User talk:SMcCandlish/Archive 64

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March 2012

Please comment on Template talk:Dead end

Resolved
 – Done.

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WikiProject Cleanup

Resolved
 – Done.
Hello, SMcCandlish.

You are invited to join WikiProject Cleanup, a WikiProject and resource for Wikipedia cleanup listings, information and discussion.

To join the project, just add your name to the member list. Northamerica1000(talk) 00:00, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for joining! Northamerica1000(talk) 01:11, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Surprised I didn't start it myself. :-) — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 01:19, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

WP:CITEVAR

Resolved
 – Just a chat.

Having had some bad experiences trying to improve citations (as I saw it), I was interested in your comments on WP:CITEVAR here. A small group of editors can utterly control referencing on a given page using WP:CITEVAR; arguing that a change is an improvement has no effect because of the absolute way WP:CITEVAR is worded. For example, User:Stemonitis and I once attempted to add links between Harvard style refs in a References section and the full citations in a Bibliography section. No changes were made to the visible style on the page other than the links. This was reverted (after a lot of work by Stemonitis) on the grounds that the editors didn't like bits of blue all over the Harvard style references and that WP:CITEVAR allowed them to object on these grounds (which I had to agree it does). They didn't argue that linking Harvard refs to full citations wasn't useful to readers; just that the 3 or 4 who had worked on that article didn't like the visual appearance of links. I found, and still find, their ability to argue in this way outrageous.

(There is a relationship to our other debate; I believe it is unreasonable not to allow editors to adopt different, but consistent, styles for the names of species, when they are free to adopt any consistent style of referencing whatsoever.) Peter coxhead (talk) 11:36, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what to do about CITEVAR. I find it problematic too. Even if I were a specialist-style maven, I'd have a problem with it. It would allow, for example, someone who is a cultural anthropologist to accidentally be the first to create an article, e.g. a miserable little stub, on an archaeological topic, and use anthro citation style, which differs from archaeo style in a number of ways (going by what the majority of journals in these related but distinct and sometimes antagonistic fields mostly do consistently within those fields and inconsistently between them), and then stubbornly prevent archaeo editors to later fix it, just to be an ass. (I'm not picking on anthros; I have a degree in cultural anthropology). I guess just bring it up in a talk discussion and propose more moderate wording. WP:ENGVAR went through some adjustment too (it's not just "we got here first"; there are some common sense things in it, like close national ties). CITEVAR probably needs some common sense, too. My personal feelings on the subject is that difficult, geeky Harvard referencing should be deprecated, but Hell will probably freeze over and thaw again before that happens. >;-) Anyway, if you raise a thread about it, I'd be happy to comment. (I.e., I'm requesting notice, so it wouldn't be canvassing, if anyone were to accuse). — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 11:54, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm still thinking about raising it at the talk page; it needs some thought about how to make WP:CITEVAR more reasonable. There's clearly no point in arguing against a particular style, however "geeky", because supporters of that style will just defend it endlessly and will be able to produce reliable sources. What it needs, as a minimum, is some way of at least saying that readers' interests must be taken into account and that styles suitable for an online encyclopaedia are not necessarily the same as those suitable for paper publications. Um...
One issue I'm not sure about is the prohibition on using templates when editors don't like them. I've never yet worked on a significantly sized article that didn't use templates that didn't have inconsistent visible styles. I'm not sure why an editor shouldn't be allowed to convert a reference to a template, provided that it didn't change the visible referencing style. Or is this too contentious to be worth even raising? Peter coxhead (talk) 12:25, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
I'd raise it. If it doesn't affect the output, it sounds like filibustering just to be stubborn, and it's worth addressing that. PS: I didn't mean to imply all I'm thinking about is "I hate Harvard style". I understand the more general points you are making; I was mixing agreement with that, on the one hand, with personal consternation at ref harv, just to vent, on the other. Heh. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 12:31, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Self redirect

Resolved
 – Fixed.

Glossary of South Asian economics is a self redirect as I do not believe this is where you wanted that redirect to point to. Please fix. Thanks. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 11:45, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Good catch! — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 11:54, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion

 – Just a pointer. no Declined – I don't have an opinion on that one.

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More in reference to slang

Resolved
 – Said what I needed to. RfC is ongoing; up to the community now.

Hi SMcCandlish--

I apologize for bothering you with another question directly related to User talk:SMcCandlish/Archive 63#Question re: slang as opposed to colloquialism, and again involving the same editor.

This time the specific question pertains to this wording, which has devolved into an edit war at Erection:

Here I believe that the phrase "informally called" is both inaccurate and misleading, and that these two terms (of many other such, e.g. "piss hard-on" or "piss proud", etc) are slang. In addition to the article's history of reverts, there is also discussion on the talk page. I wonder if you might have any thoughts on this question. As always, thanks for any advice you may have. Milkunderwood (talk) 03:16, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Your dissection was pretty conclusive, but the same editor has reverted again. Also again at nocturnal penile tumescence - see history there. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:11, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
The RfC should resolve this. And WP:3RR exists for a reason. Even anons from WP:MED are reverting him, so there's clearly no consensus to push his couple of favorite slang terms as encyclpedic content. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 05:54, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Nomination for merging of Template:Smallcaps all

 – Just a pointer.  Done – commented at TfD.

Template:Smallcaps all has been nominated for merging with Template:Smallcaps. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. This template Template:Smallcaps all is effectively the same as Template:Sc, the merge debate of which you voted on last month. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 19:30, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 06:28, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Today's featured list

 – Just a pointer. no Declined – I don't have an opinion on that one.

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Quick question

Resolved
 – Just a chat.

I'm currently expanding Cactus and trying to keep it in American English, which isn't always easy for me. I think the word I would naturally spell as "multi-petalled" should be "multipetaled", although a Google search reveals American sources with either or both of the hyphen and double-l. Am I right? Peter coxhead (talk) 20:25, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Zoiks. I've lived in the UK, the US and Canada, so I sometimes forget. Okay, the Associated Press and New York Times style guides use "labeled, labeling" and "traveled, traveling", so "petaled" would seem to be in order. My America-centric spell-checker actually prefers the ll spellings, FWTW, but red-flags all other Briticisms/Canadianisms like "colour" and "centre". Then again, Mozilla isn't a spelling authority. >;-) For "multi[-]", the trend is to fully compound it when it's something in normal use, like "multplayer", "multipage", "multitasking", "multinational", judging from usage in the Chicago Manual of Style, but hyphenation remains very common (I see "multi-player" quite frequently), especially for uncommon, neologistic constructions ("multi-zoned", "multi-screen", "multi-speed") and before vowels ("multi-orgasmic"). "Semi[-]" and "non[-]" seem to follow a similar pattern. Anyway, I'd go with "multi-petaled" in this case, though I think any of the four possible spellings would be parseable by all readers. If someone with a bug up their booty about hyphens changes it to "multipetaled", oh well. My actual preference is the same as yours, and I regularly use the double-l. But, I learned to read and write in England, so what can I say? Actually, I don't think I use it consistently. I prefer "labelled", but "traveller" looks funny-to me... — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 21:07, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. It's interesting that I too would be happier to write "traveler" than "labeled", even though both are wrong in British English; odd... My daughter now lives in Canada, where I go regularly and see what seem to me very mixed spellings (e.g. "colour" but "tire"), which doesn't help my feeling for what's American and what not! Peter coxhead (talk) 21:34, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
Canada: My rule of thumb was that if it was something older than the Victorian era, go with the British spelling; newer, use American. Seemed to match majority Canadian practice most of the time, though that practice is not entirely consistent nationwide. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 06:07, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Heads up, Pass a Method in disguise

Resolved
 – Not interested in making this personal.

SMcCandlish, take note that Pass a Method may start to edit under a different account and that therefore any future conflict you have with a "new editor" over things you have combated against Pass a Method in the past may, in fact, be Pass a Method. See here. If it comes to that point, you probably already know that you will have the right to report him for inappropriate use of WP:Fresh start. 222.45.72.124 (talk) 23:46, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

FYI I've received a similar message on my own talkpage. Personally I'm only concerned about adolescent gobbledy-gook in sex-related articles rather than who may have posted it. What's more puzzling to me is all these anonymous IP posts made from 222.45.72.124, 50.16.131.13, 49.212.13.55, 107.20.63.220, 50.16.83.112, and others, that I'm finding on my page, at the Erection article, and on User:Pass a Method's talkpage, including a long discussion of his being blocked (which has been deleted from his page). I have not read all of this last, but User: HJ Mitchell appears to have imposed the block. To me, it's just an ugly situation that I'd prefer not to be involved in, as I suppose you probably also feel. Milkunderwood (talk) 01:11, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Yep, that sums up my feelings on the matter. As long as the article is good, all is well. I'm generally only concerned with user behavior when it's outright vandalistic in articles or is grossly disruptive in policy discussions. POV-pushers in articlespace are inevitable and can be dealt with just by overwhelming their bad edits with good ones. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 06:01, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for March 7

Resolved
 – Fixed

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Turkish Van

 – Just a pointer.

I re-wrote the whole article last night to reflect the decision to keep the breed separate from the landrace. Please have a look. pschemp | talk 15:38, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

A vast improvement! — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 10:12, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history

Resolved
 – Done.

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Head asplode

Resolved
 – Just a note.

I like the fact that there's now a template called strongbad. Good choice of name. pablo 12:01, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I hoped it would both amuse and be useful. :-) — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 17:34, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

WP:POINT discussion

 – Just a pointer.  Done – commented at that page.

There is a discussion going on with regards to changes made to WP:POINT.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 16:45, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 17:28, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Template talk:Cite doi

 – Just a pointer.  Done – commented at that RfC.

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Donkeys

Resolved
 – Did what I could.

Might I call to your attention (per your support of WP:USEENGLISH) List of donkey breeds? Montanabw(talk) 23:05, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Ugh. What a mess. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 23:17, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
Yup and see Talk:North American donkey. However, much as I would love to have you (or really, anyone who is a solid, respected editor) dive into this with both feet as someone neutral and previously uninvolved who can look at the issue and only the issue without bringing in personalities, I will provide a full disclosure: JLAN and I are not the best of friends, and I did file an ANI on him for a different incident. Frankly, I want out of the donkey articles, but the ongoing OR and use of non-English language titles and sources is a headache that needs to be addressed by someone. Most of WPEQ has thrown up their hands. Montanabw(talk) 17:09, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
While you are doing what you are doing, maybe add donkey and burro to your watchlist and feel free to comment on the merge discussion too? Montanabw(talk) 19:41, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

ToC templates

Resolved
 – Solution provided, though I decline to make this type of edit 50 times to that template. >;-)

Hello, I saw you said you created {{Compact ToC}} on its talk page re: the move. Could you do me a favor? That template allows this parameter:

  • a= through z=: individually disable particular letters that have no entries.

Could you add such a parameter on {{TOC US states}}? I imagine the documentation would read:

  • Alabama= through Wyoming=: individually disable particular states that have no entries.

Much obliged for your efforts, Rgrds. --64.85.216.195 (talk) 12:15, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

What you want to do is just change each state entry that looks like this:
[[#Alabama|Alabama]]
To something that looks like this:
{{{AL|{{{al|{{{Alabama||[[#Alabama|Alabama]]}}}}}}}}}
That would enable the state name or the official two-letter state abbreviation (in upper or lower case) to be used to blank out an entry, e.g. |AL=, to usually more wisely replace it with a non-link, as in |AL=Alabama, or to replace it with something else that makes sense in the context, e.g. |NM=[[#New Mexico Territory|New Mexico Territory]]. The /doc should probably mention and illustrate all three uses. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 13:54, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
50 times weren't nothin'! Just a bunch of ctrl-c, ctrl-v. I think I got it...now to try it out. Thanks, --64.85.216.195 (talk) 14:22, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
  • D'oh! It doesn't seem to include the states if the parameter is left blank. See this old edit for what I mean. --64.85.216.195 (talk) 14:34, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

....Just so things don't get confused, User:Frietjes took over the reins on this. Thanks for getting me started. Rgrds. --(Dynamic IP, will change when I log off.) 64.85.216.195 (talk) 14:58, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Template talk:Expand language

 – Just a pointer.  Done – commented at this RfC.

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GOCE March drive newsletter

 – Just project spam. no Declined No time to participate in the drive this month.
Extended content

Guild of Copy Editors March 2012 backlog elimination drive update

GOCE March 2012 Backlog Elimination progress graphs

Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors March 2012 Backlog elimination drive! Here's the mid-drive newsletter.

Participation: We have had 58 people sign up for this drive so far, which compares favorably with our last drive, and 27 have copy-edited at least one article. If you have signed up but have not yet copy-edited any articles, please consider doing so. Every bit helps! If you haven't signed up yet, it's not too late. Join us!

Progress report: Our target of completing the 2010 articles has almost been reached, with only 56 remaining of the 194 we had at the start of the drive. The last ones are always the most difficult, so thank you if you are able to help copy-edit any of the remaining articles. We have reduced the total backlog by 163 articles so far.

Special thanks: Special thanks to Stfg, who has been going through the backlog and doing some preliminary vetting of the articles—removing copyright violations, doing initial clean-up, and nominating some for deletion. This work has helped make the drive a more pleasant experience for all our volunteers.

Your drive coordinators – Dianna (talk), Stfg (talk), and Dank (talk)

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

– Dianna (talk), Stfg (talk), and Dank (talk)

Refusal of non-controversial EPs

 – Pointer to another discussion. no Nothing I can do about that.

Re your comment on Template talk:Documentation; I have a similar issue on Template talk:Infobox vandal. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:50, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I've never tried to use an {{editprotected}} for page move before. In your case, file it under WP:RM in non-controversial moves section and it'll get semi-speedily moved if no one objects. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 22:55, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Template talk:More plot

 – Pointer to another discussion.  I was already involved in this one. Heh.

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Sfnote

Resolved
 – Just a helpful note.

{{Sfnote}} is not a citation template: it is a typing aid that creates a piped link to link to Help:Shortened footnotes as so: Shortened footnotes. If you escape it with {{tl}}, then it does not work as intended. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 12:54, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Got it. It works like {{cite xxx}}. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 16:02, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Template:Citation/doc

Resolved
 – The issue I had was fixed.

Saw you updating the doc page. Have not yet gotten around to updating it with {{Citation Style documentation}} yet, so if you want to tackle that. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 22:22, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I didn't even know that existed. Some of what I've been tweaking in the one place needs to go into this CSdoc template, I would think. Parts of it are also confusing. Like, it says journal has work as an alias, but work has its own entry. The work2 entry says that journal, etc., alias to it. That seems contradictory. And work2's quotation marks vs. italics formatting wouldn't be appropriate for journal, periodical, etc. Hmm... — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 04:57, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
work is used in {{cite web}} and {{cite podcast}}; work2 will be used in {{cite news}} (my updates there were reverted and I am ignoring it until July); journal is used in {{cite journal}}. The concept is to keep the doc on one page where we can keep it consistent and easy to update. I have done a lot of work figuring out how {{citation/core}} and the CS1 templates actually work. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 10:07, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
The formatting in work2 still wouldn't seem to be appropriate. Magazine and newspaper titles are italized; the articles in them (title, not work2) are quotation-marked. Am I misunderstanding something again? — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 10:13, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
You are right. I can't remember why I did that. It is unused, so I deleted it. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 10:29, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
Keen-o. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 10:49, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Trademarks

 – Pointer to another discussion.  Done I was already involved in this one.

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Disambiguation link notification for March 19

Resolved
 – Fixed.

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Stalev's name

Resolved
 – Not an issue after all.

Hi sorry I just noticed your question about Stalev's name on the Evgeny Stalev page. I wrote Evgeny because his name is written like this everywhere on the web. Also a russian user helped me to the biography and I think he would have spotted the mistake on Stalev's name... I think Evgeny is correct. Bye, sorry for my bad english. --89Slh (talk) 12:31, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks for the note. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 16:03, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Help talk:Citation Style 1

Resolved
 – I'm the one who started that RfC.

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Please comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennis/Tennis names

Resolved
 – I'm the one who started that RfC.

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Hi. I see you know far more about the history of this than I do, but it seems that 2 sincere and well meaning tennis editors are going against about a dozen non-tennis editors and at least one other tennis editor on this insistence on the WP:STAGENAME argument that because ITF and ESPN can't cope with accents, particularly Eastern European accents, we should have article ledes with Sergio Gutiérrez-Ferrol (born March 5, 1989) and known professionally as Sergio Gutierrez-Ferrol, is a tennis player from Spain and so on .... Martha Hernandez, Guilherme Clezar, Sophie Lefevre, Radomir Vasek, Nikola Pilić no idea how many more. Is there some sensible calm rationale way forward here of dealing with the WP:STAGENAME argument in lede separately and first from the more open to question issue of WP:TITLE? In ictu oculi (talk) 08:17, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
I've already shined the light of logic on the arguments raised there, as have plenty of others. If the two in question will not see it, oh well. Two editors don't get to make a consensus. There's a total landslide against their position, so at this point I'd suggest taking that page to WP:MFD for userspacing or deletion. It does not represent a consensus of WP:TENNIS users, and it is written as a guideline, not an essay, so it either needs to get out of "Wikipedia" namespace, be rewritten as an essay, be deleted, or at very least be tagged with {{historical}}. I'd urge deletion, as there isn't actually anything historical about it; it's only been around for a week, and if it's userspaced, its proponents will surely just wait until they think no one's paying attention and move it back to WP-space and continue pushing it. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 10:30, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation closed

 – Just a notice.

An arbitration case regarding article titles and capitalisation has now closed and the final decision is viewable at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:

  1. All parties are reminded to avoid personalizing disputes concerning the Manual of Style, the article titles policy ('WP:TITLE'), and similar policy and guideline pages, and to work collegiately towards a workable consensus. In particular, a rapid cycle of editing these pages to reflect one's viewpoint, then discussing the changes is disruptive and should be avoided. Instead, parties are encouraged to establish consensus on the talk page first, and then make the changes.
  2. Pmanderson is indefinitely prohibited from engaging in discussions and edits relating to the Manual of Style or policy about article titles.
  3. Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all pages related to the English Wikipedia Manual of Style and article titles policy, broadly construed.
  4. Born2cycle is warned that his contributions to discussion must reflect a better receptiveness to compromise and a higher tolerance for the views of other editors.

For the Arbitration Committee, Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 23:03, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

About time. I still resent having been named a party to that case for no reason at all. Nothing in it had anything to do with me. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 06:56, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Libyan civil war

Resolved
 – Done.

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Re: typo

Resolved
 – Just a chat.

Thanks for catching that (it wasn't in my offline draft, so maybe an errant spell check tweaked it :P) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 14:51, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

No prollem. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 05:51, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Template talk:LCCN

Resolved
 – Done.

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Please comment on Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard

Disregard
 – No such RfC.

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Image copyright and permission

Resolved
 – Answered.

Hi, the owner of this image has just filled the form to give the permission to use the image on the article. What should I do now? Can I just re-add the image to the article or I need some other procedure? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Evgeny-stalev-10.jpg --89Slh (talk) 13:25, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Just adding it back ought to be fine. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 17:00, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Making a comment

Stale
 – Cat got your tongue?

I'm trying to stay off of Selina's talk page, but I wanted to make a response to you. While her restriction was on editing in the Wikipedia space, no one was really looking over all of her edits making sure of that. The main point of the restriction was to stop her continued arguing about paid editing across the site. Unfortunately, she started up again on Jimbo's talk page, added a COI notice to the CREWE article, and also expanded the Wikipedia:WikiProject Paid Advocacy Watch/Editor Registry page to include people working for GLAM (see from here on down.) It's likely for these reasons that she was blocked, because it's continuing the same behavior as before that made the restrictions necessary in the first place. SilverserenC 18:21, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I'm coming at this from a more general perspective than "what did Selina do?". Trying to shut people up for being critical of Wikipedia's stance on CoI, or critical of people abusing Wikipedia's openness – that whole paid editing debate has two very strong opposing viewpoints – absent any showing of genuine bad faith, vandalistic trolling or vicious personal attacks, is a crock. It's vindictive and it makes all of Wikipedia look bad. "Speak your mind much? Come to Wikipedia and get censored!" I'm so tired of sanctimonious, good-ol'-boy cadres of special interest pushers trying to take over the whole project and succeeding bit by bit for the most part. The old-school autocratic model that a) we trust admins, and b) just about anything an admin does is okay and will be enforced by other admins, is going to undermine this project. It's far too easy to become an admin, the position attracts people who want power over other editors far more than it attracts people like me who simply want maintenance tools like being able to do moves over edited redirects or being able to edit protected templates, and it's too hard to get rid of bad-apple admins, especially because most other admins will back up just about anything another admin does, not wanting to threaten their own power. Desysopped admins get the tools back even more easily than new people become admins (it's the "forgive and keep the incumbent" problem we see in politics). Admins are not actually inherently any more trustworthy than anyone else, and the fact that the position carries power of a sort automatically means it attracts people prone to abuse it, just like cops, judges and politicians.
There are only three kinds of admins on the system: Actual workhorses who are trying in genuine good faith to make a better encyclopedia, entrenched wikipoliticians for whom internal WP squabbling is a nearly all-encompassing way of life, and power seekers bent on shutting other people up and making sure that articles and entire categories of articles are at "the right version" for the POV they are pushing. The first are being slowly pushed out by the third, who eventually evolve into a POV-pushing version of the second, combining their worst traits. The number one problem WP faces is crafty WP:POV/WP:OR violators, not vandals. As more and more POV/OR pushers worm their way into admin positions, the ability of the project to collectively prevent bias and unreliability is reduced, step by step, as in the ability to present an actually consistently encyclopedic work instead of a collection of "topic fiefdoms" where POV-pushing, WP:OWNish groups of editors, with admin-empowered ringleaders, act in WP:FAITACCOMPLI concert to dominate "their" topic, in ways that alienate the non-expert readers the encyclopedia actually exists to serve. The various similar cadres that form to "spin" different topics never criticize the others' power abuses, and will even go out of their way to back them up as SOP, for fear of having their own abuses criticized. There's an entire essay at WP:SSF about one common brand of that kind of crap.
All that said, censoring people right off the face of WP because they dare to disagree with the notion that everyone who works in PR is automatically and forever incapable of balanced editing is irrational guilt-by-association nonsense. So is blocking people who have a hard time shutting up about their idea that PR people really can't be trusted. Giving either camp the boot for being argumentative, insistent and unpleasant isn't going to resolve the argument, just makes both sides more entrenched. As for Selina, Jimbo's talk page is not a WP: page, nor is the article about CREWE and its talk page. That leaves her edit to the PAW "editor registry". I'm hard pressed to see that as justification for a 6 month block, other than it just being a "STFU or this will happen to you, too" show of force. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 04:44, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
Except, at least stated by her, her opinion is the exact opposite. She thinks that paid editors can never be trusted ever and shouldn't be allowed to edit at all. While she's entitled to her opinion, the issue is that she's been disruptive with it, including insulting numerous editors with a number of slurs related to paid editing (such as "shills") and this includes singling out editors, such as WWB, who is only a paid editor part of the time and has a separate account for that, but is productive on his own time on his own personal interests with his main account.
So the issue isn't her opinion, but how she's going about expressing it. If she had just been calmly questioning certain things or overseeing edits for neutrality, i'm quite sure none of this would have ever happened. But...she didn't. And i'm sad that that happened. But I suppose, considering her past blocks (including the one for years), not much changed in her editing behavior that led to those blocks in the first place.
In addition, if she was actually a content editor to any extent, people probably would have been more lenient on her. One of the main points of the restriction she was on just a while ago was to make her actually do some content work. From the looks of things, she didn't. So...that's how things have ended up. SilverserenC 05:42, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
I repeat: "Trying to shut people up for being critical of Wikipedia's stance on CoI, or critical of people abusing Wikipedia's openness – that whole paid editing debate has two very strong opposing viewpoints – absent any showing of genuine bad faith, vandalistic trolling or vicious personal attacks, is a crock. ... All that said, censoring people right off the face of WP because they dare to disagree with the notion that everyone who works in PR is automatically and forever incapable of balanced editing is irrational guilt-by-association nonsense. So is blocking people who have a hard time shutting up about their idea that PR people really can't be trusted. Giving either camp the boot for being argumentative, insistent and unpleasant isn't going to resolve the argument, just make both sides more entrenched." It doesn't matter whether she's in the "all PR people are bad" or "all people who hate PR people are bad" camp; that's immaterial.
The block makes it clear to anyone looking that it is about the fact that she has an opinion on an issue that is a hot button for a lot of people, and is pointed and loud about it. Her restrictions were not to stick to civility, or to not air unproven theories about backgrounds and motivations of individual editors, or anything else relating to specific user behaviors that are addressable under policy. They are simply to shut up and go away and be relegated to articespace. Yet there is no policy anywhere authorizing an admin to restrict another editor to editing only articlespace! It's bullshit, and a blatant abuse of admin blocking authority. See latest comments on the thread at her talk page. Actually reasonable remedies with actually policy-conscious rationales have been suggested, and should probably be looked at by some non-involved admins, because this editor, annoying as she may be (if I see another smiley, I'm going to puke) has clearly been vindictively blocked for violating punitive out-of-process sanctions that are grossly un-wiki. Welcome to Wikipedia, the encyclopedia anyone can edit, but only where some random tinpot dictators who are probably undersocialized teenagers have decided you can edit, and how, and only as long as they don't find you personally annoying and want to screw with you just to make a point that they have power and will use it. Sure as hell not what I signed up for. Crap like this makes me seriously question the amout of time and thought and work I've put into this site over the last 6+ years. If there were actually any policy that people had to mostly be productive content editors, most admins, even the good ones, would have to block themselves. Thousands of active editors do very little content editing, just like not everyone in the army shoots guns and not everyone in a hospital is a surgeon. Most very active content editors I've seen become (good) admins are barely content editors at all any longer.
As others have noticed, this particular editor did a lot of pretty interesting research that revealed blatant COI/POV/NOR problems. Her e-personality is grating (mine is too; no WP:KETTLE here, and the world needs no-nonsense, proactive "lead, follow or get out of the way" loudmouths or nothing would ever get accomplished), but what's she's been doing productively suggests we are missing a process here. We have WP:SPI and other investigative processes, like figuring out if vandals are coming from school IP address blocks and reporting them to school admins for disciplining. What she's doing has turned out to be helpful. Sometimes not, because she's a random person doing it, not a closely-watched process with consensus-established ground rules. "Outing" editors with clear professional conflicts of interest who are obviously spindoctoring for profit is not really particularly different from digging around to figure out if people are sockpuppets, etc. (See the recent PMAnderson case, with all kinds of investigative techniques like grammatical analysis, comparison of posting times and length of activity, research into how far apart in meatspace various IP addresses' owning entities are, etc.) That a "lone wolf" investigator can make mistakes is not a surprise. It's an indication we need a process, not an indication that the editor demonstrating the need for the process and doing the best they can without one needs to be kicked in the verbal teeth and told to get out of Dodge for 6 months. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 06:34, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
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