Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests/Archive 26

Revisions to the Topic: Snail Shell Cave (Tennesssee)
Yesterday, June 19, 2008, I made significant additions to this topic.

Everything that I added has been deleted, and the comment was that I was quoting Copyright Material.

If that person had bothered to email me first, they could have found out that all the quoted material is in the Public Domain, and in fact, was never Copyright. The material quoted (and it was clearly in quotation marks) was from the book "Caves of Tennessee" (1961) which is Bulletin 64 of the Tennessee Division of Geology.

I used to work for the Tennessee Divison of Geology (in fact, I am the author of their Bulletin 69) so I know what I am talking about. However, if someone had bothered to contact me, I could have given them the telephone number of the Tennessee Division of Geology, which is: (615) 532-1500. The State Geologist is Ron Zurawski, who is a personal friend of mine. In fact, we went to college together. Check it out, if you have any questions.

Equally disturbing, the non-Copyright portion of my additions was deleted, too. I have been exploring Snail Shell Cave since 1963 and had much original material to contribute.

I would like to have this material restored. I certainly don't want to spend a lot of time adding it, again, only to have it deleted for no good reason.

Next time, be polite. Ask questions first.

Larry E. Matthews (talk) 13:53, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * If I understand correctly, and the material you quoted is in the public domain as a US Govt publication, then you should be able to include it in the relevant article. However, from the edit summary of the edit that hid your text, the other editor felt that your addition looked like a mass copy-and-paste from the textbook. I'm glad to see that you started a polite discussion at Talk:Snail Shell Cave - that's the best way to reach a consensus about how to include this material. If the other editor doesn't respond, you might make a short post on their User Talk page. If you decide to re-introduce any material that's been removed by another editor, make sure your edit summary includes "please discuss on Talk" or similar text. Hope this helps!  S HEFFIELD S TEEL TALK 14:59, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It's actually published by the State of Tennessee, not the U.S. - if state-published materials are not presumptively in the public domain then I think we need a citation to a reliable and verifiable source to show that this material has been in fact released to the public domain. JohnInDC (talk) 15:02, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Indeed, we need to be careful about this. From WP:Public domain:  State and local governments usually do retain a copyright on their works. 17 USC §105 only places federal documents in the public domain. (emph. in original)  Ideally, we would just paraphrase the material to avoid any difficulty.
 * Larry E. Matthews, I am sorry you feel like your hard work was erased. For what it's worth, if the material is deemed appropriate it is very easy to go back in the page history and re-add it.  I can help you with that if consensus is to include material.  For now, though, I would recommend you continue the discussion on the talk page as SheffieldSteel recommends.  If the consensus is to include the material, let me know and I will help you restore it very quickly.  Thanks! :) --Jaysweet (talk) 15:25, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I am the user who edited out Larry E. Matthews' additions. Having provided most of the content previously in the article (to help save it from possible deletion), I was delighted to see additions to the article, but perceived that the additions as provided were clear violations of Wikipedia policy (note that the 8-paragraph quotation was referenced to a "book," not even to a state publication). To make it easier for the contributor, I did not actually delete the content but simply converted it to invisible comments, and left the following explanation on the user's talk page:
 * Thank you for your extensive additions to Snail Shell Cave. Unfortunately, long quotations such as the one that added are generally considered to violate copyright. Accordingly, I "hid" the section you added. Would it be possible to extract key items of information from that passage and add them in your own words?


 * Also, I hid the unreferenced advice about safety in this cave. Wikipedia is not a how-to guide. Is there a source you can cite as saying something like the following?
 * "The Southeastern Cave Conservancy, Inc., which manages the cave, describes the cave as 'extremely dangerous' due to deep water and flooding conditions. The organization permits only highly-skilled cave explorers to visit, and at least one member of any group entering the cave be either an SCCi or an NSS (National Speleological Society) member."
 * --Orlady (talk) 01:20, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I hope Larry E. Matthews will follow through and convert this material to a form more suitable to this encyclopedia. --Orlady (talk) 16:40, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I think there's one way that you're going about re-adding this, Mr. Matthews. Having a big chunk of text pasted in is a nightmare to work with- it would need massively wikified. It would be much better to paraphrase it; you'll bypass the copyright concerns, and it will be more manageable. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 21:09, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: editing
I wrote a new article titled 'Licensing parents'. I now find that there are notices to correct grammar, correct spelling and there was a lack of references. But the editor didn't tell me where the problems were--and I can't find any. As a retired professor who has published over 40 books with top publishers and has taught college English and doctoral level research writing--I need some direction. Coachoconnorucla (talk) 19:43, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Firstly, hello and welcome to Wikipedia. Basically, it looks like the article Licensing parents has been tagged because it's currently a single solid block of text. The page WP:YFA will give you a ton of information on how to create and edit articles using wikimarkup - the formatting mechanisms editors use to improve article layout. You can also find a stack of information on our manual of style at WP:MOS. You can also find a guide to citing references at WP:CITE. I'll add some further links to your talk page to help guide you further, but feel free to ask me more questions if you have them! Gazimoff Write Read 19:50, 20 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Hello and thank you for contributing! The tags added are, I'm afraid, rather general-purpose and I hope they won't scare you off. I think the first one wasn't complaining about grammar so much as the style or tone. Your article is basically one huge chunk of text, and it would benefit from being broken down into sections, beginning with a brief introduction. There's lots of helpful information about article layout at Manual of Style but perhaps Your first article would be a better start. The notice about citations is just to let you know that the article doesn't use our approved format (defined in CITE). Give me a few minutes to work on the citations, and once the basic structure is in place you should be able to add more quite easily.  S HEFFIELD S TEEL TALK 19:57, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Request
please change redirection from punch buggie as the primary popular response to "slug bug" which is obviously the more popular term. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.245.41.72 (talk) 05:02, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Slug bug redirects to Punch buggy but Punch buggie doesn't exist. And that's ok. --AndrewHowse (talk) 17:34, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Or did you mean that the article should be at Slug bug instead of Punch buggy? In which case, I really can't comment, but you could take it up at Talk:Punch buggy to see what others think. -- Beloved Freak  17:45, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

User Planecrash111 vandal to page Jeff Gordon.
User Planecrash111 is continually vandalizing the Page Jeff Gordon as well as my talk page. I have asked this person to stop and provided all necessary references to support my claim. I have tried to reason with the user but they just don't want to be reasonable. Thank you for any help in this matter.--Vertigo315 (talk) 23:50, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Looking into it. I'll keep you appraised. - Arcayne   (cast a spell)  03:55, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank You, the biggest issue is changing official referenced stats to unofficial unreferenced stats in the 2008 table. --Vertigo315 (talk) 04:12, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Vertigo315 continuously vandalized Jeff Gordon for many weeks and removed content without specifying why in the edit summary. He did only a couple of times. He specified a link that said Gordon qualified 28th at Richmond, but before the race he changed engines and I changed the position from 28th to 43rd and gave a link to show Vertigo315 that this is not vandalism. Vertigo315 being the coward that he is removed it anyway and said some bogus statement that made no sense.(Planecrash111 (talk) 05:32, 13 June 2008 (UTC))
 * I warned him on his talk page and he kept on removing the warnings saying it was "page cleanup" which however it was really a cover up of evidence. Vertigo315 did the same thing on my talk page and it is still there. For some reason Vertigo315 doesn't understand the reality of reaction force which in other words is retaliation. Its like saying you threw a rock at me and I throw a concrete block back. Fair enough.(Planecrash111 (talk) 05:32, 13 June 2008 (UTC))
 * Vertigo315 seems to think that all Wikipedians are stupid enough to believe that he has been on for 3 or more years when actually he hasn't been on for 1. I'm sick and tired of Vertigo315 that I just wish that editing wasn't allowed on this website any longer due to the fact that Vertigo has started 3 of the 5 edit wars this week alone. Vertigo315 game me outdated sources and I gave him up to date references which he simply ignored.(Planecrash111 (talk) 05:32, 13 June 2008 (UTC))
 * I don't want to see Vertigo get blocked, but I would want him to show more respect, use good faith, don't use my age as a personal attack, and just go on with his life.(Planecrash111 (talk) 05:32, 13 June 2008 (UTC))


 * Okay, having taken a good look at the article and both of the user talk pages (and past contributions), I am arriving at pretty much the same advice I was going to offer at the beginning. I feel kinda goofy giving it because I am not always that good at following it myself. I will offer them point by point, so that if you decide I and my advice totally sucks, you can rip into me number by number:
 * . Calm down - You guys need to calm the heck down. Wikipedia is supposed to be fun. You are not getting paid or officially recognized for any of the work you are doing here, so why in the Holy Name of the Flying Spaghetti Monster are you essentially taking part in a Monty Python sketch?
 * . Put yourself in the other guy's shoes - Both of you are currently engaging in activity that is not going to convince the other person of how terribly wrong they are. They are not going to join a monastery and give you all their possessions, and go forth in a hair shirt, telling people how wonderfully intelligent you are. One of the most difficult facts to accept when editing in Wikipedia is that you (in the infinitive sense of the word) are not the smartest person in the room. Ever. The snide comments and not-so-subtle attacks on each other doesn't make either of you want to suddenly up and say, 'omigod, he's right - even if he is. By cutting them down, you've effectively removed their ability to backtrack on an incorrect statement. Be gracious; you will all too often need this same sort of retreat path yourself.
 * . Be nice - Let's face it, it's always best to be nicer to the noobs and boobs (new folk and idiots) because even a broken clock is right twice a day. By being nice and not sniping away at them isn't going to give them the best impression of Wikipedia and how this can actually be a pretty cool place to waste a few hours. Some of those noobs and boobs will be admins and bureaucrats someday (trust me on this), so if you cannot find any charity in your heart, consider the Machiavellian downside of burning your bridges. And stuff that crap about being anonymous. Your edits will come back to haunt you at the least opportune time. I've got an editor who still uses my arguments from over a year ago to claim I am but the Anti-Christ writ small and wiki-like. Grudges last a long, long time. Being nice makes it easier for yourself in the long run. Consider it karma.
 * . See rule number three again, in the off-chance you missed it.
 * . Be willing to find a solution that works for both of you - Unless one of you is the sort to be interested in annexing the Sudetenland, you are probably fairly reasonable people in real life. Wikipedia is usually pretty accurate, and it is not because a crack team of fact-checking eggheads is stowed away in the Wikimedia equivalent of the Batcave, checking the minutiae of the Wiki-en. It is pretty accurate because regular folk like you or I use what knowledge we have to help keep things accurate and cited. I haven't read every book in the friggin' world, and neither have either of you, but collectively we've read a bunch of books, so we all bring something to the table. Working together is what makes it all work. If there is no compromise, then only one side is getting their say in an article, and that skews the neutrality. That sort of problem is what brings the article dispute-locking tools out of the admin;s toolbox, and people start getting blocked left and right. It's not a pretty sight. Seek a compromise/consensus whenever possible.
 * . You are not always going to win - This is arguably the hardest lesson to learn, because we are all in thrall to the idea that the internet doesn't have to suck in the ways that the real world does. However, we are working with other real people, and their views are valid too. A more extreme way of saying this is that sometimes, you are the the dog, and sometimes you are the fire hydrant. Your view might be a minority opinion in the mainstream without you even knowing it. You might be a little wrong, or the kind of wrong that requires two whole syllables to describe (wrooo-oong!) Some chucklebutt hermit on a mountaintop says that recognizing you are wrong is the first step to learning how to be right. I say that Wikipedia is full of ways to get a larger opinion on a particular problem (Mediation, MedCab, DR, AN/I, ArbCom), and all are available to you. But sometimes you are going to lose, and lose big. Sometimes you don't have the citation you need, or you just don't want the other guy to win because they are moronic ass-clown. When you find yourself feeling that way, step away from the keyboard and go away or a bit. It stings that your version isn't in place, and the wrong one is, but that's life. You can always approach the situation again when someone notable produces a citation that you need to make your point. Don't expend too much frustration on it, or you will burn out.
 * . Time is on your side - It really is, as articles are essentially a revolving door for editors who come and go, your consensus can change along with the new editorship. It doesn't matter what last-years' consensus was, you can seek a new one (usually, the unofficial length an older consensus is considered valid is about 3-5 months, after which someone questions the whole thing ,and the process starts anew). So, it isn't an all-or-nothing situation. Ever. However, if you get blocked or banned for being an edit-warring, uncivil ass-clown, your chances of having any effect on that consensus drop considerably.
 * Okay, I am tapped out and tired. I hope some of it sank in. It wasn't my wittiest (that was here, and it was totally ignored, boo-hoo),but I don't think it was the worst advice I've ever offered, either. Have a pleasant evening. - Arcayne   (cast a spell)  07:48, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
 * In respone to planecrash111 alegations, first of all I am not trying to hide evidence as you claim, I am cleaning up my page of the garbage you posted on it trying to pretend you are an admin or something, second, I have NEVER been accused of vandalism on here and have a long list of page contributions. I do not vandalize pages.  Period.  And for the last time, the point of contention is the fact that you are changing referenced statistics on a page with unreferenced material.  Nascar car's official statistics for starting position are where they qualified, this is in the Nascar rules and regulations.  It is a fact.  Nearly every race is influenced by changing in starting position at the beggining of the race for nearly every driver, many times at the last moment, making it diffucult to track.  I have tried to keep a cool head over this but I have for a long time taken great pride in helping keep the stats on this page and other pages very accurate to the standards that have been set. --Vertigo315 (talk) 03:16, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I was not pretending to be an admin. Posting vandalism warnings is not a sign of pretending to be an admin. If i posted a block notice, then I WOULD BE, but was I? NO!! You have been accused of vandalism, but you foolishly removed the warnings to cover up the evidence. You claim to be a Wikipedian for more than 3 years when an investigation by me claims that you have been on for only 8 months. Here is a hint. There is only 12 months in year. I posted the references and you removed the references on PURPOSE!!!! After qualifying ended Gordon was 28th and you posted a reference that he started 28th, but before the race started Gordon changed engines which caused him to start 43rd and I provided a link to support my edit, but as i said before you removed the reference. You no nothing about NASCAR because in the end of the race on the website it says Gordon start 43rd Finish 9th. You have made mistakes and you have never admitted your mistakes. I wish you would because if you don't it shows how bad of a sport you are. You may have cleaned up your page, but you removed evidence of your vandalism which I think is wrong.(Planecrash111 (talk) 15:16, 15 June 2008 (UTC))
 * Er, did you guys not bother to read that fairly long post above? I know attention spans are pretty short (apparently amongst admins they are fairly miniscule ;) ), but I rather thought it was worht reading. The fact that I had to indent both of your replies tells me you folks are each trying to have the last word. That isn't how it works here, though some folks always try. Take the time to remove the recrimination and aggro from your posts and actually take the time to listen to the other person. It might make things easier if each of your posts aren't full of accusations and name-calling. - Arcayne   (cast a spell)  03:42, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Without reading up on the background to this, and just going on what's been said here, I must say that Planecrash needs to pay careful attention to both Civility and Assume good faith. Those are the behavioural standards here, and I've seen multiple violations of them, just on this page. I'm not interested in how rude the other guy was; you need to clean up your own act.
 * On a more general note, it seems to me that you two both want to improve Wikipedia's coverage of NASCAR. Since you're on the same side, maybe the two of you should make an effort to work together.  S HEFFIELD S TEEL TALK 20:45, 19 June 2008 (UTC)


 * WP:CREEP.   Fl ee tf la me   03:42, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

User Dgtsyb persists in editing war even after a second third opinion is given
As can be seen here Talk:Signaling System 7 and here Talk:Signaling_System_7 user Dgtsyb persists in undoing changes made by user LeeDryburgh and does not stop creating allegations against the user, all of which so far have been deemed to be false. Leedryburgh (talk) 15:47, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Ludwigs2 has provided a resolution that both you and Dgtsyb have agreed upon, but you still haven't provided your material in PDF format for the website you are linking to, or to the very least, you aren't linking directly to the PDF as opposed to the website as per the resolution. — Dorvaq (talk) 20:15, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * If you read back thru the saga at Talk:Signaling System 7 you can see that a PDF is not legally possible and this was stated many times. There is nothing that says something has to be PDF over HTML! Leedryburgh (talk) 00:28, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Eco Freeko
I put up some information about a CD released in March 2008. There was no Wiki info for it. It is not there today. Says there are some problems about it. Please explain and how to put this article.

Eco Freeko is my creation. I could not open an account with my name TONES which I have as a trademark. To make this page I had to create Tonesee as a user name. Ialso can not put a page called Tones here for Wiki info because it says there is another page that is that. There is not a TONES page —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tonesee (talk • contribs) 21:30, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Hello there! It appears Eco freeko was originally deleted because it was deemed to lack notability in the context of an encyclopedia.  Please see the Wikipedia policies on notability for further information.  You may have a similar problem with your idea for a "TONES" page.  You may also wish to review WP:What Wikipedia is not.
 * Let me know if you have any more questions. Thanks! --Jaysweet (talk) 21:36, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi there, please have a look over Conflict of interest. It is generally discouraged at Wikipedia to create articles on yourself or subjects you are personally connected to. You should also be careful when editing articles that already exist if you are connected to their subject. As for your problems creating that username, please also read the Username policy which states that you are not allowed to use Wikipedia for promotional purposes, and that using a name that is the same as your company or group is not recommended. It may be better to try editing articles that you are interested in, but not connected to, and thereby become more familiar with our policies and guidelines. Hope this helps, -- Beloved Freak  11:20, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Article needs protection
Take a look at this article: Revision history of Peregrine Cavendish, 12th Duke of Devonshire

I have personal knowledge that a stalker of the family keeps changing this article and myself and other wiki users have to fix it daily. I really think this article should be protected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Geno2008 (talk • contribs) 16:51, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for bringing this up. The proper place for requesting page protection is Requests for page protection. However, since this appears to be repeated vandalism from named users, rather than a content dispute, full page protection may not be appropriate. I have warned the most recent users inserting the information into the article and they can be blocked if they continue to vandalise. It also seems likely that there are sockpuppets operating here.-- Beloved Freak  17:48, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I have created a Suspected Sockpuppet report here. -- Beloved Freak  22:41, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Miss Pakistan World
There are two subjects that were deleted.,

Miss Pakistan WOrld and Sonia Ahmed

I think that this was not a fair delete.

I have tried contcting some people... but obviously, dont know much about Wikipedia rules.. I would like am Editor to look into these two articles and correct them. But the pages have to be restored as they are important pages for history in PAkistan. --Sonisona (talk) 02:33, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The relevant AfDs are Articles for deletion/Miss Pakistan World and Articles for deletion/Sonia Ahmed. I didn't way in on the second, but I specifically remember that on the first, there were few or no sources that we could find to establish notability. If you really think there was foul play, you can request an overturn at Deletion Review, but I don't think these would be overturned. There were also COI concerns with these articles. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 03:16, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Game Revolution deletion.


I have a very strict rule that no employee of mine is allowed to edit the Wikipedia entry (sort of a scientific experiment), however it may have backfired. There were certaily innacuacies in our entry, but I felt that was part of the wiki process. My own name (Duke Ferris) over the years has been changed to "James Bond" and "David Snakes" on occasion. I always left it alone, and within a couple of days, the entry was fixed by others.

Founded in 1996 by Net Revolution, Inc., Game Revolution is the oldest continuosly operating video game site on the internet. We are a multi-million user site and we have been profitable since 1997. We have gone through two corporate buyouts for amounts I am not allowed to contractually disclose. We have more readers than other gaming sites you maintain (like gameinformer.com and gamespy.com), so I am not sure why our entry was deleted.

We are a serious, 12 year old, profitable, growing, popular, media company.

This is my first ever wikipedia submission, so thank you for your help. I hope I did it right.

Thanks,

Duke —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.21.10.222 (talk) 05:39, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Humm... I think it's worthy of being undeleted; this is your site?
 * It certainly needs a fix-up, though. Can I get a third opinion? Xavexgoem (talk) 07:08, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The article was deleted through the proposed deletion process and as such, requests to undelete are usually done upon any request so I have restored the article. Cheers.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:55, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

thanks for your help guys, if you need anything from me, my email address is email address removed.

How do I contact the editor who deleted my link?
Hi, can you please tell me how to contact the editor who deleted my link? I don't see a way to do so but it seems only fair that I should be able to explain myself in hopes that the editor agrees. Arbitrarily deleting links is not in the best interests of this site and I have been a reader and editor of wiki for many years now.

Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Boaznb (talk • contribs) 12:08, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Boaznb appears to have made contact via the editor's talk page. JohnInDC (talk) 12:40, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Help with Cygnus Business Media page


I would like some third party assistance, please. Over the past several months, I have been trying to provide facts on Wikipedia's Cygnus Business Media page. One former employee - Rich Handley - continues to add commentary and misrepresent facts. There is also a person called "The Truth Please" that you'll note has ONLY edited the Cygnus Business Media page and consistently adds editorial. In this:

In 1997, Cygnus (then called PTN Publishing) was acquired for about $100 million by a group lead (I've changed this to led and Rich changed it back to lead) ...or a reported $275 million. Paul Mackler, President of Commerce Connect, was installed as CEO.

This was a private sale and ONLY the principals know the exact price. I edited out the amount and now it continues to show up. It is not fact and I wrote that in the comment section.

This is misrepresented and is inflammatory: In 2006, a few months after Standard and Poor's warned that levels of financial risk were "very high" at Cygnus, Mackler and Cygnus President Richard Reiff resigned. Carr Davis and Anthony O'Brien replaced Mackler as co-CEOs while ABRY denied reports that Cygnus was up for sale.[1][2][3][4]

Paul and Rich did not leave because of the Standard and Poor's report which looks at debt and other things when it makes its reports. It has nothing to do with operations.

Other problems:

Subsequently, Cygnus continued its reorganization by laying off vice presidents Bob Stange and Paul Bowers and several veteran publishers. Five "brand directors" were appointed to replace the terminated publishers.[4]

Companies reorganize all the time, I'm sure Bob and Paul would not like to be used in this way, quotes should be take n away from "brand directors"

In September 2007, Cygnus management announced plans to reduce employee salaries by 7.5 percent and cut hours to 37 per week per employee, though deadline pressures remained in place despite the reduced labor and pay scale. According to Folio magazine, "The dramatic cost cutting comes in response to greater-than-expected revenue shortfalls." Folio estimated Cygnus Business Media's net pretax profits for 2006 at about $30 million.[5]

Again, estimated.

The company's aforementioned salary cut, as well as repeated layoffs of experienced industry veterans, frequent editorial budget cuts and other situations resulted in a public backlash in the blogging community, as bloggers expressed dismay over the company's actions and employees aired many grievances.[6]

This is just another way for our former employees and competitors to paint us in a bad light. The bloggers all remained anonymous so it is unfair to state this.

Downsizing continued in 2008 as Cygnus eliminated its Inside Sales department, a move that also proved controversial with employees. The controversy grew as the company restored the 7.5 percent salary cut to some salaried employees—but not commissioned salespeople and some editors—and called the salary reinstatement a "bonus."[7]

In May 2008, four of the six full-time staff members for Cygnus' Aircraft Maintenance Technology, including the publishers and editor-in-chief, resigned to start Director of Maintenance magazine, a competing publication. Around the same time, former Cygnus Vice President Paul Bowers launched Airport Improvement, another magazine that competes with Cygnus' aviation titles.[8]

This memo below was done as "tongue and cheek"

Shortly thereafter, Cygnus Human Resources Vice President Judy Heidebrecht issued a memo to Cygnus employees stating that they could wear "nice jeans" on Tuesdays to see if it would make them "more productive." As reported on Foliomag.com, this resulted in a further employee backlash against Cygnus, and criticism of Heidebrecht in particular, as many considered the memo to be indicative of a disconnect between the problems widely publicized at Cygnus and upper management's perception of those problems.[9] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.56.32.213 (talk) 17:14, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The passages above are cited, with the exception of the sale amount, but I found and added a citation for that. You've obviously admitted a COI here; while that editor may indeed be a disgruntled employee, they're only echoing what's already been published in other sources. I did remove the last part, as the source didn't mention any kind of backlash. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 20:01, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Artichoker keeps deleting and undoing my contribution to a article
I have tried to contribute to the Kanto (Pokémon) article over and over. Artichoker keep undoing my contribution calling it speculation and non notable when I have provided proof on the matter.

The dispute is over a small easter egg or feature in the Pokémon Games where in Vermilion City has a Truck located in the port. Though it has had many false rumors about the truck, the truck is real and is one of the only vehicles I know of in the Pokemon games except for the moving van in Sapphire, Rubby, and Emerald.

The user has continued to say the information is speculation despite the many references i have posted, even putting a picture of the truck up [[Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg]

Not only has the user undone my contirbutions but it seems they are personally attacking me in the discussion of the article.Talk:Kanto (Pokémon)

I think the Truck information adds to the article, if it doesn't then the information on the Pokémon fan club being in Vermilion City is no more notable then the truck. Yami (talk) 18:19, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * You'll need reliable sources. eeggs.com is not reliable, as it accepts user content, but the second link is probably all right. I think it's fine as it currently is. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 19:38, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

jonathan pollard
i just received a message from rami deleting all my factual information i have been writing for almost four hours. the information is not opinion, since i have it in front of me from pollard's father, an eminent professor emeritus from university of notre dame.

i will not continue to write if someone is going to delete my corrections to ron olive who obviously wrote most of the article.

kindly inform me what you are deleting before you do, or you can find someone else to work for free to maintain your "book of cultural literacy". i will not waste my time. no wonder the facts have not been corrected---you continue to delete them!

20:52, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It appears that this relates to this diff from the Jonathan Pollard article. Nk.sheridan    Talk  21:01, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * In my opinion it would probably be more productive to debate this with the other contributing editors at the associated talkpage Talk:Jonathan Pollard. Cheers, Nk.sheridan   Talk  21:09, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, discussion is definitely needed there; the edits by do contain substantial POV issues but also include some sources that could be made use of. Tony Fox (arf!) 16:10, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

ViewPoint Media Player


Hi,

I've noticed that a user with only an IP (maybe working for ViewPoint?), keeps removing the adware/malware concerns section from the ViewPoint media player section. I originally edited the page as it was rather biased against the program, but recently added a balanced version of some of the malware information to the page as it had all been removed (I think some of it is valid).

Anyway, whoever it is keeps removing the info. I don't want to get into an "edit war", should I revert it? Could the page be protected?

Cheers, SmackEater
 * First, remove the comparison ("Flash and Java don't have these issues"), since that might be the reason they're being removed; it might look like a coatrack section.
 * "It is commonly installed with the AOL Instant Messenger without the explicit consent of the user, as it is a required package." needs a reference.
 * Take the discussion to talk instead of revert warring, if you can. If that fails, semi-prot might help. Xavexgoem (talk) 00:23, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, the deletion without discussion plus that IP's statements on the talk sure look like a COI. I think that it is a valid section, but also agree with Xavexgoem about the last sentence and the AIM citation. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 03:16, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I also put some unsigned on the talk. There's a lot of stuff there that looks like it was posted by Viewpoint (there's one that's not an IP; google the name and you'll see the same name posting pro-VMP comments on blogs that complain about it). JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 03:30, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

New User May Have Deleted References
I'm a new user of Wikipedia and I believe I accidentally deleted the references on the Ruslana Korshunova entry.

Can someone please help me?

I was trying to add a reference to a bilingual website that had the news of her death even before other well known media outlets.

I´m really sorry if I caused a mess.

Reme —Preceding unsigned comment added by Reme bashi (talk • contribs) 03:59, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * No problem. User:Sajt fixed it. --AndrewHowse (talk) 04:30, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Protecting my userpage
someone mind protecting my user page from IP editors? (see the recent contributions). --Allemandtando (talk) 22:16, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Done. seresin ( ¡? ) 22:20, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

BridgesTV
I am totally lost and overwhelmed. The directions for creating a wikipedia page are convoluted and I cannot tell when I hit save whether that means the page I created was saved in my account "bridgestv" or went onto Wikipedia for editing or deletion. When I finished making the page I hit save and then preview and then save again. At the top of the page was a warning about speedy deletion but I cannot tell what I could have done wrong. I made sure that the post was NOT an advertisement. It simply states information about the company- when founded, who the founder is, where to find it on the web, its mission.

I read all of your how tos and warnings and guides etc. Can I talk to someone or can someone assist me. It isnt fair to have an encyclopedia that the public can contribute to if no one is available to help the luddites out there that struggle to set up a page.

Thank you gratefully for your time and assistance. Very truly yours, christina winters

user/login name bridgestv attempted new article/ wiki page Bridges TV

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Bridgestv (talk • —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bridgestv (talk • contribs) 20:26, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, it looks like you've heard from a couple of other editors at your talk page. I think notability is the first thing to address - why would Bridges TV be sufficiently noteworthy to be included here? We usually look for multiple sources of non-trivial coverage in reliable sources - if you can find and cite such coverage, then everything else should be fairly smooth. Feel free to post here again, or at my talk page, if I can help further. --AndrewHowse (talk) 20:48, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Some related links- was declined at Articles for Creation; was speedy deleted as spam in 2007; was moved to userspace and the redirect deleted just recently. Current userspace version is here. As AndrewHowse said, the notability needs to be established. As others have told you, there's a serious COI concern as well. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 00:37, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Germany
Take a look Germany —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.71.14.219 (talk) 02:41, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm going to guess that you're referring to some momentary vandalism, reverted in less than a minute? Otherwise, could you elaborate a little please? --AndrewHowse (talk) 04:05, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Parsing of tildes in template
Greetings. I added a category to Adoptsuggest but when it was saved, four tildes were expanded into my name/talk links. I am unable to stop them from expanding even though they are surrounded by nowiki tags. Please roll back or fix. Thanks. --Thetrick (talk) 01:34, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that is weird! I thought I understood noinclude and includeonly, but obviously I don't.  They don't seem to understand nowiki as I would expect.  I'll try to look further.  ~a (user • talk • contribs) 03:53, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Can someone undo my edits while Arichnad is looking into the topic, before the template is substituted? Or do I need to make that request elsewhere?  Thanks --Thetrick (talk) 16:15, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Reverted as requested. I think I might have just replaced you with me, though ... --AndrewHowse (talk) 16:47, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, you did. That's why I am looking to get some kind of internal, non-web revert.  I tried undoing and a number of other things in preview and I couldn't figure out how to stop the expansion.  --Thetrick (talk) 17:01, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I tried replacing the tilde character with its Ascii code. Could that have worked? --AndrewHowse (talk) 20:21, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, that does seem to work when subst'ed. I tried that before but wasn't sure what the nowiki tag would do with ascii codes. I still don't understand why the expansion is happening at that point and not others.  Perhaps it's a back-end bug.  Anyway, good enough!  --Thetrick (talk) 20:39, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Uploading text and photos
Need help up loading the bio of Eleanore Mikus. Have souces confirmed and also would like to know how to post approved photos of art work?

Thank you. Mikusart. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikusart (talk • contribs) 16:41, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi, please see Your first article which should help you with starting the article. Uploading images should help with adding the photos. I hope these links help, if not, let us know.-- Beloved Freak  17:02, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The version in your userspace will need some references added before you move it to article space. Post here again if you need help with that. --AndrewHowse (talk) 17:22, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Removing Dispute Tags
I have an ongoing issue with an editor about an NPOV dispute. I do not intend to get into an edit war with this individual, but the individual keeps removing the dispute tag on the article. I am pretty sure that some policy, somewhere states that the tag should remain until the dispute is resolved but for the life of me I can't find a reference to such a policy anywhere. If anyone could please point me in the direction of a policy that states this I would very much appreciate it. Debate  木  13:29, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The edit summary provided by your foe says to NPOV_tag_again|see talk :-) The tag is just an indicator; proof that something needs to be solved. It isn't terribly relevant to the reader, since there's no context (it just says disputed). Anyway, that's how I see, , tags. They're for the editors. Xavexgoem (talk) 13:47, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Editor_assistance/FAQ states "Avoid removing tags that flag a genuine issue simply because you disagree with them; this can be unconstructive, so try to fix the issue or seek assistance." This is about as close as it comes to something concrete I can find. Essentially the editor's counter-argument to the tag is WP:So fix it, which I may well do when I get a second which unfortunately I don't have at the moment. BTW, the article in question has been tagged by other unrelated editors previously, with the tag reverted in 24 hours or less by the same editor. I could nominate this under disputes, or make a complaint against the editor concerned for disruptive editing, but it would seem a lot more constructive if I could simply quote a relevant policy or guideline at them, at least in the first instance, so the tag could stay while a discussion continued on talk... Debate   木  14:04, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * At the risk of playing Devil's advocate here, I would suggest that you concentrate only on the issues and try not to worry about tagging the article. Some editors resent "drive-by tagging" from people who don't intend to fix the actual problems in the article. Other editors try to WP:OWN articles and obsessively remove tags as a way of "brushing things under the rug". I recommend you do not try to put this editor in either category (see WP:AGF for why not) but instead realise that in neither case is it going to benefit your stress levels to try to keep such tags in the article.
 * The best solution is to discuss the problems - not in edit summaries, but on the article Talk page - remaining civil and concentrate on improving the article. Stick to the basics - complying with such policies as Verifiability and Reliable sources - and if you can't reach a consensus, start on the Dispute resolution process, perhaps with an RFC.  S HEFFIELD S TEEL TALK 14:48, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks heaps for the advice everyone. Cheers. :) Debate   木  02:41, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Help needed in template editing
I wanted to create a Template:NBA Europe Live Tour to enter it in the NBA Europe Live Tour article, but as you can see, it all went wrong. Please help. Thank you. Log in, log out (talk) 10:37, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi, What did you want the template to do? Templates are usually pieces of markup that will be used in multiple articles. Where else would this one be used? --AndrewHowse (talk) 13:41, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The years the event accured. What i entered the tem[late were directs to the 2006, 2007, and 2008's event editions. Log in, log out (talk) 14:58, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Try it now. Tnavbar-header requires 2 parameters, the second being the template name, so I added that. And your template says it uses fb start and fb end so those need to be in the page too! --AndrewHowse (talk) 15:16, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia article on Retro Railtours and a link about James Palmer
These entries have been made by a youngster who is just establishing a company called Retro Railtours and is attempting to use a wikipedia page to promote and lend credibility to his business. In addition he has edited the "James Palmer" page to list himself as an entrepreneur which given the fact that he is a young lad launching a company which hasnt actually done anything yet would seem to be somewhat inappropriate use of Wikipedia. Having looked around the various help pages I really dont understand what to do.

Can you advise me please?

Chris Long. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ebccomputers (talk • contribs) 13:00, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * You can fix it! If you see an article that shouldn't be here then you can follow the process for deletion. In this case, Retro Railtours is a company doesn't assert any notability and so I've tagged it for speedy deletion with db-inc. An admin (a user with additional authority to delete) will review my request and either agree to delete or remove my tag with his/her rationale. Now, James Palmer is a disambiguation page, which lists various peple named James Palmer and links to each one. It helps people find their way around. Since the particular James Palmer in question here wouldn't (yet) merit his own article, we don't need an entry for him. --AndrewHowse (talk) 13:40, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Request for Editor Assistance in Dispute Resolution


I have tried to add content to the Nietzsche article and it has been removed for reasons that I feel are contrived and unjustifiable. I wonder if anyone can take a look at "Stirner, again" discussion on the talk page, as well as the relevant material that was included in the article (before being excised). I should warn anyone willing to take a look that the discussion is rather long, but reading it seems necessary in order to understand the context. I'm wondering if there is a way to solve this without dispute resolution, and if not, how I should proceed with the dispute resolution process. --Picatrix (talk) 22:32, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You weren't kidding. Good luck trying to find someone to wade through it.  Might I suggest the Neutral point of view/Noticeboard?  If you can keep your statement brief, you might get a response.  Good luck. Viriditas (talk) 11:35, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

re Loreto College, Manchester
I just added to page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loreto_College%2C_Manchester

Loreto College, Manchester

you have a banner saying it is like an advert, but actually the previous content is true and valid although they had made mistakes (which I corrected ..in my wikepedia opion! ) it is meant to be best college in england it is actaully understating itself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.42.249.53 (talk) 00:04, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for stopping by. The main issues here are that there are no sources for all the positive statements about the college. --AndrewHowse (talk) 01:19, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Request for Editor Assistance to delete page
Hello,

I've created the following page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_On_The_River a few months ago

I would like to delete that page as it's being continuously updated by another user with bad intentions.

Even if the info added might not be considered as vandalism it is clearly not well intended, not helpful and does not contribute to the content of the page.

How can I proceed?

Thanks very much

Charou (talk) 01:28, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I've contacted Sparrowhead about the edit-warring. I don't think deletion would do any good, as it's clearly notable (and interesting). What are your specific worries? Xavexgoem (talk) 01:49, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer My worries is that the info added will harm business and reputation of the place. Besides it,s not accurate anymore. I have doubts and concerns about Sparrowhead objectivity. He has only been contributing on that specific page. 67.11.10.231 (talk) 02:03, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It has a history that starts in 1926. That section could surely be filled with more tidbits. To that end, I've added a note on recentism, and balanced it just a bit. Xavexgoem (talk) 02:28, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Article on France is semi protected and needs to be reverted.
Relevant content unavailable. Looks like vandalism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Llea2 (talk • contribs)


 * We're going to need a bit more info in order to help, I'm afraid. For example, are you concerned with content that was removed, content that you think needs to be added, or something else? --AndrewHowse (talk) 04:08, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes; could you post a diff? JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 19:38, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Better World Books


Someone keeps coming and vandalizing the "Better World Books" page by taking out cited information and including erroneous information and "citing" it at Dun and Bradstreet and the Indiana Secretary of State. They also are editing and including numerous weasel words. The editor is suspected to be someone who has been engaging in such activity all over the web. We would be happy to have the information edited by a third party (as it has been done a number of times) but weekly the info is changed and we have no recourse but to change it back. We have always accepted criticism and never taken out legitimate information, Wikipedia isn't a PR site and I believe in it's mission, however, this mudslinging is inappropriate for this forum and we need to find a way out of it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.127.240.120 (talk • contribs)


 * There's certainly some back-and-forth at the article, but it's not clear who you are and who you think is wrong. You might consider registering an account, and also reading WP:COI. --AndrewHowse (talk) 18:19, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * 208.127.240.120 warned against advertising in page and deleting cited materials. 208.127.240.120 now daily deleting cited material and editing page into an advertisement with no valid citations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tintle (talk • contribs)


 * Let's first please agree that we wish to produce an unbiased encyclopaedic article. Let's then stop editing the article for a few days, (or else an admin will just lock it down in whatever state it happens to be in at that moment), and let's discuss, calmly, some alternatives at Talk:Better World Books. It would help if all parties disclosed their affiliations first, used a registered account (register here if need be) and signed their posts on talk pages with 4 tilde characters, thus --~ . Please, assume good faith and no personal attacks. I'm adding the page to my watchlist so I'll be prompted to stop by. Come back here or to my talk page if I can help. --AndrewHowse (talk) 20:00, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I just did a revert there. The IP may have a COI, but they're right about the sources. The Dunn and Bradsteet citation was the site's main page, and the Indiana link was the site's search page. The lead had been mangled, anyway. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 00:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * My affiliations are that I work with the company. I contacted the Indiana Secretary of State and Dun and Bradstreet to inform them that their information is wrong, both said it will take a few days to correct.  We are based in Delaware and were started by three college kids, never been off-shore.  Also, not sure what on earth that "Avatar" business is but it's not true.  Besides, can we at least get rid of the deliberate vandalism of sentences such as "Some college students have been misled and unaware that they are donating their books to a for-profit corporation" which is uncited and wildly untrue?  This guy, "caspa" or "caspare" as he is known, has been bashing us all over the web, even making things up on partner websites of ours and it has to stop.  Wikipedia isn't the place for petty arguments, as such. 208.127.240.145 (talk) 23:13, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Samantha Manson


The Sam Manson section of the wikipedia is a mess. It is filled with personal opinion rather than fact. I changed it to make it more grammatically correct and clean it up at least a little, but someone reverted it back to the way it was. The section after the first summary where it goes into "Stats" such as wardrobe etc is unnecessary, it has errors such as she has long-short black hair (which is dyed). I maintain that the assertion that the character's hair is dyed is personal opinion and has no basis in fact in the show as it stands, she was never shown dying her hair, nor has she stated or any thing of that nature that her hair was dyed.

The person disagreeing with me changes the section back on the basis that her parents have red and blond hair and that it's genetically impossible for the character to have black hair (even despite the fact that her grandmother was shown to have black hair in her youth), they go so far as to maintaining that the grandmother dyed her hair. I think this shows a personal bias which shouldn't exist in the Wikipedia. And as far as the genetic argument, just because Sam’s parents are both fair and have fair hair doesn’t prove anything. Pamela has red hair. Red hair occurs when the parents are carriers for the MC1R recessive gene, but both have other dominant genes. The MC1R gene can skip generations and it is likely that Pamela’s parents both have black or brunette hair and this gene would be encoded in her DNA and even if she married a blond man, black and brunette hair are dominant genes and would be more likely to show up in Pamela’s children than red or blond hair. Therefore, it is NOT impossible for Sam to have black hair. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Doratheghost (talk • contribs) 00:00, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * This edit by the IP is definitely improper synthesis. I'd agree with removing the "Wardrobe" section; it's nothing but original research. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 00:29, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Kanyelive
I'd have thought this was as blatant a piece of advertising as it was possible to get - so why have none of the numerous editors marked it as such ? What am I missing ? (aside from marbles, brain cells, good looks and money....) :-) CultureDrone (talk)
 * I don't think it's advertising. I also don't think there have been numerous editors to the page:  it only looks like a few humans have been editing it.  It does look like it might fail notability guidelines for websites as very (very) few fan-sites are actually useful for an encyclopedia.  If I were you, i'd put notability, {{subst:prod}} (your reasoning should say something like:  Only one reference of notability), or {{subst:afd}} at the top.  ~a (user • talk • contribs) 18:18, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Because previous editors may have wanted it to be a piece of advertising, may have been unaware of Wikipedia guidelines & policies, may have had other things to do, may not have cared, may have thought they too were missing something. Anyone can add maintenance tags. I've cleaned it up a bit, feel free to make more changes.-- Beloved Freak  18:21, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm going to PROD it; it definitely won't meet notability. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 19:50, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the feedback - I'd assumed it should be deleted, but wanted to be sure there wasn't some obscure WP policy I wasn't aware of :-) CultureDrone (talk) 20:45, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Copts Article Page Fraught with bias and error, Troy refuses to allow clarifying statements


Hi, The Copts article has a flag adorning its website, and a worldmap with the same symbol. The problem is that this article discusses an ethnic group encompassing millions of people globally. A few years ago a small activist group came up with their version of a "coptic flag". In the past, many fringe groups have come up with their own flags (Source: www.thecopticflag.com) and same with this new one, the Coptic Church never recognizes any flag and Copts not affiliated with the creating organization have no idea about any flag. Unfortunately, the latest flag has adorned the Copts wikipedia article as the de facto symbol of Copts in a number of places (template, map). The source of this version is a website that has not been updates in 3 years. I tried to amend the page many times. The first few times I admit I didnt understand the nuances of Wikipedia editing. But now, whenever I write something pertaining that this is not an accepted by mainstream Copts,Troy remove my edits with the excuse "Where is your source that it is not accepted?". This is ludicrous since the burden of proof had to be on the creator of the symbol to show that it IS accepted as a symbol of Coptic Identity and can be used as a de facto worldwide accepted symbol. How can you prove a negative? Ironically, in the discussion page when I discussed this Troy responded with the preposterous statement: "There doesn't need to be a reliable source that says that it's "world-recognized"". So technically, I can come up with my own design for a flag to represent an ethnic group that lacks a flag and plaster it over the main article describing them??!! According to Troy, that would be sufficient?? Moreover, as evidence that Troy are being completely obtuse, he summarily reject my edits when I add the statement that other groups in the past have created coptic flags, and I listed the source (www.thecopticflag.com). Additionally Troy even deletes my comments regarding this in the DISCUSSION section! I urge the editors to look into this to attempt to create an ACCURATE article rather than one that is at odds with reality. Thanks

129.85.55.181 (talk) 15:32, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I've replied on Talk:Copt. I hope it helps.  S HEFFIELD S TEEL TALK 18:36, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank You.-unsigned comment added by 129.85.55.181 (talk) 19:50, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Rochester N Ywiki help


User keeps removing more current and greater detailed image of skyline of Rochester NY to replace with his old copy please keep him from vandalizing Evilarry (talk) 20:29, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Please check our definition at Vandalism. Other editors prefer a public domain image to the one you yourself made. This isn't vandalism; it's a good faith content dispute. I notice that another editor already began a discussion on the Talk page, that you've been accused of editing another editor's comments there, and that you've been quite impolite in that discussion.
 * The general Dispute resolution guidelines apply here. By all means, open a request for comment to get more outside input, but you are more likely to get a sympathetic response by being reasonable than by arguing, edit warring, and making unfounded accusations of vandalism.  S HEFFIELD S TEEL TALK 15:06, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * May I just point out that I removed Evilarry's image once, after two weeks without opposition to said removal on the talk page. The version I removed was tilted and poorly framed.  Evilarry's revised version, which fixed the tilt and reframed the image, was later removed by an IP user.  If one removal each of two different images by two different editors constitutes "keeps removing", I'm at a loss to comprehend.  Powers T 18:09, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Gwernol's Vandalism


Gwernol keeps vandalizing my Ion Mihai Pacepa edit.

In the book Red Horizons, Mr. Pacepa writes the following and I quote:

"I just called the microphone monitoring center to ask about the 'Fedayee,'" Arafat's code name, explained Munteaunu. "After the meeting with the Comrade, he went directly to the guest house and had dinner. At this very moment, the 'Fedayee' is in his bedroom making love to his bodyguard. The one I knew was his latest lover. He's playing tiger again. The officer monitoring his microphones connected me live with the bedroom, and the squawling almost broke my eardrums. Arafat was roaring like a tiger, and his lover yelping like a hyena."

However Gwernol thinks vandalism is appropriate in order to censor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikkidd (talk • contribs) 01:44, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Note: a free and frank exchange of views is already under way at User talk:Wikkidd. Editors may wish to contribute there.  S HEFFIELD S TEEL TALK 15:13, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism of Ion Mihai Pacepa Article
Here is a direct link to the book Red Horizons by Ion Mihai Pacepa.

http://books.google.com/books?id=zQ7LSucBylAC&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=%22I+just+called+the+microphone+monitoring+center+to+ask+about+the%22&source=web&ots=73QcR3BBzc&sig=IyGzOR3GS4NwHNsRj9CGxZJ8pFA&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result

On page 36, Mr. Pacepa writes and I quote:

""I just called the microphone monitoring center to ask about the 'Fedayee,'" Arafat's code name, explained Munteaunu. "After the meeting with the Comrade, he went directly to the guest house and had dinner. At this very moment, the 'Fedayee' is in his bedroom making love to his bodyguard. The one I knew was his latest lover. He's playing tiger again. The officer monitoring his microphones connected me live with the bedroom, and the squawling almost broke my eardrums. Arafat was roaring like a tiger, and his lover yelping like a hyena."

The New York Times, which believes Mr. Pacepa to be credible, says that Mr. Pacepa did in fact write Red Horizons: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE5D91438F937A25753C1A961948260&scp=1&sq=arafat+pacepa&st=nyt

Wiki censor Gwernol keeps vandalizing the quote. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikkidd (talk • contribs) 02:48, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Note:This is a re-posting of the above debate.  S HEFFIELD S TEEL TALK 15:15, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll point out that they're not modifying the quote, but undoing its addition. It might be a bit off-topic, which is probably their concern. Still, explain reverts; time for discussion, which appears to be taking place. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 03:50, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Behaviour Problem
The webpage Druze, user Hiram111 and myself are experiencing difficulties with an IP account 63.216.113.124 - he will not discuss and has thrown 1-warning only ban threat on my talk page (without signature) and I believe also on that of Hiram111. I do not know how to deal with this issue, because he will not discuss. (Issue regards PoV material. em zilch (talk) 04:39, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Nice try. Both User:Emilyzilch and User:Hiram111 have been repeatedly removing sourced paragraphs, for example here. Hiram111 has done the same to other articles, here and here, where he removed large heavily sourced paragraphs, calling them "unreferenced" in his edit summaries. I already posted the incident on the noticeboard here and I asked that Hiram111, who should have been blocked long ago, be blocked for his disruptive behavior and dishonesty that can be seen from his edit summaries and his reply to my post on the noticeboard. 63.216.113.124 (talk) 05:08, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Definitely a content dispute. I will say that solving content disputes should not be done by blanking huge sections, when those sections are properly cited. Use dispute resolution on this one, and find a middle ground. Not that you really have a choice, seeing as the article is locked down now. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 03:42, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

removal of text in a talk page
Hi, I've been here for a bit, but I've never had my text on a talk page removed before. I put it back and a second editor removed it again. So, I'm looking to understand: Thanks, Hobit (talk) 03:18, 2 July 2008 (UTC) Diff: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3AWikiProject_Video_games&diff=222986155&oldid=222983996
 * 1) Was I so far out of line that it's removal was appriate?
 * 2) What are the general guidelines for removing text from a talk page?


 * I don't think it was your comment. Notice that originally a large part of the thread was removed, and later part of the removed section was restored here. I think the removal came more from the comment above yours, by User:Izno. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 03:38, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I don't like it, but I guess I'll drop it. Are there any guidelines for someone doing this?  I'd never seen talk page text removed before...Hobit (talk) 03:46, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The relevant guidelines are at Talk pages and there are other links on that page. S HEFFIELD S TEEL TALK 13:26, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Complete deletion, and no warning
This is doubly frustrating since I have no idea if this is the correct path for resolving this.

Here it goes.

Between last night and today I created two new pages and modified one, all of which has been erased without any apparent way of retrieving that work. The two new pages were for a the new snowboard technology Dual Edge Snowboard (DES), and for the company that has created the modern version of that technology, Deuce Snowboards, plus the minor addition of the DES category was made to the Snowboard page. I'm flabbergasted that the technology stuff was removed, and the company page is a direct copy from the Burton Snowboards page, which has existed for sometime and still exists, so I don't see the conflict there as well.

Best regards,

RenaisMan —Preceding unsigned comment added by RenaisMan (talk • contribs) 05:56, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


 * As I'm not an admin, I can't check the actual content of the deleted pages, but they were both speedily deleted as advertising and, in the case of Deuce Snowboards, for failing to assert why the company was notable enough to include in Wikipedia. The first thing I'd recommend you do is read Wikipedia's policies on these (see WP:ADVERT and WP:CORP). Once you've read those, it may be possible for you to rewrite the articles again in a way that complies with the guidelines (again, not being able to see the originals means I can't see how far 'off the mark' you were). If you still believe the articles complied with the policies, I suggest you drop a message on the talk page of the administrator who deleted the articles (click here User talk:Athaenara, then click on the 'new section' tab at the top of the talk page) - if you can justify the reasoning, they can restore the article(s) for you. One thing I'm concerned about is your use of the phrase "the company page is a direct copy from the Burton Snowboards page" - do you mean a copy of the Burton Snowboards web site page, ot their Wikipedia entry ? A direct copy of the former would violate copyright policy. CultureDrone (talk) 08:46, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi CultureDrone,

Thanks for the advice. Even though I am going through Newbie frustration, I must admit that this experience thus far raised concerns to me about Wikipedia. For the most part they boil down to accountability and transparency of editors. Thanks for giving me direction towards the editor (I assume that is what the Athaenara link is). My expectation is that it should have been Athaenara who replied, and better, Athaenara should have notified me first and asked me to defend before unilaterally deleting. But it is good to have an apparent neutral third party chirp in as well. So far this feels like some faceless bureaucratic beast like the movie Brazil. A fast USPTO like system would be more appropriate.

As for the the WP:CORP requirements, Deuce has been in the media, precisely because what they are developing is so dramatically new. So I think I have a good argument. As for the Burton use, I copied the "boilerplate" of their page, and replaced it with Deuce specific content. Point being that in form and type of content, the page was identical to an accepted snowboard company page.

On the Dual Edge Snowboard entry, you didn't seem to comment, which would have been helpful to me. Its deletion is the most astounding to me. At this point I don't know how to find who deleted these entries and removed the similar material from the Snowboard page. Please inform me on how to discover and contact whomever removed them, and I hope the information is stored somewhere so that I don't have to rewrite it all over again.

(71.142.67.67 (talk) 17:11, 2 July 2008 (UTC))


 * To support what CultureDrone said, I think your best approach would be to ask User:Athaenara to userfy the pages for you, which is to copy the content of the pages into sub-pages in your userspace, where you can edit them further in order to meet requirements for inclusion here. I looked at the version of Dual Edge Snowboard that Google has cached, and that doesn't meet the requirements for notability for sure. As for the protocol, speedy deletion is just that. When a page fails to meet one of the basic criteria, it can be deleted on sight. You got the warning notice re Deuce, but there's no obligation to have a discussion. Wikipedia gets too many pages that don't meet criteria and we need to be able to deal with them quickly. Anyway, ask Athaenara to userfy the pages and see if they can be fixed up. Cheers, --AndrewHowse (talk) 17:24, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


 * What he said :-) Bear in mind that just because you copied the layout of another article, that doesn't automatically mean your article meets the criteria. Layout of an article can be improved/standardised over time - it's the content that's the important initial factor. CultureDrone (talk) 18:13, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I responded at User talk:Athaenara and restored both as per RenaisMan's objections.


 * (In general, see also Deletion review.) — Athaenara  ✉  19:28, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Now that they've been restored, RenaisMan needs to either copy to userspace or fix them pronto, else they're likely to be zapped again. --AndrewHowse (talk) 14:20, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Accidentally Deleted section of article
I am new to Wikipedia, and added some content to an existing article. I went to add a reference - when I clicked "edit" there was nothing in the edit box. I added my reference, thinking it would just be added to the list, and the entire list was replaced with what I had typed in!

Independence Air

I feel terrible - this is an honest mistake, but deleted a lot of work. Can this be fixed?????

Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.7.134.189 (talk • contribs)


 * OK, don't panic! I've reverted it to the last sensible version. Each saved version is kept, so it's easy to go back to a previous version.
 * Now, you need to provide a source for the Jet Truck thing. The references in that article are so-called inline references. Don't add them directly to the references section; add them to the text you're supporting. If you edit the whole page you'll see places with and then the reference souirce shows up in the reference list automatically. The easiest thing is to find another reference that looks like it has the right format and then copy it. Come back here or post to my talk page if you have questions. --AndrewHowse (talk) 16:24, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:EAR and MiszaBot
Someone that knows how this bot works better take a look at it. It appears to have archived to the wrong archive page (page 16, which is months old). It also archived threads that were open. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 06:42, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry, my fault I think. The bot doesn't see the flags and just goes by date of last posting. I was hoping that 5 day-old threads were de facto stale, but that might have been a bad assumption. I'll look for a bot that can read flags. I think we need one that looks for threads that have one of a specified set of flags, and then applies a delay of a few days before archiving. I'll go undo that last round too. --AndrewHowse (talk) 13:26, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I just adjusted the config so that it'll use Archive 26 next time - although I understood that the bot wasn't supposed to actually do archiving itself. I thought we were meant to do so manually. Confusion all around, yay :-)  S HEFFIELD S TEEL TALK 13:48, 3 July 2008 (UTC)


 * ... and largely thanks to me! I've posted at WP:BOTREQ to find out if there are any bots that can read flags. --AndrewHowse (talk) 14:08, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Cluebot problem
I see from

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Guillermo_Vargas&action=history

That Cluebot nr. 423722 removed my external links as possible spam. When I go to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ClueBot/FalsePositives

Im told to report it by entering the Cluebot number. When I do I only get the error message

Warning: mysql_connect [function.mysql-connect]: Lost connection to MySQL server during query in /home/apache2/domains/default/htdocs/cluebot.php on line 5 Error.

I cant find some other suitable place to report this, what should I do?

Best regards Øystein B. Jakobsen —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gnurkel (talk • contribs) 10:29, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, IP 65.219.124.65 removed the links you added as links to sites like Facebook should be avoided according to the Wikipedia external links policy. --Tombomp (talk/contribs) 10:41, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Death date for Larry Harmon is incorrect
The entry for Larry Harmon, aka Bozo the Clown, is incorrect: he died yesterday, July 3, 2008, not today July 4, 2008.

This also makes the quote in the first paragraph of the story rather inane and irrelevant as it refers to some how it is appropriate that Harmon died on July 4 (puhleese).

Tim Wright, Seattle —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.17.221.51 (talk) 19:46, 4 July 2008 (UTC)