51, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I think you're over-estimating the degree to which Valve controls forum moderators. While it's within the company's means to control the content of the forum, you're making the brash assumption that they do so, and do so for all the posts you'd like to use as references. They're not updated, either, as the software changes under them. Even if you don't agree that forum posts are not reliable references in the general case (which is to bad -- as it's currently Wikipedia policy), they're also not in this specific case. -- Mikeblas (talk) 04:59, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Your cell-phone "campaign"
I have gotten the impression you think Wikipedia is not the place for articles about individual cell-phones at all. Am I right here, or are there cell-phones you think are notable enough for us? Is it any place we could take this as a centralized discussion, instead of this one after one after one battle? As you may have noted, my personal impression is every cell-phone is notable, at least if they have gotten enough attention to get third party references. I believe this because Wikipedia has enough space, and I want people to have Wikipedia as a primary reference when they are in a hurry- the place they turn for quick answers. And then we should of course have an article ready for them on the cell-phone they read the hero in some old book was using. Greswik (talk) 14:28, 7 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think your impression is correct, either; not all cell-phones are notable just because of references. See WP:N and WP:CORP for information about the requirements; it turns out that references must be substantial and verifiable, and not self-published. For reasons that Wikipedia should never be used as a primary reference, please see Content disclaimer and General disclaimer. Sorry, I'm not sure I understand your "old book" comment. -- Mikeblas (talk) 21:57, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, we genuinly disagree about the cell-phones in one aspect then: I grant them a lot of inherent (automatic) notability, to say it that way. What I'm trying to say, is I want to have them in here- as long as they have enough refs for it. This will of course disqualify the very least important ones. When it comes to refs not being verifiable, well, then if it is falsifyable and one a subject you would expect protests I will believe self-published refs not are totally despisable. I imagine this is a natural correction to the wp:corp. Regarding Wikipedia as a primary reference: I said for people in a hurry. It's great we tell them this is not a primary reference, but if they want to use it as such, that's their choice. What are people doing when they look up something here? Using us. As a primary reference. Great. We will of course not delete all articles they might use as a primary reference? -The old book comment was just me talking: Imagine a person being reading in a book. Right? And imagine the hero in the book is using his cellphone one the net. Then the imagined reader stalls: "huh, that phone couldn't do wap!"  - then that person might want to check if that phone really had the feature the hero used. And then it would be naturally to look to Wikipedia. That was the "old book comment". Greswik (talk) 13:56, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Your proposed deletion of Cogsley Farnesworth
Please read the first sentence at Wp:prod. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:47, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, sorry! I must've confused the history of this article with another that I had open at the same time. It's listed at AfD, now. Thanks for letting me know! -- Mikeblas (talk) 21:53, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * np :) Phil Bridger (talk) 21:59, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism to your user page
Hi Mike, just to let you know that I have edited your user page to revert apparent vandalism. I hope you don't mind. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:30, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your help, Phil! -- Mikeblas (talk) 15:57, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

AfD nomination of McDonald's restaurants
An article that you have been involved in editing, McDonald's restaurants, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Articles for deletion/. Thank you.  Sawblade05  (talk to me undefined my wiki life) 19:14, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

prod at Hwang Jin
I think you are getting a little liberal with the use of prod here. Remember a prod tag should go on an article which would be an uncontroversial delete at AFD. This article would likely be a speedy keep at AfD.-- Birgitte SB  17:19, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for letting me know. I listed it at AfD. -- Mikeblas (talk) 18:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Left/right
On longer articles, images are staggered left/right and stay that way, but images at top often get moved. Well, not a hard and fast rule. Works fine on left for pages such as JP Miller but elsewhere doesn't look so great, especially if it interferes with a heading near the top. I noticed 12 years ago that the entire Internet was poorly designed; almost every page was cluttered and mashed together, the direct opposite of the standard procedures in magazine design. I think somewhere the creators of Google once remarked on how they attributed part of Google's success to their simple opening page design with much white space. At any rate, the design principle I learned years ago has always been visual devices that lead the eye to the copy. Pepso2 (talk) 16:48, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Ye Art Cordially Invited to the Annex
Hello, My good Fellow, listen and I shalt telleth Ye a Tale of a Wiki that well comes All Manner of Articles relating to Fiction. What is This wonderful Place of Fantasy, You ask? It is the Annex, Haven to All fiction-related Refugee Articles from Wikipedia.

Before nominating or proposing a fiction-related Article for Deletion, It is My sincerest Hope that Ye import It to the Annex. Why do This, You wonder? Individuals have dedicated an enormous Amount of Time to writing These Articles, and ’twould be a Pity for the Information to Vanish unto the Oblivion where only Administrators could see Them.

Here is a Step-by-Step Process of how to Bringeth Articles into the Annex:
 * 1) Ye shall need at least three Browser Tabs or Windows open. For the first Tab or Window, go to Special:Export.  For the second, go here .  (If Ye have not an Account at Wikia, then create One.)  Do whatever Ye want for the third.
 * 2) Next, open the Program known as Notepad. If Ye haveth It not, then open WordPad.  Go to “Save as,” and for “Encoding,” select either “Unicode” or “UTF-8.”  For “Save as type,” select “All Files.”  For “File name,” input “ ” and save It.  Leave the Window open.
 * 3) Next, go to the Special:Export Window at Wikipedia, and un-check the two small Boxes near the “Export” Button. Input the Name of the Wikipedia Article which Ye wish to import to the Annex into the large Field, and click “Export.”
 * 4) Right-click on the Page full of Code which appears, and clicketh on “View Source” or “View Page Source” or any Option with similar Wording. A new Notepad Window called “index[1]” or Something similar should appear.  Press Ctrl+A to highlight All the Text then Ctrl+C to copy It.  Close yon “index[1]” Window, and go to the Notepad “export.xml” Window.  Press Ctrl+V to pasteth the Text There, and then save It by pressing Ctrl+S.
 * 5) Now go to the Special:Import Window over at the Annex. Clicketh on “Browse…” and select the “export.xml” File.  At last, click on “Upload file,” and Thou art done, My Friend!  However, if It says 100 Revisions be imported, Ye be not quite finished just yet.  Go back to Wikipedia’s Special:Export, and leave only the “Include only the current revision, not the full history” Box checked.  Export That, copy the Page Source, close the “index[1]” Window, and go to the “export.xml” Window.  Press Ctrl+A to highlight the Code all ready There, press “backspace” to erase It, and press Ctrl+V to pasteth the new Code There.  Press Ctrl+S to save It, then upload once more to the Annex.  Paste   at the Bottom of the imported Article at the Annex, and Ye art now finally done!  Keepeth the “export.xml” File for future Use.

Thank Ye for using the Annex, My Friend — the Annex Hath Spoken 03:30, 30 December 2007 (UTC)