User talk:Alex.muller/Archive 1

IP vandals

What you have done...to create your own account, is basically the best response to your dilemma, as the blocking of IP accounts (including schools) is generally done as "anonymous only" blocking, which allows those who sign in to still edit. --Kukini ^{hablame aqui} 16:08, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - just a shame there's nothing more WP can do, because I can tell you now that vandalism from our school (unfortunately) won't just stop overnight - so we'll eventually end up with an indefinite block. ~ Alexlmuller 22:03, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that we do indef blocks on IP addresses. I can tell you that a great deal of all vandalism in wikipedia is done from school IPs, though.Kukini ^{hablame aqui} 13:10, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Notability of Pownce

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Pownce, by Edward321 (talk · contribs), another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Pownce seems to be about a person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is notable: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not assert the subject's importance or significance may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable.

To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Pownce, please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Please note that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it did not nominate Pownce itself. Feel free to leave a message on the bot operator's talk page if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot. --Android Mouse Bot 2 13:37, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Speedy notice

A tag has been placed on Pownce, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done because the article appears to be a repost of material that was previously deleted following a deletion debate, such as articles for deletion. If you can indicate how Pownce is different from the previously posted material, or if you can indicate why this article should not be deleted, I advise you to place the template {{hangon}} underneath the other template on the article, and also put a note on Talk:Pownce saying why this article should stay. An admin should check for such edits before deleting the article. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. Please read our criteria for speedy deletion, particularly item 4 under General criteria. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself. We welcome your help in trying to improve Wikipedia, and we request you to follow these instructions. Blueboy96 22:12, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

New IP

The new IP will get, if warranted, new warnings. Don't worry about it. Hopefully students will choose to not vandalize, but instead add to the project. Kukini ^{hablame aqui} 16:46, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Blocking of 212.85.20.99

I'm at the school where this IP originates and we've been blocked by you for a week. Let me say, first of all, that I'm one of the WP-savvy students here, and I completely understand the IP block and how it was justified - we do deserve it, and I believe that a bit of time off will help while we're dealing with the situation internally (educating students).

I have a question for you, or if there's somebody you know who could answer it better - is there anything school administration can do, except for just subscribing to the RSS feed of our talk page or disciplining students to prevent Wikipedia vandalism, rather than dealing with it after the fact?

Thanks, Alexlmuller 18:18, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not sure what you are saying. Do you mean something school administration could do as an educational measure? Or something the school could do as a technical deterrent? Or something else? —Wknight94 (talk) 19:02, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Apologies, I meant something technical - is there anything (software, or something else) you know of that institutions are using in relation to WP, or if there's some functionality of Wikimedia that we're missing as school administration? Our head of IT is educating guys about this, but it's taking time to sink in. Thanks, Alexlmuller 20:04, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

No apologies necessary! So you are looking for a technical means of preventing vandalism from your end? I've been involved in brief conversations about that here and I don't personally believe such a thing exists. The best place to get a more reliable answer though would be WP:VPT or one of the other subpages under WP:VP. —Wknight94 (talk) 20:15, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks - Wikipedia can be a confusingly large place for pretty new people like me, and those links are very useful. I'll speak to a couple of guys from school, and then post somewhere round there. Hopefully, we'll get all this sorted. Alexlmuller 22:55, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:George Martin Stephen.jpeg

Image Copyright problem

Thank you for uploading Image:George Martin Stephen.jpeg. However, it currently is missing information on its copyright status. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously. It may be deleted soon, unless we can determine the license and the source of the image. If you know this information, then you can add a copyright tag to the image description page.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thanks again for your cooperation. NOTE: once you correct this, please remove the tag from the image's page. STBotI (talk) 17:55, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Replaceable fair use Image:George Martin Stephen.jpeg

Replaceable fair use

Thanks for uploading Image:George Martin Stephen.jpeg. I noticed the description page specifies that the media is being used under fair use, but its use in Wikipedia articles fails our first fair use criterion in that it illustrates a subject for which a freely licensed media could reasonably be found or created that provides substantially the same information. If you believe this media is not replaceable, please:

1. Go to the media description page and edit it to add {{di-replaceable fair use disputed}}, without deleting the original Replaceable fair use template.
2. On the image discussion page, write the reason why this image is not replaceable at all.

Alternatively, you can also choose to replace the fair use media by finding freely licensed media of the same subject, requesting that the copyright holder release this (or similar) media under a free license, or by taking a picture of it yourself.

If you have uploaded other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified how these images fully satisfy our fair use criteria. You can find a list of description pages you have edited by clicking on this link. Note that even if you follow steps 1 and 2 above, fair use media which could be replaced by free-licensed alternatives will be deleted 2 days after this notification (7 days if not used in an article), per our Fair Use policy. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. _TheIslander 10:59, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dibble Dabble

I closed this AfD since the article in question already has a PROD tag on it (but it appears to have never had an actual AfD tag on it). Just letting you know. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells•Otter chirps)} 17:36, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for handling it, that's good - still very much finding my feet (and installed WP:TW yesterday) ;). Thanks, — alex.muller (talkpage • contribs) 17:38, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

No problem. The instructions for closing AfDs are well hidden, so I'll let you know how to do it just in case. Type {{subst:at}} delete/keep/whatever the result was ~~~~ at the top, and {{subst:ab}} at the bottom. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells•Otter chirps)} 18:34, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Goldmember AFD

Thanks, didn't realize i messed up the header. Must have hit the sig button not realizing where the cursor was.--Cube lurker (talk) 22:24, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Surname

Thanks for adding the {{surname}} tag to the Ephron article I created. I knew {{hndis}} wasn't quite right, and I trusted that someone would come along and take care of things. Matchups (talk) 02:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Sandbox

why are you not following me around the snadbox reverting my meaningless edits to a meaningless page???????Reddwarffan6000 (talk) 15:06, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand your question - why am I not reverting your meaningless edits? You're almost making it sound like you want me to... — alex.muller (talk • edits) 15:08, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

External Links

I appologige. I thought I was helping out by giving usfull links. I will not add any more —Preceding unsigned comment added by StanStandard (talk • contribs) 17:50, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks for understanding, and let me welcome you to Wikipedia! — alex.muller (talk • edits) 17:54, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Welcomez

me welcomez you also. welcome to wikipedia, this is good site, go and post a lot have fun, take care. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shojaijekhi (talk • contribs) 18:14, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks, welcome to you too. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. I'd advise you read through WP:WELCOME for more information on editing. — alex.muller (talk • edits) 18:17, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

is shall becuz you's a hippie and i'm real cool guy and you's my main man! you rock dude i'm gonna get ur autograpg really!!!

-no, just kidding. waht i wanna say is; i want to be useful to wikipedia, so i want to join a project. can you please show me a project and tell me how to join? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shojaijekhi (talk • contribs) 18:21, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Find something that interests you for a WikiProject to take part in, for example Computing, UK Music or Nintendo. Really, whatever you enjoy! See Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory for a list of WikiProjects. As for joining, that depends mostly on each project - read their project pages for details. Hope this helps — alex.muller (talk • edits) 19:10, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

can you perhaps give me the name of a user from Iran who is from Kermanshah? I need to discuss some things with a Kermanshahi-Irani in order to discuss certain geographical locations with. can you show me such a user, perhaps? Shojaijekhi (talk) 19:43, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't know any users from Iran, unfortunately – you might try asking your question at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Iran and/or Wikipedia:Iranian Wikipedians' notice board. Hope this helps — alex.muller (talk • edits) 19:50, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

thank you very much. this really helps me alot. i will go there and ask for such a user there, okay? then i can make better articles and do better contributions here. i just seek something i know something about (persian people and geography of iran) and go and post there. thank you very much for showing me the way here. aye could not have done anything without your good help! Shojaijekhi (talk) 20:01, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

You're most welcome. — alex.muller (talk • edits) 20:02, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

the links you gave me were most useful and very friendly but it seems to me the users from there are rarely active and for weeks there has been no edit on the pages if i look at it on the pages histories. will you give me another link to iranian related stuff? is there perhaps an editor by the name of kermanshahi, or irani-kermanshah? Shojaijekhi (talk) 20:10, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

You're more than welcome to leave a message at User talk:Kermanshahi (who from his user page appears to be an active Iranian editor), but remember that he has no obligation to reply at all, and may not be able to answer your question. Past that, I'm afraid I don't know any more that would help you. — alex.muller (talk • edits) 20:15, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

You've perfectly helped me. There is just one thing I want to know: were can I change my username? I made this account in a hurry and am not to happy with the name. My first few edits turned out to be rather disatrous. I wanna start again with a clean record. I know, on the other hand, that I cannot. Therefore I want to change my username, at least. Then I will find out how to achieve talk-pages and go on as if nothing has happened. So can you give me some direction to where I can change my username? It is the last thing I shall ask from you. I promise. Shojaijekhi (talk) 20:33, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

See WP:CHU for more information on changing your username :) — alex.muller (talk • edits) 20:43, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Vandal revert

Hey Alex, no problem with the revert. Thanks for your diligent help with our recent visitors. Best, Gwernol 22:23, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Subject: Hebrew Israelites page.

My link was removed because I was accused of making an advertisement. The only thing we advertise is the truth of the so called African American. People need to be aware of this link as well as other Hebrew Israelite links.

Please alow our link Malakiyah.org It's not a church of any sort but an education tool.

So once again I request that our link: Malakiyah.org be listed.

Thanks!

If there is any other proble please let us know

KhazaqYah! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Khazaqyah (talk • contribs) 15:48, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I've had a look at your site, and it doesn't seem to comply with the guidelines at Wikipedia:External links – that is to say, it doesn't have any additional research that is of benefit to the article. If your link should be listed, why are there not links to every website similar to yours. I just don't feel it's appropriate. If you still disagree after reading Wikipedia:External links, we can ask for comment from other editors. — alex.muller (talk • edits) 15:55, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

TSCM Page

Please stop adding inappropriate external links to Wikipedia, as you did to Technical Surveillance Counter-Measures. It is considered spamming and Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or promotion. Since Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, additions of links to Wikipedia will not alter search engine rankings. If you continue spamming, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. — alex.muller (talk • edits) 13:43, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Dear Alex, This is the FIRST time i have received any messages regarding not being able to add my link. Since there are other Business/commercial links on this page, i didn't think it would be a problem? Would you please define what is inappropriate about my contribution to TSCM ? regards, ZipSplat —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zipsplat (talk • contribs) 20:24, 13 January 2008

I've replied on your talk page. — alex.muller (talk • edits) 20:26, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

A quick look at your contributions page reveals it's not the first time – as well as the warning message above from the 11th January (example diff). I (and other editors, according to the times it's been reverted) just aren't convinced that the links add anything to the article. Have a read through WP:External Links, let me know your thoughts, and we can ask other editors to comment if you still feel the same way. Regards — alex.muller (talk • edits) 20:24, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

This is true, I just assumed others were knocking me off! lol You know what happens when we assume...I will familiarize myself more with whats required before attempting to add anything to the article. Regards, John —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zipsplat (talk • contribs) 20:33, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for understanding. I don't want to dissuade you from contributing though, as Wikipedia thrives on the contributions of its editors. Remember to be bold! All the best — alex.muller (talk • edits) 20:41, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

It Was Always Me - Don't Delete

Hi, this is in regards to the page for It Was Always Me. It has been tagged for deletion, I want you to not delete it.

I have added enough info on there proving that it is a valid film that has starred name talent. By not deleting the information on it, it can still 'exist' and will therefore hopefully be released commercially in some form at some point.

Lol, lets not make this film a total 'ghost film'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by YuleT (talk • contribs) 01:25, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for contributing to the article, though it's not me who has the power to delete it. There's a discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/It Was Always Me, so go there and add your comments if you want to keep it. In a few days time, the discussion will close and an administrator will decide what the consensus is. — alex.muller (talk • edits) 01:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

College Of Mount Saint Joseph Page

Hey, You keep on changing the College of Mount Saint Joseph page back and deleting my truthful additions to it. Why? As a mount student (class of 09) I know far more about it than you, I'm sure.

Let me tell you that without a doubt every WORD I HAVE WRITTEN is the truth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Asmkillr323 (talk • contribs) 00:24, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't consider additions like this or this to be particularly useful. Contributions to Wikipedia should follow guidelines, like having a neutral point of view. Read through the welcome pages for more information on contributing. Thanks — alex.muller (talk • edits) 00:29, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe that anyone who has had an encounter with the college of mount saint joseph or its legions of lazy football players (the average GPA is about 1.5 for them, but they still manage to graduate with honors) can have a neutral point of view. I seek to show the world the college as it really is, and to expose its hypocracy and lies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Asmkillr323 (talk • contribs) 00:34, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

You're free to "expose hypocrisy and lies", but I've never had an experience with people from your school. And if I was doing research on it, turning to Wikipedia, I'd want to read about it from a neutral point of view. Essentially, Wikipedia isn't the place to share your personal opinion. — alex.muller (talk • edits) 00:37, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Alex, I feel you should know that no one cares about the College of Mount Saint Joseph. NO ONE does research on it. The only people who do research on it are the people who might come here, and don't they deserve to know the truth?

That people who come here don't have to attend class as long as they are on the football team? That as long as you're an 'athlete' you can get away with whatever the fuck you want? Like pissing on people in the hall while you're drunk?

But, to be fair, I must ask; How many hits has this site gotten? EVER? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Asmkillr323 (talk • contribs) 00:42, January 15, 2008

How many hits has Wikipedia got? More than enough. As for that article, I don't believe statistics are available. All I can say is that editors (not just me) will keep reverting contributions that don't adhere to the guidelines. I'd suggest making a blog or Livejournal account if you have to share your feelings about school. — alex.muller (talk • edits) 00:50, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure that wikipedia has tons of views a day, because people are stupid enough to think that it is an accurate source.

However, I can honestly tell you that that makes this the perfect place for the truth to be known. Which would you prefer? The candy coated lie? What about on 9/11 pages? What about on Holocaust pages? Do you want people to think they didn't happen, and that everything is ok? Or would you rather contribute to a reliable and truthful source of knowledge, to be shared FOR FREE to all mankind, regardless of any factor?

I assure you, I had no intentions, nor harbor an intention, to vandalize the page of my College. I wish to arm people who would look into coming here with KNOWLEDGE, real, firsthand knowledge, and not the bullshit that people will spew to them when they get here about how we have air conditioning in all the dorms (bullshit, only the third that the FOOTBALL PLAYERS inhabit has any AC), and about how everyone is treated equally (as much the truth as the near same line spouted by the Pigs in Animal Farm).—Preceding unsigned comment added by Asmkillr323 (talk • contribs) 00:59, January 15, 2008

I don't care to argue about whether Wikipedia is a reliable source or not – trust me, I get enough of that in real life. You can read a bit more about vandalism for more details. In any case, I hope you enjoy Wikipedia and decide to contribute constructively to the encyclopaedia. — alex.muller (talk • edits) 01:05, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

You can't win that argument, because it is not and you know it. HOwever, I feel that you are willfully blocking a constructive contribution, and that in doing so you do our future students a great disservice. In short, what is wrong with telling people the truth? Or does Jimbo Wales deign that you only speak in lies and half-truths? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Asmkillr323 (talk • contribs) 01:08, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, but the fact of the matter is that I'm going by Wikipedia guidelines, which is what matters. Administrator Gwernol has apparently confirmed this by also reverting your changes to the article (diff). If you're still concerned about the way I've acted after carefully reading through Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, I'd advise you go to him for help. Unfortunately I don't think there's anything more I can say to convince you — alex.muller (talk • edits) 01:19, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate that you, like a good little tool, have passed me along to the 'hacksaw' in this equation. Way to tow that jackass party line. HEIL JIMBO! I also appreciate the fact that you and Gwernol are combined too stupid to see the part of the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Mount website that talks about NURSING being the most popular Mount academic program, or that they have added more teachers to the Criminology program (and behavioral science programs in general) than any other. Way to work hard at Wiki.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Asmkillr323 (talk • contribs) 01:22, January 15, 2008

Brand new artical

My artical is brand new and please give me a good reason to have it deleted and it shows proof that it exists. Runningblader (talk) 00:57, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Your article qualified for speedy deletion in that it was about a company or group that isn't notable enough to be included on Wikipedia. — alex.muller (talk • edits) 01:02, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Asmkillr323

No problem. It was clear that this user had no intention of making constructive contributions. Best, Gwernol 01:39, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

don't just delete

i'm trying to get admins to block that web page from normal people Runningblader (talk) 02:24, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, you don't own a page - in most cases, there's nothing to stop somebody else from editing it. See Wikipedia:Ownership of articles for more details. — alex.muller (talk • edits) 02:27, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Last Edit

You deleted my edit, but I did not edit anything due to a edit conflict. Therefore I do not appreciate your actions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Funfun101 (talk • contribs) 15:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

This edit that you made to Asia was not constructive, so I reverted it. Please read the links on your talk page (User talk:Funfun101) for more information on contributing. Thanks — alex.muller (talk • edits) 15:38, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Parkways Foundation

A proposed deletion template has been added to the article Parkways Foundation, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. If you agree with the deletion of the article, and you are the only person who has made substantial edits to the page, please add {{db-author}} to the top of Parkways Foundation. Kannie | talk 01:42, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

What?

alright alex i will make this clear I did because I know more than you and it was not a disruptive edit! all i said was he blew the japanese out of the water and made the king happy that doesnt sound disruptive didnt it? NO! so ddont say its disruptive because it isnt! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maddachieb6 (talk • contribs) 15:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

User talk:Maddachieb6 blocked and unblocked

Hello, Alex. I blocked Mad and then unblocked as it looks like a content dispute, apart from the misspellings. Can you give me more info? I don't see the vandalism, but would not recognize false info. Cheers and thanks. Dlohcierekim 16:07, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Looking at it again, perhaps I was too hasty with the AIV. This was the diff I took issue with and honestly, I'm having trouble putting it into words – I suppose there's nothing particularly wrong with the content, but the edit certainly wasn't constructive in terms of improving the article. I guess I'd appreciate your comment on where WP policy is on this, since that's the easiest way to make decisions on warning & reverting. Based on the fact they already had up to a level 4 from various users, I left a 4im and AIV'd. Happy for them to stay unblocked unless there's anything more. Thanks — alex.muller (talk • edits) 17:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Helping me with links to Google

Hello Alex

Recently you help me, by telling me that it is best not to link to Google, thank you for that.

I have recently reassigned/reworded the entire contents of a trivia section within a page and am unsure wether to remove the notice about trivia sections could you please advise

Regards (don't)Know67 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Know67 (talk • contribs) 15:49, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry it took me a while to reply – since you left that comment, someone's removed the trivia tag from the article. And in this case, yes, you were right to think that you could get rid of it. Many thanks for your contributions, and let me remind you that you can definitely be bold in your edits – if there's any real problems, someone else will undo the change you made, but that's very rare — alex.muller (talk • edits) 23:16, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for deleting Jay-Out's page. I didn't tag it because I didn't know if he was going to expand it or what. Apparently he just wanted something that looked Wikignomish. Again, thanks! --Gp75motorsports ^{REV LIMITER} 11:43, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

No problem, glad I guess I made the right call – wasn't too happy with the fact his username was exactly the same as the page name :-) — alex.muller (talk • edits) 14:55, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

And he has recreated it. see here. We may have to SALT his page for his own good. --Gp75motorsports ^{REV LIMITER} 15:39, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I see what you mean – I guess it's best if we keep an eye on it, and if any obvious promotional stuff goes up, it can be dealt with by an administrator (deleted if need be) — alex.muller (talk • edits) 18:34, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Speedy tag of J oliveira

Hey there Alex.muller. Thanks for your contributions and for doing new page patrol. It's a thankless job but you are doing great. I removed the speedy tag from J oliveira as it (barely) asserted notability. It might be a false notability (I haven't searched yet) and even if it's a true assertiion of notability, it may not be enough for Wikipedia, but that's what AfD is for. I encourage you to help the new editor if in fact his/her first contribution is valid. The article needs massive help if it were to stay here, but it was only 1 minute old when you tagged it with {{db-bio}}. Please ask if you have any questions! Cheers, Keeper | 76 18:25, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate your decision, but I don't feel the article asserts notability – I'm happy to leave it for a while, keeping an eye and helping where I can, and taking it to AfD sometime if that's necessary. Thanks — alex.muller (talk • edits) 18:36, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I have no issues with it going to AfD. Have you attempted to find any resources that back up the claim made in the article? I realize thie "article" as it sits doesn't have much to go on, but I'll poke around google myself to see if I can substantiate any of the claims. The article's creator has not touched it since being tagged/untagged, and hasn't edited anything else, so my suspicion is he/she may be long gone already. I'll let you know if I find anything on google. Thanks again, Keeper | 76 19:04, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I've had a very quick look but there's nothing that strikes me as a "good reference". I might put some tags on the article in the near future (or you can, of course) to get it put in some categories, maybe get seen and contributed to by others. A first name instead of just J would be useful :-) — alex.muller (talk • edits) 19:15, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

this is interesting. Towards the bottom, you'll see J oliveira as an importer. The website name for "further information? www.tri-vin.com What was the name of the WP:SPA? trivin06. Hmm. Looks really spammy now. Blast it all, please prod that badboy. Keeper | 76 19:21, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Consider it done – I have to say, that's some nice detective work, as I completely missed the name of the account when searching. Very cool! — alex.muller (talk • edits) 19:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I added my two cents to the article, but I'm still pissed at myself for removing your appropriate speedy, now I hafta watch list that darn spam article and look at it for 5 days. Hopefully, Mr. Trivin doesn't show up and remove it. Cheers to you, happy editing, Keeper | 76 19:42, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Just so you know, I'll have it in my watchlist all week as well, keeping a close eye – so don't feel compelled to watch it if you don't want to, but I guess you will anyway to make sure. All the best — alex.muller (talk • edits) 20:46, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Working Man's Barnstar
		Thank you for your hard work in fighting off the hordes of vandals, spammy new pages, and ridiculous articles - and doing so with civility and grace. Rare qualities indeed! Your work here has not gone unnoticed and you deserve a barnstar! You would make a terrific admin, have you considered picking up the mop? Cheers, Keeper | 76 20:54, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Admin coaching is good, or if you don't like the formality, just generally latching onto a few good admins/editors and mimicking what they do. Have you participated much in others' RfAs with supports/opposes? If you haven't, I'd strongly suggest doing exactly that before you did your own RfA. With 1100 edits, you have an outside shot, but if you've never seen an RfA go really well, or tank really badly, you won't know what to avoid in your questions. There are a lot of people that "vote" in an RfA solely on your answers to the questions. It seems that some don't even look at the contributions, just read the answers to the questions. If I were you, I would spend some time reading what others' say about themselves and especially reading the oppose section of a few to see what sort of pitfalls are out there. I'm not, but any stretch, saying I'm an expert, I've only been a 'pedian since Aug 07 and an admin for exactly 1 week. But I know a good editor when I see one, and you're a good editor! If you'd like, I can answer any questions you have and move you towards "the mop", I would be happy to nominate you sometime in the future (self-noms are another pitfall) if you think you'd like to be a janitor. Keeper | 76 22:02, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I actually haven't gone near RfAs yet, at least not in terms of supporting or opposing – have read through some of the horribly bad ones though, just because they're good experience on where it might go wrong. Mental note made to start reading through more of those, and participate if I feel so inclined. Many thanks for the offer of help and nomination – I guess maybe with another month or six weeks worth of experience I'd seriously consider it. In any case, I really appreciate your kindness — alex.muller (talk • edits) 22:58, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Reverts on Woodberry Forest School

Wow, you certainly work fast Alex. Not sure my post lasted 5 minutes. Is this a job or merely a personal crusade? I take exception with your opinion that my edit was not "notable." Surely my post was more notable than "Gary Muller" or "Jonathan Kvanvig." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Charleston7 (talk • contribs) 19:04, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Hey Charleston7 – basically, the situation is that to be included on Wikipedia, something has to fulfill various notability guidelines. If you can provide links to 3rd party sources (like news articles or biographies) for the person you added to Woodberry Forest School's page, it'd be awesome to have your contribution there. We can even look at setting up an article for that person, I'd be more than happy to help. — alex.muller (talk • edits) 19:13, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

OXEGEN

yes but in fairness the point i'm trying 2 get across is that it can often be mistaken....I'm choosing to make it in a humourous fashion I might add! —Preceding unsigned comment added by JohnnyBorrell-Is-God (talk • contribs) 23:23, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

We appreciate that you're trying to do it in a humorous way – but this is an encyclopaedia and articles here are intended to be serious, so please don't make funny edits. Readers who might be looking for serious articles probably won't find them amusing. Thanks for your contributions — alex.muller (talk • edits) 23:28, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

RE: your changes to software engineering

why in the world would you revert that biased garbage that i removed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.225.10.252 (talk) 07:21, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

appologies...

i did not see your message on my talk page. That being said... i DID leave a reason for the deletion in the 'reason' field when submitting my edit. the section I removed is biased and opinionated, it certainly does not belong in an encyclopedia please revert it back. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.225.10.252 (talk) 07:24, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I just had another more detailed look, and it seems you're right - I must've been in a rush before, saw a massive removal of text and missed the edit summary. My mistake, I'm sorry. Also, remember to log in when leaving notes, I had a little trouble figuring out which edit you were talking about. — alex.muller (talk • edits) 08:57, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Servis

I'm a bit puzzled as to the speedy deletion of this article - the tag you mention on my talk page concerns articles about an individual or group of individuals. This is certainly not the case as Servis is a manufacturing business or brand. Moreover looking at the deletion log - which was active at about Jan 8 the decision was keep - certainly it as notable as other companies eg. Tefal,Breville or Smeg.I don't work for the business (so no conflict of interest), nor did I simply cut and paste from other source material (as suggested by the copy-vio tag that cropped up too) - though I have owned appliances manufactured by them. Not sure what should happen next? CustardJack (talk) 10:09, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

That's interesting – I didn't realise the tag placed on your talk page only mentioned people, and none of the other reasons for A7 speedy deletion. You can see that CSD A7 also applies to companies that don't assert significance. If you can give reasons in the article that Servis is important (unique products, records etc) and can provide references to third party sources (for example newspaper articles) then the article would be fine to exist here. Let me know, I'd be more than happy to help if you decide it's possible to recreate without being deleted again. Oh, and I should also mention that it's possible to get the deleted content back again if you need/want to expand on it. Thanks — alex.muller (talk • edits) 10:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Servis (now part of Merloni) used to be a signigicant employer in the West Midlands - employing 500 people until the close of the washing machine factory in 1985 (ref Hansard). Their "Quartz" washing machine range were amongst the first to be under computer control (I owned one) (ref Black Country Museum/Wolverhampton History and Heritage society). CustardJack (talk) 11:43, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm having a look round for any kind of articles online that would assert notability of the company – news hasn't turned up anything, but I'll keep having a look. And if you find anything that could show the company to be notable, either go ahead and create the article with a link to the source or let me know and I'd be happy to have a look at it. — alex.muller (talk • edits) 22:00, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you

Hi, thank you for cleaning off that anons accusation. I've actually been accused of being a bunch of the people in the bios I work on so I don't take it too personally. Benjiboi 21:44, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

No problem at all, pleased I could help – I'm impressed that you stop it from affecting you more negatively, and glad that you haven't left the community because of it. Silly anon edits like that can't stand. All the best — alex.muller (talk • edits) 23:03, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

The only one I felt important to deny was Chris Crocker as he seems to get death threats every day - I don't want to be killed for mistaken identity! Benjiboi 01:18, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

WikiGnome!

Thanks for being a wikignome, it's awesome. Someone must keep order in this chaos. Well that would be the case if this 'chaos' wasn't just fascist conspiracy to brainwash the masses with false information and suppress the natural order of things. What you are doing amounts to censorship and violates my human rights. You have become part to the system; the mindless drones of wikipedia that twitch at any disturbance at the 'force.' Except that the force is a huge big lie, like the cake was. So please, don't join to powers of authority, be a man, rise up against the revolution and join our brotherhood!

Because they will come for you when you least expect it... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.151.65.169 (talk) 22:45, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

For the benefit of other editors, I'm gonna reply to this; I have to assume this is just a friend messing with me. And yeah, I know who you are... All the best — alex.muller (talk • edits) 23:09, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to delete Biocultural diversity

I've only justed noted this article, and the associated proposal!!

Please there have been maps of the world overlaying cultural diversity upon biological diversity, seeking to demonstrate the necessary interaltionship between the two ie this worlds biocultural diversity. This work has been supported by United Nations, with a United Nations publication .. there is at least one substantial funding body (Christensensfund) that promotes work to preserve and promote biocultural diversity .. etc ..

I don't think this article should be deleted .. and I am willing when time permits over the next week or so to expand the article and include the external links to papers etc referred above!

All of this is by way of a more detailed explanation for why I've removed the proposed deletion tag you've put on the article. I hope you agree and find the above agreeable?! Bruceanthro (talk) 16:18, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm very happy with the additions you've made to the article, and having more information here is always preferential to deletion. Probably wouldn't hurt to have a few more sources in the article, and it still needs to be expanded a bit to definitely avoid being taken to AfD, but apart from that it's all good. Many thanks — alex.muller (talk • edits) 19:10, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Newmeyer and Dillion LLP

Hi Alex, I hope you are well. I am confused the tagging of this article as spam. Can you explain to me how to edit it so that it would be in conformity please? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Steno895 (talk • contribs) 23:36, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the speedy deletion tag from the article, though there's still some work to be done if you want it to remain on Wikipedia. You need to assert notability for this company, by citing reliable sources like, for example, newspaper articles. I'll have a look at some point for you (possibly tomorrow afternoon) though if you have any links, be sure to keep adding them to the article and improving it. I'll keep an eye on it for you, and hope this is useful. You should also make the section titled "Practice Areas" read less like an advertisement. — alex.muller (talk • edits) 23:42, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Alex, I have made some changes and added references. What do you think now? Thanks again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Steno895 (talk • contribs) 00:19, January 29, 2008

Yes Steno, this is fantastic – exactly what's needed - if you have anything more, keep on adding it, but that's definitely heading in the right direction. I don't mean to sound overly enthusiastic, but it's great to come across positive new contributions like these. You're more than welcome for the help, I'm really enjoying this. Let me know if there's anything at all I can help with, and all the best — alex.muller (talk • edits) 00:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Alex. This could not have been possible without your help. Keep up the good work! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Steno895 (talk • contribs) 00:40, January 29, 2008

No problem at all – as I said, let me know if there's anything more I can do. — alex.muller (talk • edits) 00:43, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Alex, when I type in "newmeyer & dillion" or "newmeyer and dillion" in the search box for wikipedia, nothing seems to show up. Is there something wrong with the page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Steno895 (talk • contribs) 01:00, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

It sometimes takes a while for the search index to update. It should definitely be there within a few hours, and Google will probably index it shortly after that. From Wikipedia:Searching: "For reasons of efficiency and priority, very recent changes are not always immediately taken into account in searches." — alex.muller (talk • edits) 01:08, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much, again Alex. I really appreciate it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Steno895 (talk • contribs) 01:10, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Never mind, Keeper took care of it. Thanks again for all your help, Alex. You are excellent at what you do. Steno895 (talk) 02:18, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Input sought

I see that you fight a lot of vandalism and that you're on right now as I type this. I'm seeking input from some vandal fighters outside my usual circle in order to get a fresh perspective:

When we revert vandalism by someone who already received a level 4 warning, any other warnings make it seem like, "Oh, we didn't really mean it when we said that was your last warning," like the parent who says, "This is the last time I'm going to tell you" five times before taking action. What about something like this?[1] Another big reason for suggesting this: So any admin responding to the AIV could see at a glance that the level 4 warning was for a violation earlier than the last one.

When a vandal keeps vandalizing the same article, I've seen admins make the mistake of thinking an edit after the warning was actually the edit for which they'd been warned, in which case the admin fails to block. If the AIV process consistently worked as smoothly and quickly as possible, nothing like this would be needed, but that's just not the case. Sometimes it takes a bit for the admin to research the case. In the meantime, the vandal just keeps vandalizing. This isn't just about the message we send the vandal. It's also about the message we send to any other users who might see all those pages where somebody got a "last" warning followed by several more warnings.

It might also prevent duplicate reporting of vandalism, which just adds overhead to an already busy process. I know I've certainly found myself sometimes preparing to report vandalism only to find the user was already blocked by the time I brought the information to AIV, especially with reports that are more complicated to explain. If I saw a tag like this, I could have moved on to something more useful.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. Doczilla (talk) 10:12, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I know exactly what you mean – the way I'm working at the moment is reporting whenever I catch vandalism and the user already has a level 4, and leaving a 4im "only warning" notice and sending it to AIV. I like the idea of your 4x template very much (out of curiosity, can that be used as a warning now?)

If your template was implemented as a standard, I'd definitely use it – sorry for the brevity of the reply, but if you want more detail, I can reply later — alex.muller (talk • edits) 10:19, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I've had much more time to read through your proposal and think about it now. In short, yes, it's a fantastic idea because of the repeated warnings that occur. As for the reporting to AIV, I'm using Twinkle, which has a fantastic vandalism reporting script built in, so the duplicate reports aren't an issue. — alex.muller (talk • edits) 16:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

The revert

Thanks! Acalamari 00:31, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

No problem – that was very odd... — alex.muller (talk • edits) 00:32, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Narooz

Thanks for improvements on the article I initiated on Narooz. This holiday is apparently celebrated by millions of people. Hopefully it will be improved and expanded. I search for subjects like this to initiate.Richard Dates (talk) 18:42, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Not at all, I like looking for new articles to expand. All the best — alex.muller (talk • edits) 18:59, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

de Heem

As far as I can tell, the Spanish and French articles are only really copies of this one (or the other way round) – I only speak French. The German article is a little more lengthy, but still doesn't cite any references for the person. Not being notable is a criteria for deletion, and as far as I can tell, there's no notability asserted in the article through WP:BIO. Please let me know if I'm wrong — alex.muller (talk • edits) 18:21, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

You are free to prod it, as I am to remove the prod. An Afd would be enormously unlikely to succeed, though it would probably produce improvements. A google search shows de Heem is effortlessly notable. Have you ever considered improving articles instead of prodding them? Johnbod (talk) 18:30, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I never said you weren't allowed to remove the prod. Unfortunately, I know absolutely nothing about art or artists, so trying to improve this article (or even judging notability) is much more difficult for me than for an expert on the subject. That seems to be a reason prod exists – I've apparently misjudged the notability of the subject. Obviously (looking at your contributions) you know more about this area than I do, so I'd really appreciate it if you'd improve the article. — alex.muller (talk • edits) 19:43, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I've done what I can. Generally, if anyone bothers to write about someone from 350 years ago, they are notable. Artists are notable by virtue of having works in significant collections, which de Heem easily passes. Johnbod (talk) 00:13, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

That's good to know, thanks. And I was incredibly pleasantly surprised by the edits you've made to that article, it's clear you know a lot about art — alex.muller (talk) 18:45, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Blocked

No, not you. The IP that was vandalising your userpage is blocked for 31 hours though. Three graffiti sprays are enough for one night. It's a 31 hour block, and I've got him/her watchlisted. Cheers friend, Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 21:20, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Keeper, much appreciated :) — alex.muller (talk) 21:22, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

RFA thanks

.: RFA thanks :.

Thanks for supporting me! My RfA passed with a final tally of 5 neutrals, 1 oppose and 148 supports, a turnout I couldn't have dreamed of. I'm going to do everything I can to help out the community, help with sysop tasks, and of course, contribute to the encyclopedia. If you ever need a hand with something, feel free to give a shout! Cheers! Master of Puppets Call me MoP!☺ 17:48, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becky_Griffin

Hello Alex,

My edit on becky was not irrelevant, she left the UK after a break up with Nick Williams after he failed to turn up to a few arranged dates, you can ask her yourself, as it seems you know her better than myself.

Regards Martin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.147.100.205 (talk) 20:35, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey Martin - I removed the information because Wikipedia's policy on the biographies of living people is very strict. There can't be any original research (so you're not allowed to add stuff in just because you know or think it to be true) and the content has to be verifiable using 3rd party sources, for example news reports. If you know of any that can be included to back up the information, that'd be excellent. Thanks, and hope this helps —αlεx•mullεr 20:40, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

IP

I'd say they're not here to contribute, just a garden-variety vandal. I've blocked for 24 hours. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 22:11, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Keilana - appreciated :) —αlεx•mullεr 22:33, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Vandal #543

hey losers i'm just giving you the facts —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.198.122.181 (talk) 13:39, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Don't suppose you'd be interested in contributing constructively? ;) —αlεx•mullεr 13:43, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

White Owl Winery ads

I tried to rework the article to remove the ad-like tone. One of my earlier edits to help make the claim of notability clearer probably gave the wrong impression. I think now it reads better. The only bragging is low-key and fact based; the only product listing is simply there to describe what type of winery it is, and to describe the two notable features. I removed the tag, but feel free to add it back if the article still reads like an ad. I have no expertise in wines or Illinois, so can't salvage much more out of it. My hope is a wikiproject picks it up and expands it from a stub. JackSchmidt (talk) 23:23, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I should've looked through the history before blindly tagging – in any case, it looks better than it did now. Thanks —αlεx•mullεr 19:01, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

NLT block

Thanks for understanding. CamCham's e-mail was a solicitation for evidence to be used in a legal action. I removed your warning because this situation is outside of the purview of WP:DR. Cheers, ˉˉ^anetode╦╩ 18:14, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Yep, it's good like that - I'm no lawyer, but from an average, normal POV there doesn't seem to be anything in those legal threats. It was BLP material which Ohnoitsjamie verified via email/OTRS was well cited, so I'd be interested to see if anything does come of it. Thanks —αlεx•mullεr 18:57, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Foreign language articles

Hi. :) I came across your speedy deletion tag on Ujang Sumajang, and I just wanted to point out to you that WP:CSD#G1 excludes "material not in English". When you run into an article of this type, please tag it for translation by placing {{notenglish|language}} at the top of it. The notice that places on the page will generate a string of text for you to copy onto Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English. Don't worry if you don't know the language; I usually try to take a stab at it, and I feel good most of the time if I'm in the right part of the world. :) A good many of these articles will be tagged for speedy deletion by the translators after they've reviewed the material, but once in a while one will surprise you. Thanks for keeping an eye out on article quality! --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:02, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey - just so you know, I did do a Google search for some text from the article and all that came up were a couple of Myspace pages, and from the DoB (1991) I'm guessing it's just a kid creating a page. Cheers —αlεx•mullεr 20:08, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Quite probably. I agree with you that it doesn't smack of notability, but it's just current protocol to give somebody who knows (or at least can name) the language a chance. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:12, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah OK - and out of interest, if it's not possible to tell the difference between nonsense and a foreign language, is it best to just move on? —αlεx•mullεr 20:17, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't just move on. I tend to grab a word or two and do a google search to see if it shows up. (Sometimes, I can identify the language that way, but with some language families that doesn't help. Northern European languages, for example, have a lot in common.) If I tried a number of words on a page and got no matches to any of them, then I'd be inclined to presume that I had hit Wikipedia-defined nonsense. If I absolutely couldn't tell if it was a language or gibberish, I'd probably just list it at article's for translation under language unidentified with a comment that it could be nonsense. The editors there will probably figure it out. :) This one hasn't been translated yet, but it looks like it's probably going to wind up {{db-bio}}, based on a comment there. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:22, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Moonriddengirl, I'll bear that in mind for the future. And if I've still got you reading this, can I ask one more question? :) What are WP thoughts/consensus on using an automated translator to assist with translations for languages that I have no idea about? I wouldn't mind helping out with the backlog at WP:PNT, but only really speak French. For example, I just put one Japanese page into Google translate and got output that was very understandable, if a little confused. Obviously never just copy/pasting the result, as they often give out nonsense. —αlεx•mullεr 20:32, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the general thought is on that, but I've seen people do it. I suspect if you can get good sense out of it, then it would be fine. You can always list it further down the page Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English, for translated pages that require further cleanup. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:51, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your help - I'll definitely look into it in the future :) —αlεx•mullεr 20:58, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

(←) I was still watching this page. I thought I'd mention User:Blofeld of SPECTRE has a very bold vision of translating a few hundred thousand articles from fr.wikipedia.org to here, mostly on French towns and villages. I think the backlog is a few hundred thousand pages, all stubs. Generically speaking, any topic-based wikiproject you look at is bound to want some pages translated from fr.wikipedia.org to here. One fun task I've been doing lately is patrolling Category:Candidates for speedy deletion and trying to save any that are both mismarked and worth saving, this is a bit more gnomish than full on translation so might appeal. It's a fun alternative to new page patrol. JackSchmidt (talk) 21:21, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll keep that in mind, seeing as going through newpage/recentchanges/newbiechanges can get a little tiring after a while; thanks Jack. —αlεx•mullεr 23:43, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

username

AntiChrist (talk · contribs) has not edited since 2005. He has only 3 edits, all of which reverted (NOTE: Not by me). AntiChrist (talk · contribs) should be Usurped. --Some people are gay. Get over it! 19:42, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I've replied at WP:CHU —αlεx•mullεr 19:46, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll just post a little here because it's easier to have a conversation than at CHU. Generally, only significantly old accounts will be allowed to take a usurp. And the account you linked has some contributions, which means it's not eligible for a usurp. —αlεx•mullεr 19:49, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Are you feeling like being raked over hot coals would be a fun use of your week?

If so, give me a holler on my talkpage. I mentioned before that you would make a great admin and you have shown obvious need and use for the tools. I think you would fly through an RfA with minimal drama. Let me know if interested, I'd be honored to nominate you! Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 15:48, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Excellent choice. A few things. 1. It will take me a day or so to work up a nom statement, I'll let you know when the RfA is ready for you to add answers to your questions. 2. Think up some good answers (maybe write em in your sandbox?) to the three standard questions. 3. Do you know of any good editors that would be a good co-nom? Never hurts to have two. Doesn't have to be an admin, just anyone you've had regular contact with. Let me know and I'll ask them on your behalf to add a co-nom. 4. Read through a half-dozen or so failed RfAs, it should be clear why they failed - you'll see other pitfalls to avoid. 5. Take whatever happens with levity. There will always be someone who opposed because of mainspace edits/article building. There will also be someone who opposed because of too much mainspace edits/article building and not enough Wiki-space/meta contribs.

Some brief pointers, not that you'll need them. 1. Don't reply to every oppose. It tends to add more opposes (let other's do any battles that show up) 2. Decide on CAT:AOR if you haven't. Inevitable question is Will you or Won't you be in CAT:AOR, and why. I'm not convinced there's a right answer, so answer what is right for you. (both answers will likely gather an oppose or two anyway, DIYDDIYD.) 3. Know the difference between a ban and a block. I'll be back soon when this link turns blue! Cheers, Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 19:01, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

It's blue! It's blue!. Take a look over the nom statement and let me know if anything there is in error (I wouldn't want to be the reason you get any oppose !votes) :-). Also, I've left a message for Gwernol, to see if he would like to co-nom. Go to the pretty blue link to work out your answers to your questions when you feel ready. There's no hurry. Once I've seen that you've answered the questions, officially "accepted" the nom, and once I've heard back yay/nay from Gwernol, I'll transclude the nom to the RFA mainpage. Cheers friend! It's going to be a great week! Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 20:05, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I suppose I can give you the official notice:-)

Your answers look great! I don't foresee there being any troubles with your nomination. I've heard back from Gwernol that he may be out of town for about a week. You can read on his talkpage my response. Hopefully he adds something in the next 18 hours. If not, it's off to the races for you! Get a good night's sleep, watchlist your RfA and then go back to whatever you normally do on-Wiki like nothing's happening. Once transcluded, I'll add an RfA notice template to your talkpage and userpage (unless you tell me not to before then). Until then, don't go about adverting your upcoming nom! Wouldn't like to see a canvass accusation sink the ship. Cheers A.m! Your nom should be up and running by 3am Wednesday London time. Then the fun begins!Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 21:01, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, you're up and running! (transcluded) I recommend watchlisting Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Alex.muller for when the inevitable extra questions pop in. Cheers and good luck! I know you'll do fine. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 18:00, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Cheers Keeper – let it all begin... :) —αlεx•mullεr 19:24, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Account Creation

Your log looks weird. Apparently you created an account called Special:Contributions/Benben799 which vandalized the five holy pillars of pillardom. Might check if your account was compromised, though it could certainly be that I don't understand the account creation log. JackSchmidt (talk) 21:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

That worried me for a second, but I did create all those from requests at WP:ACC. Shame that one decided to vandalise, but they should just be warned and blocked as normal... thanks for the heads up, in any case —αlεx•mullεr 21:36, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Excellent. That's cool that you can help out creating accounts already without admin. I tend to gnome it up entirely in the article namespace. You seem to know some pretty awesome alternative gnome activities. What are some nice gnome projects?

I love stub sorting and adding cats. New page patrol is cool, but I mostly did it to make sure I could understand deletionists. Now it's just an excuse to stub sort and categorize. Recent changes patrol and live spellcheck are nice, but my wife is way better at those than me. I like to code (mostly in User namespace, but hopefully some templates soon), but those are big projects I rarely have time for (AWB in javascript and NPWatcher in javascript are in progress). I answer questions on the RefDesk and help out at the WikiProject Math. I think that's about it. The rest is all content or meandering talk posts. :) Do you have suggestions for new gnome projects? JackSchmidt (talk) 21:44, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I would also like helping out with accessibility, so WP:ACC sounds theoretically awesome. However, it looks like it is totally under control and most of the account requests are not due to screen readers. Is there anything else like this? JackSchmidt (talk) 21:56, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Thinking through everywhere I've been since I've got here; WP:ACC, WP:CHU come to mind immediately. Definitely look at the coding (template) side of things, that's something I'd be very interested to learn one day. You might have a look at WP:HELPDESK, or just WP:VP for slightly more of a conversation. Oh, and WP:STUBSORT as well. Ah, and I know any help at the backlog is appreciated. See, it takes time for it to all come back to me ;) —αlεx•mullεr 23:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I've almost got the hang of ACC enough to try it I think. I'll try CHU if ACC works well. I answered one thing on help desk, woo. VP looks good. It had some interesting discussions I could have contributed to (but were already done), so I assume it will have more. STUBSORT is my default. My wife is currently doing the other kind of sort, moving people from Category:American actors to more specific ones (I really like the sorting image, Image:Sub-arrows.svg).

Thanks for the suggestions, and good luck on the RfA. Your answers and contribs look good. JackSchmidt (talk) 19:53, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the feed back

Thanks for your much needed feedback! Feedback helps us grow into the blossoming images we should be. Although, I thought this edit was quite offensive and decided to take an offensive approach to the solution. I will be more conscious to this approach and its affect’s. Again thanks for your greatly appreciated feedback.--Jayson (talk) 02:21, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Get rid of editing...

you should get rid of editing —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.22.201.79 (talk) 14:03, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

France

Hi Blofeld; like everyone, I've encountered your village/town stubs on new page patrol, but I'm not here to complain about them... I remember you mentioning at ANI that infoboxes can be transferred from the French Wikipedia, so I just wanted to make sure I'm doing it right before I do a few more. Cheers —αlεx•mullεr 20:38, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes thats right, although on every one I would reduce the number of digits on the location to three after the decimal rather than 10. Soon enough al the redlinks will be in blue and then gradually they can begin development ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 20:48, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you – I'll keep on doing a few more like that then. Cheers —αlεx•mullεr 20:52, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

See how quickly I just added an infobox to Ablancourt and Aigny. Once all the red links are sorted then I can concentrate on making them up to an accpetable standard. There no reason why we couldn't have 36,000 detailed articles eventually ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 20:54, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Occasionally I've lifted the graph from dutch wikipedia see La Chapelle-Anthenaise. Thats just an extra though I wouldn't be concerned about that although i think all the article should have them eventually ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 20:57, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Also interesting - you're incredibly fast at this :) – very much liking the feeling of the creation of all this content/knowledge —αlεx•mullεr 20:59, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Well for instance - prime example. A typical stub like Albas, Lot. Now see this, the French equivalent Basically I see it that english wikipedia is missing 30,000 articles like this which I think eventually would be enormously beneficial ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 00:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Discussion pages…

…make me sick! ʈɧɛ fɨʂɧ (talk) 18:29, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Name choice

How did you choose the format of your name? First name dot lower case last name "First.last" It seems like a very strange format but I see it a lot on Wikipedia. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Actually, it's a strange story now I think about it. My school set up a MediaWiki installation for our Physics class, where we've been doing the course notes together. The teacher insisted that we use "Firstname.lastname" for our usernames, and since the software was exactly the same, I thought it only made sense to have the same name here. —αlεx•mullεr 10:17, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Itneresting. I'll have to ask some more people with this style how it came to be. Thanks for answering my odd query. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Research on the RFA process

Hello, I am an anthropology student researching the Wikipedia Requests for adminship procedure. As you are currently going through this process, I was wondering if you would be willing to answer a few quick questions.

• Do you believe that the current RFA process is an effective way of selecting admins?
• Do you notice a difference between users who are nominated vs selfnoms?
• Is a week an appropriate length for process? Should it perhaps be longer or shorter?
• Do you think the user's status in the community changes while the user is undergoing the RFA process? How about after the RFA process is over?

If you are willing, please leave your answers on my talk page or e-mail them to me.

This research will not be published academically, as this research is primarily to demonstrate the feasibility of doing online ethnography in online only communities such as Wikipedia, though I intend to make my findings available on Wiki. Your name will not be associated with any information you provide in any published work. If you have any questions please let me know. Thank you. --Cspurrier (talk) 18:36, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Y I've replied on your talk page —αlεx•mullεr 20:23, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Warning vandals

Hi, I noticed you didn't warn the IP vandal on WP:Signatures. Was there a specific reason for this? Thanks, Enigma ^msg! 18:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

The thing that threw me was that it was a coherent comment rather than the more standard "LOLYOURMOM" that gets plastered all over the place, so it was obvious (I think) that it wasn't done with too much malice. With hindsight, I should've left a nice handwritten note – at the time, I didn't want to leave a template and so left nothing. Hope this helps —αlεx•mullεr 00:03, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

No problem. I warned the IP. Enigma ^msg! 00:05, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Your advice on new areas has helped quite a bit, and I wanted to say thanks. I've been able to fix several things at work after becoming more familiar with mediawiki internals, and of course I only became more familiar because it was necessary to answer questions at WP:HD and WP:VP/T. I've gotten a mediawiki bug fixed, and even made my first from scratch template (still in my user space today since I am not bold). ACC is going fine, but I've only created two accounts. I'm still nervous about creating similar accounts, but luckily there have been bold admins around, so I content myself doing the clerky part of searching for possible username conflicts. At any rate, thanks again. JackSchmidt (talk) 04:14, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome, Jack. I'm actually now wondering whether there should be a page for experienced users looking for new things to do, much like the welcome page for new users or the new admin school for people learning those tools. Would be an interesting thing to think about creating —αlεx•mullεr 10:01, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm canvassing some of the coder types to see what is out there. I suspect it will be hard to make the page, simply because there are *so* many things out there to do. Like, I imagine it would be easy to get lost reading a list of lists of things that are interesting to do. Imagine the advice (I recently gave) "Go join a wikiproject", to which the obvious question is "Which one?", to which the answer is ... wow, there are tons. Joining a wikiproject is just one way amongst hundreds, so it seems very difficult to me. I'm willing to help if you start one (or haha, find that someone has already started one as a new project!). JackSchmidt (talk) 18:13, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations, you are now an admin

You now have your own mop. Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 19:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm happy to inform you that, due to your successful request for adminship, you have now been promoted to an administrator. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me or stop by the administrators' noticeboard. Congrats! Andre (talk) 19:12, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Congrats Alex! Enigma ^msg! 19:18, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations! Maximillion Pegasus (talk) 19:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Excellent news, I'm very glad it passed. Use the mop well, as I'm sure you will. You're always welcome to ask me questions if you have them. Best, Gwernol 19:49, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Cheers guys! And as though 8 hours a day isn't enough, I now get more school in my spare time as well. Ah well – at least I know for certain I'm going to enjoy this one. Thanks again :) —αlεx•mullεr 19:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah, was there any doubt? You of course, should first read this. Then, do it anyway. After that, go to admin school. And of course, don't really delete the mainpage. Now wipe that silly grin off your face and get back to work! Let me know if you need anything, need a link or a how-to, I'll help where I can and ignore you where I can't :)Cheers, Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 20:06, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

About your RfA

The admins' T-shirt. Acalamari 20:08, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations on passing your request for adminship! Here's a new T-shirt! :) Acalamari 20:08, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations, you are now my Hero

--Adam2z (talk) 20:49, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

ACC|s usage question

Howdy, should ACC|s only be used if a non-admin tries to create the account and fails, or should it be used to notify admins of any likely username conflict? I hadn't realized how many of the requests at ACC could be self-serviced. I thought we could create accounts an IP couldn't, since it would go on our log. Is the default response to an account creation request, "yes if at all possible"?

In other words, is the process supposed to be: create the account if the email looks plausible, reporting implausible emails with ACC|be, no email with ACC|e, and failed creation with ACC|s (or ACC|u)?

I didn't think this was how it was supposed to go (though it makes sense as a possible interpretation of WP:ACC/ADMINS), because how would you know if the request came from a vandal unless you looked? In other words, if I just click create, how does the wikipedia software know the requester was banned? JackSchmidt (talk) 18:08, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

This is going to become a little more difficult now seeing as my RfA just passed – what I did was try and create the account provided the email was apparently correct and the IP talk page had no vandalism warnings on it. If any errors were thrown up then, put the appropriate template on the ACC page. So yep, reading through what you wrote again, you seem to have it exactly right —αlεx•mullεr 00:19, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the confirmation, that should be much simpler than my old method.

Do you know if I have to use the same email address for this user account as for on the ACC mailing list? I tend to use a great many email addresses that all forward to the same place, but based on what email address people write to, I have some vague idea of how they know me or why they are contacting me. The part that confuses me is the "confirm page" that was recently made.

I think some of the other mop-enabled ACC people have a dummy account, like User:Alex.muller (non admin), that they use to try the creates. BTW, congratulations on a not too harrowing RfA. JackSchmidt (talk) 23:49, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't actually know about this mailing list – it'll be the first one I'm on, so we'll see how it goes. As far as I know, you can subscribe with any email address as long as you send a confirmation email linking your Wikipedia username to that email, as the instructions kind of say at WT:ACC. Thanks on the RfA; and I saw Malinaccier gave you rollback today, so see how you find that :) —αlεx•mullεr 01:01, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

No problems getting on the mailing list. Rollback is reasonably nice, but it reminded me why I quit patrolling recent IP changes -- the bad changes come too fast to fix them all. I think instead I'm going to fix a few bugs in Lupin's scripts to make life easier on those who are quicker on the rollback trigger. JackSchmidt (talk) 02:13, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Some AfD thoughts

Hi Alex. Congrats on taking up the mop - may you wield it well.

I see you closed this AfD, and I thought I'd come give you some (completely unsolicited :) ) feedback. Let me start by saying I think your closing was technically correct. In fact, I had started to close the AfD the same way prior to commenting in it. Almost on a whim, I decided to do a bit of research on the company - and concluded that the corp probably does meet the notability guidelines. So, my suggestion is that given that there was not much by way of actual argument for deletion, my comment came in late, and no one had actually responded to it, this might have been a good AfD to relist. We sometimes get carried away with relisting, but I think it's a good solution in these scenarios where a valid comment comes in late and there hasn't been much of a prior debate or discussion. Not a criticism; just an idea to consider.--Kubigula (talk) 23:47, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments – as a completely new admin I will need some prodding in the right direction until I'm more confident in the decisions I'm making :). I had a quick look at those Google News links before closing but didn't see anything that particularly excited me that it might be something notable worth citing (ie nothing more than press releases and Q4 results). I have to say, I'm not a fan of relisting, especially with the amount it seems it's been done recently. My opinion, it's a bit like saying that nobody could be bothered to discuss it the first time round but we really should've done – I think I'd only really relist if there were no comments at all. But just so you know that I will take your comments on board for the future – being here is most definitely the most I've learnt in the shortest amount of time. Cheers —αlεx•mullεr 00:18, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. I think an open mind is about the best quality an admin can have, so you have the right attitude to do well. Cheers.--Kubigula (talk) 03:45, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of GSW Clan

cheers for removing my page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gswclan (talk • contribs) 15:52, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I deleted the page because it had been tagged for speedy deletion as a non-notable group or organisation. I'd be happy to provide you a copy of the deleted material if you want to improve the article so that it agrees with Wikipedia's policy on notability of groups. —αlεx•mullεr 16:04, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar for you!

		The Original Barnstar
		Here's a barnstar for improving Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia! The Helpful One (Review) 22:03, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Servant_Saber_-_disruptive_editing_and_trolling

I humbly request that you review your statement about "keeping an eye on me". You are drawing conclusions that are way out of line. User:Panelgets is using massive sockpuppetry and everyone knows it by now. --Saber^Excalibur! 21:49, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not willing to withdraw what I said (I feel that the conclusions I've drawn are pretty clear from the reasons I gave), but let me qualify my statement by saying that I definitely will not be keeping any sort of an eye on you, just that if your name was to come up at ANI again I'd be less inclined to assume good faith. Now that Panelgets has been blocked I wouldn't expect for you to have any more problems with the Maddox article. Now, let's get back to improving the encyclopaedia, which is after all what we're here for! —Œ±lŒµx‚Ä¢mullŒµr 00:30, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

What I refer to was your statement about my two revert warring blocks, both of which were against users which at that time were not recognized as vandals by others, but now are and indefblocked as such. (Matrix17/Zingostar and Panelgets et al) As explained by User:Daniel Case I should have tackled the issue in less disrupting ways and I do not deny this, but labelling me as a problematic editor because of this would be unjust. From my point of view, anyway. I'm not asking you to retract your statement, but to review your opinion of my role in this incident and if I really was at (major) fault. --Saber^Excalibur! 01:34, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll accept that Panelgets was more at fault than you in this case – as I don't know the intricate details of the Maddox article, what did it for me just now was a more well known editor to me (Seicer) reverting one of Panelgets' edits. I hope you can see my point that if you were to be involved in something similar in the near future, it wouldn't look quite as good. I'm not saying you will be, of course – just my opinion on the matter —αlεx•mullεr 16:04, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

vandalism on my page

much thanks for the revert, I must be doing something right:P--Pewwer42  Talk  21:41, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

No problem. Saw your report at AIV, waited for one more edit to make sure (seeing as they seemed to be doing one a minute) and then nabbed it. Keep on doing what you're doing, please! —αlεx•mullεr 21:43, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Rollback

Hi Cahk, just a quick note to let you know that I've added the Rollback tool to your account. Yours is the first account I've given this permission to, and after reviewing your contributions I think you can be trusted with it – please don't prove my judgement wrong! You might find it helpful to read through the page at Wikipedia:Rollback if you haven't already, and feel free to let me know if there are any problems with it —αlεx•mullεr 21:07, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi Alex,

I will try my best not to let you down. Some of the vandalism to articles I've contributed majorly is driving me insane!

--Cahk (talk) 21:10, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Excellent, do go nuts at the vandalism – there are never enough editors out there to catch it, unfortunately —αlεx•mullεr 22:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

It's crazy... I reverted so many vandals in the past 30mins when there were at least 10 other patrollers reverting changes at the same time.--Cahk (talk) 11:08, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Fantastic work, looking at your recent contributions! You might like to have a read through the page at Wikipedia:WikiProject user warnings as well. It's often helpful if you warn vandals, starting with a low level and then moving up. This means that if the vandal has no intention of changing their ways, they can eventually be blocked from editing by an administrator. There's no definite need for you to warn at all, but it's sometimes useful. The way I do it is to rollback the edits using the normal MediaWiki method (that you've just obtained) and then warn the person using Twinkle. —αlεx•mullεr 17:26, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

My 'expertise' is to deal with anon. IP edits so there's no point of placing a warning.--Cahk (talk) 20:06, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

That's a bit of a red flag. I've asked the user to explain on his/her talk. Prodego ^talk 00:36, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

True, I had the same initial thought, although as far as I'm aware there's no absolute necessity for people on RC patrol to warn vandals, it just helps to get the person blocked quicker if they're going to be persistent no matter what. I'll keep an eye on your conversation with them and comment if/when I feel the need —αlεx•mullεr 00:54, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

As you can see from my contribution, I primarily aim at IP vandals and revert them ASAP. In terms of placing warnings, I don't see a need to do it if it's a IP (as many people can share the same IP and the vandal message might get to the wrong person instead of the target) --Cahk (talk) 02:07, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I've nonetheless placed warnings onto the IP talkpages--Cahk (talk) 09:59, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

← That's for the best – thanks for understanding Prodego's concerns —αlεx•mullεr 10:11, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Ian Chesterman profile

Just wondering why my Ian Chesterman profile was deleted? ~~ben.carbonaro~~ 9:49 pm (AEST) 6 March 2008

I placed a PROD tag on the article because I didn't think the subject of the article was notable enough according to the guidelines found at WP:N. I'd be happy to provide you with a copy of the deleted article if you'd like to work on it to make it notable. Do let me know —αlεx•mullεr 10:46, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

FYI

You're in the signpost. Cheers, hope you're well! Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 16:02, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

That's awesome, cheers Keeper – wondering now whether I should subscribe to the Signpost or not, doesn't seem like a half bad idea. I love the whole culture that's sprung up with newspapers and committees and polls :D. I'm having fun trying to work through WP:ABL, hope you're doing good —αlεx•mullεr 10:51, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Glad you're doing well! I've seen you around a bit in AN and ANI, you're doing great! If you want to sign up for signpost, (and haven't yet), click here and add your name (in alphabetical order), nothing to it. Cheers and have a good weekend! Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 21:52, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Why do the Las Vegas area casinos say they are in Paradise, Nevada?

If that is the guideline then why don't the Orlando resorts state the specific city that they are in? 74.163.224.123 (talk) 19:03, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Query

This is all just overwhelming and rather odd, do you get paid for being an admin or do you just have limited social responsibilities? BTW, if a Wiki page blatantly offended followers of the Muslim faith would it be deleted? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Billcuttings (talk • contribs) 12:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't understand where you're coming from with that seeing as you have no other contributions apart from this one to my page, but I'll answer your questions. I don't get paid for being an administrator here, just like the other 1500 admins, and I don't spend sufficiently long here that it impacts my social life, thanks. As for an article offending Muslims, it wouldn't be deleted because it offended Muslims, but could be according to any of the criteria at WP:DEL. Cheers —αlεx•mullεr 13:35, 7 March 2008 (UTC)