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Invitation to join WikiProject United States

Hello, EncMstr/Archive6! WikiProject United States, an outreach effort supporting development of United States related articles in Wikipedia, has recently been restarted after a long period of inactivity. As a user who has shown an interest in United States related topics we wanted to invite you to join us in developing content relating to the United States. If you are interested please add your Username and area of interest to the members page here. Thank you!!!

--Kumioko (talk) 03:22, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Tables

While you're at it, this could use a fix. Good luck! :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 04:53, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Anna, both for the pointer and for volunteering to assist. I'm a bit perplexed: does the time link (presumably showing errors) relate directly to help:table, or do you that the meta page needs fixing? —EncMstr (talk) 17:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposed Deletion

Hi, I noticed you proposed a deletion to Persá, and that deletion proposal was itself deleted. I think you may be right about that article being made up ("original research", in my opinion) but I'm not an expert. I'm also unclear about how the process works (for example I expected to find a page of discussion about that with a vote or something, but couldn't find it), so I just thought I'd point it out to you in case you wanted to pursue it further. Cbogart2 (talk) 16:20, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

You're Invited! Come Celebrate Wikipedia's 10th Anniversary!

<font=3> You're invited to help celebrate Wikipedia's 10th anniversary! Visit this link for details. An informal celebration will take place at the AboutUs office located at 107 SE Washington Street, Suite 520 in Portland on Saturday, January 15, 2011. An Open Space Technology meeting is scheduled from 5pm to 7pm, with a party to follow. Admission is free!

--Another Believer (Talk) 17:00, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Computing articles at AFD

Hah! You're just the sort of person I've been looking for. (Rodhullandemu doesn't have Visual BASIC textbooks, xe says.) Go and cast your eyes over Is functions (AfD discussion). Uncle G (talk) 03:38, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Columbia Gorge casino

Hi EncMstr-- Because you participated in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Columbia Gorge casino, you may want to see this discussion on the article's talk page. Jsayre64 (talk) 02:23, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


Edits and Reverts

Your first edit to HVAC broken 13 interwiki links, two wikilinks, and one URL. The first of which is fixed by using a UTF-8 capable editor in the future. However, mass replacement of HVAC with something else is not appropriate since it is a common acronym; it is especially inappropriate for the HVAC article. I have reverted all your edits this day for either this inappropriate substitution, or for apparently promoting or introducing a link to a website which does not enhance understanding or knowledge of the associated topics. —EncMstr (talk) 17:57, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

The site in question ranks #2 for the term hvac on Google, I would think it is relevant. Also it has numerous guides ( click 'Browse Topics" on the navigation menu to see more articles on that site) and tutorials which are written by HVAC professionals. Why wouldn't it support the HVAC article on Wikipedia, It provides users what they are looking for, (enhancement of their knowledge on this topic)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Socialjest404 (talkcontribs) 22:01, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
For the simple Google search for "hvac" it does indeed appear near the top. However, this is hardly an argument for including an external link in a Wikipedia article. See the external link guideline which decides the appropriateness based on how the external link enhances and complements the article. —EncMstr (talk) 17:41, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

The article Virtual charter school has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Essentially a dictionary definition, albeit a fairly obvious one, with no references, no information other than the definition, no context that could possibly give it encyclopedic value. Users would be served far better by discussions of the phenomenon of virtual charter schools within articles such as charter school and distance education.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Orlady (talk) 22:47, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Coord parameters

See [1]. If both dim and scale are specified, the scale overrides the dim. 134.253.26.9 (talk) 23:20, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I am assuming you will revert your reversion of my changes? Or should I do it? 134.253.26.9 (talk) 23:21, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
Dim is the new, preferred mechanism for implying a scale. Removing the scale would be preferable, but GeoHack correctly handles both present. I would ignore Dispenser's diagnosis of a scale-dim conflict and leave them as is. Maybe I can get him to drop that warning from the log if that helps? —EncMstr (talk) 23:25, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
In that case, I will remove the scale. I think having both is confusing. Dim is much cleaner. 134.253.26.9 (talk) 23:43, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I'll undo your rv (manually if the automatical undo-action reports no result in the next minutes). There was already a new section on the talk page predicting that some overzealous bot or admin will try to remove the link, and sadly you didn't bother to explain your action. -82.113.106.31 (talk) 04:48, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

(moved reply to Talk:MD5#External links)
Continuing here, because it isn't related to MD5 really. I would suggest not using the rollback but instead using Twinkle, which gives a vandalism button and also a generic rollback and a popup for further explanation. It's easy to add a quick comment. here's a screenshot, you can also look at my contribs for an example. tedder (talk) 06:21, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
The manual undo-function apparently has an edit comment form with a default text (rv from to), it should be easy to add the reason or a pointer to a talk page. But rvv as in your picture is less interesting, vandals don't read edit comments ;-) -82.113.106.28 (talk) 09:53, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I just tided this up a bit, but I'm wondering if you know a way to put the map in the infobox. It doesn't look very good just hanging by itself out there in the article. I would have just deleted it, since I don't really like the maps, but I wanted to acknowledge my bias and defer to your expertise in all things coord and ski related! Cheers, Valfontis (talk) 16:34, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Also, can you sanity check this edit on Pacific Crest Trail? Thanks! Valfontis (talk) 23:12, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
For Anthony Lakes, it does indeed look odd. But I'm at a loss for improvement as well as removing the map since it is useful in explaining its unique location.
For PCT, your edit is a net improvement. One of those links I had checked out before when it was added and decided it was a valuable resource, but offhand I don't remember which one. —EncMstr (talk) 06:28, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Ping

Hey, I'd be interested in your thoughts here when you have a chance. Thanks! -Pete (talk) 18:22, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello, EncMstr. You have new messages at Deor's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

replying to "talk page edit"

"Fixing format errors that render material difficult to read. In this case, restrict the edits to formatting changes only and preserve the content as much as possible."

fixing a common typo certainly seems to fall into that category.

wiki-ny-2007 (talk) 03:24, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

The guideline specifically mentions not fixing typos. Even in the passage you quoted, it says preserve the content as much as possible. The phrase the the is far from "difficult to read".
Formatting changes refers to repairing the indenting of a conversation, striking out text, or moving blocks of text to keep associated text together.
The wiki community is pretty consistent about respecting this guideline. Editors who care will correct their own typos. Most other types of editors object to corrections of their comments. Considering the potential animosity versus the limited benefit, it's just not worth it. If there is a significant communication deficit or error, notify the editor and point out the difficulty. If they grant permission for you to fix it, everyone is cool with such fixes. —EncMstr (talk) 04:46, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
Why isn`t there a talk-to link next to EncMstr signature ? 188.25.28.129 (talk) 17:00, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
40% laziness, 40% to keep the signature short, and 20% so that you have to look at my user page. —EncMstr (talk) 05:34, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Oversighted?

Hi there. Perhaps you remember this. I know you deleted the revision, but I was going to go ahead and get it oversighted. Now I can't find it. Are you able to see if the edit from around November 23-25, 2009 is still visible? I don't recall asking anyone to oversight it, maybe he did the right thing and contacted the oversighters himself? Valfontis (talk) 02:14, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't see the edit in that editor's editing history. What page was it on? That's easier to see deleted edits. —EncMstr (talk) 05:37, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
Look at the two most recent deleted contribs, Enc. tedder (talk) 05:45, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
Thanks! The information is still available to Admins. They occurred as
  • (del/undel) (diff) 2009-11-23T19:44:32 PST (2009-11-24T03:44:32 UTC) . . CatholicWriter2 (talk | contribs | block) (154,200 bytes) (Karl Bjorn Erickson)
  • (del/undel) (diff) 2009-11-23T19:43:12 PST (2009-11-24T03:43:12 UTC) . . CatholicWriter2 (talk | contribs | block) (154,152 bytes) (Karl Bjorn Erickson)
So, no, they haven't been oversighted. I can see what you want removed. —EncMstr (talk) 06:06, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
Thanks both of you for checking. Could one of you send the urls of the diffs in the format of your choice from the list at WP:RFO? I'd like them oversighted per criteria #1. I assume both need to go. I clearly remember the one that revealed my personal information, the second must have been a revsion of that text. Thanks, in return I will copyedit an article of your choice by request! In a reasonable amount of time even. Valfontis (talk) 14:22, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 Done Request emailed. —EncMstr (talk) 15:32, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
I received an email response that both edits are suppressed. —EncMstr (talk) 17:52, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you! Valfontis (talk) 01:03, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Soapbox

As I'm unaware on editing this website properly, I'd like to say I did not use this site to advertise on Buckminster Fuller's page, I added what I considered pop culture, which is popular music.

I'm not a part of the band, I'm a fan, and I thought adding it would be a part of what wikipedia wants.

Im not using the site as a soapbox. If you weren't so damn critical, you could see that.

Dwpsyn, peidiwch a dweud fi bant am defnyddio'r wefan hyn fel ddylai. Cachu ti. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.84.85.238 (talk) 19:31, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello anon 91.84, you might want to read up on civility. EncMstr is always willing to explain any messages he puts on people's talk pages, especially if you ask about it politely. It's also a good idea to use English on talk pages. Is that Welsh? Valfontis (talk) 20:05, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
Google translated it as Welsh, yes. Not to mention it isn't what Wikipedia wants- Wikipedia isn't better because there's yet another myspace band listed on a scientist's page. tedder (talk) 20:15, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

DPC are hardly "another myspace band". They're a very popular band fronted by a very popular YouTuber with over 300,000 subscribers, and are signed to the most popular internet based record label. I added my entry to Fuller's page because I thought it added to his legacy that a popular band made an entire album out of his life/works. That to me continues one's legacy, and I felt offended when it was suggested I only added it to promote the band. I hardly need to promote them. And yes, it was Welsh. Are you going to say that speaking Welsh is wrong because it's my first language? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.84.85.238 (talk) 20:29, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

No, Welsh is wrong because it's not a civil comment, as Valfontis said. tedder (talk) 20:48, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
Welsh isn't wrong because I wasn't being civil. I was wrong. The language I use is up to me. You're being xenophobic for calling an entire language wrong instead of the person who used it. You call me uncivil? At least I admit it without insulting your entire language which represents an entire culture. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.84.85.238 (talk) 23:29, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
You missed it, IP. What you said was offensive, whether it was in English or Welsh or Klingon. Again, read WP:CIVIL. I won't be replying further unless you have productive things to say. tedder (talk) 23:35, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Reply

I'm terribly sorry about that. I didn't really think about that and I will pay more attention to that next time. Thanks for the comment!--Geo7777 (talk) 15:45, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

One year block on a school IP?

I saw the edit made by 209.80.150.218 on Year 2000 problem and compared to other anon vandalism, this is very mild. I may no know the whole story, but I've seen more edits from a school's IP with far greater consequences than this so I think a one-year band is excessive. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:21, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate the followup. I reviewed the user's editing and block histories and still conclude that a one year block is appropriate:
  • The block is for anons only. Registered users can still edit at that IP address.
  • The previous block was for 600 days, an unwieldy interval which is about two years minus four months. Usually anons are blocked for one year maximum. Subsequent blocks are traditionally one year except in extreme cases.
  • It was blocked nine times before.
  • Though the edits are mild, they began in January as significantly bad-faith edits.
  • The January edits were within hours to days of previous block expiration, and commenced the very same quality of unneeded edits.
  • This is a large school which has a consistent quality of vandalism spanning many years. Most likely, the culture of the school lives on.
EncMstr (talk) 18:59, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

"taxonomically"

Hello there, just because a word does not appear in a mainstream dictionary does not mean it is not correct. There is a plethora of words in the English language in the realm of science which are not recognized by even scientific dictionaries due to the vast array of possibilities. It would be impossible to list all of their possible conjugations, etc. "Taxonomically" is in fact a real word and is used all the time by biologists. Bob the WikipediaN (talkcontribs) 17:52, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Note-- I do apologize, however, for accidentally using the vandalism link instead of the AGF link-- that was a huge error on my own part! Bob the WikipediaN (talkcontribs) 17:54, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
Not only that, this was supposed to go on a different user's talk page! I will run and hide now, feel free to trout me! Bob the WikipediaN (talkcontribs) 17:56, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
No problem. You made me smile the biggest smile so far today! (I haven't clicked just "off by one" for a while. Thanks for reminding me.) —EncMstr (talk) 18:41, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Discussion page questions

EncMstr, could you explain to me a few things?

1. What is the benefit of adding an article to my watchlist?

2. If I add a new section to a discussion page of an article, how will I know if something writes a comment under my thread?

3. My watchlist looks like this:

(diff | hist) . . m Talk:Electronic amplifier‎; 22:48 . . (+56) . . ICE77 (talk | contribs) (renumbered)
What is the meaning of +56?

Please let me know when you have time.

ICE77 (talk) 20:31, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

The answer to number one is number two. Seasoned editors have many articles on their watchlists: it is an easy way to check for article edits and related discussions. By enabling "Watch this page" when you add to a discussion, you can check on all pages you are watching by clicking on "My watchlist" at the top right of any Wikipedia page. Options within the watchlist page allow you to select certain types of pages ("name spaces") and for various lengths of time backward from one hour up to a week. ("all" is there, but I don't understand what it actually does.)
Your watchlist shows that you made an edit at 22:48 (shown using your configured timezone—see your preferences) to the talk page of Electronic amplifier. Your edit added 56 characters, and your edit summary was renumbered.
Since my clear policy is that I reply on my own talk page, hopefully you added it to your watchlist when you commented here. If you don't reply in a day or so, I'll add a notice to your talk page.
Thanks for your contributions! —EncMstr (talk) 21:18, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. I added this page to my watchlist but I didn't get any notification about your reply to my new section. Is there something wrong? Should I receive a message? I would have never known you wrote unless I checked.
ICE77 (talk) 01:01, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
Viewing your watchlist is how you see changes. There are no pop up or email messages. —EncMstr (talk) 02:14, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

DYK for Chapman Swifts

The DYK project (nominate) 08:03, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

dereferendumed?

Re Oregon Ballot Measure 28 (2003) etc, it is one of a number in the categories by year which I have altered eg the 2003 article is in the Category:2003 ballot measures, which is itself in the categories Category:2003 referendums and Category:2003 in American politics , and because of the number for several states it would be laborious to explain for every change. Hugo999 (talk) 05:49, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Tables for rivers list

Hello, EncMstr. You have new messages at Talk:List of rivers in Oregon.
Message added 18:48, 17 April 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

--Jsayre64 (talk)

Is it now forbidden to challenge material on Wikipedia?

You have protected the article Vacuum Tube at the request of User:Interferometrist. He is objecting to my challenging inaccurate material that he keeps reverting to that article. Having deleted the citation needed tag, he enlists your help in protecting the article so that I can't challenge him anymore.

His actions have been refered to the administrator's noticeboard, as I am perfectly entitled to challenge his inaccurate info (WP:VERIFY). This would appear to me to be a gross abuse of the article protection process. 86.183.175.94 (talk) 17:38, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I protected the article against the disruption of it being reverted again and again, not because anyone requested it. Please continue the discussion on the article's talk page based on reliable, verifiable, sourced facts. —EncMstr (talk) 17:43, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Deleted an answer to a question for what reason exactly?

Why on earth would you delete my answer to someone's question? The guy wants sources, I told him where to get the best one! Wtf?76.89.232.168 (talk) 06:53, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

My apologies. Without context, I thought it was promotional and did not belong anywhere on Wikipedia. I see your text has been restored and responded to, so I won't take any further action. Sorry for the hassle. —EncMstr (talk) 18:51, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Vandalism

I have noticed that a few articles on Greek mythology have been recently vandalized. I am currently reading on Hera and I noticed that some idiot decided to delete sections. Can something be done about these people? Can articles be unaccessible to those who just visit to spoil them?

ICE77 (talk) 05:34, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the concern. The answer is complex due to attempts to balance project goals.
I suggest you add such pages to your watchlist and use it to review recent edits for appropriateness. If you see one which is not an improvement, please revert the edits. If you feel it will help, give them warning on their talk page, but there are good arguments for not warning: see WP:DENY, WP:RBI, and WP:MOTIVATION. If you feel warning is appropriate, there is a four step series of warning templates which are conveniently issued with Twinkle, a gadget you can enable for your account. See WP:WARN for an in-depth description of the standard warnings.
If significant vandalism comes from one editor or computer site, they or it can be individually blocked from editing.
Also, individual articles can be fully protected or semi-protected as a last ditch effort against vandalism and other types of unacceptable edits when they are targeted by multiple editors. Protection is applied by administrators if the page protection policy applies. Unfortunately, page protection limits non-vandals from improving articles as well, so a good measure of unwanted edits are officially tolerated, which also depends on the number of editors watching the page and actively reverting as appropriate.
If the vandalism becomes more than you can handle and no one else helps, report the situation at Administrator intervention against vandalism and a roving set of administrators will examine it and take appropriate action. An AIV report preferably results in one or more editors being blocked instead of restricting edits on an article through page protection.
If the article vandalism shows any pattern, yet the anti-vandal bots are not detecting it, you can try to inform the bot operators to see if they can do anything. User:ClueBot is one of the more active, though I haven't noticed it running for a few days.
At certain times of the year, school studies focus on particular topics which, ah, don't engender high respect. I have protected many of these articles myself during such times. Vandalism slow down or stops at other times of the year, in fairly regular cycles. It is Wikipedia's version of climatic seasons.
It is official policy that Wikipedia does not require logging in to edit, a decision that seems exasperating at times. But it works. With the bad comes the good, and the few times I've studied it in depth, the good very much outweighs the bad. See my analysis in the second comment here. —EncMstr (talk) 06:49, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
I believe Wikipedia allows any user to modify articles by default. How about forcing everybody to have an account? When 123.34.54.1 changes and article by removing sections or adding garbage, I don't think much can be done about his/her behavior. I can revert pages but what really matters to me is that the idiot gets slapped in the face for being so childish.
ICE77 (talk) 21:47, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
Mandatory login has been discussed many times at great length. Jimbo says no. (See 1, 2, 3, and 4.) I used to find this hard to accept, but have come around. The D.B. Cooper episode provides some in-depth insight into how well the current system works.
Don't let the vandals discourage you. They have to work relatively hard to commit vandalism. What vandals do is so predictable that bots remove more than half of it within a few seconds. The rest is removed with a single click once you see it. Activate popups and you can detect vandalism without clicking at all(!); activate Twinkle and you can revert it with a click or two. Much less work than the vandals have to do. —EncMstr (talk) 22:08, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

WPORE COTW 2.0 - the picture edition

Greetings one and all. For some of you, this will be your first time receiving one of these messages, as it has been a year since the WikiProject Oregon Collaboration of the Week (COTW) was a regular thing. My hope is it gets back to being a regular thing.

Usually I would go over the past COTW, but we are basically starting out anew. So, without further adieu, this edition is our semi-annual picture drive. We usually try to do it when there is decent weather in the state, and today seems to fit the bill. Now although you are encouraged to go out and take pictures, you can also just search the internet for images that have the proper licensing and upload those. Flickr is one site that has a fair amount of content with the proper licensing (most images on Flickr are not compatible). See WP:COPYRIGHT in general. For some “free” sources, check out the our dormant subproject that has some links to sources.

Lastly, if you need to know what images we need, here are the requests. Please remove the request from the talk page if you add an image.

Finally (this is not image related), as the years have passed, we have lost many good editors, and others, like myself, are no longer in school or are working full-time or both, and thus are less active in the project. The project lives on, but it has created a bit of a power vacuum without a de facto cabal still around all the time. With that in mind, I encourage newer project members to step-up and fill some leadership type roles. Granted, we have no formal ruling junta or anything and no real defined roles, but there are many maintenance type tasks that some of us just took on to keep the project going. For instance, I ran the COTW, was pretty much the only one doing assessments, updating the portal, and even handing out the awards. I am sure others in the project can name what things they have done. The point being, that while I enjoyed those and still do some of those, I simply no longer have the free time to do all of it at a level that the project deserves. That said, I hope to start a discussion at WT:ORE where we can see if some newer editors would like to step-up and take on some of these tasks, which will hopefully make for a more inclusive project, and maybe get us back to the heyday of say 2008 when things were really rocking for WikiProject Oregon.

As always, please click here to opt out of these messages, or click here to make a suggestion for a future COTW. Aboutmovies (talk) 18:50, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Recent edits

Hello, I was just wondering of why you reverted my recent edit to file allocation table? Thanks! Monterey Bay (talk) 01:35, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Hello Monterey Bay, Thanks for asking.
I removed it because of the incorrect phrase added used on many computer systems and internally by the operating system to keep track of the structure of a disk... FAT is a file system structure, not something which is used by any operating system internally for any reason.
I have written a few FAT drivers and every time the yucky structure of the FAT compels me to create more to-the-point structures like linked lists to deal with the file data. It is extremely useful for the linked list to contain a starting cluster number and cluster count, since that usually greatly shortens the list. Apparently most file system drivers attempt to keep files semi-contiguous. —EncMstr (talk) 02:16, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
Good systems sometimes used to interleave successive blocks of a file on every n'th sector, where the bottle neck in reading wasn't the physical speed of the drive. Rich Farmbrough, 23:36, 18 May 2011 (UTC).

Cooper

Thank for your note. Of course what he does have is an alternative name. Might be worth putting the persondata back if its worthwhile avoiding AWB visits to that article. Rich Farmbrough, 23:36, 18 May 2011 (UTC).

St. Camping's Day

Please undelete St. Camping's Day, It is not a hoax and has the support of a few hundred thousand people, not just Discordians. I know many regard our whole religion as a hoax, but as a Discordian I certainly do not. I apologize for the overzealous behavoiour of those who pulled the admin code from the page, and was in the process of cussing them out when you nuked the page. There were about to be many more contested deletion postings coming up. Thanks for your consideration. --Razmear (talk) 06:42, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

The article had not a single source and the topic has barely 4 Google hits. Just because thousands might support it is not a hoax does not make it a notable Wikipedia topic. See the Five Pillars for the basis of our reliable sources and verifiability requirements. —EncMstr (talk) 06:55, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
The holiday was officially declared only hours before I created the article, not much time for google hits to develop. It was flagged for speedy deletion moments after posting, which kinda killed my inspiration to cite references as I expected the work to be destroyed at any moment (as it was). May I point you towards http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Unofficial_observances where you can find many other less known holidays than St. Camping's Day.

No worries, just because Wikipedia denies the existence of this event don't not mean it does not exist. We shall observe St. Camping's day even if you falsely believe it to be just a hoax, even tho it is far more real than Camping's prediction that inspired it. --Razmear (talk) 07:08, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps I should have overridden the hoax explanation in the deletion comment. Non-notability is the real reason. Apologies for any offense. —EncMstr (talk) 07:10, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

interference

Hi EncMstr, it's fair enough if you prefer some other way of dealing with people trying to hijack Wikipedia, but that doesn't give you the right to go deleting my messages to another user. Owen214 (talk) 08:34, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

What you wrote is grounds for blocking. Do not attack or insult editors. Do not tell them to go away. I do have the right to remove your messages. See WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, and WP:MOP. —EncMstr (talk) 08:47, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Hello EncMstr, I was wondering why, in the VPN article, you deleted the reference to the use of VPN as a circumvention tool in How to Bypass Internet Censorship. There are several chapters dealing with VPN in this FLOSS manual and I think it is an important external ressource to suggest. But you may have another view. Please tell me. Thanks, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikingtubby (talkcontribs) 21:21, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Next time, please create a new section—always at the bottom of a talk page—and sign your addition. See the talk page guidelines for a full explanation.
I removed your addition for violation of the external links policy. Any time someone adds an external link to an article, it is heavily scrutinized. See the WP:SPAM and WP:ADVERT explanations. When someone goes rampant adding external links to multiple articles, they get removed in bulk regardless of any intrinsic value. Next time, be much more selective. Wikipedia is not a WP:LINKFARM. —EncMstr (talk) 22:19, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

A token question

Thanks for assessing Rose City Transit, and for acting on it so soon after the article was created. I photographed some Rose City Transit tokens I have, and I was thinking of uploading one to Commons for use with the article, but I'm not sure whether this would be within policy regarding copyright. RCT's tokens had no company logo on them and were a pretty plain design, but they still may have been copyrighted. Honestly, it seems quite possible that they never were copyrighted, since bus tokens are of such low value (and limited-purpose use) that they are never counterfeited, but I have no idea. There are a lot of tokens at commons:Category:Token coins, and its subcat "Transit tokens", but I don't know if any of them were actually legal to upload. (This one is used on many pages, and its uploader simply assumed the design is not copyrighted, which may be wrong.) Or, perhaps I should upload it only to Wikipedia, not Commons? Maybe I could use the Template:Non-free currency, but would I have to use only a low-resolution image? Would this qualify as fair use? I have very little experience in this area, so I'd welcome your advice if you can spare the time (or you can direct me to someone/somewhere else). SJ Morg (talk) 06:51, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

You are welcome. Nice work on the article!
It is far from obvious that a 40+ year old bus token would be copyrighted. It would be a very strange concept at the time, though of course, forging tokens is expected to have been illegal. Commons has plenty of WP:COPYVIO hawks, so if any existing images have survived more than a month or so, I think it is reasonable to upload your images and see if anyone comments. —EncMstr (talk) 17:22, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. I've uploaded a photo. For an article of its length, this article was really starved for illustrations, so I think this is a welcome addition. I wish I had a photo of a Rose City Transit bus (in RCT colors) to upload, but I'm at least 10 years too young to have been able to take any such photos myself, and I cannot think of any source for freely usable ones for Wikipedia. The related new article, on the Blue Bus lines, is even more starved, with no illustrations at all, but I couldn't find anything – not even a logo (of any of the companies) in a newspaper ad – so I'm resigned to the apparent fact that nothing can be done about that. Thanks again. SJ Morg (talk) 06:39, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Javascript

Hi EncMstr. You mentioned here that you were working on a Javascript code that would even better organize the rivers list. I'm interested to see how that works. Do you have it ready yet? Thanks. Jsayre64 (talk) 15:02, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for reminding me. I upgraded my main computer and began a new contract (for work), so it slipped my mind. I'll put up a demo page late tonight or tomorrow. —EncMstr (talk) 16:51, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Ellis Lifeguard

I hope you don't delete my Ellis addition again. Approximately 80-90% of all private water parks use their training, so it'd be silly not to include them. If you have some beef with them, censorship is not the way to accomplish it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.129.20.228 (talk) 18:10, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I am reverting it again because the material is:
Okay. What do you want in order for Ellis to be included in the training/certification section? To simply not include it is ridiculous. It's right behind ARC in sheer numbers alone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.129.20.228 (talk) 23:33, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
Well, first off, find a reliable third party source stating that Ellis is a widely used certification and training organization. Ellis' website is not reliable: obviously they have conflict of interest and bias. Paraphrase what the source says without synthesis or distortion. That's a start. —EncMstr (talk) 23:40, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd normally agree with you, but it doesn't seem to me like the other examples had to be subject to those rules. The sources for ARC, and every other certification (except BSA which has no source at all), aren't third parties. They have a conflict of interest, so why are they being permitted? Are you the least bit qualified to moderate aquatic pages? It is widely known in the industry that Ellis is the de facto national licensing agency for water parks. But I will play your game and get you sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.129.20.228 (talk) 23:48, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Your last argument is WP:OTHERSTUFF which isn't an argument for keeping it, but for getting rid of the other problems.
As for my qualifications, read and comprehend Wikipedia's Five Pillars. If it is widely known in the industry, then it should be simple to find three solid reliable references.
I see you reverted again after writing this, but so far no sources. Please either undo your revert or add sources. —EncMstr (talk) 16:16, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

So hopefully you're content with the changes I made. I removed "City of Los Angeles" as a nationally recognized lifeguard certification agency (their certifications aren't recognized outside of their city run pools, I have no idea why anybody would think it was a good idea to include them). I also included Ellis in the paragraph.

I don't mean to seem snoody, but I've managed a large water park for the last ten years. I normally don't edit wikipedia pages, but an article on life guarding missing Ellis and Associates desperately needed the edit. They invented the 10/20 protection standard that just about everybody else uses, as long as a variety of other procedures. I can't find any "reliable third party sources" that directly say it, but a majority of water parks are Ellis clients. Every major water park in SoCal uses Ellis for training. They are highly respected in the industry.

I read the five pillars link, but that didn't answer my question regarding your credentials and qualifications to be moderating the page. I know that you aren't a part of the industry or else you wouldn't have even questioned Ellis' legitimacy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.129.20.228 (talk) 03:20, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Eclipse chasing doc

Hi there. I saw your removal of the online doc on eclipse chasing from Solar eclipse, per ELNO. Is there anything I could do to list it more appropriately, perhaps tagging it as requiring Abobe Flash per Wikipedia:EL#Rich_media, or is it just a lost cause, in your view? thanks, Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:12, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

It is moderately far from the topic, so probably a lost cause there. A better place for that URL would be in a new article, probably Eclipse chaser, currently a redirect, which could reasonably be linked from the Solar eclipse article. Adding an external link to an article body is pretty much forbidden. External links are accepted in infoboxes, External links sections, and citations. The promotional language which accompanied that link was very troubling; see WP:ADVERT. —EncMstr (talk) 20:20, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the speedy reply. As for the language, I merely identified the subject and source, as per the other ELs in the section, so I didn't see it as an WP:ADVERT issue, but I'll certainly keep that in mind. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:26, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Re: image rename

Oops! Thanks for catching my erroneous edit to West Salem, Salem, Oregon‎, and fixing the image link! -- KathrynLybarger (talk) 17:36, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Re: GPS page editing

You keep changing my edit of the "2nd Satellite Control Squadron (2SCS)" to "second satellite control squadron" which is a proper name and should have capitalization and also starts with a number as most military squadrons names do.

Also you removed the NAVSTAR acronym definition (NAVigation System Timing And Ranging). This acronym was created by Rockwell International Space Division as published the "GPS NAVSTAR Space Vehicle Description Handbook" when they manufactured the GPS satellites in Seal Beach, CA. It was the GPS JPO that started referencing the satellites as GPS vs. NAVSTAR GPS. Robapodaca (talk) 21:33, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

I believe you are correct about the military naming, but it looks grammatically incorrect: so much so it looks illiterate. The acronym is completely useless, at least in the article. Beginning a title with digits violates many style guides, but I'll leave it.
Please discuss NAVSTAR on the talk page. —EncMstr (talk) 22:10, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually, for the chronology listing, 1985 is very significant as that is when GPS Command & Control moved from Onizuka AFS to the 2nd Satellite Control Squadron at Falcon AFS, CO. I added citations from USAF Space Command that show the correct squadron name. [2] I'll join the NAVSTAR discussion page.Robapodaca (talk) 23:54, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

SHA-2

Please disregard the talk comment by 214.3.151.104 (which was me). I was incorrect in my attempted correction of bits/bytes. I did some further research and determined my error. Thank you for you continuing edits on Wiki. Have a good one! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brandonreddish (talkcontribs) 17:49, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

No problem. Thanks for trying to fix it. —EncMstr (talk) 18:28, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Oregon state park amenities

I noticed that when your created many of the Oregon state park articles you included an amenities section that is commented out. I think that if mention of park amenities were to be added to these articles it should be as prose and not in the form of a list. Would you object if I were to use AWB to remove the commented section. Thanks for catching one of my errors recently. I checked to see if there were any more instances of OR-US and there are not. –droll [chat] 05:06, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't mind the removal. When I added the amenities, it was to aid expanding the articles later, and before a WP:ORE discussion about appropriate content; the conclusion was generally that such stuff would not normally be notable. So it ought to be removed.
You are welcome. I didn't see any other errors either. —EncMstr (talk) 05:14, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
Finished. –droll [chat] 06:51, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

E-mail

Hello, EncMstr. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

--Jsayre64 (talk) 14:22, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Triple Crown nomination

Hi, EncMstr. Please see here. There's a problem with the Triple Crown nomination that needs to be addressed. I'm sure you have significantly contributed to featured content, but I'm having trouble finding an example. Good luck! Jsayre64 (talk) 16:49, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Oregon Triple Crown

Your Majesty, EncMstr, I am pleased to award this special edition WikiProject Oregon triple crown for your contributions to Oregon-related FC, GA and DYK articles. Thank you for all your hard work. – SMasters (talk) 15:57, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I am especially appreciative of the center royalty figure! —EncMstr (talk) 16:53, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Gresham, Oregon historical population table 1910 to 2010

Hi, Thank for sending to 24.111.34.170 IP Address in the Media Center Room at Link Apartment in Grand Forks, North Dakota. This is Ross Degenstein. Yes approximate few weeks ago I made edit in 1910 to 1930 census in historical population table from Google Books. Few months ago User:Mwmnp gave me click to U.S. Decennial Census 1790 to 2010 and Full list of cities in Oregon in 2010 census. In 2009 I used to lived in Portland, Oregon. Today I made edit in King County, Washington, Gresham, Oregon, Kent, Washington, Washington (state), Kent, New York, Kent, Minnesota and St. Louis Park, Minnesota, etc. Yes, I don't know how to citation and Citing sources. It's too hard. Yesterday other two edit has been blacklisted. You go talk to User:Jsayre64 and User:Peteforsyth. March 23, 2011 User:Jsayre64 made edit, added and drew population table 1940 to 2010 They edit Reply back me. Have a wonderful day! Typewriter #11572 Ross Degenstein (talk) --24.111.34.170 (talk) 02:55, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

WP Oregon in the Signpost

"WikiProject Report" would like to focus on WikiProject Oregon for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Other editors will also have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 01:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice

Your suggestions for expanding the article on the Schottenstein Edition of the Babylonian Talmud was very useful and I intend on getting to it soon. By the way, sorry for such a late response, Magister Scienta talk 15:06, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

You are welcome. Thanks for all your work! —EncMstr (talk) 16:02, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

CYBER vs Cyber

I too have used CYBER mainframes extensively in the 70s and 80s. All CDC manuals and brochures capitalised the word CYBER. Please see http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/cdc/cyber/ for examples. The product name CYBER is distinct from the now common "cyber" prefix. Cdccyber (talk) 17:54, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

As I wrote on your talk page, we do not follow capitalization of company marketing departments. The capitalization guidelines are clearly spelled out in WP:NAME and MOS:NAME. The top Google hits (excluding Wikipedia mirrors) includes [3], [4], [5], and [6] which heavily favor Cyber. —EncMstr (talk) 18:21, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Re: Bitar Mansion

See response on my talk page. Thanks again! --Another Believer (Talk) 21:49, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Rules .vs. common sense

Mate - you just reverted my edits on a "Talk" page and sent me what I consider insulting abuse, when my original edits had done a huge service to readers by removing outdated(since fixed) gripes etc. {{trout}} I also think you need to remove your "geek" tag from your homepage - if you were relly a geek, you would have instantly known full well that the rubbish I removed needs to go...

120.151.160.158 (talk) 12:44, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Oregon rivers list

Hi EncMstr. You probably remember this discussion about the list of Oregon rivers. I have decided to begin the first stage of work with the planned new layout at User:Jsayre64/Sandbox/Tables idea, and I'm inviting you to help decide which streams should be featured in the tables and which should only appear in the collapsible bullet lists. You are also welcome to further discuss the idea on the talk page of the list or on my subpage's talk page. Thanks! Jsayre64 (talk) 03:45, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

mHz and MHz

You are probably right, but by the time you get me to thoroughly understand the difference, you can probably get the attention of a pretty sharp (and usually very civil and helpful) group who maintain the list of typo rules for AWB (AutoWikiBrowser) at WT:AWB/T. I was just applying that huge list of Typo rules in addition to my own list of rules that I was using to fix hyphens. The rule that capitalizes the "H" in "Hz" is named "Hz (hertz)", and it leaves the capitalization alone for whatever is prefixed to "Hz". If you bring this matter up on that forum, you are pretty certain to get a good answer. AWB Typo rules are only tolerated when they nearly always help and nearly never hurt, and it sounds like this rule nearly always hurts in articles about computers. Cheers! Chris the speller yack 17:48, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

"Vandalism" on Putin's Palace

Hi EncMstr, just thought I would point out that the edit your reverted on Putin's Palace wasn't vandalism, just a misplaced effort to improve the article (the date in question actually was wrong—it was mistyped as 2011 instead of 2010). One of ClueBot's few false positives I guess. —Akrabbimtalk 20:29, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for cleaning it up and letting me know. Keep up the good work! —EncMstr (talk) 03:16, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

MarriageEquality

My account was blocked by you. I have it for a quite sometime now. No one else had a problem with it. It had nothing to do with the website of MarriageEquality. I used that name because I want MarriageEquality for all 50 states and the around. It had nothing to do with them. I could really care less about them and their website. Samesexmarriage101 (talk) 05:43, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

The block notice links to the username policy. Whether anyone protested or not is beside the point, thank you very much.
Your new username is a better choice. —EncMstr (talk) 06:17, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
There was nothing wrong with it in the first place. No one else had a problem it.
Samesexmarriage101 (talk) 16:25, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
Yes, there was a problem. The people at http://www.marriageequality.org/ (and many similar state-based organizations like http://www.meny.us/home and http://www.marriageequalityri.org/) most likely did not authorize you to represent them on Wikipedia. Even if they did, we do not allow group accounts or those which give the appearance of a group account. Can you imagine the problems with someone editing as McDonalds Hamburgers or Dow Chemical? I bet both have plenty of lawyers looking for something to do. —EncMstr (talk) 17:19, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Vincelord

You nominated my page Monty Nash for deletion because you said it has no sources suggesting notability, but what about the reference i already listed isn't that enough to establish the pages notability. Because i've used similar references before, so has other editors and it was always acceptable.Vincelord (talk) 13:41, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

The source you used, a listing in TV Guide, does help establish that the series existed. But it is only a "mention in passing" by the standards of the notability guidelines. Try to find an article about the show in a major newspaper or an industry publication, like Variety or Media Week. —EncMstr (talk) 16:22, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Vincelord

I would like to clearify my reference, my reference wasn't actually a listing in TV Guide, it was an actually book written by TV Guide and if the series didn't have notability i feel it would not of been listed. Therefore I beleive my reference should be enough to keep the page up.Vincelord (talk) 16:34, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

this isn't showing up on the article. i'll try to look into it later, but i thought i'd let you know. — alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk) 03:20, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. The initial author of the article deleted it against the rules. I have reverted the deletion. —EncMstr (talk) 03:33, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Roja Dove page editing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roja_Dove I dispute some of the content on the Roja Dove page. As mentioned by another user in the discussion section, the whole page is lifted from Dove's personal website and reads in an arrogant self serving fashion. It could even be considered insulting to other members of the perfumery profession and is very self important. Roja Dove is not recognised by the British Society of Perfumers (to be a member one must be given approval by at least two experienced perfumers) and so I very much dispute that he is 'the world's foremost authority on all things fragrance.' With my edit I wish to alert readers to the fact that Dove is not a true perfumer and find the page very self promoting and bias. Thankyou. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.3.163.248 (talk) 15:42, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining your edit. Do you know of any sources which back up your objections, such as an industry publication? If so, something like a "controversy" or "detractor" section could be added to the article to balance it out. —EncMstr (talk) 16:15, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Template:Florida Hospitals has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. I noticed you created the Template:Hospitals in Oregon, can you help save the Florida version? Mr.Atoz (talk) 22:57, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Mr.Atoz (talk) 21:34, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

If you are interested in contributing more to articles about hospitals you may want to join WikiProject Hospitals (signup here).


You PRODded this, and it was deleted. Undeletion has been requested at WP:REFUND, so I have restored it, and now notify you in case you wish to take it to AfD.I have told the requester that if it does not yet meet WP:NFF I will move it to the Incubator on request, and that might be a better solution than AfD. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 09:11, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Incubated to Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Anna Bond. JohnCD (talk) 10:43, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for addressing this. I think letting it incubate is a good solution. —EncMstr (talk) 17:10, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Please visit my User Talk page for my reply to your latest message. Backspace (talk) 15:41, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Solar eclipse

Hi, You recently removed my correction to the Solar eclipse Terminology for central eclipse. I think my correction was necessary and the reverted version is definitely wrong. The shadow of the Moon is never cast on the Sun, as the shadow is cast by the Sun to the Earth. The definition currently appears in the article is misleading and a bad mixture of Solar and Lunar eclipses. Look at just one paragraph above, where it is correctly said: "A total eclipse occurs when the dark silhouette of the Moon completely obscures the intensely bright light of the Sun" Astrocoins (talk) 06:15, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

You are absolutely correct. Vandalism on that article usually has the sun pass between the Earth and Moon, or the Moon spinning off from the Earth and orbiting the Sun independently. Somehow the diff for your edit seemed the same sort of nonsense. I've reverted my reversion. My apologies. —EncMstr (talk) 06:46, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Kuramo Foundation

Please can you help me userfy this article, its called Kuramo foundation. also please can you look at the article and see if the deletion can be reverted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chuksemeka (talkcontribs) 11:40, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Kuramo Foundation

Please can you help me userfy this article, its called Kuramo foundation. also please can you look at the article and see if the deletion can be reverted.Chuksemeka (talk) 12:40, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Hello,

I oppose this title leading to a list of various uses of the name Mount Shasta. It should lead directly to the article about the California mountain. Other uses can and should be dealt with by a hat note at the top of that page. Established practice is that a dominant use of a name gets the main article. People searching for London are almost certainly looking for the British capital, not the Ontario city. The same principle applies here. Your thoughts? Cullen328 Let's discuss it 21:24, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

The main article about the famous mountain is now inaccessible, as clicking on its entry on the list leads back to the same list. This is most unfortunate, and I would be grateful if you could address this issue as soon as possible. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 21:42, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
Note: I have restored the article to its previous state, and a list has been created of mountains with the name Shasta.Jasper Deng (talk) 22:35, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
This has confusing history. Oh, I see: It looks like I had an undetected edit conflict with the unmoving of Mount Shasta to Mount Shasta (California). I did not receive an edit conflict, but the edit history shows I replaced the article with a list, but didn't check it until a few minutes ago. It looks like it is all fixed. Thanks Jasper. —EncMstr (talk) 00:30, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Fragmentation (computers)

I don't think that fragmentation in computers leads to increase in speed (which will lead to better system performance). Please give suitable reference for the same. Also file fragmentation and disk fragmentation should be mentioned in the article. So don't delete that part. Rushikesh ghatpande (talk) 04:45, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Third party vs. third-party

Hi. I see that you reverted my change to "third-party" back to "third party" in the FAT article. I still think the hyphen is not optional here, since it is used as a modifier and omitting it changes the meaning. A "third party tool" is clearly not the same as a "third-party tool", etc. Since you were referring to the Manual of Style, I read up the section about hyphens there and come to the conclusion, that it supports my case as well. Could you please have a look at it again? Greetings, --Matthiaspaul (talk) 18:43, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for following up. I have noticed that Wikipedia—maybe English spelling in general—seems to be increasingly preferring non-hyphenated forms. Works from the 1940s, for example, used to-day. Yuck! MOS:HYPHEN does not use third party or third-party as examples, though I see what you mean: item (3c) Many compounds that are hyphenated when used attributively suggests this should be third-party. A few lines above that, the guideline suggests consulting a dictionary—so I did. Dictionary.com says "third party" is the proper spelling when given "third-party", though Merriam-Webster says "third-party" when used as an adjective. All the rest of the modern dictionaries I consulted use third party: Cambridge, Oxford, MacMillan, Word Reference, and Heinle. I don't have any insight as to which of these are the most authoritative, even though there is a mix of British and U.S. Going by simple majority, I'm not motivated to undo my edit, but I will not dispute any changes. I guess I'm self-stalemated (self-stale-mated?). Thanks for your efforts! —EncMstr (talk) 19:37, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I have been told that anything on Broadway is considered notable and should not be NfD. Thank You Phaeton23 (talk) 08:46, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

That would not be true, unless an opening on Broadway automatically receives sufficient coverage to clear the general notability guidelines. I see the article has received sufficient development and sources that its place on Wikipedia is now assured. Thanks for starting it. —EncMstr (talk) 16:47, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Marcos Freitas

Hello EncMstr, thank you for your report. The page of Marcos Freitas contains now two references to the most reliable source in the table tennis world, i.e., the ITTF database. Cialo (talk) 13:18, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

The references are helpful, but the addition of sources other than the federation (potentially self-serving and promotional) would be extremely helpful to solidly assert notability. If it were me, I'd search for media, such as table tennis magazines, which cover him. This looks useful as well. —EncMstr (talk) 16:57, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

IP Vandal

Hi EncMstr, I noticed that you've just blocked User: 74.47.112.116. Please note that due to IP location (Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania), style of vandalism (usually fictitious scientific classifications + occasionally incoherent, rambling text) and articles targeted (Sea foam, etc.) that this is the latest IP sock of a serial vandal who appears to have a few times provided his own name (Edward J. Ostroski). He never responds to messages on his talk page, and generally stops using an IP address after it is blocked, but then goes on to create another dial-up IP sock in that general area of NE Pennsylvania, but using the same IP provider (Frontier Communications of America, Inc.). He's used over a dozen IP socks that I know of - here is the most recent time that I reported him, a couple of months ago [7]. Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 07:18, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. Other than following the blocking policy, I'm not sure what else to do. If there is enough editing history, perhaps a filter could be set up to tire him out faster. Offhand, that looks pretty challenging. —EncMstr (talk) 16:20, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
The block you made was actually to User:74.47.87.45 rather than to User:74.47.112.116 (his previous sock - my mistake in copying and pasting). If it's any help in setting up a filter. here's a list of the socks I've identified:
User:184.74.33.195 SAYRE, PENNSYLVANIA; (6 articles, 24 edits - none good; active 9,16,23,30/10/2010; 04/12/2010 - all Saturdays); no warnings After block expired, resumed editing 08/01/2011
User:71.188.233.214, BINGHAMTON, NEW YORK; (4 articles, 25 edits - none good; active 9,16,23/10/2010 - all Saturdays); 7 warnings
User:173.86.93.236 TUNKHANNOCK, PENNSYLVANIA; (10 articles, 47 edits - none good; active 8/10/2010 - 14/10/2010); 6 warnings, blocked temporarily on 8 October 2010
User:199.224.109.162 TUNKHANNOCK, PENNSYLVANIA; (7 articles, 70 edits - none good; active 27/10/2010 - 15/11/2010); 3 warnings, last on 15 November 2010
User:74.42.145.251 TUNKHANNOCK, PENNSYLVANIA; (6 articles, 13 edits - none good; active 21/10/2010 - 28/11/2010); 4 warnings, blocked temporarily on 27 November 2010
User:74.42.145.251 TUNKHANNOCK, PENNSYLVANIA; (6 articles, 13 edits - none good; active 21/10/2010 - 28/11/2010); 4 warnings, blocked temporarily on 27 November 2010
User:208.111.193.200 CLARKS SUMMIT, PENNSYLVANIA; (15 articles, 74 edits - only one good, active 01/12/2010 - 12/12/2010); 5 warnings, blocked temporarily on 5 December 2010 - once block expired, made 32 more edits
User:216.37.178.217 KINGSTON, PENNSYLVANIA; (10 articles, 25 edits - none good; active 15, 17-21/12/2010) blocked temporarily on 15 December 2010 - once block expired, made 11 more edits on 17, 18, 19, 21 December; last warned 17, 19 December 2010
In 2010 a total of 297 edits to ~50 articles (<63 articles, because of duplicates - i.e. same article being vandalised from different IP addresses), since early October. All from IP addresses located in small towns in northeastern Pennsylvania (and one just across the border in New York State), within about a 50 km radius
Continued vandalism activity in 2011:
User:199.224.81.212 KINGSTON, PENNSYLVANIA; 11/3/2011
User:199.224.122.94 TUNKHANNOCK, PENNSYLVANIA; 14, 16/3/2011 Edward J. Ostroski
User:74.47.87.246 Dallas, PENNSYLVANIA; 17- 24/3/2011
User:207.7.189.107 Kingston, PENNSYLVANIA; 26/3- 10/4/2011
User:64.111.158.162 SWEET VALLEY, PENNSYLVANIA 19-21 April 2011
User:216.222.254.192 CARLISLE, PENNSYLVANIA 25 April 2011
User:74.47.112.116 KINGSTON, PENNSYLVANIA 27 July -10 August 2011 Edward J. Ostroski
User:74.47.87.45 Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania 7-13 October 2011
His edits are often picked up and reverted fairly quickly because of their nature (see also my comment to Materialscientist), but a few have slipped under the radar for considerable periods and in one case even been reinstated by an unsuspecting admin. It is a tedious job going back over his edits to pick these up, as well as the waste of a lot of other editors' time, patience and goodwill.
There's an anti-vandalism notice on his latest sock's talk page (User talk:74.47.87.45): In the event of persistent vandalism from this address, efforts may be made to contact Frontier Communications of America, Inc., Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, U.S. to report abuse, which can be done here. Is this an option, considering that we seem to have his name (Edward J. Ostroski)? Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 03:04, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Another instance to add to the list:
User:208.111.239.105 Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania 17-21 October 2011
Four edits this time, two of which were picked up quickly (incl one flagged AGF by someone who probably should have known better!). The most recent edit is actually OK (it's just insertion of a wikilink) - a rare example of a legitimate edit by this IP vandal. I've reverted the remaining edit (typical MO: adding spurious scientific name to a legendary species, as well as IP location) and left a message on his talk page. Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 04:49, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Feel free to update this list with any more you identify. I'll use it as a basis for developing a countermeasure.
In the above list, there is a duplication - the second instance (of User:74.42.145.251 TUNKHANNOCK, PENNSYLVANIA) was my error in coping/pasting. It should have been: User:74.42.146.51 User location: TUNKHANNOCK, PENNSYLVANIA; (6 articles, 19 edits - none good; active 28/11/2010 - 30/11/2010); 2 warnings, 29 November 2010
There's now a new instance: User:74.212.59.75 HAZLETON, PENNSYLVANIA , active 31 October - 3 November 2011 - 15 edits to three articles, all reverted. Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 07:26, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the roundup! —EncMstr (talk) 05:24, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
I watch out for Edward, too, because of his occasional forays into paleontology articles (just found one of his imaginary planets on Copy that had stayed up for a couple of weeks). He likes to edit on other wikiprojects as well, such as Commons and Wikinews. Here are a few more IPs:
Here's his latest, Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 03:53, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Yet another. Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 00:59, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Improvement templates

Hey. Was it really necessary to put 12 improvement templates on Natamata as you did here? Several of them are redundant such as "Its introduction provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject", "Its introduction may need to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia's lead section guidelines", and Its lead section may not adequately summarize its contents. This seems incredibly excessive, especially on a stub article. OlYeller21Talktome 18:28, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

? OlYeller21Talktome 14:52, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

New Page Patrolling

Hi EncMstr. NPP is in a bit of a mess and it needs as much help from admins as it can get. There have been a lot of new discussions and developments, and we are also developing a brand new NPP tool. If you are possibly not fully up to date, you may wish to review the completely redesigned info page at WP:NPP, and see some of the discussions on its talk page. Any comments you have concerning the advice page, or improvements to the system would be most welcome. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:43, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

UserFacts

Do you like the template?  Magister Scientatalk (14 November 2011)

Interesting. I had no idea my user page was viewed so often, more than many articles. I also did not know that stats.grok.se would default to the most recent 30 days, something which cannot be chosen by the interface (as far as I can tell).
I am relieved that my first edit was not some blunder, or something more embarrassing. I had much trepidation before clicking on it. The vector skins and files I have uploaded are useless to me: the first because it is empty, the second because I target everything possible for commons.
I have seen my edit count summarized in various graphs from time to time; early on it was quite "wow", but no longer has the same impact. I am surprised at how many deleted edits it shows. (I wonder how to view them.) As usual, the edit count has a minor disagreement with the count at My preferences, which shows 33,272 before saving this edit: X! shows 33,069 live edits, 1,287 deleted, and total 34,356. No idea what to make of the discrepancy.
Overall, I am mixed about the template. I would prefer the first edit instead to be something like the first 10 or 25 edits, or maybe a list of articles I have created or some other more "experienced" indication. —EncMstr (talk) 19:19, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your feedback, I'm making some adjustments right now. By the way, this template was designed for newer users versus the seasoned veterans who've "seen it all." Cheers,  Magister Scientatalk (14 November 2011)

Talkback

Hello, EncMstr. You have new messages at Talk:List_of_Frank_Lloyd_Wright_works#Location_of_Brandes_House.
Message added 22:31, 28 November 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Talkback also given to Frankie Rae TransporterMan (TALK) 22:31, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Test

This is a test from your friends in Austria! 83.218.185.147 (talk) 08:43, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Ja! Und from Zuerich. Hallo! 212.203.89.34 (talk) 20:03, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

wiki4robert&me

I took your advice and created a new user: Wiki4Thal. I do not seem to find much help in the mentor (seems to be corrective for bad-boys) or the ambassador (seems to be for colleges) programs. Any other suggestions? Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wiki4Thal (talkcontribs) 02:10, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Ambassador Education Program

Hey there! I just wanted to follow up on the suggestion made to contact the Ambassador program for student assistance. The program is actually designed to provide assistance exclusively for college and university courses in the US, Canada, India, and Egypt. We are not able to provide one-on-one general assistance outside of established parameters. If you have questions (or you're interested in participating in the Ambassador program yourself), please don't hesitate to contact me. Best regards, Cind.amuse (Cindy) 01:15, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

User:98.247.205.84

I have recently reverted an edit to the Dixy Lee Ray article by User:98.247.205.84, an account you previously blocked for vandalism, in which the user changed her deathdate in the article InfoBox from January 2, 1994, which is backed by at least two sources to November 21, 1994 without providing a source for the change. Any assistance in dealing with this matter beyond reverting the edit which I have already done would be most appreciated. --TommyBoy (talk) 18:10, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing that to my attention. Due to the insidious nature of that flavor of vandalism, the user has earned an extended block. Looks like it is someone's home or business Comcast account. —EncMstr (talk) 18:21, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Oregon Ballet Theatre

Thanks for your message on my talk page letting me know that you reverted my edit to Oregon Ballet Theatre. I am not clear on what section of WP:NOT you felt was violated by adding a list of dancers to the article. This is often done with articles in Category:Ballet companies, as can be seen in Atlanta Ballet, The Australian Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, Royal Danish Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, English National Ballet, The Royal Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet, etc. Unless you plan to remove these lists from all such articles, I would like to restore the list for Oregon Ballet Theatre. -- Zyxw (talk) 09:14, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for responding and inquiring. I was not aware of the other ballet company articles having such content; I will look at those in a minute.
The pertinent items of WP:NOT are all in 2.6: not a directory—items 4) not a directory, directory entries, electronic program guide and, 8) a complete exposition of all possible details.
In such an article, there are no doubt notable performers, past and present, which should be mentioned and linked to their corresponding biographical article. But to list the whole company (or so it seemed) would be unlikely unless it happened to be a very special ensemble. The article is about the group and—to comply with WP:UNDUE—should mostly focus on the group. —EncMstr (talk) 18:02, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
(talk page stalker)Hi, I'd just like to add that just because other articles have problems doesn't mean we can't correct the problem under discussion here. Sometimes we call that "other stuff". Those of us who focus on and edit Oregon articles often hold those articles a higher standard than can be found on the rest of the wiki. This is actually a good thing! Cheers, Valfontis (talk) 20:32, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
Valfontis is quite right. (I thought of that shortly after committing my response.)
I glanced at Canada and Birmingham: both violate WP:NOT and need fixing. —EncMstr (talk) 21:43, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

It's always sad when we have to edit the list, but thanks for adding the necessary info to the latest entry after my hamfisted attempt at cleaning it up. I was hoping you would do so and you did, quickly. Valfontis (talk) 19:16, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for looking after it. The date misformat made me tackle it sooner than I would have ordinarily. Which would have been after PMR had posted details on their site. —EncMstr (talk) 19:24, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

MSU Interview

Dear EncMstr,


My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Wikipedia administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the community HERE, were it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.


So a few things about the interviews:

  • Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
  • Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
  • All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
  • All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
  • The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.


Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your name HERE instead.

If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.

Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Obar --Jaobar (talk) 18:21, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Page protection on Big Butte Creek

Resolved
 – changed to semi-protected —EncMstr (talk) 19:40, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi, can I ask why you changed the page protection on Big Butte Creek back to move only? I requested Semi Protection at WP:RFP (which was done by Reaper Eternal) as the article's title seems to have attracted a lot of vandalism today. Thanks.  ⊃°HotCrocodile...... + 18:15, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes indeed. There is a lot of vandalism because it is the featured article of the day and appears on the main page. I am pretty sure that means it should not be protected, but at the moment I can't find the guideline. Thanks for checking. —EncMstr (talk) 18:22, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Here it is. There is also some discussion here. —EncMstr (talk) 18:34, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for replying. I see, I had wondered that, so before I contacted you I hunted around. I only found the formal guidelines which support short semi protection if necessary, see:
WP:SEMI says: "Today's featured article may be semi-protected just like any other article. But since this article is subject to sudden spurts of vandalism during certain times of day, administrators should semi-protect it for brief periods in most instances. For the former guideline, see Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection."  ⊃°HotCrocodile...... + 18:41, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Your first link, Why aren't pages linked from the Main Page protected to stop vandalism? says "They are. For years, we had a guideline not to protect the articles, but a Request for Comment in 2011 gained consensus to treat Today's Featured Article, and the rest of the content linked from Main Page content, as any other article."  ⊃°HotCrocodile...... + 18:50, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
I guess I am a bit old school on that. Considering the number of viewers, it is not the brunt of all that much vandalism: about once per hour. It used to be that WP:TFA appeared for 8 or 12 hours, but it has been up for like 24 hours (I think). After reading that there is a change in consensus, I'm willing to change it back. Do you still think it should be semi-protected? —EncMstr (talk) 19:13, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes please. Thanks for your time.  ⊃°HotCrocodile...... + 19:21, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Awesome civil discussion, y'all. Being a bit old school myself, I learned something, thanks! Valfontis (talk) 20:03, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

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More on IP serial vandal Ostroski

Hi EncMstr, please see the thread on my talk page. Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 04:15, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Here are some more addresses for this vandal pattern, some of which have hit Wikispecies but not here (yet). I've reverted all the contributions here. It looks like he started vandalizing at Wikispecies back in February and March, then was dormant there for a long time, and has recently returned there again starting two months ago. Very little goes unnoticed there, though, because it's quite a small community.

Koumz (talk) 21:23, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

And another new one:

Koumz (talk) 14:20, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

He's just created an article - but written it on the talk page rather than on the article page - at Talk:Duinopèist-le lics nàdora. This may be the first time that he has tried to create a new article, though in the past he has infrequently written up to several paragraphs of text (his usual MO is to insert inappropriate taxoboxes, or to put in elaborate false species classifications). This current article shares several features with his past efforts - there is a degree of sophistication, offset by fractured grammar, clumsy use of specialised terminology, obsession with the subject matter, inability to fix syntax errors in the taxoboxes - which to me suggest he is an adult with a cognitive disorder, rather than an adolescent who is gaming the system maliciously. There may be an element of attention-seeking, although he has never responded to comments posted on the talk pages of any of his IP socks. Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 02:36, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
This (creating articles on the talk pages of non-existent bogus articles) appears to be his latest MO, as it's the third such page I've CSD:G8'd in the last week or two, I was going to mention that part but I guess I got sidetracked before doing so. I agree with Bahudhara's assessment of what is going on. Based on the patterns of actions, I would guess that he does not understand how and why his behavior affects, and is a problem for, others. Koumz (talk) 02:42, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I forgot to log the IP before I tagged that page, so you or some other admin will have to extract it to add it to our list. Sorry about that. (I am used to doing it myself at WS and so I forget that I can't do it here). Koumz (talk) 02:51, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the comprehensive input. I will factor all aspects into the filter. —EncMstr (talk) 04:06, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
More:

Koumz (talk) 13:46, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Another bogus article on a talk page
Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 14:18, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Here we go again, added a bogus taxon to a page at WS.

Koumz (talk) 20:53, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi EncMstr, after an unblock request on the unblock-en-l mailinglist, the question arose if the six month 203.36.0.0/16 block (65.000 addresses in WA) might be excessive. Could you check what led to the block and see if it is not overly broad? Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 18:33, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure which block you mean. 203.36.* is Western Australia, not Washington. There is also a similar block on Portland, Oregon Public Schools. —EncMstr (talk) 00:23, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Hey Enc, "WA"=Western Australia, too. :) Valfontis (talk) 00:45, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
I did indeed mean Western Australia by WA, and that is the block I meant. Could have been clearer, sorry! Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 00:58, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Sorry about the WA misunderstanding. I am just back from a short vacation and focused on a small world of things. I did not reference a global perspective when reading your first query.
I investigated by looking at what I did around the time of the block: I did not do any associated reverts, nor issue any individual warnings. As I sometimes do, I likely responded to edits seen on my watchlist which someone else (probably many editors) reverted and warned. CIDR range abuse is fairly hard to detect with the tools I know of, but it is the only reason I would have issued such a block: most probably noticing one vandal jumping from IP address to IP address as they vandalized related articles. Likely offending contributions from this range are:
I just chose these from active editors in the address range with any particular IP address having two or more edits—ever—and with the most recent edits being since 2010.
There are 29 troublesome IPs out of 281 active IPs: not too bad a record. There are hundreds of helpful edits present. I think it reasonable to unblock the /16 range and block the most troublesome subgroup 203.36.44.0/24. I have implemented that now. Thanks for checking in. —EncMstr (talk) 08:56, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the swift response and action! Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 13:27, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
I came to this page tracking something else and this item caught my eye also because we had a burst of problem edits at WS from the 203.36.44.* block on 9 February also. The edit patterns there suggest that it in that case it was a group of several students editing together at once. Their edits there could almost have been productive had they not insisted on reverting pages to improper formatting. Koumz (talk) 21:32, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Tung Chee Hwa

Hi! I notice you deleted Dǒng Jiànhuá saying it is an implausible redirect.

But that is the Mandarin Pinyin with all of the tones. People redirect the pinyin to the articles all the time. It is plausible WhisperToMe (talk) 00:13, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

There are no links to it (see Special:WhatLinksHere/Dǒng_Jiànhuá). While I don't doubt that there would be such redirects on other projects, they would be very unlikely in English. Is there a guideline which recommends their presence—or at least discourages their deletion?
The Geography Barnstar
Thanks for creating the new List of mountain passes in Oregon article, and improving Wikipedia's coverage of geography-related topics. Northamerica1000(talk) 20:09, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, EncMstr. You have new messages at Coaster1983's talk page.
Message added 22:15, 28 February 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Coaster1983 (talk) 22:15, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

"How to" request from an almost newcomer to wikipedia

Hello,

I am a a stereographer and technical writer with 20 books in my biography, so I am often eager to correct/improve several articles on 3D related subjects. I attempted to add to the Stereoscopy word a reference to the James Cameron Ten Rules that are more and more frequently cited in the literature about how to shoot 3D movies. Doing so, I added an external link that doesn't seem to be in line with WP policy. The goal was mainly to assert the reality of the "Cameron rules" text and I think the link was to the first historic appearance of the text.

My question is "How can I insert a reference to an external text without using a link? Do you use usually other ways to give a possibility to externally verify a fact (i.e. a few carefully selected Google search keywords?"

I had problems with at least another edit for the same reason (external links to assert the reality of things and make the edit verifiable), so the answer may help me to edit other articles as well.

The diff link is here : http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=476660972&oldid=476652733

Regards and thanks for your help,

BenoitMichel 18:33, 29 February 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Benoitmichel (talkcontribs)

Hello Benoitmichel,
You are indeed being affected by several mechanisms intended to protect the integrity of Wikipedia.
Attempts to link 3D Cinecast are automatically reverted because it is hosted on a blogging website, Blogspot.com. Blogs are considered inherently unreliable, so this kind of filtering does more good than harm. Alas, this particular forum seems valuable. It would be better to cite a source which is subject to some amount of editorial review and fact checking. Perhaps there is a trade magazine with similar content?
Any editor whose body of work has significant numbers of external links receives increased scrutiny. Spammers, marketing people, and others with conflict of interest are so frequently encountered by editors enforcing the external links policy, they tend to lose patience and revert without giving even WP:EL as a reason.
I placed a welcome navbox on your talk page in October. There is an overwhelming amount of material linked from there, but almost all of it is derived from Wikipedia Five Pillars. Please see that for a condense explanation of why some content is acceptable and other content is not. Thanks, —EncMstr (talk) 20:06, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia layer on Google Maps and other coords questions

I've been fiddling with the Wikipedia layer on Google Maps lately. It's astonishing how many places we've written about that show up there! But I've noticed "missing links"--articles I've written that have coords but no infobox don't seem show up on the map. I figure it's a function of the way the coords render in the infobox. I kind of hate putting giant infoboxes on tiny, unlikely to be expanded articles but I'm starting to rethink that. However, do you know if there's some way to get the coords from the plain {{coord}} templates to show up as "Ws" on the map at the next data dump?

Also, Re: Category:Oregon articles missing geocoordinate data, I tackled some of the "coords needed" articles (mostly by BOLDly deleting the template from a bunch of articles) and saw you did a ton of them that took a bit more legwork. (thank you!) I was curious about your thoughts on adding coords to defunct national forests and the like. (If we can figure out where to center the coords) I'm thinking they will clutter the Wikipedia layer and also confuse people. Should we put coords on those articles or not? I like the idea of the coords being clickable but not showing up on Google Maps if they are placed in an infobox. Do you know if there's some way to do that? Most of the defunct national forest articles don't have infoboxes right now, but it might come up later. Valfontis (talk) 07:08, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for helping!
Depending on the Google Maps' zoom level, many [W] points show up or disappear. Mostly, it does the right thing, but sometimes it is completely mystical why itsy bitsy airfields are shown at large scales and disappear at small scales. Or why they don't appear until zoomed almost to individual trees.
As for making an article appear, the documented method is to use a {{coord|...|with 'display=title'|or 'display=inline,title'}}. The template {{infobox settlement}} also uses coord, but it needs the coordinates_display = inline,title parameter to provide a coord title display. There is a one to three month delay from adding them to having them appear. (Sometimes longer.) I have added that to all the major Oregon settlements, but not for the Podunks. I think it best to use {{coord|...|display=title}} on those.
I see you added a coordinate to Bloucher last August, so it should appear. I always assumed that Google scraped the geo tag microformat from the HTML, so using display=t instead of display=title should work fine. But since it is not appearing, maybe that messes things up (and Google is doing something different than I expected). Do you know of any articles which use the short form and appear on the Wikipedia layer?
For the former forests and whatnot, I was stumped finding any definitive description of their locations. If any are ever found, the new KML mechanism for drawing an outline (or maybe shading a region) on a map will be the way to go and help choose a reasonable point in the future. The KML mechanism is still being alpha tested at WP:WikiProject Highways—and well supported by WP:GEO—though progress is quite rapid. (See Mojave Desert and click on the globe icon.) Given what I know of things, I think the best thing to do is leave the missing coordinate tags for now. Maybe they could be moved into a new WP:ORE-specific coord missing category?
Yes: someone else worked on coordinates a few weeks ago too. I did not figure out who it was. I worked the list down from 160 (missing coordinates) to about 90; next time I checked—about two weeks later—it was around 70. I, too, ended up deleting a handful of coord missing tags since selecting a meaningful coordinate was too challenging. —EncMstr (talk) 08:09, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
It was Finetooth. He's also been improving articles on school districts as he goes, the scamp. More later. Valfontis (talk) 15:02, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
I think spelling out "title" is the key. I started going through my list of created articles (starting with "A", naturally) and you updated the coords tl on Agate Beach here, three years ago (that makes me feel really old in WikiYears) and it shows up on Google. Valfontis (talk) 20:06, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
On the other hand I updated to use the coord tl on Orenco here, not spelling out "title", 4 years ago and it shows as a W on the map. Do these have to do with the old {{Geolinks}} template being on there before? P.S. Here's a link to an old discussion. I think I'm just going to assume that Google Maps is one of the Great Mysteries and not look behind the curtain. Valfontis (talk) 13:02, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
This is amusing. Apparently this is off the coast of San Francisco. Valfontis (talk) 13:56, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I suspect there is the superstitious pigeon effect or pattern matching occurring here- I don't know if the t vs title matters, but I would expect the update is dependent on Google's crawl frequency of the pages. If they crawl Wikipedia like most other sites, they determine the frequency to revisit a page based on how often changes are made. Some of our Oregon community pages change perhaps yearly, so we can expect Google to crawl them very infrequently. Compare that to the home page, which changes daily- I'd expect Google crawls it several times a day. (as an aside, that pattern matching effect is really common. When we were hunter/gatherers, the cost of reacting to a bush that moved like a tiger was effectively zero. But if you ignored an actual tiger, you became a meal.) tedder (talk) 14:02, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Is Google doing it or are these folks doing something with Wikipedia data dumps, per here. Or is that the same process as you are describing? Somewhere I found a listing of when the latest data dump was done. It was fairly recently, I think. Valfontis (talk) 14:38, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
I don't know how it's actually done- I was making some guesses based on normal interweb crawling. tedder (talk) 15:14, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

IP serial vandal Ostroski again

Hi EncMstr, here's another instance, an older one this time - only active on 24 January 2012, but these edits have just been detected and reverted by other editors.

Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 06:56, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

And another hit at WS today:

Koumz (talk) 23:18, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

This IP user ID is still active on WP today - ! April. Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 06:39, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
And yet another:

Koumz (talk) 03:09, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Tidepools at Yaquina ONA

Yes, they are gone. I was there last summer. Too bad. Valfontis (talk) 22:48, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

That's sad. I looked down at them in January and they did look rather sandy, but it seemed it might have been okay at the right tidal level. —EncMstr (talk) 22:57, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Barnstar for you


The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
Thank you for your kindness! ~ ⇒TomTomN00 @ 20:14, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

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Thanks for helping make Wikipedia better. Enjoy your research! Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 20:40, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Abuse Filter on the Article Feedback Tool

Hey there :). You're being contacted because you're an edit filter manager, At the moment, we're developing Version 5 of the Article Feedback Tool, which you may or may not have heard about. If you haven't; for the first time, this will involve a free-text box where readers can submit comments :). Obviously, there's going to be junk, and we want to minimise that junk. To do so, we're working the Abuse Filter into the tool.

For this to work, we need people to write and maintain filters. I'd be very grateful if you could take a look at the discussion here and the attached docs, and comment and contribute! Thanks :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:15, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) requested move No.2

having previously commented, you may wish to offer your opinion on this matter. -- Semitransgenic talk. 01:15, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Ostroski, again

74.47.118.91 (talk · contribs · count · logs · target logs · block log · lu · rfa · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · checkuser · socks · rights · blocks · protects · deletions · moves) Just one edit today, already reverted. Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 00:09, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually, he's been making a bunch of talk page "articles" lately, including with that IP (Talk:Facturilagartcaballa, Talk:Ojoaushadrosaurus, Talk:Croatoacaptodynameosaurus, Talk:Toltecatlus, Talk:Parccalcitraripariotherium, Talk:Agricalyterodontosaur, maybe others)
Also
J. Spencer (talk) 22:35, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
Also this talk page "article": Talk:Kealoha-lkaika mo'onani. Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 08:33, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
And another address:

Koumz (talk) 23:17, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Koumz (talk) 15:23, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Arbitration at Talk:Good Crazy

Hello, I am contacting you because you are the first admin I've found who seems to have some relation to HIMYM. There is a dispute at Good Crazy about whether a not a continuity reference about Marshall being seen smoking a cigarette (presumably his last, per Last Cigarette Ever) is either WP:OR or WP:Common sense. An IP (most recently going by 99.192.61.78) is feuding with me and some other IPs and newly registered users over the matter. I am not reverting the reference back into existence to avoid fanning the flames of an edit war. Thegreyanomaly (talk) 17:28, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Do I have any relation to How I Met Your Mother? I might have reverted a bit of vandalism in the course of reversing a serial vandal.
Any reason not to settle the dispute by finding a citation, like in a TV Guide-like publication, for the continuity reference? —EncMstr (talk) 18:04, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Oops my mistake, saw you at Talk:How I Met Your Mother. Sorry about that. I found some episode reviews that call attention to the refernce, but the IP in question says they are not reliable sources [8] and that they do not definitely infer that it was the absolute last cigarette (but common sense would say it was) Thegreyanomaly (talk) 18:13, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Specific sources cited [9][10][11]. Thegreyanomaly (talk) 18:14, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Just to keep you in the loop. The IP in question has been reported for edit warring here Thegreyanomaly (talk) 22:47, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Editing the Polyvinylchloride Talk Page

Hello, I am contacting you about the Polyvinyl chloride Talk page. Basically it requires quite a bit of updating as regards subject headings and content in the light of more up to date information. How does this work? StuPat (talk) 14:47, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean Talk:Polyvinyl chloride, or Polyvinyl chloride? The section headings of a talk page are conveniences to organize discussion threads. They don't have any significance except for attracting editors to dicussions they might be interested in. That said, it is poor form to change a past discussion. However, you are welcome to add a new heading, or even a subheading (or sub-subheading, etc.) when you add a comment. —EncMstr (talk) 15:53, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Re: editor's barnstar

Thank you, EncMstr; much appreciated - I had no idea anyone was paying attention to my edits. Not sure this is the proper place to respond, so feel free to delete this entry. Tabledhote (talk) 02:19, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

You are most welcome. (This page is a great place to respond.) Thanks for the great work!
I wasn't stalking you but saw your edit to Mount Baldy Ski Lifts which is on my watchlist. Such a great edit summary had me curious if such quality was a one-off incident or standard M.O. I am pleased it is the latter! —EncMstr (talk) 03:54, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

In light of your prior participation in the discussion, it may interest you that the template has been nominated for deletion. Savidan 19:57, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

As required

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you....William 01:43, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

just a thanks

Just a thanks for the welcome to WikiProject Oregon. My new pal Valfontis can vouch for me. I think Oregon is kind of wonderful, and wikipedia continues to be a wonderful although occasionally complicated experience, so it's a natural fit. Cheers! --Lockley (talk) 18:59, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Request for rollback permission

 Done Rollback granted. Thank you for your excellent editing history!EncMstr (talk) 04:43, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

I would like to request rollback permission. I had it previously, but was indefinitely blocked in 2010 and given permission to come back by Arbcom in March of this year, conditioned on two topic bans (Climate Change and New Religious Movements). Since I came back, I have worked primarily on SCOTUS and Law articles, and patrolled new articles. I am familiar with the requirements for using rollback and believe it would be helpful. Please let me know if I need to provide any other info, thanks, GregJackP Boomer! 04:24, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. GregJackP Boomer! 15:05, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Vandalism from this account

You are an aggressive jackass and a vandal. You should be baqnned from Wikipedia. 207.231.12.33 (talk) 19:23, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

You are entitled to your opinion. I do not think I did anything worthy of such a tirade.
Perhaps you can explain how restoring a proper redlink in Samuel H. Boardman State Scenic Corridor, or replacing an improper abbreviation of CA intended to mean California, or restoring {{ISP}} information on your talk page makes me a vandal or jackass? —EncMstr (talk) 19:58, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Ostroski

Koumz (talk) 15:43, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Page move request

Thanks for acting on that request (unrelated to this one) that I posted 2 days ago at the WP:ORE talk page. This post is about Astoria City Hall. I recently created a new article about Astoria's current (but 73-year-old) city hall, which I titled Astoria City Hall (new) because the former city hall is listed on the NRHP by that exact same name, and Another Believer had already created a one-sentence stub about it (unaware that it was not the current city hall). I moved that one-sentence stub to Astoria City Hall (old) and created a new dab page from the old Astoria City Hall page. However, after discussion with another editor during DYK consideration, I've realized I probably should have called my article about the "new" (1939) city hall just Astoria City Hall. That building is not (yet) listed on the NRHP, and after 73 years as city hall (more than twice as long as its predecessor), there's no evidence that present-day Astorians refer to it as the "new" city hall. I now suppose the hat notes I already placed at the tops of both articles should suffice, and that Astoria City Hall (new) should be moved over Astoria City Hall (and then Astoria City Hall (disambiguation) deleted). Do you agree? If you are not sure, can you suggest someone to advise me/us? If you do agree, would you please do the move for me? The title that would be "moved over"/onto has two edits in its history, which I understand would make it impossible for me (a non-admin) to carry out such a move. SJ Morg (talk) 09:45, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

  • Hi SJ Morg, and apologies for interrupting EncMstr. Gerda dropped me a note saying pretty much the same thing - I've gone ahead and moved both the article and the talk page per request. Check to make sure that it's to everyone's satisfaction. I did leave a redirect behind, so let me know if you want that deleted as well. Cheers and best to all, and best of luck with the DYK. — Ched :  ?  10:22, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Ostroski, again.

Hi EncMstr, he's at it again:

Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 07:55, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

He's just recreated Talk:Yuerrazikk-opa-gi "comb" lake monster
Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 06:05, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
I deleted the page and salted it. This series seems to break previous patterns, at least those I have noticed. Any ideas about what to key on? Email would be better to discuss. —EncMstr (talk) 06:38, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder on the Frank Lloyd Wright page. It's kind of backwards to the way I do programming. I almost always put in, or edit, the comments in first then put in, or edit, the code. The habit is so strong that I forget to comment changes to Wikipedia about half the time. Perhaps you reminder will stick with me and I'll remember more often.

Thanks again.

Wjl2 (talk) 20:53, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, EncMstr. You have new messages at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Oregon#New article: Tourist attractions near Portland, Oregon.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Hello EncMstr, I now wish to replace all that I have removed, would you please help me. you may wish to see the reason on my webpage. C:\Users\Norman\Documents\Ozemail Web Pages\Kiandra.html Clarkenorman (talk) 01:12, 5 September 2012 (UTC)Clarkenorman (talk) 01:12, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Lake County

I'll reconstruct the sources for my data on crime and crime in Lake County. It may take a minute, since Google Chrome began malfunctioning on my computer, and although it was far from perfect, especially after it was "improved", it made some types of research very easy. I turned to Mozilla as my browser, and it is far less efficient.Euonyman (talk) 20:11, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to recommend that you go ahead and delete my comments on crime in Lake County. It is not that I think they're generally in error, but re-researching the data has been instructive. There is more than one way to represent data,such that almost any blanket assertion comes into question. The FBI shows Lake County to be a low-crime jurisdiction, the State of Oregon shows it to be high-crime but in the second tier, shall we say, and other sources give it a very bad rating, particularly high in aggravated assault and burglary. I am assuming that the wide range is due to the methods of reporting. It looks like there is a very wide disparity—wider than in jurisdictions where the police presence is both more evident and more competent—between convictions and other means of collecting information, whether it is polling data or newspaper accounts or some other process.

In future I will be more careful.Euonyman (talk) 22:54, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Mandarin Pinyin redirects

Hi! I notice you had deleted Dǒng Jiànhuá and Liáng Zhènyīng - but those are not R3 eligible - they are Pinyin of Hong Kong officials. Even though Cantonese is the primary language in Hong Kong, Mandarin is becoming increasingly important in Hong Kong. If you still believe the redirects should be deleted, I would recommend AFD. I went ahead and restored the Pinyin redirects. WhisperToMe (talk) 18:06, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I deleted them on the basis that this is the English Wikipedia. As far as I know, there is no guideline suggesting or tolerating foreign language redirects for any entry, unless the term is commonly used in English. Examples of the latter would be deja vu/déjà vu, derriere, Los Angeles, and zeitgeist. Is there a guideline for the former? —EncMstr (talk) 16:25, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

removal of picture from Lewisburg, Oregon page

There is a notable building in the city of Lewisburg, Oregon which has been on the National Register of Historic places since 1991. A photo of the Grange Hall has been provided to that page via Wikimedia Commons. It makes no sense to have two pictures up there on that page, particularly when the previous picture is of a non-notable building, a gas station/convenience store. I did this action to improve the page, not to commit any sort of vandalism. I was unaware that we now have to ask permission. I thought wikipedia was about "being bold." Ladycascadia (talk) 19:40, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

You do not need to ask permission. However, being WP:BOLD is one thing, but removing content without explanation is another. Your explanation here is a great one. It would have been nice to have a short version of it in your edit summary of the time, or a note on the article's talk page. Thanks. —EncMstr (talk) 04:09, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia Loves Libraries

User:Another Believer told me that you are attending the Multnomah County Library edit-a-thon at the end of October. My name is Lane. I work in NYC but am from Seattle. I happen to be visiting the area during this event, and I plan to attend also. I wanted to introduce myself, say hello, and say thanks for being a part of organizing this. I think it is really important. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:58, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Someone at the library is organizing it. I have attended one such event before and liked it quite a bit, so I am attending just to help however I can. See you there. —EncMstr (talk) 02:39, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

You're Invited! Wikipedia Takes Portland 2012

<font=3> You're invited to participate in Wikipedia Takes Portland 2012, an annual event which occurs each September in Portland, Oregon as part of Wikipedia Takes America and Wiki Loves Monuments in the United States. Photographing sites in Portland listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the main focus of Wikipedia Takes Portland. This year the event will kick off at Saturday, September 22nd at noon at Pioneer Courthouse Square. Currently, there are no formal plans--this is simply an opportunity to meet fellow Wikipedians before trekking around PDX to photograph sites on the Register. Not interested in coming downtown? You can still upload your images as part of the international photo competition. Be sure to RSVP and share the results of your work HERE (number of images uploaded, links to galleries, successes, feedback, etc. Click here for more information about meetups in Portland! --Another Believer (Talk) 15:07, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Mandarin pinyin redirects

Hi! I notice Zēng_Yùchéng was deleted under R3. I restored the redirect since Mandarin Pinyin redirects to English are plausible. If you wish to challenge this, please use Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:23, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

You're Invited to Wikipedia Loves Libraries 2012 (Portland, Oregon)!

<font=3>WIKIPEDIA LOVES LIBRARIES: MULTNOMAH COUNTY EDIT-ATHON!
You're invited to participate in Wikipedia Loves Libraries 2012, an edit-athon hosted by Multnomah County Library for the purpose of improving stubs relating to Multnomah County. The event will take place on Saturday, October 27, 2012 from 2:00-4:00pm at the Central Library in downtown Portland. You can view details about this Wiki Loves Libraries event here. Be sure to RSVP and share the results of your work HERE.
Click here for more information about meetups in Portland! --Another Believer (Talk) 21:08, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I know you already plan to attend, but I wanted to make sure you received an invitation nonetheless!! --Another Believer (Talk) 21:08, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Chapman's swifts

Hi EncMstr: I'm just wondering if you're aware that the Chapman's Swift is a real live species of swift found in Central and South America. Yes, Chapman Elementary School in Oregon has swifts. And yes, they're popular. But pointing Chapman's swifts to the Vaux's Swift article is problematic — and shows a strong US-centric bias that we're trying hard to eliminate on Wikipedia. Snowman had changed the Chapman's swifts article to point to the article about the species, with a hatnote there to direct people to the Vaux's Swift article in case that's what they were looking for. Does that seem okay to you? MeegsC (talk) 03:00, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

There is strong evidence that the name (now a redirect) Chapman Swifts is mostly used for the Portland flock. As you can see, Chapman's Swifts is not linked anywhere, and Chapman's Swift is so close that a hatnote is an extremely good idea. Views of Vaux's Swift seem to be a steady 25—30 per day, except for about a 60% click-through rate from Chapman Swifts.
I have been considering the merge of the former Chapman Swifts into Vaux's Swift: I am still inclined to conclude the merge is ill advised–confusing a distinct flock with a species. They are close, but the latter did not appear as a Did you know on the main page and is not clearly within the scope of WikiProject Oregon. The merge did not deal with the talk page, probably because of the mismatched subjects.
I appreciate the effort to minimize U.S.-centricity, but sweeping away a clearly notable geographically-based subject seems to be going a little overboard. —EncMstr (talk) 03:33, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Chapman Swifts

Hi, I have put a signpost header on Chapman's Swift to highlight the population of Vaux Swifts at Champman School. There are 9000000 hits on google for Chapman Swift, and it is better that the redirect of the pleural variation goes to the species at Chapman's Swift. Some people are concerned about the confusion the redirect at Chapman Swifts could cause if it was redirected to to "Vaux Swift", and there is a discussion about it on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Birds#Chapman_Swifts and you are welcome to advance the discussion there. Incidentally, the redirect to Chapman Elementary School goes to a page about somewhere not in Oregon. However, according to the Wiki article, the swifts roost is in Portland, Oregon, so perhaps there is more than one "Chapman Elementary School" in the USA, and the school needs disambiguation. Should the school have its own Wiki article? Snowman (talk) 09:09, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free media (File:Oregon Aquarium logo.png)

Thanks for uploading File:Oregon Aquarium logo.png. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'file' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Hazard-Bot (talk) 04:17, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

photo

Thanks for the photo. Now I'd like to find others for the art and architecture sections.--Diane3459 (talk) 23:15, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

meetup greets

Hi there -- it was nice to meet you (I think?) yesterday at the portland meetup. Hope to see you around again, keep up the good work ! :) here 05:02, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Barlow Road

Hey. I am a member of WP:USRD. I, as well as some other members, are trying to give all Good Articles in USRD a KML file. However, Barlow Road is nearly impossible to create a KML for unless you know the road really well. Since you were a main contributor in getting this article to GA status, would you consider making a KML file for Barlow Road? –TCN7JM 01:01, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

An interesting challenge! The map I did before was complicated in several areas, but I can certainly give it a go. Perhaps two-thirds of the route is clear from present day maps. Other parts were very hard to discern. Do you know if there is a KML convention for marking a point with varying amounts of uncertainty? —EncMstr (talk) 01:15, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
I don't think such a convention exists. If it does, I haven't seen it. –TCN7JM 01:23, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
I don't think we've run into that situation before; the oldest road with a KML is Ridge Route. --Rschen7754 05:23, 16 October 2012 (UTC)


Hey, again. We're sorry to bother you again, but we would still like a KML for Barlow Road. It's still the only upper-tier article in USRD without a KML file. Anytime you're not busy, could you give it a try? --TCN7JM 04:43, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I have made several attempts, but determining the route of the road is quite challenging—You do realize that it hasn't been used nor maintained in nearly a hundred years, right? Recording any plot points is difficult, but quite a bit easier than determining the road's location. I think I had the whole thing set up in Photoshop, but that is on a computer I have not turned on in years. Feel free to take a stab at it: almost certainly that will be faster than I can do it. —EncMstr (talk) 00:17, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

This is a fascinating thread (at least to this "other" contributor to the GA status of the article)! I wonder if it would be worthwhile soliciting some help on this. I believe there are folks at WP:WikiProject Maps (some professional cartographers) who like to assist on things like this; or there might be people at the Oregon Historical Society or OpenStreetMap who are able and willing to help. Anyone interested in putting out a call for help? It might be interesting to put together a blog post about it, to point people to. I'd be happy to help if there's still interest. -Pete (talk) 04:04, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Probable COI and bad user name

Hi, EncMstr. Although I have no interest in the topic of the article concerned, I noticed – via the WP:ORE-related recent edits page - an apparent case of editing under a banner user name, and consequent risk of COI editing, and thought you might be willing to look into it. The user is Deviever, and they've been editing the article on a company (which I had never heard of) called "Devi ever fx" (or Devi Ever Effects), including moving the page to the current title. Personally, I don't like to deal with these kinds of things, but it's been a few days and no one else at WP:ORE has jumped on it, so I thought I'd mention it to you, as you appear to like tending to such things (which I really appreciate). Thanks. SJ Morg (talk) 02:58, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I took a look, and I see you (EncMstr) already took action. Glad to see the PROD, but from the article and some independent sources, I learned that Devi Ever is the name of the founder of the company. So the username is almost certainly not a role account for the company, but a person using her own real name. I unblocked, and removed the block notice; hope that is OK. (As a side note, it does appear that the company may be notable, but unless anybody shows the interest in digging through those sources enough to build a proper stub, I agree the PROD should be allowed to expire and the article deleted.) -Pete (talk) 04:09, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, Pete. Until proven otherwise, I think your interpretation of the facts is likely correct. —EncMstr (talk) 05:18, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Thank you both for your attention to this. SJ Morg (talk) 08:35, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanks for your contributions to this wonderful project. Hope you have a great Thanksgiving! --Another Believer (Talk) 19:56, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Lincoln Tunnel

Here's a link that has Lincoln Tunnel info and history:

best, Djflem (talk) 23:11, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Vandalism reverted

Hi. Just to point out that a few days ago User:178.78.118.66 reverted some vandalism to the Kenilworth article by User:ReyDelCastillo diff. You then reverted User:178.78.118.66's contribution describing it as vandalism, thus reinstating the corrupt article. I have reverted your edit.--Shantavira|feed me 08:51, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm not sure how I got on the wrong side of that edit. Thanks for fixing it. —EncMstr (talk) 18:22, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanks for your contributions to this wonderful project. Hope you have a great Thanksgiving! --Another Believer (Talk) 19:56, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Lincoln Tunnel

Here's a link that has Lincoln Tunnel info and history:

best, Djflem (talk) 23:11, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Vandalism reverted

Hi. Just to point out that a few days ago User:178.78.118.66 reverted some vandalism to the Kenilworth article by User:ReyDelCastillo diff. You then reverted User:178.78.118.66's contribution describing it as vandalism, thus reinstating the corrupt article. I have reverted your edit.--Shantavira|feed me 08:51, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm not sure how I got on the wrong side of that edit. Thanks for fixing it. —EncMstr (talk) 18:22, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Ostroski returns

Koumz (talk) 14:46, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

User:JSydel

User:JSydel has returned to removing maintenance tags w/out explanation after you blocked them for precisely that behavior on November 23. I also noted that they blanked their talk page, which while allowable, could be construed as an attempt to obscure the fact that they'd been blocked for this behavior. I've reported them at WP:AIV but thought I'd copy you as the previous blocking admin. Doniago (talk) 14:29, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I have now blocked him for one week and left him another serious note about the need of discussing his edits. De728631 (talk) 15:09, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for your prompt response! Hopefully they'll take the hint this time. Doniago (talk) 15:41, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks to both of you. I spent some time cleaning up his/her latest edits. Their ratio of useful edits to non-useful has increased. —EncMstr (talk) 18:30, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
For what it's worth they removed their active block notice. I reverted their removal per my understanding of WP:BLANKING and noted such in my edit summary, but if you think there's a possible good editor here, you may want to elaborate. Doniago (talk) 02:58, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
WP:BLANKING changes that aspect every time I read it. The present wording indicates that it is okay to leave it deleted unless there are pending {{unblock request}}s. I don't think it is bad that you reverted the blanking. The way things have gone, the guideline will probably change soon.
Based on my experience, the odds of this editor eventually being helpful is about 50/50 in light of the most recent edits, many of which are partially helpful. It is worth spending a little time to educate, so I'll add some links for them. —EncMstr (talk) 03:07, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Hand-coding

Hey all :).

I'm dropping you a note because you've been involved in dealing with feedback from the Article Feedback Tool. To get a better handle on the overall quality of comments now that the tool has become a more established part of the reader experience, we're undertaking a round of hand coding - basically, taking a sample of feedback and marking each piece as inappropriate, helpful, so on - and would like anyone interested in improving the tool to participate :).

You can code as many or as few pieces of feedback as you want: this page should explain how to use the system, and there is a demo here. Once you're comfortable with the task, just drop me an email at okeyes@wikimedia.org and I'll set you up with an account :).

If you'd like to chat with us about the research, or want live tutoring on the software, there will be an office hours session on Monday 17 December at 23:00 UTC in #wikimedia-office connect. Hope to see some of you there! Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 23:00, 14 December 2012 (UTC)


Question on edit

Hello 18 days ago you reversed my edit on the willamette meteor, why? I said it was technically owned by the clackamas people, as it landed on their reservation land. It even says so in their article


Research stations in Antarctica

hi EncMstr's, i'm new and yesterday i had problems with editing, sorry ----- I'm updating the list with the site of the Council of Manager of National Antarctic Programs (the excel file is at the end of this page https://www.comnap.aq/Members/SitePages/Home.aspx (updated 13 february 2014). ----- have a nice day N

Wiki Loves Pride

You are invited! Wiki Loves Pride

You are invited to participate in Wiki Loves Pride, a global campaign to create and improve LGBT-related content at Wikipedia during the month of June, culminating with a multinational edit-a-thon on June 21. The project is being spearheaded by two organizers with roots in the Pacific Northwest. Meetups are being organized in some cities, or you can participate remotely. Wikimedia Commons will also be hosting an LGBT-related photo challenge.

In Portland, there are two ways to contribute. One is a photography campaign called "Pride PDX", for pictures related to LGBT culture and history. The Wiki Loves Pride edit-a-thon will be held on Saturday, June 21 from noon–4pm at Smith Memorial Student Union, Room 236 at Portland State University. Prior Wikipedia editing is not required; assistance will be available the day of the event. Attendees should bring their own laptops and cords.

Feel free to showcase your work here!


If you have any questions, please leave a message here. You can unsubscribe from future notifications for Oregon-related events and projects by removing your name from this list.