User talk:Gadfium/Archive 12

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Warning[edit]

You're coming perilously close to edit-warring/WP:3RR sanctions on various articles in your dispute with Ernest the sheep. Although I can see why you and others have been reverting their content, serial reverting is for dealing with vandalism only. Anything else, and you should be trying to resolve the dispute through proper channels. Please be more careful in future. EyeSerenetalk 10:18, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy to see that you have dealt with EtS. I think I probably gave him far too much rope, and should have blocked him indef as a troll much earlier.-gadfium 17:15, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Merry Christmas[edit]

I'm going to be away for a while so....

Thanks for your help and guidance this year, I look forward to working together next year. Kiwiteen123 (talk) 02:15, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Enjoy your break, and I'll see you next year.-gadfium 02:45, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas Gadfium! May the Star of Bethlehem light your way to the Lord's feet on this holy night. God bless - Ffgamera

Re: progeria[edit]

I only cleaned up what user Ups shah wrote. The source I provided says other wise, though I admit I never seen the film, but I can only imagine that only non-similarities in the film/story is the visual appearance of progeria, but is using or suggesting the same disease. Which IMO would merit being included in the article about progeria. I'm sorry if you thought I was insulting your Bachelor of Science intelligence, that was not my intention. I didn't know you or anyone reverted it until I posted my encyclopedic version of Ups shah's. I did get into an edit conflict, but it didn't tell me who or what about and honestly assumed it was the user removing what he added. I just won't edit any more science related articles, and will only stick to my film articles, as I'm obviously not intellectually qualified. Seriously. I'm sorry. Also, I stronly believe per Wikipedia guidlines that those two other films should have reliable sources. --Mike Allen talk · contribs 08:27, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You might as well include a paragraph about the Lord of the Rings in the article. After all, the elves and hobbits have a condition quite unlike progeria, in that they age more slowly than normal. Similar specious "reasoning" would probably allow any material to be added to any article.-gadfium 09:13, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The only difference is that I had included a, seemingly, valid source linking the story to the disease. Oh well, it's no big deal. I didn't mean to be disruptive. --09:30, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
I overreacted. I'm really objecting to the story/film being called "progeria-like", as it really isn't at all like it. However, I accept that progeria might have inspired the story, so would the following wording be more suitable?-gadfium 17:57, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The 1922 short story "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" by F. Scott Fitzgerald (and later released as a feature film in 2008) may have been inspired by progeria. The main character, Benjamin Button, is born as a seventy-year-old man and rapidly ages backwards.[1]
Yes. The words "may have been inspired by progeria" does positively change the context. Like I said I never seen the film or read the story, I was going by what I've read on the net. I salute you for trying to keep the science articles accurate. The article progeria got almost 18k views just yesterday. --Mike Allen talk · contribs 20:35, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Articles needing Copy-edit[edit]

Hi, I've just joined WP:Grammar to help with copy-editing articles. There's a huge list in Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit (7945 articles) and it is only available by month or alphabetically. I wonder if there's a bot-writer who could create a categorised list for the project? Would you know who to ask? I think that would help attract volunteers like myself, if I could easily narrow the list down to Science or Music, for example. Or it might allow me to choose topics I'd like to learn about while copy-editing. Tayste (talk - contrib) 22:46, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:Bot requests, or ask at WP:Village pump (technical).-gadfium 23:54, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Tayste (talk - contrib) 05:27, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

CfD nomination of Category:Swing[edit]

I have nominated Category:Swing (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) for renaming to Category:Swing music (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs). Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. —Justin (koavf)TCM☯ 05:48, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Marlborough Boys College[edit]

As pointed out previously any errors are because of ignorance of the process rather than vandalism or copyright

How do we get around these issues The school song is in the public domain it is freely copied and distributed

Please note that I am on the staff of the school and that information is coming from archives or from school publications I need a way of avoiding these copyright issues.

Rather than simple removal can you help by coaching

Hope you can help --Gilesl (talk) 02:35, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is intrinsically unsuitable for materials such as school songs, because it is freely editable. What would happen if someone decided to "improve" the grammar of the song. What if it genuinely was an improvement? It would no longer be the school song, so the change would have to be reverted. If there is no link to an authoritative (and easy to check) source, then it is difficult to know if the change is the correction of a typo at the time of the original entry. A more appropriate place for such material would be Wikisource, which is used to dealing with such issues.
In any case, we need a reliable published source for any material added to the article. See Reliable sources. In general, we prefer sources independent of the school, but for non-controversial material, a primary source is acceptable. Your first step to getting the school song onto either Wikipedia or Wikisource should be to have it added to the school website, along with a notice saying that it is in the public domain.-gadfium 03:24, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that I think I understand probably easier to leave out I not ein the past I have been called to task forcopying from a web site so thre is a catch 22 here. --Gilesl (talk) 08:27, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We have to be conservative on copyright matters. It's not just you who has to jump through hoops sometimes.-gadfium 08:45, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Infoboxes - AE vs BE[edit]

Re the edit of the Cycle Action Auckland infobox that you reverted, I hadn't spotted that my change had broken things. I've followed up on your suggestion and put a proposal to Template_talk:Infobox#Forms_of_English to have this looked at. Thanks. Schwede66 (talk) 17:42, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Admin[edit]

Thanks for that Gadfium. At present I'm more focused on areas that don't really need admin tools. However, if that focus changes, I might take you up on your kind offer! --Epipelagic (talk) 20:50, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have nominated Closed schools in the Northland Region, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Closed schools in the Northland Region. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. 2 says you,

says two 05:46, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Robin Brooke[edit]

What do you mean?

It's been discussed, the plan is to add more to the career section.

I'm sorry if you think sticking 'boilerplates' everywhere is useful. I do not. I think they detract from the article.

And you were the one who put it there without any discussion!!! I had to initiate it to sort it out! Tristanb (talk) 23:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have replied to you at Talk:Robin Brooke.-gadfium 00:53, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Whanganui/Wanganui[edit]

Read the whole discussion page. There were several and significant reasons listed in above sections as well that warranted merit. Next time, please comment and establish some consensus before making such significant changes. I am reverting your edit, if you have any queries, please use the discussion page. Wipkipkedia (talk) 08:42, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have. You appear to be giving the arguments of an editor who was indefinitely banned in 2005 (for good reasons unrelated to the naming of this city) more credit than those of every other editor. The recent discussion on the naming of the city was advertised on the New Zealand Wikipedians' noticeboard. No one objected, so the renaming happened in mid December. It is not appropriate for you to come along almost a month later and decide without putting up any arguments to the contrary that the article should be named differently from the name used by the Government and the major TV channels (TVNZ and TV3). Please follow appropriate channels. Mounting an argument on the talk page would be a good first step.-gadfium 08:58, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The New Zealand Wikipedians' noticeboard is far from an official broadcast, and I would suggest that one month is far from enough time to warrant significant discussion, especially the fact that we are in the middle of our summer holidays. As I stated on the talk page, take prudence with these issues and give people their time to have their say. I am all for debate on this issue, but the two issues I have raised are that the status quo should be maintaned until a decision is made, and that your '30 day challenge' is far from acceptable. I am not responding to your government and TVNZ aregument, that is for the Wanganui talk page, so if you have more to add, please feel free to contibute there where it can be taken on board by everyone. Wipkipkedia (talk) 09:58, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Please read the posts on the talk page ( which is here: Talk:Whanganui) before declaring that no reasons were given when they quite obviously have been. Also, as I have already politely asked for before, can you please keep the discussion of the topic off our personal talk pages and on the Whanganui talk page. Wipkipkedia (talk) 12:27, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That is ridiculous. You are playing with your admin power simply because somone disagreed with you on Wikipedia. I find that disappointing. Wipkipkedia (talk) 00:20, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Giving you warnings for your bad behaviour is not playing with admin powers. I have taken no admin action with respect to the Whanganui article since December 2009. Should you resume your disruptive behaviour, I will request another admin to take action against you rather than doing so myself.-gadfium 04:49, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As a Wikipedian, I assume good faith, and expect others to do the same. However, this is ridiculous. I have done nothing wrong and you are blatantly misusing your administrative powers. I am done with this nonsense. I am not here to get involved in petty arguments with people like you. Do not expect any more replies. Wipkipkedia (talk) 11:06, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ian Ewan-Street[edit]

Regarding the protection of Ian Ewen-Street:

Although we both know why you have placed protections on Ian Ewan-Street, I am not sure if you are aware that wikipedia is not subject in any way to the New Zealand judicial system (or to its anti free speech supression orders), and therefore, on account of being hosted in the US state of Florida, it is perfectly acceptable to post futher relevent and sourced information regarding this order on the MP's article. The use of protections for an article are to be used only to protect articles from vandalism, and not to engage in political censorship unrecognised by all other states except New Zealand. Assuming you will maintain the protections regardless of my protest, I will take my complaint to another admin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nixon88888 (talkcontribs) 00:47, 12 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I protected the article because unsourced negative material was posted to it, contrary to the policy at WP:BLP. Blogs are not suitable sources. Your sockpuppetry will not be tolerated.-gadfium 04:17, 12 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
TV3 news confirms that the name in the blog post is accurate: [1] 203.167.138.171 (talk) 04:45, 12 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any connection between the article you link to and the article on Ewen-Street. You might like to read WP:SYNTH.-gadfium 04:48, 12 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Massey University[edit]

Who are you and why do you take this so seriously? Can't take a joke pal? I'm sorry I have defiled the precious pages on which you so fervently dedicate your entire existence on. Boo hoo...

I'm a Wikipedia editor and administrator. I'm one of many people who help to create this very widely used resource. Jokes are not appropriate here. You might like to try Uncyclopedia for humorous articles.-gadfium 06:03, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

-You might want to take your own advice because you are a joke. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dangerzone76 (talkcontribs) 10:30, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Poneke[edit]

Congrats. You've had a special mention on Poneke's web blog, heh, heh. http://poneke.wordpress.com/ RichardJ Christie (talk) 08:28, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for pointing it out.-gadfium 09:11, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't too bothered by his comments, sometimes I wonder if the guy has a screw loose. His Ellis articles are good though RichardJ Christie (talk) 11:44, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ANI[edit]

You're being discussed at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#gadfium. Woogee (talk)

Thanks for the notification. I can't think anything I say there is going to add anything at this point.-gadfium 01:45, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Refreshment time[edit]

Phew, this summer's getting a little hot. Time for some refreshment! This is why I prefer not being an admin :/ --Epipelagic (talk) 01:01, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've just come back from a lovely time at the beach. Summer is a good time.-gadfium 01:47, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Should this biography be included in wikiproject New Zealand? Rick570 (talk) 04:27, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Most certainly. See Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand#Project banner if you're not sure how to do so.-gadfium 05:06, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Article that looks like a textbook[edit]

Hi, could you please take a quick look at Interval finite element? It looks like a textbook or full scientific "how to" journal article to me. I've placed a note on its discussion page about this. I'm tempted to slap {{Original research}} and/or {{howto}} onto the article... what do you think? Cheers, Tayste (talk / contrib) 09:52, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Way outside my areas of competance, I'm afraid. I suggest you raise it at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics.
Thanks, I've asked there.
By the way, are you aware that Wikipedia has a mathematics reference desk, where people of varying degrees of competence ask for help on mathematical issues and get answers, or sometimes discussions. You might enjoy participating there. I sometimes contribute at the science, humanities or miscellaneous reference desks.-gadfium 18:52, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh yeah, I have been there before, thanks for the reminder.

Citations for List of suicides[edit]

Hi. I've started a discussion here. (Actually, it's a restart of a prior discussion that went cold; you can just scroll directly down to my most recent post in that section if you want.) Can you offer your thoughts? I think it's very important. Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 00:43, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dance - Verification as requested[edit]

World Hip Hop Champs - 2007

The Xbox 360 crew: Malalona Mafaufau, Jan Book and Allister Salaivao (Members or former members of South Auckland based crew, Dziah) The Aitken triplets, Joanna, Danica and Kelly Aitken

http://www.danz.org.nz/news.php?news_id=70 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gymsportnz (talkcontribs) 23:13, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Gadfium - could you have a look at the above article, and the recent edit war between an editor and me? IF you have any interest (if not, just say so - I will be fine!).

Basically, the editor is constantly reinserting (in the lede, no less) that members of the group have themselves claimed they are pirates and terrorists. As basis, he cites a reference of Watson where he (Watson, the group's president) says "One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.” It’s a valid observation and does not mean that I have ever advocated terrorism.".

Yet he keeps using that same ref to state that Watson has admitted terrorism. If this was stated on the Paul Watson article, I believe this would constitute libel, why not here? Totally twisting the words around, in my opinion. Since I am now getting close to the 3-reverts rule, I am trying to stay away for a while, before I blow my top. So again, would be happy if someone who is both an admin and (presumably) has no strong preconceived opinions either way on this could have a look. Ingolfson (talk) 06:38, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct that I have no connection with the article, and no particular opinions about the group. I will watchlist it and ensure that material added is supported by the references.-gadfium 07:39, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please see the talk page of that article. We've discussed it there and resolved it allready, prior to your warning. You'll also note that incivillity was rampant, especially on behalf of the above editor who has been personally insulting and even had been reverting my talk page. I know it's easy to blame an anon IP but you'll see the whole time we were trying to talk it out in discussion. Thanks for looking in. --68.41.80.161 (talk) 07:42, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Gadfium - sorry for dragging you into this. "Incivility was rampant" - well, it is true that I lost my cool at one point when above anonymous placed a warning message on my page, but immediately reverted my placing of a libel warning (re Paul Watson, SSCS president) on his talk page. I can thankfully say that we cooled down and even apologised to each other since. Ingolfson (talk) 10:07, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Your recent edit of the SSCS article[edit]

Hey Gadfin, you just undid the result of our discussion. Please take another look at what you removed. Ing and I had a disagreement about the "terrorism" portion of that statement, so instead of us arguing over the lumped statement, I split it for us to be able to deal with separately which seemed to be working as the solution to our disagreement.. which you just reverted to the state that we had disagreed on. Please fix? Or at least read the discussion to see where Ing and I were agreeing before reverting. Thank you.--68.41.80.161 (talk) 07:51, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Apparantly the ref to "pirates" had gotten lost in the shuffle. It's fixed now. All the editors are happy. --68.41.80.161 (talk) 08:18, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FAO Country Profiles[edit]

The Food and Agriculture Organization for the United Nations and its 192 members highlight information as one of the priority areas in fighting hunger and achieving food security.

The FAO Country Profiles and Mapping Information System is a pioneering information retrieval tool which groups the organization's vast archive of information on its global activities in agriculture and development in a single area and catalogues it exclusively by country. [2]

That's why I was inserting the links to those 192 countries. I think it's quite important and one of our main objectives in our Division (I'm a FAO staff)it's the diseemination of the information.

Thanks for your help and clarification.--MontseBL (talk) 13:23, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As a staff member of FAO, you have a conflict of interest with these links. I have no doubt that FAO is an excellent resource, but Wikipedia is not a web directory. You should ensure that your links are placed highly within such directories, but we cannot help with this.-gadfium 19:33, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This makes me angry. Not with you gadfium, I know you are just following Wikipedia's link policies, which doesn't leave much wriggle room. But those particular policies are blunt, undiscriminating instruments, bludgeons really. FAO country sources are as definitive as sources get, and of course every country should be linked to them. Here's a guy, no doubt superbly equipped, trying to help us do our job... We've been down this path before, so you know what I think. There should be a provision for cases like the FAO, Te Ara and NZ On Air, to be treated with some respect and accommodated in a sensible way. The aspirations of these organisations are essentially aligned with our own. Wikipedia shoots it's own foot at times, and stupidly makes enemies it shouldn't make. I know I should argue the position on the relevant policy pages, instead of grizzling here. I don't because I don't trust the editors who hang out there, and fear its a waste of time and energy. But maybe some day, I will. --Epipelagic (talk) 11:10, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm... I think I jumped the gun with that comment. My experience with FAO country profiles is with aquaculture and fisheries. For example, here is their New Zealand resource in this area. Quite exhaustive (note the tabs at the top). So I assumed... that coverage in other areas would be at a similar level. But these new country links from the FAO are mystifying. They don't seem to offer anywhere much at at all. The aquaculture and fisheries pages don't seem to be there, and the EarthTrends document they do offer is full of broken links. Perhaps, since the pages are new, they are yet to properly implement them. --Epipelagic (talk) 17:59, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There are probably thousands of websites which contain country profiles together with external links relevant to those countries. How many of these are high-quality (and what simple method can we use to determine a cut off between high quality and the rest)? I suggest at least a dozen would meet any reasonable criteria of high-quality information - the CIA world factbook, several UN agencies, several encyclopedias. It is not reasonable for us to link to these dozen websites from every country, and then have to police attempts by well-meaning or otherwise editors to add the remaining such websites. A similar argument can be made for photo or travel websites. To me, it is at least partly about the proliferation of external links.
NZ on Screen was an unusual case where they provided a resource which was not matched anywhere else on the web. No other website contains profiles of multiple New Zealand actors complete with legal excepts from their key performances across multiple films and series.
The Wikipedia policies and guidelines allow wriggle room so high quality content can still be linked to. The current consensus of editors is perhaps less compromising than those guidelines, but it still allows links to NZ on Screen - so long as they are placed by individual editors in the course of editing articles on diverse topics, and not en masse by an editor who works for the site being added.
You are welcome to add a link to the relevant FAO page to (eg) Fishing industry in New Zealand if you think that is a valuable resource. Even better, add some of the information from the website into the article, and use the FAO page or some of the sites it links to as references.

NZ History[edit]

The editor may have acted in good faith but instead of following your advice and merely adding the events to the event list he decided to create specific sections and add other trivia not previously discussed. Although I tend to veer towards the 'exclusionist' side on these matters I feel this sort of trivia needs to dealt with in the appropriate forum rather than in specific articles (which would probably result in multiple reversions).

In my opinion adding sections on "Visits from the Famous and Royals around the world" and "Bands/Artist on Tour" is an excessive trivialisation of the sort of events that should be included on year pages. I can find no other instance of these categories being used in Year in Country articles (although I haven't checked them all, just the most obvious ones). There would undoubtedly be endless arguments about who qualifies as 'Famous', the only exceptions would probably be the Monarch of the UK and the Pope (if those tours involved large-scale public parades). The vast majority of musical acts visiting NZ could hardly be considered notable even on a year by year basis (the exception would probably be The Beatles). Annual events, such as the Big Day Out, are excluded from Year articles although they persist in Year in Music articles. If the were Year in New Zealand music articles (as there are for some other countries) visiting artists would belong there. Cheers, DerbyCountyinNZ (Talk Contribs) 09:50, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There must be consensus I am not aware of which dictates what can and can't go in these articles. I am vaguely aware of WikiProject Years and Recent Years, but these seem to focus mainly on the individual year articles such as 2010. My feeling is that year in country articles such as 2010 in New Zealand can be more inclusive. Is there a page to discuss the standards for such articles, or are they covered by the wikiprojects I have already linked to? You suggested in an edit comment that we discuss it at WikiProject New Zealand, but this might also need input from people editing other year in country articles.
My inclination would be to move the Prince William tour to the Events section of the article, which currently has no events having occured this year to date. I am not much of a music fan, but AC/DC and Big Day Out are bands/events I recognise and would very weakly suggest we keep in the currently empty Music section.-gadfium 19:11, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think a lack of entries is a good excuse to add something to a section, this would merely set a precedent for including insufficiently notable entries. The Prince William visit has been added, though I personally don't think it is particulalry notable. DerbyCountyinNZ (Talk Contribs) 00:21, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My understanding is that WP:YEARS and WP:RY includes Year in Country and Year in Topic articles, although the scope is so broad that little effort has been made to apply any consistency to these articles. I tried some time ago to get an idea of what should be included in a typical Year in Country article, as well as the best format, but no-one could come up with an answer. There appears to be very little consistency between different countries and older years are often particularly thin. Ideally there would be a content/format that everyone could follow but there don't appear to be enough users willing/available to do this. DerbyCountyinNZ (Talk Contribs) 00:21, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hey[edit]

GADFIUM!!!  :) Hello. It has been quite a while. Yes, I've been around for a while, but for a good long time all I did was ghost on the various reference desks. Then one day the RC Patrol bug bit me and hasn't let go since. Of course, now I'm in the habit of jumping into editing without logging in. I hope you've been doing well. What part of the project are you most involved with these days? 152.16.59.102 (talk) 08:15, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am doing well, but I'm less involved than I used to be. I mostly just patrol my huge watchlist, largely New Zealand-related articles. I hardly ever add new content now, but at some time the bug may strike me again. I miss my old friends here, you and Lucky (I know he's editing under a new username, but somehow I don't feel the same connection).-gadfium 08:22, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, every once in a while I run across an old friend here, but it would probably help if I edited while logged in. That way more people would see my name and have a chance to recognize it. I'm surprised you ran across one of the (three?) pages where I've connected this IP with my registered account. I wasn't aware Lucky was using another name. I hadn't checked his user page. My time here is pretty random and can be cut short at any time with a phone call, so I try to focus on things that won't take long to handle. RC Patrol is perfect for that. One of the disadvantages to editing as an IP is that I don't have a watchlist. I do go back every once in a while and review articles I've edited in the past, checking to see what edits have been made in the interim. It sure is great to see you again. Let me know if there's anything I can assist with. 152.16.59.102 (talk) 08:37, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Move over disambig - request[edit]

Hi Gadfium. Could you please move UK Postcode Lottery to People's Postcode Lottery? See the official website link on the first article for confirmation of the official name. Cheers, Ingolfson (talk) 09:49, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Can that request please. Apparently there are two different articles. They may or may not be about the same thing. I thought this was a simple case - but not really interested enough to sort it out now that it is getting complicated (I just stumbled over it). So thanks. Ingolfson (talk) 09:51, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi gadfium. Could you have a look at recent edits by Sally-Anne Lambert to Māori language. Seems to be promoting her own book. Her English is also odd, as if not a natve speaker of English, and some of the material is strangely awkward and linguistically off. But the main worry for me is the promoting of a book which i think is commercially motivated. Kahuroa (talk) 02:53, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My first thought was that while she is undoubtedly promoting her book, she also seems to be making useful contributions to the article, and it's not as if we have a surplus of experts on the subject. Then I looked a little more closely, and most of the Syntax section is all about the book rather than the language. I think it's reasonable to keep the book in the references section, but I'll remove the discussion of it in the text.-gadfium 03:02, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I went ahead and removed both. Restore the ref if you like. I also renamed the grammar section to grammar and syntax since that is what it covers. Lamberts discussion of morphology and phonotactics wouldn't belong under syntax anyway, even if it hadn't been all about the book.

Question on process[edit]

Hello Gadfium, See [3] for some revision history. I placed a notability tag on the article after a uBLP issue had been resolved, and documented on the talk page what my concern was. Now I have to admit that I don't know the first thing about cricket, so maybe there is notability or maybe there isn't (I for one can't see it looking at the article). But given that an editor has removed the tag and stated "has played top-flight cricket", what is the right process to bring this to the attention of a wider audience? Schwede66 04:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Cricket have their own notability criteria. See WP:CRIN. My understanding of this is that any player who has played at the highest domestic level is considered suitable for an article. I have my doubts that domestic cricket matches in New Zealand should qualify for this; for most sports I think a Kiwi player should have represented New Zealand to be considered notable. However, I am not much interested in cricket and do not intend to push the point.
If you wish to take it further, I suggest to begin with you should ask at the WikiProject Cricket talk page, and if you are not satisfied with the response there, take it to Wikipedia talk:Notability (people), with an advert for the discussion somewhere on the village pump.-gadfium 08:50, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the reply. I've had a read of the notability guidelines, which sound rather 'all inclusive'. Schwede66 16:09, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mount Albert by-election peer review[edit]

I notice you have contributed significantly to Mount Albert by-election, 2009. A peer review of the article has taken place, and your help on fixing the listed criticism would be appreciated. Thanks, Adabow (talk) 09:33, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cameron Slater[edit]

The google cache link you keep removing from the Cameron Slater wiki page is a link to Cameron Slater's blog.

Cameron Slater's blog is, by simple definition, a primary source for an article on Cameron Slater.

I will continue to revert your edits.Bayardo San Roman (talk) 14:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have blocked you, and will continue to block you while you flout policies.-gadfium 19:32, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How droll. I notice that you have declined to even mention what policy is being flouted. Could that be because you're just making the policy up?

In your comments on my user page you mention:

1. "Please do not use blogs as references."

/Cameron Slater is a blogger. Links to his blog are primary sources for a wiki article about his blogging.

2. "Please do not use blog entries which are defamatory as references."

/Could you please explain why Cameron's blog entry is defamatory. In particular, please state who it defames.

3. Please do not use google cache of deleted defamatory blog entries as references

/There is *no* wiki policy against linking to entries in the google cache. Bayardo San Roman (talk) 11:32, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop trolling. The article does link to his blog, but as an external link, not as a reference. It is very clear that you know who the blog defames, otherwise you would not keep linking to defamatory entries in it. The policy is WP:BLP, although WP:RS is clearly also relevant.-gadfium 17:52, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Olivia James-Baird[edit]

It would appear that Olivia James-Baird has previously been deleted and it's now surfaced again as an uBLP. What's the right process to deal with this? Schwede66 22:22, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've deleted it. The deletion discussion allows the article to be recreated if properly sourced, and this wasn't. You could have tagged it as {{db-g4}}, which is for articles previously deleted via a deletion discussion.-gadfium 22:38, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good to know about {{db-g4}} - thanks. Schwede66 22:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Revision deletion[edit]

Hi, I noticed your comments on Cameron Slater in WP:BLP/N. While I'm not an admin, I believe WP:Revision deletion is intended and better for this purpose then deletion and selective undeletion. Incidentally, if you want to try it, you could take action on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive598#Deletion of edits Nil Einne (talk) 15:26, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe this feature is turned on in the English Wikipedia as yet. If so, it is not available by default to administrators, nor is there the deleterevision usergroup existing on this site. I agree it would have been preferable to selective undeletion.-gadfium 18:28, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Help[edit]

Is there anyway I can report that the article HMS Endeavour has been vandalised while i read it... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jedro163 (talkcontribs) 01:37, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like it was fairly quickly sorted out. See Help:Reverting for how to remove vandalism efficiently, and if you find an example of vandalism you don't know how to deal with, report it at Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism.-gadfium 03:51, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination for deletion of Template:New Zealand English[edit]

Template:New Zealand English has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. —Justin (koavf)TCM☯ 05:09, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Two of your pics on commons[edit]

I have tagged a couple of your pics for renaming on Commons. They are the two titled Waimirirangi marae at Te Kao [4] and [5]. The marae is Potahi Marae, as the sign on the wharenui says, so I have requested they be renamed Potahi Marae at Te Kao. Kahuroa (talk) 19:42, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, no problem.-gadfium 19:47, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Gadfium. I was wondering if you could move this page to Wharenui. It won't let me because there is a redirect I think. Whare whakairo is a carved house, but in Northland especially there are lots of wharenui which aren't carved. So I reckon wharenui is the more general/usual term, and the presence or absence of carvings doesn't alter the role of the house. Kahuroa (talk) 04:27, 14 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done.-gadfium 05:12, 14 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Move request[edit]

Southwestern Motorway should be moved over the redirect at New Zealand State Highway 20 please. The Southwestern Motorway term is rarely ever used, as far as I know, and anyway, we should use the official name, and be consistent with other articles like New Zealand State Highway 1. Thanks for doing it, Gadfium. Ingolfson (talk) 00:53, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done.-gadfium 00:56, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That was quick ;-) Thanks. Ingolfson (talk) 00:58, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Requested semi-protect[edit]

Can you please take a look at Dan Carter, and consider silverlocking it? There seems to be quite a bit of vandalism, especially by non-registered users. Thanks, Adabow (talk) 09:24, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reluctant to semi-protect it. Some of the anon edits are genuine updates to the article (as far as I can tell). In fact, I think most updates to this article are from anons. The vandalism I see is not in general grossly offensive, and it seems to be removed reasonably quickly.
To improve matters, you could ask a few friends to add the article to their watchlists, or look for some public watchlists which might include it. WP:WNZV already includes it; perhaps there's a similar list for the rugby union wikiproject.-gadfium 18:48, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you[edit]

Just wanted to say thank you for your block of User:66.99.197.5. That account seems to been used only for vandalism, and although I know it's not necessarily the same person, they had absorbed far too much editors' time already. Kudos --RexxS (talk) 20:49, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lifting the block[edit]

Hi Gadfium, I am going to lift this block because it is a public library, and a good half of the edits that have been made by unregistered users are perfectly acceptable. As is noted in the template at the top of the page, library users only have 30 or 60 minute sessions, so any block longer than an hour or two is targeting an IP and not the person using that IP. The next user could very well be a highly constructive editor, or a regular editor who chooses not to use their regular account on an insecure site. (Quite a few of the edits suggest this is happening.) I trust you will find this acceptable. Risker (talk) 01:34, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, no problem.-gadfium 01:42, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Aoraki/Mount Cook[edit]

You have new message/s Hello. You have a new message at droll's talk page.


WPNZ template[edit]

I've tried to start a discussion on the WPNZ template with respect to the governments project, but this hasn't attracted any contributions. Given that you sometimes contribute to pages on politics, I thought you might be interested in this. Schwede66 09:34, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

PlaneShift deletion[edit]

Please review the deletion log of 8 April and in particular the deletion of PlaneShift article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2010_April_8 There is no reason in the world this article cannot stay on wikipedia. 3 more notable sources have been added. Thanks. --79.40.27.216 (talk) 15:34, 9 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Archive 12 NZ WP Noticeboard[edit]

Could you please archive New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board? I suggest archive up to end of 2009 and leave the 2010 stuff on the page. First section of 2010 is "Religion graph". This is so anyone looking at the page (from the geonotice) will find the length less daunting and yet still find some stuff to read. In case you're wondering why I am asking. you created the last 2 archives (didn't look at others) and I assume it is something of an admin function? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Linnah (talkcontribs) 13:34, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Any logged in editor can archive a page like this.-gadfium 19:41, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Many Thanks for archiving it. Yes I sort of assumed anyone can create the page to archive it BUT did wonder if an admin like you could turn off the ability to edit the archived pages? If you can't (noticed they are editable), I know don't always log in to WP and may not notice if someone's changed the archived page and it needed reverting to orig. It was also a case of lazyness in my part for not RTFMing to see if anyone could archive that page (as one does one's user talk page). Sorry I thought I signed my initial req. Must have accidentally deleted the 4 tildes. Linnah (talk) 14:20, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
U could protect the archives, but it isn't normally done. It's a matter of pride to have as few protected pages on a wiki as possible. All pages I create go onto my watchlist by default, so I'll notice any edits to them.-gadfium 19:54, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Some thoughts on by-elections[edit]

Please see the discussion on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_New_Zealand/governments#Some_thoughts_on_by-elections. Schwede66 00:52, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Robert Lawson[edit]

How did I obstruct the process? Am I to jump every time commanded by someone? I was not even here when it was nominated. These people cannot even write English - am I to teach them this also?  Giano  21:15, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You don't have to jump; you are welcome to ignore a process such as GA if you don't like it. Your removal of the infobox during the GA review appeared to be unconstructive, especially as you did not link to any of the prior discussions which you say concluded that such infoboxes are not required in biographies. As an experienced contributor, you do have a moral responsibility that when you make such edits that you assist others to understand why.-gadfium 21:28, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have no moral reponsibilities to anyone other than my wife and children, and certainly not to anyone on Wikipedia. So let's not get over dramatic. If people wish to set themslves up in judgement over others it might be a good idea if they learnt to speak their own language first; then and only then may they judge me. The nominator and "judge" displayed no knowldge of the subject - one wonders what they were attempting to do - I certainly have no idea. One of NZ's most prominent published architectural historians has openly and heavily edited the page - one assumes he knows what he is taling about - Wikipedia needs to learn when it is well off! Mediocrity is not a world I am prepared to inhabit.  Giano  21:38, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am sorry you believe you have no moral responsibilities, other than to your wife and children. The people reviewing the article are very likely not the people who wrote the template that you are objecting so strongly to.-gadfium 21:46, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The people reviewing the article" advocated and placed the template. Do they not have a responsibility for their actions too? Anyway, I am now tired of this, Wikipedia just sinks further and further into "moral" self-justified and self-satisfied mediocrity. "Experts are scum" and the famed Randys prevail. I thought perhaps you may have understood that. Yet again I am wrong. End of conversation; I shall move on and write yet another page for those that do not have a clue about the subject to criticise.  Giano  21:58, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks[edit]

Thanks for fixing the date typo in the geonotice. No idea why I typed March instead of May Linnah (talk) 08:28, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fairfield[edit]

Hi, full support for your protection there, its still on my huge watchist. Poorly cited controversial content about living people, at the least. Regards. Off2riorob (talk) 09:07, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Geonotice for auckland meetup[edit]

Under guidelines it says if no one has responded within a few days to ask an administrator to take a look. Could you have a look? or should I post formally in the admin noticeboard? Thanks Linnah (talk) 22:27, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Probably better for you to ask on the admin noticeboard. I haven't ever processed one of these and a quick look didn't reveal instructions for how to do it.-gadfium 22:43, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for getting the geonotice going. In light of your comment re lack of instructions, is it now written somewhere for future ref? Even if not, I've put a copy of the js code you put in in the talk page of the auckland meetup so it can be used for future ref. Linnah (talk) 07:43, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There should be a link or set of instructions on the geonotice page for admins to implement the notices. However, editing of (potentially) site-wide javascript is a specialised skill which is not in the normal admin job description. If you look at my edits to the js page, you'll see that I may have made a mistake in my first edit which might have resulted in a truncated message (I don't know javascript, but in most programming languages if you use a single quote to start a string, an embedded single quote is going to cause problems). What is really needed is a few admins with appropriate skills who will maintain the page. It may be worth asking some of the admins who have previously edited the javascript page to watchlist WP:GEONOTICE and implement requests from it.-gadfium 08:30, 6 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

IP you blocked for a month, now at it again, a few days after block expiration[edit]

Consider a longer block this time? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:24.43.231.210

Thanks! SBHarris 05:55, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again. Good one. SBHarris 17:34, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

SnapComms[edit]

Hello Gadfium, I've had a look at SnapComms and to me, it looks like self promotion, and I also wonder about notability. But the deletion notice on the talk page would suggest that the article had previously been deleted. Where and how would I look up whether that is the case? What processes are in place so that the reasons for a previous deletion are checked when an article gets recreated? Schwede66 08:53, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You should be able to view logs for the page, linked from the page history, at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=SnapComms. The page was speedy deleted under A7. No indication of importance. The current version is significantly expanded from that version, and includes some sources, so deleting it as a recreation would not be appropriate. You might like to take it to AfD.
If an article is deleted via AfD on grounds of notability, there is a much stronger case for summarily deleting a recreation, even if that recreation is not near-identical to the original.-gadfium 09:04, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks - have now prodded the article. Schwede66 01:35, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Geonotice[edit]

Looks very good. This map actually shows how it's working. Best of luck with the meetup and with the future Wikimedia New Zealand :)--Pharos (talk) 22:35, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Pukekohe page information removal[edit]

Id like too know why you removed my addition to the page, do you even know who I am? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Carl NZ (talkcontribs) 14:16, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't know who you are. I saw what you wrote about yourself, but that does not make you notable.-gadfium 03:43, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

and who said your noteable enough to remove it? what a load of garbage, I have quite a bit of editing to do on that page, with a lot more information and links, but whats the point if your going to remove it.

bet you know nothing about the place or the people that live there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Carl NZ (talkcontribs) 10:41, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please make sure that any information you add to the page includes references to reliable sources so it can be fact-checked. You should also be aware of our guidelines about notability.-gadfium 18:53, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fairfield College[edit]

Im sure the Editor and staff of the Waikato times are not amused to find that they are not considered a reliable source by you-even when one of the the articles was front page news!Neither the school's principal, nor the commissioner have challeged any of the statements made by the Times.It was of interest/concern that when the Times recently published the full version of the 2009 NCEA results all Hamilton schools were included, apart from Fairfield College. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.237.37.90 (talk) 23:31, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Geonotices[edit]

Hi there. There's a geonotice request for a conference in Manila that doesn't seem to have been addressed. I notice that you've edited MediaWiki:Geonotice.js to add and remove the geonotice for the Auckland meetup. Could you add the geonotice for Manila? There's also a geonotice request for a Boston meetup that I added. If there's nothing wrong with that request, then could you add that geonotice as well? Thank you, Emw (talk) 12:46, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've added the Manila meetup. The Boston request is to start in a few days, so wait until May 15 and then ask someone.-gadfium 19:29, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Samoa independence[edit]

Thanks for catching my Samoa error. I had seen the date at several sites including the New Zealand Government website [6] which says: "On 1 June 1962 Western Samoa became independent of New Zealand." I guess those tricky Samoans have fooled many people. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:55, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There does seem to be some confusion, and I might be wrong. I had done a quick google and the large majority of sites I found said 1 January, but finding a New Zealand government site saying 1 June gives me reason to pause. However [7] (which is run by a NZ govt department) says 1 January, and [8] also does - and that's a Samoan govt site. History of Samoa and other Wikipedia articles such as List of sovereign states by formation date seem to be consistent on January, but are not referenced. If you feel like doing some more digging, an explanation of the reason why Independence Day is celebrated in June would be a worthwhile addition to the article.-gadfium
I agree 1 January is the correct day. I was just explaining my error. The government site source was from Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand and we know how unreliable online encyclopedias can be... I will tell them about the error at the address at http://www.teara.govt.nz/contact-us. I don't know the story behind celebrating 5 months later but 1 January may be an impractical day. I'm not sure which day should be at List of countries by Independence Day but maybe a note should be added in either case to explain the situation. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:55, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Your own source [9] says: "In 1948 (June 1) the NZ and Samoan flags were hoisted together for the first time. (This is the reason for Independence celebrations being commemorated on the 1st of June and not the 1st of January)". PrimeHunter (talk) 00:04, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Flaxmere[edit]

I am writing to dispute the assertion that you made that the reference http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/pagesmh/8066/$File/NZDep2006_av-dep-scores.pdf does not show that the highest social deprivation index values of the Napier-Hastings metropolitan area, can be found in the suburbs of Camberley and Maraenui rather than in Flaxmere.

These index scores by census unit area for the Napier-Hastings area are found on page 5 (printed page 191) of the reference.

Flaxmere incorporates the following census units Kingsley-Chatham Score 1204 Lochain Score 1143 Flaxmere East Score 1141

Suburbs in Napier-Hastings with higher deprivation scores are: Camberley Score 1244 Maraenui Score 1252

Flaxmere certainly is a low socioeconomic area, but the data shows that it does not have the highest poverty levels in Napier-Hastings —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.153.44.15 (talk) 04:30, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the follow up. I've restored the material at Flaxmere, and added part of your above explanation.-gadfium 04:46, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Music task force[edit]

Hi Gadfium, Is two interested article assessors enough consensus for you to add the music task force parameters (see {{WikiProject New Zealand/sandbox}}) to {{WikiProject_New_Zealand}}? (Adminly powers are needed). dramatic (talk) 02:39, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Um, note that it would have to be TF2 now so as not to usurp the politics mob :-) dramatic (talk) 02:44, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done, and added to Talk:Music of New Zealand as a test. Please create the appropriate categories.-gadfium 05:54, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Can you please also add the |TF_2_NESTED = Music parameter? Adabow (talk) 07:25, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

New Zealand politics task force[edit]

Schwede66 invites you to join WikiProject NZ politics.

Old image[edit]

I am asking you this as you are an admin, and are active in NZ politics articles. I have moved File:KeithLockeMP.jpg to the Commons, but there is an old photo that used to be under the file name. As new of images are meant to be uploaded to a different file name, should the older image be moved to the commons as well? Adabow (talk) 23:43, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know. The older image apparently has the same license as the newer one, so probably it should be. Having several images from different decades of a person's life seems like a good thing to me. If you want a more authoritative opinion, try asking at the administrator's noticeboard. There may be a noticeboard for discussion of images, but it isn't listed in Category:Wikipedia noticeboards and I can't find it.

Population template and PDF/Book creation[edit]

Hi Gadfium, the population figure now appears ok in PDF/Book creation for Far North District, there was also a small issue with a missing space that's been fixed as well. The population wasn't appearing because PAGENAME didn't work as expected, so a solution is to put the article name in when using the template, and I've updated the documentation for this. There is one other related issue, the population density has an error message, I don't see an answer for that at the moment. A workaround could be to temporarily hardcode the density for PDF creation. XLerate (talk) 04:46, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Makonde Elephant Carving[edit]

My thanks, Gadfium, for uploading the image of the Makonde elephant carving. I have used it to illustrate the article, Shetani, which I created about such spirit carvings. I'd certainly welcome any comments or contributions.μηδείς (talk) 21:34, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Takurua Tamarau[edit]

Hello Gadfium, I see that you warned Nonibee25 about adding copyrighted material and Takurua Tamarau appears as a redlink in that warning. Well, the article is back, this time as Takurua Tamarau. (i.e. with an additional fullstop). Schwede66 18:55, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, deleted and the user given a second warning.-gadfium 20:28, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ross[edit]

Hi, I don't have an alternate means of contact, so can you please tell Stephanie that Ross has passed away. The funeral will be at All Saints chapel at Purewa at 1.30 pm next Thursday. Thanks Onco_p53 (talk) 10:24, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for letting me know. I'll see you at the funeral.-gadfium 19:05, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dermatology[edit]

I cannot remember if I have asked you before, but any interest in dermatology? If so, we are always looking for more help at WP:DERM, particularly with the ongoing Bolognia push. I can send the login information to you if interested? Regardless, thanks for your help on Wikipedia! ---kilbad (talk) 20:40, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I have no particular interest in this area. You've probably seen me on genetic and incurable disease articles, but my role there is mainly to revert vandalism.-gadfium 20:53, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Warratahs copyvio[edit]

Hi, Is it possible to mark the History section of The Warratahs as a copyvio without zapping the entire article? (I tagged it as sounding like an advert, and have only now spotted that it was lifted wholesale from their site. Looks as though it has been around for three years: added here - rather a lot of intermediate edits to redact! dramatic (talk) 10:22, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You can zap the entire history section as a copyvio; just make an informative edit summary with the url it's copied from. No admin action is needed.
However, the chances are that it was added by someone with close connections to the band, and the band are likely well aware of the article, and have not objected to it. If you think the material in the history section is worth keeping, then I suggest you attempt to contact the website administrator to request that they change the copyright on that page of their website to CC-BY-SA, and offering to immediately remove this regrettable copyviolation if they prefer not to switch to such a license.-gadfium 19:28, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, would you mind voting on the above page? It's the site logo for the Māori wikipedia. Last year a user pointed out that the word utukore means free in the monetary sense, and said the right translation would be wātea, meaning free/unrestricted/open, ie for anyone to edit. Totally correct, but nothing was done about it. With a new version about to be rolled out with the change to the Vector skin, I'd like some community backup for the change in wording in case Meta asks. Kahuroa (talk) 11:10, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reverts[edit]

Hi, sorry for the stupid revert of me, should have looked who is adding those links. As you seem to have a fuller picture of his edits, did you consider adding a message to his talkpage? Richiez (talk) 09:23, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As you say, the article linked to is not spam, and I did not want to bite a new contributor by adding a spam template to his page. Linking to the policy on external links in the edit summary seemed sufficient.-gadfium 09:26, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I also had the impression that there is a good chance the edits were done in good faith and also remember the times when I was a new editor - in such cases a personal message on the talk page (unlike spam template) is a nice thing. It is easy to get lost in WP even for people who may be experts in some field.Richiez (talk) 09:59, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The article List of fictional New Zealanders has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

List which fails WP:IINFO, WP:NOT (directory). Stillborn, generally uncited, and inclusion criteria are so broad that it will never be even partially completed.

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 {{dated prod}} 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 {{dated prod}} 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. Claritas § 18:40, 9 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Politicking links[edit]

Just as a heads-up, I've had to rollback the majority of edits by Kiwi2b (talk · contribs) - they were adding links to the Port Hills Electorate website to every article on southern Christchurch in the guise of being a community website for that particular suburb. I've left the link on the actual electorate article and Ruth Dyson. dramatic (talk) 13:00, 12 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you; those two articles are appropriate but not others.-gadfium 00:18, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Requested moves over redirects (x2)[edit]

Hi,

Would you be able to move

  1. Taranaki Savings Bank to TSB Bank - the current official name of the bank.
  2. The Bone People to the bone people - I believe the talk page gives sufficient evidence that the title should be lowercased. (I've already put a {{lowercase}} template on the page. dramatic (talk) 09:57, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've moved the bone people per your request. You should be able to move TSB Bank yourself. You can move a page over a redirect, so long as the redirect has no history and points to the page being moved.-gadfium 10:20, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Maps showing railways[edit]

Explain[edit]

Consider the following:

  • One of Wiki's strengths is to provide useful crossferences, wherever they can be found.
  • "Railway stations in Such-and-such country" exist for many countries.
  • These railway station pages list country maps that show railways, where they can be found, usually UN or UNHCR maps, and even then not always.
  • There are usually many other maps that do not show railways at all.
  • The maps that show railways for a whole country, mostly do not show detail, and cannot be zoomed.
  • The railway station lists list many stations.
  • You can click on the town name, and click on the {{coord}} button, which offers a choice of 100 maps. Which one(s) of these maps shows railways? Well the list of maps doesn't say. (It did once, but this was deleted with an unscientific tidy-up).
  • An alternative way of going from Railway stations in Such-and-such to a town map that shows railways, in as few steps as possible, is to access the one or two suitable maps in the "External links" heading, usually at the bottom of the page. The MSN maps are reasonable good for this purpose.
  • The {{coord}} button remains untouched to access the other 100 maps.
  • Therefore the link to MSN Map in Mendoza, Argentina should not have been deleted and should be restored.


Tabletop (talk) 04:11, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Adding content to the article would be much more valuable than adding external links. Some of the external maps readily available may show railways, and others may show other features. Rather than deciding for the end user which features are most important, we allow them a large range of links. A user who is primarily interested in railways will probably come to identify which of the mapping services provide this information.
You might like to provide a free map including railway links which can be included directly in the article, or perhaps within articles more directly related to railways such as Transandine Railway. You may be able to find blank maps of the area on Wikimedia Commons to build upon.-gadfium 03:02, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have nominated List of fictional New Zealanders, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional New Zealanders. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Claritas § 15:07, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The correct article is Chris Kohlhase. My mistake. Could you delete Chris Kohlase. Much obliged. ThanksRick570 (talk) 04:57, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done.-gadfium 06:13, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Gadfium.Rick570 (talk) 06:54, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Iakoba Italeli[edit]

Hi. You've indicated that Iakoba Italeli is now Governor-General of Tuvalu, but you haven't provided a source for this information. I can't find any source anywhere confirming it. Could you please let me know where you got the information, and if possible add the source on Italeli's article? Thanks. Aridd (talk) 14:19, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The BBC, the New Zealand Foreign Affairs Ministry and the CIA factbook still think it's Filoimea Telito, but the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs says it's "Iakoba Taeia Italei" (with a letter missing?). It doesn't give a date, though. (http://www.info.dfat.gov.au/info/hog/hog.nsf/ListSpecific?OpenForm&ExpandView&RestrictToCategory=Tuvalu) If you're right, you can ensure Wikipedia is ahead of most sources. :p I am very curious as to where you got your information, though. Aridd (talk) 14:37, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The initial change was made by a transient editor [10], and while I had trouble finding reliable sources, the Australian DFA link you also found convinced me that it was correct. I believe the Australian link is more up to date than the other links you mention, because of a couple of mentions in current Cuban sources: http://america.cubaminrex.cu/Cooperacion/2010/agradece2.html and http://www.prensa-latina.cu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=187156&Itemid=1 - the latter is no longer available. I did list these sources in my edit summary, eg in Governor-General of Tuvalu, but I expected that more reliable sources would become available in time. I am reluctant to list the Australian link as a source, even though it's undoubtedly a more reliable source than the Cuban press, because it says it's copyright 2004 with no other indication of when it may have been updated, although the information is clearly more recent than 2004.

For items such as this, Wikipedia should be up to date, but we also need to follow reliable sources. It's a problem that the reliable sources do not stay up to date when it comes to small countries such as Tuvalu. It would be an impossible situation to insist that we always stick with what the CIA factbook says, unless we have coverage in major newspapers about a change. Usually, the problem of Wikipedia being at the leading edge of the news (as has happened for some deaths of notable people, eg Rod Donald where I was trying to confirm the report from a reliable Wikipedian hours before anything appeared in the media) is resolved within a day or two by the media catching up.-gadfium 19:58, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, lack of interest, by media and other governments, in keeping up to date with what's going on in small countries, does pose something of a problem... The Commonwealth website also says it's still Telito. Maybe Tuvalu simply didn't issue any kind of announcement when it changed its Governor-General; the lack of a Tuvaluan government website certainly doesn't help... I'm not sure Wikipedia even has a policy for such cases, has it? You're probably correct. I suppose we should leave it as it is, and wait for reliable sources to catch up. Aridd 09:34, 25 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The policy is quite clear - verifiable sources are required, sometimes put, in cases like these, as Verifiability, not truth. I'm sticking my neck out a bit on this one. If you can find any reason to believe that I'm wrong about who is the current GG, e.g. a media article about Filoimea Telito as GG within the past month, then I will revert my edits.-gadfium 21:09, 25 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Commonwealth Ministers website now lists Italeli as Governor-General: http://www.commonwealthministers.com/heads_of_state/he-mr-iakeba-taeia-italeli/ . No dates, though. Aridd (talk) 22:46, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion request[edit]

I've given Hugo999 a hand with archiving his talk page (which was 200 items long, so it needed doing!). For some reason, the bot started with archive 4. I've moved the archive pages, reset the bot (the next bot-created archive page should be called 'Archive 4') and set up an archive box for Hugo999. Can you please delete the three redirects that have been left behind, so that the bot doesn't throw a wobbly next time it visits, and that the redirects disappear from the archive box? It's 'Archive 4', 5 and 6 that need deleting. Thanks. Schwede66 19:43, 25 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done.-gadfium 20:48, 25 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Schwede66 21:12, 25 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could you kindly take a look and repair any damage I may have caused? I know that it's aesthetically superior now to what it was before I came by, but I am wholly ignorant of the subject and fear I may have misrepresented something or cut something out, or both, or worse. Thanks. 98.82.22.154 (talk) 00:31, 29 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've done some copyediting. Your version is certainly better than what was there previously.-gadfium 01:12, 29 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. However, after I left my post here, I found that not everyone agrees with your assessment. 98.82.22.154 (talk) 12:37, 29 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ERO Report- Carncot Independent School for Girls[edit]

The ERO website's report what I was looking for- thanks Gadfium! Techhead7890 (talk) 11:55, 29 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Gadfium,

I dont know why I cant format Richard J H Matthews properly. I would be grateful for any help.07:40, 1 July 2010 (UTC)Rick570 (talk)

If you put a space at the beginning of a line,, this triggers preformatted code (the <pre> element). Since this is most often used for computer code etc, it is styled with a border and background. dramatic (talk) 08:19, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Also, any web address must start with "http://" for Wikipedia to create a live link. I've added this to the reference which leads to the Czech Technical University, but there is something else wrong in the url so the page will not load.
You might like to contribute to the deletion debate for the article. I have a feeling that the number of Google hits is a particularly poor measure of notability for a classical scholar, and it may well be that Google primarily indexes him under a different name. I tried '"Richard Matthews" classical' as a search, which wasn't sufficiently selective, but you may be able to come up with a better search term.-gadfium 09:11, 1 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

thank you very much Gadfium. Yes I agree about classical scholars and google. Also, his hay day was a little before google became of importanceRick570 (talk) 10:14, 1 July 2010 (UTC)Rick570 (talk) 04:50, 2 July 2010 (UTC) Thanks for your help Gadfium. I will try other searches when I get time.[reply]

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

JamesBWatson (talk) 09:26, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Simon Prast Page[edit]

Thanks for recovering The Simon Prast article. Hopefully it wont happen again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by KakapoNZ (talkcontribs) 11:50, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

RFC[edit]

I noticed that you participated in a previous RFC at Wikipedia talk:Notability (criminal acts)/Opinions. I was wondering if you might share your opinion here: RFC: Should Wikipedia:Notability (criminal acts) be merged with Wikipedia:Notability (events) and Wikipedia:Notability (people)? Thanks! Location (talk) 19:28, 5 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Inappropriate conduct[edit]

Hello Gadfium, I'm being hassled by an IP user and I was wondering what you suggest that could be done about it.

It started with this edit, where the Category:New Zealand politicians who committed suicide was added to a biography. I looked for sources for this, but couldn't find anything and thus removed this unsourced addition again, referring in my edit summary to the talk page, where I documented that things like this need to be referenced. You can see in the edit summary that this went back and forth a bit, with the anon eventually referencing the claim with an offline source. Case closed, I thought.

But no, the anon seems to have a bee in the bonnet now. The tone of the edit summary is rather inappropriate. This was followed up with this entry on my talk page. And here's the latest.

What do you suggest? Schwede66 19:45, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've posted to their talk page.-gadfium 19:53, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Schwede66 "contributions" to Wikipedia are SIMPLY WHOLESALE COPIES of articles taken from sources online (primarily Papers Past, Cyclopedia of NZ). Things that were written over 100 years ago that do not read well in the 21st Century. See comments about a son of William Stewart's who "died as a sibling", that must have been a painful death(?!?). Absolute nonsense but another gem of Schwede66. He devalues Wikipedia and the quality of the resource. Unfortunately for him, he has been caught out! Gadfium in the PAST would have corrected/edited this garbage from Schwede now he defends it and him! People should be concerned for the future of Wikipedia with the so-called "NZ wikipedians" of Schwede, Mattlore and Adabow in charge...lazy and inept! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.58.246.23 (talk) 20:15, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Replied on your talk page.-gadfium 20:37, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Liston College[edit]

Thank you Gadfium. I will start again with more care. Sorry. Rick570 (talk) 07:47, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Pat Downey[edit]

Hi Gadfium, Pat Downey always appears in the "M"s in the applicable category lists and not in the "D"s where he should be. Can anything be done?Rick570 (talk) 23:08, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Near the bottom of the article you have {{DEFAULTSORT:Molloy Anthony}}, presumably copied from the article you based this one on.-gadfium 23:19, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Feel foolish yet again! Thanks.Rick570 (talk) 23:25, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

NZ schools[edit]

Wikipedia has an explicit policy stating that templates are not to be used to artificially transclude categories onto articles; doing so can produce a lot of undesirable consequences, including duplicate categorization (e.g. having an article filed in both Category:Schools in New Zealand and Category:Schools in Auckland at the same time), categorization of inappropriate pages (e.g. if somebody is using the infobox on a sandbox page — such as User:Gollumgainsford1/Enter your new article name here, which is now in the category again but does not belong there, and is impossible to remove if the category is being forced by the infobox), the inability to change the categorization manually since Category:Schools in New Zealand isn't actually on the articles themselves, and other reasons — spelled out at Wikipedia:Categorization#Categorization_using_templates — why it's not considered appropriate or desirable to categorize articles that way.

If you want a quick way to monitor school articles for vandalism in one stop instead of directly watchlisting 400 school articles, the proper way to do so is to create a watchlist page in project space (such as at Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/List of schools), and then use the "related changes" tab on that page to monitor new edits. Bearcat (talk) 06:45, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Or, alternatively, you could create a hidden category for project purposes, which would not be visible to casual readers and would be categorized within WikiProject New Zealand's internal maintenance category tree instead of in article space. I've gone ahead and created Category:WikiProject New Zealand schools for you; it may take a day or two to fully populate, but you'll be able to use it the same way without running into the duplicate categorization problem. It'll still be stuck with User:Gollumgainsford1/Enter your new article name here, though, but in a project category that's not as serious a concern. Bearcat (talk) 07:39, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the hidden category idea and implementation. That's a very satisfactory solution.-gadfium 09:10, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Have you seen the category watchlist tool? Whilst your aim seems to have already been met, this tool would appear to be able to do the same job. Schwede66 17:24, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Help Needed?[edit]

Hi Gadfium, I have decided to come back from retirement for a short time to fill in some bored hours at home recovering from surgery and was wondering-Is there anything that you are working on that a much less experienced editor could help with?? Thanks! Kiwiteen123 Please reply on my talk page 03:34, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If I may comment on that - from my perspective, dealing with unsourced BLPs (biographies of living people) would be a reasonably important task. All one needs to know is how to do inline referencing. There are two lists of unsourced BLPs that fall within the scope of the NZ wikiproject:
Could that be something good to work on? Schwede66 05:23, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I see that the response was requested to go onto Kiwiteen's talk page, and that the hole has already been filled. Good. Maybe somebody else who watches this page is inspired by my suggestion. I've done sourced quite a few politics articles, but didn't strike them off the main list. Will do so now. Schwede66 05:27, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Will get into both tasks tomorrow! I have a lot a spare time.
Regards, Kiwiteen123 Please reply on my talk page 07:59, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Twice my addition of warning of bias and inaccuracies on this page had been removed. My addition was NOT commentary or opinion. It was meant to caution the reader that the information on the page was, at best, limited by omission of a great deal of factual information, but in truth, actually a very biased account designed to cover up an egregious wrong done to a very quiet and vulnerable people.

As for it disrupting the flow of the article, that's exactly what a warning is meant to do - stop the reader for a second so they can focus on something important that needs to affect the experience of reading further. To remove this caution makes the editor complicit in the bias and cover up. Please don't do it.

T. Grimes —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grimes121 (talkcontribs) 12:50, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To discuss the article, use the talk page. It is not acceptable to attempt to have such a discussion within the article itself. As has been pointed out to you, you will need to have links to reliable sources to back up your claims.-gadfium 20:31, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Assessing[edit]

{{WikiProject Polynesia }} Hi Gadfium, can you tell me please - need your advice; 1. how this wp polynesia tag is rated and assessed for importance? I've been adding this wp tag to samoa articles - thinking a bot compiles them somewhere for the record where a specialist team does all the assessments...

2. Do you think we need to keep the 'Low/High' importance bit in the template? (maybe it can be colour coded instead) I've been thinking the 'Low' importance tag might be a problem because a) It looks a bit insulting in the Talk pages of living biographies that they are 'low important' b) Discourages new editors to contribute because articles aren't important c) How do we measure 'importance?' i.e. articles might be high importance in a little Pacific island, a whole country, but unimportant compared to America and countries with millions more people.

Sorry for pestering you - but I can't find the right place to ask.

Thank you. Teine Savaii (talk) 09:47, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've taken the liberty of responding on your talk page. dramatic (talk) 10:12, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Quick request for help[edit]

Deletion of Article: There is a biography where the person appears to have started it themselves. And this is noted on the page. I would now like to do a proper page and have that notice removed. Are you able to delete the article for me, so I can start from scratch? Otherwise I am not sure how the notice can be removed, just to note, I have no connection to this person. It's a political personKakapoNZ (talk) 09:36, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It appears from your message that the article is already tagged with {{COI}}. To have an article deleted, you could use {{prod}}, but this is usually used when the article has insufficient sources or explanation of notability. Since you want to recreate the article, this probably won't apply. Similarly, you could nominate the article for a deletion debate, but this is also probably not appropriate for an article you wish to recreate. My advice is to simply replace the content of the article with material written in neutral tone and with good references. You might like to prepare the ground for such replacement with an explanation on the article's talk page.-gadfium 09:49, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Will do KakapoNZ (talk) 10:01, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Now that I see which article you are talking about, I can give you better advice. I think the article has already been rewritten adequately, and the COI template can simply be removed. However, since the rewrite largely happened before the template was added, you might like to consult with dramatic, who placed it, before removing it. You can of course make improvements to the article as well.-gadfium 20:07, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Had an edit conflict posting my response. So while I was removing the template, the above response was written.
Is this about Jono Naylor? If so, then yes, the original article was probably written by the subject himself. However, the article is extremely short and I can't see where the bias would be, and I've thus removed the COI tag (and documented that on the talk page). Given that the mayor's page no longer lists his qualifications, it would be good to add a reference on that. But there's certainly no need to rewrite the article from scratch. Schwede66 20:15, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have left a note on dramatic's talk page. Schwede66 21:39, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fine by me guys. dramatic (talk) 10:24, 23 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Repair copy and paste move please[edit]

Hi, 2008 ANZ Championship Transfer Season has ended up at 2008 ANZ Championship transfer period due to a copy and paste move, losing history. (Plus my messing around before realising what had happened). Could you please repair? I have attempted education of the user in question. I should be able to sort the 2009 article myself. dramatic (talk) 05:50, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fixing copy and paste moves is a specialised area of admin skills, and while I have done it in the past, I usually leave it up to the experts. Please follow the instructions at Wikipedia:How to fix cut-and-paste moves. However, if the original page was 2008 ANZ Championship Transfer season, I don't see that any problem exists, because the only contributor to that page up to the cut and paste was Alex0274, who gets the credit for the new page as its creator anyway.-gadfium 06:20, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  1. ^ "Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome: Its Presentation in F. Scott Fitzgerald's Short Story 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' and Its Oral Manifestations". Sage journals online. W.J. Maloney.