User talk:Spy99

Welcome!

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Assume good faith please
I don't know what you were thinking when you removed the notability tags added by Yaron K., but you were wrong. (You didn't even describe him right; he's not a "founder of MediaWiki".)

Please be more careful in future and do not assume bad motivation behind people's actions. — Hex    (❝  ?!  ❞)   20:35, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Articles for deletion nomination of Kerika
I have nominated Kerika, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Articles for deletion/Kerika. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Yaron K. (talk) 02:23, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Possibly unfree File:Doon school lamp.jpg
A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Doon school lamp.jpg, has been listed at Possibly unfree files because its copyright status is unclear or disputed. If the file's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. You may find more information on the file description page. You are welcome to add comments to its entry at if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. --MGA73 (talk) 18:54, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Response
I cannot confirm that it is truly free: I got it from a website that was offering it under a Creative Commons license, but now I realize that the site was simply mirroring an old version of this article that contained the image, so it has become a circular reference...

File:Inshallah Football.png
Hi. I'm afraid that File:Inshallah Football.png is very likely going to have to be deleted. I appreciate your taking the time to follow through with the processes of verifying, but copyright in a letter is owned by the letter writer, and unless the author of the letter is willing to license it, we won't be able to retain it. I just wanted to update you as to what's going on with it. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:16, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure. :) As it says at the top of my talk page, I watch pages where I leave notes. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:28, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Response
Thanks for calling this out. Before we delete this image, I would like to explore one other avenue: since this letter is written by a government official, writing in an official capacity with regard to an application, it may be that it is already in the public domain with regard to Indian copyright laws, which, I presume, would apply in this case since the letter's writer and recipient were both located in India. I will attempt to confirm this with the recipient. If I can't, we can take down this file.


 * Indian copyright laws would indeed weigh in here, but the copyright on Indian government works is very different than the copyright on US federal government works. Whereas any work produced by a US Federal employee as part of his duties is excluded with copyright, the copyright rules of 1957, section 52(q) are far more limited in the exclusions made for Indian copyright. I have already requested that the recipient of the letter send us authorization from the letter's author, if this can be obtained. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:45, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Nandu Jayal
Thanks for the additional info via Facebook. Will add it to Nandu Jayal! There are useful details there! AshLin (talk) 13:06, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

An Invite to join the WikiProject Education in India
naveenpf (talk) 13:14, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

thanks
With regard to your question, since I have actively maintained the Doon School page, as well as the alumni page, for the past 5 years, one might reasonably surmise that I have some personal knowledge of the subject.

I would be very glad to get others to contribute to these pages; for many months now all I have done is act as a guardian of quality: removing vandalism, self-promotional spam, and attempts to remove any references that are unflattering to the school's image. The vandalism is easy to spot and remove; self-promotional spam is more annoying. Examples of the latter are people inserting references to themselves or their friends as "notable" alumni when they fail to meet the general notability standards for Wikipedia. For the alumni page, I have tried to limit references to businessmen, in particular, to those that are CEOs of prominent firms, army officers with a rank of general, government officials with a rank of secretary. The exceptions are where other (well-written) Wikipedia pages exist for individual alumni. But keeping out the endless references to someone appointed a VP of some company or the other, or becoming head of some branch office or even country manager is tiresome.

The Doon School page suffered an extended bout of vandalism related to the "Dazed in Doon" controversy, with many people attempting to remove any reference to the controversy or to write about it in a non-neutral way. The worst of it came from Doon's own IP address, which resulted in that IP address getting flagged for vandalism. The irony of it was that the controversy helped make the reference more notable than it would otherwise have been.

It is always difficult for people who are passionate about any subject to write about it in a way that meets Wikipedia's standards. Doon, for example, may be considered a national resource in India, but Wikipedia is a global resource and while a certain degree of exaggeration or "marketing spin" may be acceptable on other websites, including Doon's own website, it needs to get scrubbed out from the Wikipedia page.

With respect to the page on alumni, it would be great if someone could help verify the names by adding the class-years for each person mentioned. The reference to Munir Butt being a Dosco, for example, is not one that I can substantiate on my own.

I am glad to help with editing new material; it is a nice change from simply editing out the spam! Spy99 (talk) 23:56, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks :)
Merlaysamuel — Preceding unsigned comment added by Merlaysamuel (talk • contribs) 07:08, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

New Article!
Hello Spy99,

I have been working on 2 draft articles viz. 'Headmasters of Doon School' and 'Peter McLaughlin'. Can you give me any suggestions as I'm new here? Also, once i submit them can you help and add more stuff, if possible. Thanks. Merlaysamuel (talk) 14:18, 14 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I can try to help, but I know nothing about Peter McLaughlin other than what I have read in the press. For some of the older headmasters I might be able to consult some publications from DSOBS.  (Caveat: I am in a rather busy period at work, so my availability is constrained).  I think the current state of the The Doon School page is very good, and we are probably approaching diminishing returns in terms of adding more detail.  There may be some small details to fill out: e.g. why is Jaipur House's symbol the eagle?  Beyond that, I think it might be worth improving the quality of the page on the alumni.  I created this several years ago, and have maintained it based upon recent editions of the Rose Bowl.  The biggest problem has been maintaining the quality bar so the page as a whole continues to meet Wikipedia's standards for notability and citations.  People with an exaggerated sense of their own self-importance keep trying to spam that page.  And, I think the page is probably over-weighted towards earlier generations of Doscos. It would be great if we could verify individual entries by adding class years, and in the case of people who don't have their own Wikipedia pages (i.e. the vast majority), by adding a NPOV sentence describing their achievements.  E.g. this particular Major General last held this command. Spy99 (talk) 00:12, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Hello Spy99, Firstly, sorry to reply to your posts rather late. I simply overlooked your messages as I'm still learning to send and receive messages. Yes, I fully agree with you that Doon article is now very much informative and adding any mroe information would be futile and trivial. I will just expand the house sections in the future and enhance the overall quality. I am really glad the way Doon School info bar looks now :)) Second, the page I created on Peter McLaughlin is now live :)) but the list of headmasters was rejected. But now, I will first - in due course- make a wiki page for every headmaster and then maked the 'list' page. Lastly, you're right about melaram's photographs and I don't believe there would be any issues with it. More importantly, his son Melaram passed away a few weeks ago :( I have also noted what you say about the alumni page. I will contribute as much as I can. Many thanks. :)

Merlaysamuel (talk) 08:25, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Possibility of Plagiarism
I have grave suspicion that St. Stephen's School, Chandigarh has copied content(sport section) from the Sports section of Doon School. Is that an issue? Merlaysamuel (talk) 16:26, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

There?
Hi Spy, you've been lost for months...hope you're well! The condition of the doon school page is now better. I reckon you're watching it :P &#58;: Merlaysamuel :: (talk) 16:21, 20 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi, Sorry for falling off the face of the earth. Work got unexpectedly busy, and remained so for months.  I have not actually looked at the Doon page; will do so now, and see if I can contribute.  I am sure there has been a lot of change since then.  Thanks for pinging! Spy99 (talk) 22:22, 22 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Mon pleasiure :P

Merlaysamuel : Chat  17:03, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Doon Alumni list
Hi Spy, Just to inform you, I am in the process of improving doon alumni list and therefore linking articles to it. Please keep in mind that if you see me removing some names that is because I've searched thoroughly and found no valuable information on the subject. I assure you it will be in good faith. I just want all linked articles in that page. (I am hoping other Doon editors are also reading this..!) thanks! Merlaysamuel : Chat  11:33, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Your recent edits
Hello. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( &#126;&#126;&#126;&#126; ) at the end of your comment. You could also click on the signature button or  located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your username or IP address and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when they said it. Thank you. --SineBot (talk) 17:33, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Request for help
Hi There, i have created a page for education pedagogy, which is very prominent is Asia and is a new phenomenon in India Its called i math (intelligent Math) which helps removing math phobia among children but has been nominated for speedy deletion which was not right as it would have been of great help for indian parents. Can you help. boomboom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysaalis_i_math — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bishwa 777 (talk • contribs) 04:32, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:07, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

GAR
The Doon School, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article.  Dr Strauss   talk   16:20, 18 August 2017 (UTC)