User talk:Cyde/Archive011

Cyde's talk page        Leave a new message

Archives
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 A B C D E F G
H I J K L M N O
P Q R S T U V W
X Y Z 10 11 12

Please check

Hello, could you take a look at Category:Carnatic music instruments. Somebody has written an article (possibly a copyvio) there. Two users, including myself have been trying to remove it. However, the AntiVandalBot immediately reverts, thus preventing any erasure of data from the page. Thanks in advance. -- thunderboltz^{a.k.a.Deepu Joseph |TALK}18:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! -- thunderboltz^{a.k.a.Deepu Joseph |TALK}19:08, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Barnstars and Sockpuppets

No worries about the barnstars, I'll just give it again in a week or so when the fervor has died down. If you try to protect it, I can always wait until the protection is removed or when I use a disposable admin puppet.

Oh yeah, speaking of socks, feel free to try and figure out which one the sockpuppet is. I wish you luck if you try a search :-) Karmafist 20:17, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Please check

Hello, could you take a look at Category:Carnatic music instruments. Somebody has written an article (possibly a copyvio) there. Two users, including myself have been trying to remove it. However, the AntiVandalBot immediately reverts, thus preventing any erasure of data from the page. Thanks in advance. -- thunderboltz^{a.k.a.Deepu Joseph |TALK}18:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! -- thunderboltz^{a.k.a.Deepu Joseph |TALK}19:08, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Cydebot and page formatting

Hey Cyde. I was looking at my userpage when I noticed the formatting had been changed (Well, actually, totally destroyed). The history showed that your bot had attempted to order the categories contained within my page and it changed the formating of the page itself. Specifically some of my code leaked into the main page (I got a beautiful blue background for about three minutes).

I was wondering if you could tell me what exactly I should do with my userpage to prevent further "Bot-editing" from Cyde (I had to revert it, so I don't know if you have a vengeful bot or not yet). I got some of it, but I'd rather here it from a human being at the moment.

Regards. Logical2u 19:56, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

A lot of the categories used in userboxes are poorly named, and the WP:CFD process makes no distinction between different types of categories (frankly, user categories should really just be deleted). So they end up suggesting new names for user categories and Cydebot goes through and modifies the category names on userpages. Apparently, the way of changing categories on articles doesn't always work properly on userpages or something. I would suggest removing user categories from your page, or if you want to keep them, move them all to the bottom of your page like you would see on normal articles. --Cyde Weys 20:03, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Astonished and shocked

Please don't fragment discussions. I will continue replying on your talk page and you should reply there as well. --Cyde Weys 18:03, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, waiting for your answer. I've explained there that an anon IP vandal added the bollocks thing. --Uncle Ed 18:34, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I thought you were going to continue replying. I'm still waiting, about the 'bollocks' thing. --Uncle Ed 21:12, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

RE: New Userboxes

Thanks for the note. I noticed that earlier today and we've already addressed the issue. The College football Wikiproject will be userfying all of those boxes over the next week. I hadn't read the details of the German Solution before creating the boxes. Anyway, thanks for bringing it up and give us a spot of time to get it solved. z4ns4tsu\^talk 20:30, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

No problem, I'm not blaming you for intentionally creating userbox templates against WP:GUS, it's just that the wiki is so big and we haven't done a very good job of communicating the new state of affairs. --Cyde Weys 20:44, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Finding and eliminating fair use galleries

User:Kotepho/reports/fair_use_per_article, not exactly what you were looking for, but might be useful. Kotepho 20:57, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Cydebot issues

Hi Cyde, I noticed your bot made some sort of formatting mistake when it fixed categories on my userbox page (see here). I'm not sure what happened, but the page is a mess now. I don't want to revert the all of the changes, I just want to fix the formatting errors. Can you help? The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 21:18, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

OK not urgent, just strange

Strange This bot has reinserted the new category into most, but not all the underground stations on the Glasgow Subway. Hmmmm. It also seems the new category does not seem to exist, even though you can go there and see the stations!?. Simply south 21:42, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, i just created the category, however, i am still confused over Cydebot and what will happen with Category:Glasgow Subway tube stations. And of course the other stations when sorting out the category. What will happen? (not rhetorical). Simply south 22:05, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Age of the Earth

Excuse me, Cyde, but why do you say that the scientifically-determined age of the earth is a "fact"? That's saying that it's been proven, and science hasn't ever proven anything, so that statement is also false. If you think it's not, please explain why. Scorpionman 18:47, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Alright, what are you claiming that the age of the planet is? Please include what scientific methodology was used to make that measurement, and also provide citations to scientific literature. --Cyde Weys 18:59, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't really want to get into this argument now but here's some methodologies for Scorpionman's case. Some of those points Talk Origins may refute but the main points are points #1 & #2. Good luck to you two as you debate.--Jphl 19:34, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Hehe, you linked me to Answers in Genesis I see. Nice one. Too bad they're not scientifically credible at all, and are merely fabricating whatever evidence they think is necessary to justify their a priori assumptions based on a single tome. --Cyde Weys 19:41, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Then try this one: EarthAge, or do you consider all creationist sites uncredable? If you do, then there's really no point to this. If you don't, then please be more specific. Just curious, what did they fabricate? --Jphl 22:21, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

• Oh give me a break, the best you can come up with is a dark mattter argument? please, that is so 1990s. Try reading about Massive compact halo objects, neutrino mass, or Cryogenic Dark Matter Search--152.163.100.9 22:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey, 152.163.100.9 AOL User:

1. What do you mean?
2. If you would go to the AiG site I put in my first response, you'd realize that I'm not referring to the dark matter material on the page.

--Jphl 22:35, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

• Wind up galaxies and Oort cloud denial? --152.163.100.9 22:43, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, referencing wind up.--66.57.24.120 22:56, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Template:User DAoC

Cyde,

You deleted a master template for users who play the MMORPG DAoC. I would like to know why this was done without going through the TfD process. If there is a problem with a user template, you needed to contact those involved with it first. It was NOT inappropriately created in template space. It is a template, which belongs in template space. All templates, big or small, belong in template space. I am very disappointed that you did not allow me and others the chance to discuss this. Please restore it. - LA @ 21:47, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

PS. This template replaced three which had already been deleted at the original author's request, therefor it has no suitable replacement in template space. If a template has no template space replacement available, then it should not be deleted without going through the TfD process. - LA @ 21:49, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Please see WP:GUS. No more non-encyclopedic userboxes are to be created in Template: space. --Cyde Weys 22:39, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

As GUS states, it is not policy. I respectfully ask that you restore this template. - LA @ 23:14, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Cydebot

Cyde, several editors have been complaining that your bot is breaking their userpages when removing categories. The complaints don't seem to have anything to do with the removal of the category, but that you are also doing "general cleanup" type operations. Can you reconfigure your bot to not make cleanup edits such as moving white space or links around in the User: namespace? There are also a few queries on Cydebot's talk page that you may want to reply to if you have not already. Thanks, — xaosflux ^Talk 01:39, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Can you run the bot again?

This category, Category:Neolithic cultures of China should've been moved to Category:Neolithic cultures in China instead, per CfD. Thanks--Confuzion 03:14, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Formatting issue

Hello! I thought I should notify you about a problem with AntiVandalBot's revert notification messages. When the bot reverts vandalism on a category, it sends a message that isnt formatted properly, thus resulting in the page being added to that particular category (Category:Carnatic music instruments in this case). The same thing happened here by Tawkerbot. I've notified Tawker (talk · contribs) too on this. Hope you guys can adjust the script to avoid this. Cheers!-- thunderboltz^{a.k.a.Deepu Joseph |TALK}07:22, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Got your message

So how do I create new ubx's without using template space? --RageSamurai 19:44, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[in response to last message] Ugh. Thanks.

Yeah...no. I'm not good as a WP editor. Besides, what's there to write about? Apparently these people think I'm some sort of genius possessing an IQ of 294 and endless editing time... --RageSamurai 19:59, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

You certainly don't need an IQ of 294 to edit ... just find something that you're interested and work on improving it. Even if you're not a good writer, if you have good technical ability, you can help do work with encyclopedic templates and such. --Cyde Weys 20:04, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Good technical ability? Definitely not me; I can more or less understand HTML but that's it. --RageSamurai21655 20:19, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I guess editing Wikipedia just isn't for everyone. For what it's worth we have something like 200 times as many readers as we do editors, so you're certainly not in the minority. --Cyde Weys 20:20, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

"So how do I create new ubx's without using template space? --RageSamurai 19:44, 11 August 2006 (UTC)" Stupid question. I know userboxes are just little template thingies to enhance our userpages, and those have to be relevant to the Wikipedia project, but what if I joined the UBX WIkiProject and created them using my userpage space? I heard of a guy named MiraLuka who did so and look at them... (please respond on my talk page) --RageSamurai21655 13:51, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Deletion of Userboxes

Rather than deleting the userboxes that I had created, it would have been nice to give me some kind of advance notice about the German Solution (which not everybody is automatically familiar with). This way, if necessary, I could have moved them to my own userspace rather than what I'm faced with now, which is either to create them all over again in my userspace or to just say, "forget it" and move on (which is what I'm leaning towards).

I created the userboxes that I did to complete already existing userbox categories, those that don't fall under touchy subjects such as religion, politics, etc. It strikes me as odd that you chose to delete only the ones I had created, and not to completely wipe out the category itself. I could have userfied the lot all at once, but now I doubt I'll even bother.

It's one thing to do your job as an administrator and inform people who aren't up to speed with all the technicalities of userboxes, userspace and so forth; it's another thing to act like a jackass and not give me any information or time to correct my mistake. Please understand that while I'm relatively new to Wikipedia and have a great deal of time and respect for its staff, I am more than a little annoyed. Greg the White Falcon 16:52, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Here's a little hint: calling people jackasses doesn't exactly make them want to help you. --Cyde Weys 17:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

From what I'm reading, you're not exactly willing to "help" anyone, merely resorting to sweeping deletions of templates and userboxes at will. Read the heading on the GUS yourself; you were out of line in acting as if this were an official policy, ad I ask that the userboxes be temporarily restored so they can be userfied. Greg the White Falcon 19:47, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

The reason so many userboxes are being userfied and deleted from template space is because they are not relevant to the Wikipedia project. This has been an ongoing debate for many months now, and I personally don't have any sympathy for anyone who continues to try to create these unhelpful userboxes in template space. Wikipedia is not here for you to create userboxes; it is here to produce a free encyclopedia. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 01:22, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much for emphasizing a focus on the actual goal of the project. --Cyde Weys 01:25, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

This user does not appear to be purposely creating userboxes in template space; he just didn't know about WP:GUS and then after his templates were deleted, found out about it and wanted to move the userboxes into userspace. Of course, calling Cyde a jackass isn't a good way to accomplish this. syphonbyte _(t|c) 02:41, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

After a somewhat roundabout review of the WP:GUS I guess I'll have to agree, although from what I can tell reading the talk page the solution isn't yet finalized (or pretty). Perhaps instead of speedy deletion, which is certainly more likely to confuse and arouse ire, you could append a message... Something along the lines of "The page location of this userbox is based on old guidelines. It is recommended that it be moved into personal userspace based on the German Userbox Solution." That's long enough to stick out and get some attention. If you wanted to provide a little explanation, you could also add: "The GUS is a comprimise reached to end controversy over the non-encyclopedic content of userboxes," or similar. I believe most users will willingly place them elsewhere given opportunity, but are likely to get very annoyed if their userpages are suddenly full of angry red text. —OrinR 08:09, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Template:User OS:Microsoft Windows (textonly)

This was a recently deleted page---please undelete so it may be copied and moved into userspace. -OrinR 07:26, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

hello

I am a legitamte new user and i would just like to point out that some very bad people are using wikipedia to push an anti-american sedisous POV and they should be blocked before homeland security is forced to stop wikipedia's sedition and evality--Bob the nob wence fan 22:15, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Siggy?

Your signature is a bit annoying. If you could make the color a bit less bright and maybe unbold it, it would be great. Meybe something like Cyde⇔Weys (when you sign it, the Weys won't be bold)... SoaP 01:57, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Nah, what I have now is fine. Besides, yours is too ... pink. I'm going for light red with my sig. --Cyde Weys 02:02, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

FYI, the official designation of color FF66FF is "Light faded magenta." I certainly don't see light red. Thatcher131 (talk) 02:33, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

FF6666 would be light red, though, if I'm not mistaken. syphonbyte _(t|c) 02:35, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

FF6666 is Light faded red. To play with different color combinations, go to [1] and click on the colors in the chart. Thatcher131 (talk) 02:45, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I don't know the official designations, I was just guessing based on how the hex code would probably look. syphonbyte _(t|c) 03:11, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, you could at least get rid of the bolding... SoaP 02:05, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't see how you have any right to complain. My signature is less than half the size of yours. --Cyde Weys 02:07, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

If they would let us transclude signatures there would be no problem. But I'm talking about the fact that it's irritating to look at a bright pink signature on white background. Especially bolded!

And look, I just made it even shorter ... Cyde Weys 02:08, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Nicer, but why the bolding? Does it hold any significance other than to annoy the hell out of me? :) SoaP 02:18, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, bold text is just tacky for a sig. BigNate37_(T) 02:19, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Down with bolding! SoaP 02:21, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with BigNate37. Way too tacky. —Mira 05:53, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking you could go for a minimalist signature, like me. How about ⇔? Or, even better, include a link to your talk page with ←→? SoaP 18:03, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Believe it or not, I had actually considered at one point in time going with a minimalist signature exactly like what you suggested (except light red instead of orange), but I was persuaded not to do it after an ArbCom case was pointed out to me wherein an editor was sanctioned for having an avant garde sig. --Cyde Weys 18:08, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Redirects for Discussion vs. Redirects for Deletion

Hi, wanted to let you know that I strongly oppose your renaming of the RfD process. Listing my reasons here would be redundant, as I have already posted them on the RfD talk page. In short I think this is a major, possibly harmful change that at least needs real discussion. Thanks. --Nscheffey^(T/C) 10:25, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, I interpret your lack of response here or on the talk page to mean you have no desire to discuss your unilateral, misguided, and harmful renaming of an important process. I can see from other comments on your talk page that you have a history of major, controversial changes without consensus, and by your user page that you are proud of this. I would change the name back myself if I could, but the page is move protected. If you simply no longer care about this I will gladly contact another admin to change it back. If not, please respond. Thanks. --Nscheffey^(T/C) 01:29, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I have been engaged in debating this on the project talk page. I'm really concerned about your overly confrontational and dismissive tone, though. --Cyde Weys 03:27, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry you think my tone is overly confrontational, but what I really care about is what do you think about the points I raised?--Nscheffey^(T/C) 04:23, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey, I don't know where to put this and for some reason it says I'm banned so I can't change it. On Roosevelt Brown's bio it says he played "right tackle" which is a myth. I contacted the Pro Football Hall of Fame's website (where this information likely came from) and they said I was right and they changed it on their website. So please, if I cannot post can you or someone else change the "right tackle" to "left tackle" before this NFL myth grows any more? Thank you.

Please do notice:

Someone is deleting a page that you'd endorsed, in February, '006.

Thank You.

< http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pneumonic_devices&oldid=70185500 >;

< http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pneumonic_devices&action=history >;

< http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2006_August_17&action=edit >.

Hopiakuta 08:06, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Please, you'd written supportively,

now, it's nearly gone.

Someone else had created it.

Thank You.

Hopiakuta 15:24, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

User:PhoenixPinion

Hi Cyde! I wonder if you'd mind taking another look at the indef block of PhoenixPinion? The user, and the one s/he attacked, both say it was a pre-arranged (if not very funny) joke. Even if you don't want to unblock, giving a decline reason would help keep the unblock cat clear! Thanks. ➨ ЯEDVERS 10:12, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Cydebot Approval

I asked you yesterday, but the message appears to have been buried in this page. I've found all of Cydebot's approvals from WP:BRFA. You have two approved actions:

• Per Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approvals/Archive2#Cydebot, you are approved to tag indefinitely blocked usernames.
• Per Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approvals/Archive2#Cydebot_II, you are approved to substitute "talk page message templates that have been identified by the community as templates that should be substituted".

When you requested approval to substitute userboxes (Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approvals/Archive2#Userboxbot), your proposal was rejected by the community. I have been unable to find any further approvals on WP:BRFA (other than Antivandalbot). Per WP:BRFA#Organization, you must "list requests for approval for new tasks for your existing bot ". Are there further approvals that I am missing?

Yesterday, a member of WP:NYCS spent several hours reverting your bot's unauthorized actions. Whether or not requesting on WP:BRFA is purely buerocracy, it still seems necessary to request approval beyond some userpage and usertalk edits. It would also seem imperitive to discuss large changes like this before putting them into effect. I'd appreciate your comment on this situation. alphaChimp ^laudare 11:55, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah, so you're saying that technically I don't have approval to run a vandalbot or handle CFD, huh? I guess the technically part is wrong then. --Cyde Weys 13:12, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm not saying you don't have approval to run the vandalbot. Have you been approved to handle CFD? (And, if so, can you provide a link?) alphaChimp ^laudare 13:31, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

No, technically I guess I don't have "approval" to handle CFD, though Cydebot has been the primary bot clearing up CFD backlogs for months. --Cyde Weys 13:33, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not arguing that you aren't doing a useful job. I'm just saying that your bot is not approved to do that job. alphaChimp ^laudare 13:37, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh okay, whatever. --Cyde Weys 13:41, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

That's really not a way to dismiss this. Do you plan on requesting approval for your bot's tasks? alphaChimp ^laudare 13:43, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you really know how this works. --Cyde Weys 13:49, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Could you explain how it works to me, then? alphaChimp ^laudare 13:51, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't a bureaucracy. This bot approval process isn't nearly as rigorous as you seem to think it is. --Cyde Weys 13:52, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Sceptre/love.

CSS works weird sometimes and Show Preview doesn't work in some cases. That said, delete the page. I don't want it. Will ^{(Take me down to the Paradise City)} 13:34, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks :) Will ^{(Take me down to the Paradise City)} 15:50, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

POV

In case you were unaware of policy on the matter, "insertion of POV" is not a reason for removing information. See The ArbCom's past decisions page.

If you feel any one of my edits to Choice and sexual orientation changed the article from (A) being neutral (which is what we all want), into (B) being biased, unbalanced or otherwise failing to conform to NPOV policy -- then please explain why. --Uncle Ed 14:19, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I was actually working on explaining on the talk page when you reverted me. Also, you munged up the grammar in one of the sentences. --Cyde Weys 14:21, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, did I? Sorry! And I really like your rewrite of the intro (please see diff). I struggled over that wording endlessly and was decidedly unsatisfied with it, as it over-emphasized the minority POV. You've given it superb balance! :-) --Uncle Ed 14:26, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I reverted you by the way, I guess I over-reacted a little bit. I should've just edited the article the way I did in the first place. --Cyde Weys 14:28, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Me, too. I wish I had waited to see what you had in mind, rather than making a "knee-jerk" assumption. Um, when I 'assume' I make an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'. :-(

I've read extensively on this subject, and there might be a terminology problem. In talk (and in a new article paragraph) I mentioned that the word "choice" is being used two different ways:

1. a decision to "have the desires"
2. a decision to accept these desires or make efforts to change them

The scientific mainstream says that efforts to change one's sexual orientation will be fruitless (and could be harmful, so don't try!)

A handful of scientists (tiny minority like NARTH and Cohen) say there's no harm in trying and it might "work"

However, I don't recall anyone on the "orientation can be changed" side who ever asserted that people choose their sexual orientation. Specifically, Richard Cohen (therapist) says, "No one chooses to be gay."

Sorry if this is on your talk page; we can move it to the article talk page; I just didn't want to risk an edit conflict there, because you said your writing a comment. --Uncle Ed 14:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Huh? I know lots of people who say that people choose to be gay. They're all fundamentalists I believe. They don't just say that they choose to act on desires they can't control; they say they choose all of it. They seem to think that some people just wake up one day, and because they're evil, say to themselves, "You know what, from now on I'm going to be gay and sleep with members of the same gender." --Cyde Weys 14:43, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Excellent, that's just the clarification which the article needs. I will google up some fundamentalists who make that claim. I'll start with the notorious Pat Robertson, he's always good for an outlandish statement! --Uncle Ed 14:50, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm ... it's not going too well. Let's continue this discussion at Talk:Choice and sexual orientation. --Uncle Ed 14:59, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Pleae read my above messages. Thank You.

Hopiakuta 15:26, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't particularly care one way or the other ... "pnemonic devices" is potentially a confusing homonym. --Cyde Weys 15:38, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Question for a Cydeweys perspective

Who's a Peach, Cyde?

• Considering his continued odd behavior along with things like this, can we agree that something is amiss here? --InShaneee 23:04, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

question about "Wikipedian radioheads"

A category in the Wikipedian radioheads nomination seem to have vanished in the Cydebot transfer, category:User NPR. That is, there's no sign of the category it was supposed to become either. Am I jumping the gun, or is there a problem?--Mike Selinker 22:54, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

User:PhoenixPinion

A discussion about a block of yours is ongoing here. I'd appreciate your input. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 23:17, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Template:User OS:Gentoo and the Gentoo logo

I noticed you removed the Gentoo logo from that template, since it's a fair use image. However, the talk page for the template reveals that the license the Gentoo logo is released under allows for the use of the logo in the template. –NeoChaosX (talk | contribs) 00:41, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Cyde nearly always makes changes without justifying them, so I understand your motivation for pointing this out. However, policy often supports his actions, such as in this case. From WP:FU (emphasis added),

All other uses, even if legal under the fair use clauses of copyright law, should be avoided to keep the use of unfree images to a minimum. Exceptions can be made on a case-by-case basis if there is a broad consensus that doing so is necessary to the goal of creating a free encyclopedia (like the templates used as part of the Main Page).

So you see you would need to establish broad consensus (i.e. outside the scope of editors who work on the articles related to this template for sure) before this could be considered as an exception. BigNate37_(T) 06:10, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, that would explain it. That's understandable in that case. –NeoChaosX (talk | contribs) 08:42, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Edit to GUS template

Hi, I just wanted to let you know that you made a typo in your edit to Template:User GUS UBX to. You put in "after the userbox has bene moved into userspace." "Bene" should, of course, be "been." Thanks. —Mira 01:35, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Carmen Chamelion's RFCU?

Hey Cyde,

You indef blocked User:Carmen Chamelion, accoding to the block log, due to confirmed RFCU evidence. Could you give me the link to the appropriate RFCU case page? Thanks, Deathphoenix ʕ 02:49, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

It wasn't done on RFCU. --Cyde Weys 03:08, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah, non-RFCU CheckUser. Never mind. --Deathphoenix ʕ 03:58, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, just your everyday backroom CheckUser. It's still no less valid, of course. --Cyde Weys 05:06, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

attacker

Found this on the new users' log, thought you might like it: User:C Y D E W A N K E R ! ! ! ! My my, we are popular, aren't we? :p — riana_dzasta • t • c • e • ER • 03:35, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

More vandalism to your userpage

I assume it's not supposed to say "JEWS DID WTC." Newyorkbrad 15:53, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

New userboxes

Thank you for you message, i'm not quite sure what you mean about the fair use policy with the image, would you be able to explain please as the some of the Oxford colleges use thier own college crest on userboxes? Thanks very muchAlexD 20:17, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Can you give me some examples of these userboxes with those images in then? --Cyde Weys 20:20, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your explanation --Hattusili 20:23, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Userboxes/Education/United Kingdom/University of Oxford and Wikipedia:Userboxes/Education/United_Kingdom use the crests of colleges and universities. AlexD 20:50, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

The majority of those templates do not have images (most likely for licensing reasons). The ones that do have freely usable images that are hosted on Wikimedia Commons. --Cyde Weys 20:55, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining that to me.=) AlexD 10:13, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Notability

you deleted Notability. I think I edited this page in August. By which policy did you delete the stub/article? http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/delete&page=Notability Tobias Conradi (Talk) 22:05, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

It wasn't a stub/article, it was nothing more than a cross-namespace redirect, which we don't allow per WP:ASR. --Cyde Weys 23:27, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

As I said, I think I edited this and at this time it was not a simple redirect. Can I turn any page in a cross name space redirect and then ask for deletion? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 15:05, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Notability has been nominated for deletion here. Please vote. -- ADNghiem501 02:04, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Your changes to date formats

May I ask that you review the WP:MoS guidelines on date formats and then undo all your reverts of my careful work? The longer this goes uncorrected, the more edits will be made by subsequent editors and the difficulty of the task will increase beyond trivial reversion. I must also ask that you discuss matters before wasting your time and mine in edit warring. Often other editors will be able to furnish you with guidance, if asked. --Jumbo 23:16, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

No no no, it's the other way around. You stop making those edits that go against the MOS or you will be blocked. I was merely reverting your bad edits. --Cyde Weys 23:27, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I quote from the Manual of Style:

If the topic itself concerns a specific country, editors may choose to use the date format used in that country. This is useful even if the dates are linked, because new users and users without a Wikipedia account do not have any date preferences set, and so they see whatever format was typed. For topics concerning the UK, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, most member states of the Commonwealth of Nations, and most international organizations such as the United Nations, the formatting is usually [[17 February]] [[1958]] (no comma and no "th"). In the United States and Canada, it is [[February 17]], [[1958]]. Elsewhere, either format is acceptable. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English for more guidance.

Using this as a guide, I suggest that your changes to the King Edward VIII article were insufficiently considered, to be polite. They were not reversion of bad edits. They were directly against WP:MoS. --Jumbo 00:26, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

The guideline also says to not change the formatting of stuff that's already written (the same goes for US/UK spelling). Don't make edits that solely change US/UK formats. --Cyde Weys 00:28, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for mentioning this guideline. May I quote from the relevant section:

In June 2005, the Arbitration Committee ruled that, when either of two styles is acceptable, it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change. For example, with respect to British spelling as opposed to American spelling, it would only be acceptable to change from American spelling to British spelling if the article concerned a British topic. Revert warring over optional styles is unacceptable; if the article uses colour rather than color, it would be wrong to switch simply to change styles, although editors should ensure that articles are internally consistent. If in doubt, defer to the style used by the first major contributor. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jguk

Changes to existing formats are allowable if there is a substantial reason for doing so. My reason for changing date formats is that in articles relating to countries where International Dating rather than American Dating is in use, the use of American Dating is inappropriate, in exactly the same way that the use of American English in an explicitly British article is inappropriate. This is a matter of consensus, implicitly backed up by an important ArbCom decision. --Jumbo 00:40, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Morton devonshire sockpuppet (again)

22:35, 3 May 2006 Cyde (Talk | contribs) blocked "Morton devonshire (contribs)" with an expiry time of 24 hours (AfD vote-stacking, don't do it again)[2]

Please see: Wikipedia:Suspected_sock_puppets/Morton_devonshire#.5B.5BUser:Morton_devonshire.5D.5D

Signed: Travb (talk) 00:55, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

This user has since admitted they were in error. --zero faults ^{|sockpuppets|} 02:14, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Yep sorry to bother you Cyde Travb (talk) 03:56, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Just FYI, it appears the block was later lifted due to a misrepresentation? I don't know the details:

• 16:54, May 3, 2006 Jtdirl (Talk | contribs) unblocked Morton devonshire (contribs) (mispresentation of WP policy by blocker)

• 15:35, May 3, 2006 Cyde (Talk | contribs) blocked "Morton devonshire (contribs)" with an expiry time of 24 hours (AfD vote-stacking, don't do it again)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log"--Tbeatty 04:37, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

A misrepresentation? Yeah fucking right. Here are a few diffs demonstrating his egregious vote-stacking. I could show you more, but I ran out of words to pipe through in that last sentence. --Cyde Weys 04:47, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Advice on Persecution of Falun Gong edit war

Hi, I'm posting here just because you're an admin I've seen around a lot. I'm pretty new on wikipedia and wanted some advice on the best way to handle a content dispute.

There is an edit war on the Persecution of Falun Gong page. history. Everyone seems to be trying to stick to less than 3 edits a day. But all that's really happening with the article is that they revert each other's edits, but this seems to have been going on for weeks. Entrenched positions and no discussion to attempt to reach a consensus.

It seems pretty venomous and part of an ongoing multi-article dispute on all things Falun Gong. There's a request for mediation template on the page that's 10 days old, but there doesn't seem to be any movement on the request page. So I would try spreading my wings a bit and asking all parties to calm down. But my instinct is that this might do more harm than good. (By the way, I'm not involved. Haven't edited the article and don't particularly want to. I was just looking for some good info after reading an article about the organ harvesting claims.)

Should I just follow standard dispute resolution with this? Leave it alone? Something more creative? Any advice appreciated --SiobhanHansa 01:00, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Well I guess that works! I thought I had to go through some big process to ask one of you to do that. Thanks. --SiobhanHansa 03:32, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

A question

Could you tell me please what is rapresenting the photo on your user page. Cannot click on it and it looks very interesting...cheers--TheFEARgod 14:54, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

See Falkirk Wheel. --Cyde Weys 16:20, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

New to Wiki

Hello I am a new user to Wikipedia. I like to edit articles about BELGIUM. Do you have any tips that will make my life easier on wikipedia???????????? EdYlC 18:29, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Please delete

• Template:GUS UBX to Rfrisbie^talk 19:15, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
• Template:User zodiac:Virgo (2 protected pages) Rfrisbie^talk 02:08, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
• Template:User Chinese zodiac:Snake (1 protected page) Rfrisbie^talk 01:55, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
• Template:User Chinese zodiac:Horse Rfrisbie^talk 03:07, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
• Template:User Chinese zodiac:Sheep Rfrisbie^talk 18:27, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
• Template:User Chinese zodiac:Monkey Rfrisbie^talk 02:43, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Ukrainian Templates

Hello there,

A fellow user has notified me of the disappearance of some Ukrainian club templates, [3]. Since you were the one to delete them, I was wondering of your reasoning behind it, since the templates were actually warmly welcomed by all fellow users who make changes to Ukrainian football related articles. Do you have an issue with us replacing them? --Palffy 23:23, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

First of all, some of those templates were being used to gratuitously insert non-free logos wherever a team was mentioned. This is a violation of our fair use policy. Beyond that, there's no need to have a template to just insert a link to a team's name ... just use the Wikilink with the team's name. Templates should only be used when necessary (lik, say, infoboxes). When you're just displaying a normal Wikilink, just display the normal Wikilink. No need for templates. --Cyde Weys 23:27, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, if you read my user-page closely, Ukrainian copyright laws actually allow free use of logos (this is really the only reason stopping the creation of similar templates for other world-wide clubs). Additionally, some of those templates have been used several times throughout WP, so making an easy to use template speeds up the process and allows for less mistakes in the code (this is the equivalent of using a 3RR tag, etc). --Palffy 23:35, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Ukrainian copyright law is utterly irrelevant. What matters is United States copyright law, but more importantly, Wikipedia's fair use policies (which are purposefully more restrictive than U.S. copyright law). Using logos like that was a violation of our policies. --Cyde Weys 01:35, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

How is it irrelevant? The logo's are not in the US domain and not a single one of these logos have been copyrighted by anyone in the world, including the clubs themselves. This has been discussed in WP fair use policy (I have a link to that as well in my profile) and no concensus has been reached on the issue. Others have tried to emulate the same templates, with copyright laws standing in the way. I thought you had deleted them for some reason, but this has been well-debated, and as far as I'm aware, will hold in a discussion on the fair-use board once again. --Palffy 02:28, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

How in the hell is it even possible that the team logos aren't copyrighted by the clubs? That doesn't make any sense. I highly doubt that in the Ukraine you could start freely using those logos, for whatever reasons, without running into some sort of trouble. --Cyde Weys 02:30, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Why are you swearing at me? Aren't you an admin?? It's possible under the Ukrainian copyright law, which states it clearly (there is a link to it in my user-page--please read it carefully if you don't believe me). The point that I was making is that these images don't even fit as fair-use images in the first place, because they do not abide by the same laws. --Palffy 02:33, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't swearing at you, merely expressing disbelief at what you said the copyright laws of the Ukraine were. Being an administrator doesn't have anything to do with what words one can say and one cannot say. Anyway, assuming that your interpretation of your laws is correct, and that these logos are not eligible for copyright, I still don't think having a template is necessary because we shouldn't be encouraging superfluous use of images. The logo of a team really only belongs on the article for that team ... it's not necessary to have it right next to the team's name on all of the other articles that talk about that team. --Cyde Weys 04:10, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Very well (I misunderstood you then). I understand your rationale about overusing images, but I happen to believe that by including logos, some information is easier to convey, such as that presented here. The logos are highly recognizable, and considering the fact that they're only 20px, I think they only enhance the experience and convey a good deal of information more easily, see [4] how certain teams jump out at you because of the logos. Either way, I think you and I will agree that these pages should be left the way they are right now, so if you believe they should be changed to your way, you're welcome to do it, but it is my personal belief that these templates do not harm anyone on WP nor certainly break any copyright/rules. --Palffy 04:57, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ed Poor 2

Hello,

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ed Poor 2. Please add evidence to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ed Poor 2/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ed Poor 2/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, --Tony Sidaway 00:41, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Please delete

• Template:GUS UBX to Rfrisbie^talk 19:15, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
• Template:User zodiac:Virgo (2 protected pages) Rfrisbie^talk 02:08, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
• Template:User Chinese zodiac:Snake (1 protected page) Rfrisbie^talk 01:55, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
• Template:User Chinese zodiac:Horse Rfrisbie^talk 03:07, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
• Template:User Chinese zodiac:Sheep Rfrisbie^talk 18:27, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
• Template:User Chinese zodiac:Monkey Rfrisbie^talk 02:43, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Userbox query

This user participates in
WikiProject Animal rights.

Cyde, can you help me with a userbox query? I've created the one above for WikiProject Animal Rights. My understanding is that this counts as encyclopedic, and therefore is allowed in template space, is that right? I'd like to know so that I can tell the others how it should be written. Many thanks, SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:08, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

The best location for WikiProject-related userboxes is not out there in the wild of template space but in projectspace; this is instance, Wikipedia:WikiProject Animal Rights/Userbox. --Cyde Weys 18:42, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'm very confused about when to transclude and when not. I would like to be able to change it centrally so that when we change a color or image, we don't have to individually edit each one. So I would like it to be a template, as all the others are that I've seen. Sorry if I'm being dense, but I have very little experience of the userbox issues (I'm glad to say). :-) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:54, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

You can transclude every page on Wikipedia, so everything is a "template" in that regard. Whether it's actually located in Template: space or elsewhere doesn't matter. So, rather than using {{User WikiProject Animal Rights}} on your userpage you'd just use {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Animal Rights/Userbox}}. --Cyde Weys 20:13, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Cyde. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:21, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Ukrainian Templates

Hello there,

A fellow user has notified me of the disappearance of some Ukrainian club templates, [5]. Since you were the one to delete them, I was wondering of your reasoning behind it, since the templates were actually warmly welcomed by all fellow users who make changes to Ukrainian football related articles. Do you have an issue with us replacing them? --Palffy 23:23, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

First of all, some of those templates were being used to gratuitously insert non-free logos wherever a team was mentioned. This is a violation of our fair use policy. Beyond that, there's no need to have a template to just insert a link to a team's name ... just use the Wikilink with the team's name. Templates should only be used when necessary (lik, say, infoboxes). When you're just displaying a normal Wikilink, just display the normal Wikilink. No need for templates. --Cyde Weys 23:27, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, if you read my user-page closely, Ukrainian copyright laws actually allow free use of logos (this is really the only reason stopping the creation of similar templates for other world-wide clubs). Additionally, some of those templates have been used several times throughout WP, so making an easy to use template speeds up the process and allows for less mistakes in the code (this is the equivalent of using a 3RR tag, etc). --Palffy 23:35, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Ukrainian copyright law is utterly irrelevant. What matters is United States copyright law, but more importantly, Wikipedia's fair use policies (which are purposefully more restrictive than U.S. copyright law). Using logos like that was a violation of our policies. --Cyde Weys 01:35, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

How is it irrelevant? The logo's are not in the US domain and not a single one of these logos have been copyrighted by anyone in the world, including the clubs themselves. This has been discussed in WP fair use policy (I have a link to that as well in my profile) and no concensus has been reached on the issue. Others have tried to emulate the same templates, with copyright laws standing in the way. I thought you had deleted them for some reason, but this has been well-debated, and as far as I'm aware, will hold in a discussion on the fair-use board once again. --Palffy 02:28, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

How in the hell is it even possible that the team logos aren't copyrighted by the clubs? That doesn't make any sense. I highly doubt that in the Ukraine you could start freely using those logos, for whatever reasons, without running into some sort of trouble. --Cyde Weys 02:30, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Why are you swearing at me? Aren't you an admin?? It's possible under the Ukrainian copyright law, which states it clearly (there is a link to it in my user-page--please read it carefully if you don't believe me). The point that I was making is that these images don't even fit as fair-use images in the first place, because they do not abide by the same laws. --Palffy 02:33, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't swearing at you, merely expressing disbelief at what you said the copyright laws of the Ukraine were. Being an administrator doesn't have anything to do with what words one can say and one cannot say. Anyway, assuming that your interpretation of your laws is correct, and that these logos are not eligible for copyright, I still don't think having a template is necessary because we shouldn't be encouraging superfluous use of images. The logo of a team really only belongs on the article for that team ... it's not necessary to have it right next to the team's name on all of the other articles that talk about that team. --Cyde Weys 04:10, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Very well (I misunderstood you then). I understand your rationale about overusing images, but I happen to believe that by including logos, some information is easier to convey, such as that presented here. The logos are highly recognizable, and considering the fact that they're only 20px, I think they only enhance the experience and convey a good deal of information more easily, see [6] how certain teams jump out at you because of the logos. Either way, I think you and I will agree that these pages should be left the way they are right now, so if you believe they should be changed to your way, you're welcome to do it, but it is my personal belief that these templates do not harm anyone on WP nor certainly break any copyright/rules. --Palffy 04:57, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ed Poor 2

Hello,

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ed Poor 2. Please add evidence to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ed Poor 2/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ed Poor 2/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, --Tony Sidaway 00:41, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Re: State route naming conventions poll

Hi Cyde. You said here that "Some more natural method might be preferred, but given two options ... " Given that I also don't like the parentheses, I'm very curious what other "more natural method" you might have in mind. I think a lot of people involved in that discussion might be interested to have a third option. Powers ^T 12:37, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Something more natural along the lines of "State Route 15 in Washington" or "State Route 15, Washington" (assuming the highways in Washington are called "State Routes", I don't particularly know, you'd have to ask a roadie). --Cyde Weys 13:21, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Hm, I guess I see "Washington State Route 15" as more natural, but thanks for your input. =) Powers ^T 19:02, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

re: your comments

Please see the question on my talk page. --wayland 15:28, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Aiman abmajid (talk · contribs · count) requsting unblock

Aiman abmajid (talk · contribs · count) has requested to be unblocked. While he has certainly cause quite a bit of disruption, it seems more due to lack of knoweldge of Wikipedia policy rather than purposeful vandalism. Perhaps a shorter block, and an intro on the related policies would be more appropriate? Wanted to see what you thought first, since you were the blocking admin. -- Natalya 15:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure, go for it. He seems salvageable. He just needed to realize that there were consequences for just ignoring and blanking all warnings without actually dealing with them. --Cyde Weys 15:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Minor wording clarification?

Cyde: This is not a substantive point, just a minor suggestion regarding some wording. The opening of your RfAr posted today reads: "MyWikiBiz is admittedly writing articles on a for-pay basis. This was noticed and he was briefly blocked and then unblocked by Jimbo after he promised that he wasn't going to do anything bad. Well, it appears that he has. Here we see him voting delete in an AFD, saying the subject of the article should have employed him if they wanted an article that should be kept...." In a couple of spots, on first reading, the word "he" is ambiguous - you obviously mean to refer to MyWikiBiz, but at first blush "he" could refer to Jimbo. You might want to slightly edit the RfAr to replace a couple of "he"s with the name. Just a thought, for what it's worth, if anything. Newyorkbrad 16:22, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't really think it's ambiguous; everytime I am using "he" I am referring to the same person, and none of the things I talk about "him" doing could possibly apply to Jimbo. --Cyde Weys 16:41, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, not a big deal. Newyorkbrad 16:50, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Bushtarion on deletion review

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Bushtarion. Since you closed the deletion discussion for (or speedy-deleted) this article, your reasons on how or why you did so will be greatly appreciated in the above review. --Azzer007 17:51, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikivoter issues

Cyde - when you couldn't get wikivoter to work, the problem was that you didn't add yourself to the wikivoter category. As shown in this diff [7], you had the wikivoter category commented out. The program checks the category itself for the user names of those who try to use it, and by commenting out the category when you first put it on your user page, you weren't added to the category at all. I'd encourage you to add yourself to the category properly, and try using wikivoter again. This comment is also at Eagle's RfA - I'm posting it here so you see it quickly and can hopefully test WV for yourself. Martinp23 19:07, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually I originally got that error message, and by adding myself to the category (even though it was commented out) I got past that stumbling block and then started tripping up on JavaScript errors. I had previously gotten the "not in the category" error but had succesfully resolved that, and am now getting errors that seem to be entirely separate. --Cyde Weys 19:09, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... that seems strange, although there could be a js conflict, as you suggest. Did you get any specific error numbers, and do you know what version of WV you were using? Thanks Martinp23 19:51, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Cyde, somehow, perhaps with the use of magic, I managed to get Wikivoter to work with the JS adjustments in User:Cyde/monobook.js. This can be seen in the following two screenshots:

File:Wvworks.PNG

File:Wvworks1.PNG

(click them for an enlargement).

Also, you may want to check the page history of my monobook.js, to prove to you that I'm not lying :). As you can see, there is full functionality in the second screenshot with all of your JS additions shown in the toolbox. On the screenshot on the left, you can see that we are referring to my monobook, which is also the page open on the right, just scrolled down. I also include the time on both (with two three clocks no less!)- the difference being caused by something IRL. Anyway, do you think you could try commenting out the category in your user page, then WV will probably work - after all, it is not a crystal ball for seeing what people want to hide in their userpages! With the category commented out, you are not included in the category itself (take a look), so the progrm won't let you use it. Please let us help you by trying to remove the comment tags around the category, and perhaps post some screenshots of any problems you may have (which Eagle 101 has kndly licensed to be available to all for free :) ) Thanks Martinp23 22:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Cydebot broke my userpage :-(

Hello, Cyde -

Cydebot broke my userpage while changing a category in a userbox. I have a 'nurse' userbox, because I'm an RN, and I substed that userbox so I could change the wording from 'nurse' to 'registered nurse'. Cydebot changed the category associated with that box, Category:Nurse Wikipedians, to Category:Wikipedian nurses. That was fine - but in the process, it took the categories out of every substed userbox on my page and moved each one outside the "</div>" tags of their userbox, which had the effect of breaking all the HTML. It put the entire contents of my userpage inside the userboxbox and moved all categories to the bottom.

Since pictures are worth a thousand words, here's the diff between what Cydebot did and what it should have done. For simplicity, I reverted back to the last version before Cydebot's activity, then I changed the category manually.

It's not a problem for me 'cause I can read the code, but users who aren't versed in HTML or wikispeak might think the bot is malicious or defective. I know it's not malicious, but I'll leave it to your good judgment to determine if Cydebot is defective. I'm not upset or anything, so it's not necessary to reply - this is just for your information. Thanks - Baseball,Baby! ^{balls•strikes} 20:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Please delete

• Template:GUS UBX to Rfrisbie^talk 19:15, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
• Template:User zodiac:Virgo (2 protected pages) Rfrisbie^talk 02:08, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
• Template:User Chinese zodiac:Snake (1 protected page) Rfrisbie^talk 01:55, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
• Template:User Chinese zodiac:Horse Rfrisbie^talk 03:07, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
• Template:User Chinese zodiac:Sheep Rfrisbie^talk 18:27, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
• Template:User Chinese zodiac:Monkey Rfrisbie^talk 02:43, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Userbox query

This user participates in
WikiProject Animal rights.

Cyde, can you help me with a userbox query? I've created the one above for WikiProject Animal Rights. My understanding is that this counts as encyclopedic, and therefore is allowed in template space, is that right? I'd like to know so that I can tell the others how it should be written. Many thanks, SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:08, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

The best location for WikiProject-related userboxes is not out there in the wild of template space but in projectspace; this is instance, Wikipedia:WikiProject Animal Rights/Userbox. --Cyde Weys 18:42, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'm very confused about when to transclude and when not. I would like to be able to change it centrally so that when we change a color or image, we don't have to individually edit each one. So I would like it to be a template, as all the others are that I've seen. Sorry if I'm being dense, but I have very little experience of the userbox issues (I'm glad to say). :-) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:54, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

You can transclude every page on Wikipedia, so everything is a "template" in that regard. Whether it's actually located in Template: space or elsewhere doesn't matter. So, rather than using {{User WikiProject Animal Rights}} on your userpage you'd just use {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Animal Rights/Userbox}}. --Cyde Weys 20:13, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Cyde. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:21, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Ukrainian Templates

Hello there,

A fellow user has notified me of the disappearance of some Ukrainian club templates, [8]. Since you were the one to delete them, I was wondering of your reasoning behind it, since the templates were actually warmly welcomed by all fellow users who make changes to Ukrainian football related articles. Do you have an issue with us replacing them? --Palffy 23:23, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

First of all, some of those templates were being used to gratuitously insert non-free logos wherever a team was mentioned. This is a violation of our fair use policy. Beyond that, there's no need to have a template to just insert a link to a team's name ... just use the Wikilink with the team's name. Templates should only be used when necessary (lik, say, infoboxes). When you're just displaying a normal Wikilink, just display the normal Wikilink. No need for templates. --Cyde Weys 23:27, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, if you read my user-page closely, Ukrainian copyright laws actually allow free use of logos (this is really the only reason stopping the creation of similar templates for other world-wide clubs). Additionally, some of those templates have been used several times throughout WP, so making an easy to use template speeds up the process and allows for less mistakes in the code (this is the equivalent of using a 3RR tag, etc). --Palffy 23:35, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Ukrainian copyright law is utterly irrelevant. What matters is United States copyright law, but more importantly, Wikipedia's fair use policies (which are purposefully more restrictive than U.S. copyright law). Using logos like that was a violation of our policies. --Cyde Weys 01:35, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

How is it irrelevant? The logo's are not in the US domain and not a single one of these logos have been copyrighted by anyone in the world, including the clubs themselves. This has been discussed in WP fair use policy (I have a link to that as well in my profile) and no concensus has been reached on the issue. Others have tried to emulate the same templates, with copyright laws standing in the way. I thought you had deleted them for some reason, but this has been well-debated, and as far as I'm aware, will hold in a discussion on the fair-use board once again. --Palffy 02:28, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

How in the hell is it even possible that the team logos aren't copyrighted by the clubs? That doesn't make any sense. I highly doubt that in the Ukraine you could start freely using those logos, for whatever reasons, without running into some sort of trouble. --Cyde Weys 02:30, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Why are you swearing at me? Aren't you an admin?? It's possible under the Ukrainian copyright law, which states it clearly (there is a link to it in my user-page--please read it carefully if you don't believe me). The point that I was making is that these images don't even fit as fair-use images in the first place, because they do not abide by the same laws. --Palffy 02:33, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't swearing at you, merely expressing disbelief at what you said the copyright laws of the Ukraine were. Being an administrator doesn't have anything to do with what words one can say and one cannot say. Anyway, assuming that your interpretation of your laws is correct, and that these logos are not eligible for copyright, I still don't think having a template is necessary because we shouldn't be encouraging superfluous use of images. The logo of a team really only belongs on the article for that team ... it's not necessary to have it right next to the team's name on all of the other articles that talk about that team. --Cyde Weys 04:10, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Very well (I misunderstood you then). I understand your rationale about overusing images, but I happen to believe that by including logos, some information is easier to convey, such as that presented here. The logos are highly recognizable, and considering the fact that they're only 20px, I think they only enhance the experience and convey a good deal of information more easily, see [9] how certain teams jump out at you because of the logos. Either way, I think you and I will agree that these pages should be left the way they are right now, so if you believe they should be changed to your way, you're welcome to do it, but it is my personal belief that these templates do not harm anyone on WP nor certainly break any copyright/rules. --Palffy 04:57, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ed Poor 2

Hello,

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ed Poor 2. Please add evidence to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ed Poor 2/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ed Poor 2/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, --Tony Sidaway 00:41, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Re: State route naming conventions poll

Hi Cyde. You said here that "Some more natural method might be preferred, but given two options ... " Given that I also don't like the parentheses, I'm very curious what other "more natural method" you might have in mind. I think a lot of people involved in that discussion might be interested to have a third option. Powers ^T 12:37, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Something more natural along the lines of "State Route 15 in Washington" or "State Route 15, Washington" (assuming the highways in Washington are called "State Routes", I don't particularly know, you'd have to ask a roadie). --Cyde Weys 13:21, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Hm, I guess I see "Washington State Route 15" as more natural, but thanks for your input. =) Powers ^T 19:02, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

re: your comments

Please see the question on my talk page. --wayland 15:28, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Aiman abmajid (talk · contribs · count) requsting unblock

Aiman abmajid (talk · contribs · count) has requested to be unblocked. While he has certainly cause quite a bit of disruption, it seems more due to lack of knoweldge of Wikipedia policy rather than purposeful vandalism. Perhaps a shorter block, and an intro on the related policies would be more appropriate? Wanted to see what you thought first, since you were the blocking admin. -- Natalya 15:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure, go for it. He seems salvageable. He just needed to realize that there were consequences for just ignoring and blanking all warnings without actually dealing with them. --Cyde Weys 15:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Minor wording clarification?

Cyde: This is not a substantive point, just a minor suggestion regarding some wording. The opening of your RfAr posted today reads: "MyWikiBiz is admittedly writing articles on a for-pay basis. This was noticed and he was briefly blocked and then unblocked by Jimbo after he promised that he wasn't going to do anything bad. Well, it appears that he has. Here we see him voting delete in an AFD, saying the subject of the article should have employed him if they wanted an article that should be kept...." In a couple of spots, on first reading, the word "he" is ambiguous - you obviously mean to refer to MyWikiBiz, but at first blush "he" could refer to Jimbo. You might want to slightly edit the RfAr to replace a couple of "he"s with the name. Just a thought, for what it's worth, if anything. Newyorkbrad 16:22, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't really think it's ambiguous; everytime I am using "he" I am referring to the same person, and none of the things I talk about "him" doing could possibly apply to Jimbo. --Cyde Weys 16:41, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, not a big deal. Newyorkbrad 16:50, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Bushtarion on deletion review

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Bushtarion. Since you closed the deletion discussion for (or speedy-deleted) this article, your reasons on how or why you did so will be greatly appreciated in the above review. --Azzer007 17:51, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Help prevent Wikidrama

Unneccessary wikidrama is a big time-waster and has never improved an article. Help do your part to prevent it by not going out of your way to irritate other editors. Thanks! Friday (talk) 18:57, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, but some things are so hysterical I find them hard to resist. If you look at my block log you may see a few other examples :-P Cyde Weys 18:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I understand, I just hate to see people picking on other editors, even if they did something you see as funny, or foolish. If you want to poke fun at people, surely it can be done in some chat room rather than on-wiki? Friday (talk) 19:26, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Sigh. And here we go again. Apparently smart alec admins is now the in-thing. Cyde, this is exactly what Friday is referring to. You can be sure others will follow suit, especially in such a visible forum. Is this really the message you intend to send? David D. (Talk) 07:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's exactly the message I intend to send. No quarter for ED trolls. Everything they touch turns to rot, or at least gets much, much worse. --Cyde Weys 14:27, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Responding to trolls by trolling back at them increases the amount of total trolling that goes on. Surely we'd all rather see a decrease in trolling, right? That is, if our goals are producing an encyclopedia rather than engaging in dramatic personal conflict. Friday (talk) 14:32, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd rather see them get shut down at RFAR. And the problem with ignoring trolls is it only works if everyone else does it. There's enough people here who foolishly take them seriously (there's a bunch of people eager to latch onto any opportunity to attack admins, for example) that they can't be simply ignored by all of the "sane" people. So it's best to remind everyone what's really going on here and to treat them with the amount of respect that they deserve. --Cyde Weys 14:40, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

But you can retort in a way that looks more mature. After you rewrote your response it was excellent. The first one you wrote sends the wrong message in my opinion. I agree with Friday that lowering the fight to their level is not the way to go. You can still send strong messages without being like them. If you ever have kids you'll understand ;) David D. (Talk) 17:47, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikivoter issues

Cyde - when you couldn't get wikivoter to work, the problem was that you didn't add yourself to the wikivoter category. As shown in this diff [10], you had the wikivoter category commented out. The program checks the category itself for the user names of those who try to use it, and by commenting out the category when you first put it on your user page, you weren't added to the category at all. I'd encourage you to add yourself to the category properly, and try using wikivoter again. This comment is also at Eagle's RfA - I'm posting it here so you see it quickly and can hopefully test WV for yourself. Martinp23 19:07, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually I originally got that error message, and by adding myself to the category (even though it was commented out) I got past that stumbling block and then started tripping up on JavaScript errors. I had previously gotten the "not in the category" error but had succesfully resolved that, and am now getting errors that seem to be entirely separate. --Cyde Weys 19:09, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... that seems strange, although there could be a js conflict, as you suggest. Did you get any specific error numbers, and do you know what version of WV you were using? Thanks Martinp23 19:51, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Cyde, somehow, perhaps with the use of magic, I managed to get Wikivoter to work with the JS adjustments in User:Cyde/monobook.js. This can be seen in the following two screenshots:

File:Wvworks.PNG

File:Wvworks1.PNG

(click them for an enlargement).

Also, you may want to check the page history of my monobook.js, to prove to you that I'm not lying :). As you can see, there is full functionality in the second screenshot with all of your JS additions shown in the toolbox. On the screenshot on the left, you can see that we are referring to my monobook, which is also the page open on the right, just scrolled down. I also include the time on both (with two three clocks no less!)- the difference being caused by something IRL. Anyway, do you think you could try commenting out the category in your user page, then WV will probably work - after all, it is not a crystal ball for seeing what people want to hide in their userpages! With the category commented out, you are not included in the category itself (take a look), so the progrm won't let you use it. Please let us help you by trying to remove the comment tags around the category, and perhaps post some screenshots of any problems you may have (which Eagle 101 has kndly licensed to be available to all for free :) ) Thanks Martinp23 22:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Cydebot broke my userpage :-(

Hello, Cyde -

Cydebot broke my userpage while changing a category in a userbox. I have a 'nurse' userbox, because I'm an RN, and I substed that userbox so I could change the wording from 'nurse' to 'registered nurse'. Cydebot changed the category associated with that box, Category:Nurse Wikipedians, to Category:Wikipedian nurses. That was fine - but in the process, it took the categories out of every substed userbox on my page and moved each one outside the "</div>" tags of their userbox, which had the effect of breaking all the HTML. It put the entire contents of my userpage inside the userboxbox and moved all categories to the bottom.

Since pictures are worth a thousand words, here's the diff between what Cydebot did and what it should have done. For simplicity, I reverted back to the last version before Cydebot's activity, then I changed the category manually.

It's not a problem for me 'cause I can read the code, but users who aren't versed in HTML or wikispeak might think the bot is malicious or defective. I know it's not malicious, but I'll leave it to your good judgment to determine if Cydebot is defective. I'm not upset or anything, so it's not necessary to reply - this is just for your information. Thanks - Baseball,Baby! ^{balls•strikes} 20:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

The video issues

Hi Cyde, did you see this question? Where do you think this whole issue should go from here? David D. (Talk) 21:00, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Illegal in the sense that his video display technology is being used for copyright infringement, not illegal in the sense of, say, murdering a busload of babies. --Cyde Weys 21:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

No, i didn't think you meant murdering a busload of babies. So what do you make of the youtube links, is there is policy in place with regard to that yet? David D. (Talk) 21:55, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I personally would get rid of every YouTube link that doesn't have the same kind of copyright information that we have on our Image: pages here on Wikipedia. That means the license the video is available under must be explicit and source information must be provided. Something like Flickr (which lists the license and creator of each image) would be fine, but YouTube doesn't seem to give a damn about any of these issues. They don't have it built into their software anywhere about the licensing issues and such that we have to concern ourselves with on Wikipedia. --Cyde Weys 22:20, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

My main problem with you tube is all the advertising. Why are you worried about copyright issues? Don't all off site pdf's and jpg's have the same issues. We don't ban all of those, except the ones with legitimate copyright issues. Although I do hear you with regard to you can't be sure on youtube. Anyway I don't think the main issue was with regard to the content, so much as the propriety software involved. For that reason the pdf example is even more apt. Surely proprietry software is required for the use of pdf in wikipedia. It is very common to see links to pdf material. To be consistent those would have to go too. Is that the plan? David D. (Talk) 07:38, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is an apt comparison because FLOSS software exists to read, write, and convert pdfs. If you're saying that it's the format itself that is proprietary I guess I can't disagree with you. At the same time that we go to such great lengths to use ogg and other totally free formats over mp3, we also use jpg for the vast majority of our images ... which is also a proprietary, patented format. This crap is so pervasive throughout the industry. I don't know if we really have an alternative to jpg, though. Png is FLOSS, of course, but it's good for much different things. --Cyde Weys 14:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

You have a point here. I was unaware of FLOSS. One thing I wonder is it sounds like Steeater is happy to work with wikipedia to build free software. Isn't this something that wikipedia should consider? David D. (Talk) 17:43, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Most definitely, we always need more help coding. Unfortunately I think that video player he has is proprietary, and it is not within his hands to make it freely available. So he'd have to make something entirely new (or work on the FLOSS Java video player we have that's coming out in a few months). --Cyde Weys 17:50, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Who knows it may happen. David D. (Talk) 17:52, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Snowcrash

For WP:SNOW and the WP:FUCKPROCESS, I think of the novel WP:SNOWCRASH.

PS: What do you think of my user page's boxes? Anomo 23:17, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

They look vaguely familiar :-P Cyde Weys 01:45, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

And this?

Excuse me? This is way out of line. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:20, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Hello. I've removed your statement regarding "trolls" as the policies regarding civility and personal attacks still do apply. If/when you redact, remove my threaded comment. - Aaron Brenneman 00:05, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be acceptable to all if you restored your observation that certain parties have a strong allegiance to the troll website. --Tony Sidaway 00:27, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Except that observation would be false. Does ArbCom deal well with false statements? --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:42, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Censorship? I'm sorry, but that is simply nonsensical when I:

1. Linked to your orignal statement in the removal, and
2. Informed you of the change I made, and even
3. Replaced it when it was removed outright.

I suppose if you interpret "censorship" as meaning "we shouldn't make attacks on other editors" then maybe.
brenneman ^{L} 00:59, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Signpost updated for August 21st

The Wikipedia Signpost

Volume 2, Issue 34	21 August 2006	About the Signpost

Politician's staff criticizes Wikipedia after being caught editing it	Board of Trustees elections continue with call for candidates
Report from the Swedish Wikipedia	News and notes
Wikipedia in the News	Features and admins
Bugs, Repairs and Internal Operational News	The Report On Lengthy Litigation

You are receiving this message because you have signed up for the Signpost spamlist. If you wish to stop receiving these messages, simply remove your name from the list. Ralbot 04:03, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

regarding userbox macquarie

g'day. no worries and thanks for your help. I was wondering, though, i just recreated the Wikipedians by alma mater:Macquarie University page and i can't link myself to the page and there is no category link at the bottom of the page i created to have the userbox.

What should i do? Or is the recreation outside the german solution as well?

Cheers, Jpe|ob 07:06, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I've just been getting rid of user categories. They really aren't necessary. You can use the "What links here" on the category just as well. I wouldn't be so against user categories if there actually were separate categories for userspace than for article space, but there aren't. --Cyde Weys 14:23, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

UBX Deletion

Thanks for informing me of your deletion of my UBX. I will recreate the new one under my username as per your request. --Anthony5429 16:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

KDRGibby

Hello. Is the person who previously edited under the name of KDRGibby still banned from wikipedia? I have noticed that this same person has made a return under the name of CosmopolitanCapitalist. He is easy to identify because he has the exact same tendentious editing style, dogmatism, intellectual laziness, and horrendous spelling that KDRGibby had; and of course, he's editing the same pages (participatory economics, classical liberalism, etc.), forcing the same lame arguments. Are you aware of this? And if you are, could you please update me on his status at wikipedia? Thanks! BernardL 16:51, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I would recommend bringing this up at WP:ANI. I personally do not know much about KDRGibby other than that I blocked him for a 3RR violation once. --Cyde Weys 16:53, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

See how quickly that worked?  :-P Cyde Weys 18:08, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Kudos! It sure was efficient. Thanks for your help. BernardL 18:32, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Big Brother complex

"What are you here for?" I created a few userboxes and cleaned some userbox genres. Seems like i like doing userboxes. Do you have any problem with this? Is there any Wikipedia policies against creating userboxes? Seems like not. So your suspicious question is totally irrelevant and even abusive. There's Wikipedia policy "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that everyone can edit" don't you forget it? As long as I can remember, I'm still part of this everyone, wich means that I am able and free to edit Wikipedia, and that I'm free to edit the articles I want. If you don't like the free encyclopedia concept "I would suggest that you look elsewhere".
"I've noticed that you've made hundreds of edits to various userspace stuff like userboxes and user categories, but very little edits to the encyclopedia." Exactly, so what? Is there any Wikipedia against this? I don't think so. Are editors obliged to edit many articles to be able to continue working on Wikipedia? I don't think so. Is there a kind of Wiki article quota? I don't think so. Aren't editors free to edit as much or as few articles as they want or is this forced work? So your suspicious question is totally irrelevant and even abusive. There's Wikipedia policy "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that everyone can edit" don't you forget it? As long as I can remember, I'm still part of this everyone, wich means that I am able and free to edit Wikipedia, and that I'm free to edit the articles I want. As long as I 'm free, here's my question, who do you think you are? Are you working for the CIA or the KGB? If you are interested in espionnage organisations and private investigation "I would suggest that you look elsewhere".
"Remember, Wikipedia is first and foremost an encyclopedia" Thanks your reminder, but I didn't asked you anything and I know what Wikipedia is and its true purpose so this sentence is totally irrelevant. First and foremost, talking on "discussion" pages is not encyclopedic at all, and I'm more interested in making userboxes and stuff so what? Do you have a problem with that? Also userboxes are part of Wikipedia and there are several userboxes articles and hundres of userboxes, are these stuff encyclopedic? Probably not but these stuff are part of Wikipedia and as such are freely editable. I'm more interested in creating userboxes rather than wasting my time speaking in "discussion" pages, so if you are here to talk and for social network stuff "I would suggest that you look elsewhere".
"it is explicitly not a social networking site." Of course I know, that's what I just told you. Since you have "noticed" my edits you have probably "noticed" that I've spended most of my time on userboxes and articles instead of talking on article/user discussion pages, so your reminder is totally irrelevant. In other hand, I noticed these encyclopedia had tons of British and American related userboxes, stuff "I'm proud to be British" or "I'm very very proud to be English", "I'm very very very proud to be Scott" or "I'm very very very very proud to be American", but there was not a single European userbox until I created some? Amazing isn't it? Also the "French" userbox was actually created for "French Ancestry" but it was used by French editiors since nobody had the idea to create a French userbox, until I did. The situation was both French ancestry editors and French editors were using the "French Ancestry" userbox. But to be from French ancestry and to be French is not the same thing at all. So the userboxes I had created were useful, but you have shamelessly deleted them. Also I noticed that you iddn't post the code for some of the delted userboxes, including the Napoleonic userbox? The question is why? Don't you want these userboxes to be used again? Do you have a problem with these userboxes maybe? I remember you that deleting an editor's work without warning him, without giving a rational reason or without voting is totally illegitimate here. The problem is you did it anyway, and you didn't asked nobody. So, if you think you can use your sysop statute to support a community and doing propaganda for it (e.g. an userbox is offending your community or your personal beliefs or your private politcal views so you simply remove it with a lame excuse like "you didn't done much articles" like you actually did, "I would suggest that you look elsewhere". Cliché Online 17:08, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Dear Cyde, just got a message from "Cliché Online" (wich is a long time friend of mine) on the IRC, he asked me to contact you in his name since he cannot do it himself anymore. So, he just told me he was "VERY" surprised to get his account blocked by you, only a few seconds after he posted this message on your talk page, what a funny coincidence, isn't it? The reason for his account permanent block is "Vote canvassing". He told me that he was very surprised to get banned so shortly, without vandalizing anything and editing articles, as he tought that Wikipedia was really "the free enyclopedia that everyone can edit". He told me that he was disapointed by your abusive and intolerant behavior. He wanted me to report you his greetings, and that I will not miss Wikipedia, that's what he told me. Here it is. Thanks for your attention and cheers. Synchronicity I 17:28, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

My judgement on the Grigori Perelman article

Quite simple - I made a mistake. I don't usually edit "living people" pages (especially ones that have so much attention focused on them) so although I had heard of the rule before somewhere, I forgot to employ it in this instance and did what I would do for any other wikipedia article. Sorry about that. -Esn 19:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC).

No problem, just wanted to make sure that you were aware of the policy. --Cyde Weys 19:27, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

double listing on User:Cyde/B

I added the following to the discussion page of User:Cyde/B about a month ago and have not gotten a response. I just thought I'd bring it to your attention by putting it on your talk page.

Is there a good reason to have AmazingGrace listed twice? Michael Slone (talk) 23:20, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Just curious. Michael Slone (talk) 17:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The reason he's listed twice is that the bot doesn't do any sort of manipulation to the list, it just adds to the end. Thus it doesn't sort them, nor does it check if it's adding duplicates. --Cyde Weys 17:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah, ok. Thanks. Michael Slone (talk) 03:41, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Userboxes

Sorry about that! I'll note that down for future reference. Thanks for telling me. --Nishkid64 21:09, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

My poor template.

I made a template for simple mantainance of the links for the Samurai Shodown characters, and your bot deleted it, why?--2dMadness 21:15, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

You may be interested...

In taking a look at Wikipedia:Simple userbox solution, if you haven't already. The user who created it appears to be moving userboxes back from user space to template space. —Mira 21:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes he has taken several that I have done an is moving them back can you do anything? Æon ^{Insane Ward} 22:19, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I only did two to get your attention. Don't exaggerate. Besides, this issue is not resolved and it is NOT OK to move templates to userspace without going through the usual processes. --NThurston 22:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Of course there's something I can do :-) Thanks for pointing it out to me. --Cyde Weys 22:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict)By the way Cyde, I noticed you deleted Template:User SUS UBX to. You may also want to get Category:Wikipedia SUS userboxes, or I'll put it up at CFD, whichever you prefer. —Mira 22:23, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Under what authority did you delete that Template? I request that you immediately restore it as it's deletion has violated Wikipedia policy. --NThurston 22:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Cyde! going to start the other Cats to. Hopefully all will be userfied soon. Æon ^{Insane Ward} 22:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Fuzzy lumpkins

You decided to keep this article when there was already a consensus to delete. I don't think you can do that, given that the article has only been kept for way less than 5 days. Marcus 00:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

"Fuzzy Lumpkins" is a character in the Powerpuff Girls TV show. It's mentioned in the article. Deleting this redirect would be a disservice to our readers. You haven't advanced any reason why it should be deleted. --Cyde Weys 00:54, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

If you want a reason, I'll give you a reason. The name "Fuzzy lumpkins" is spelled incorrectly because it has a lowercase "L" at the beginning of "Lumpkins". And it should also be deleted because no one, if not, hardly anybody will type "Fuzzy Lumpkins" the wrong way. It's just a wasted redirect. Marcus 02:41, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

First of all, capitalization issues are ineligible as reasons for deletion and actually qualify as speedy keep rationales. One of the reasons redirects were implemented was because of capitalization issues. For instance, is it Nethack or NetHack? And second of all, "because something is wasting something" isn't a deletion reason. Realistically a single redirect uses up so little space that it's inconsequential. Not to mention that nothing is ever deleted permanently, thus you cannot save space by deleting stuff. In fact, by going through the deletion process and such you're using up hundreds of times the space on the server deleting something. Redirect pages are small ... discussion pages like WP:RFD are big, and the entire page source needs to be saved to the database on each edit. --Cyde Weys 02:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

double listing on User:Cyde/B

I added the following to the discussion page of User:Cyde/B about a month ago and have not gotten a response. I just thought I'd bring it to your attention by putting it on your talk page.

Is there a good reason to have AmazingGrace listed twice? Michael Slone (talk) 23:20, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Just curious. Michael Slone (talk) 17:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The reason he's listed twice is that the bot doesn't do any sort of manipulation to the list, it just adds to the end. Thus it doesn't sort them, nor does it check if it's adding duplicates. --Cyde Weys 17:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah, ok. Thanks. Michael Slone (talk) 03:41, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Userboxes

Sorry about that! I'll note that down for future reference. Thanks for telling me. --Nishkid64 21:09, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

My poor template.

I made a template for simple mantainance of the links for the Samurai Shodown characters, and your bot deleted it, why?--2dMadness 21:15, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

You may be interested...

In taking a look at Wikipedia:Simple userbox solution, if you haven't already. The user who created it appears to be moving userboxes back from user space to template space. —Mira 21:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes he has taken several that I have done an is moving them back can you do anything? Æon ^{Insane Ward} 22:19, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I only did two to get your attention. Don't exaggerate. Besides, this issue is not resolved and it is NOT OK to move templates to userspace without going through the usual processes. --NThurston 22:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Of course there's something I can do :-) Thanks for pointing it out to me. --Cyde Weys 22:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict)By the way Cyde, I noticed you deleted Template:User SUS UBX to. You may also want to get Category:Wikipedia SUS userboxes, or I'll put it up at CFD, whichever you prefer. —Mira 22:23, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Under what authority did you delete that Template? I request that you immediately restore it as it's deletion has violated Wikipedia policy. --NThurston 22:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Cyde! going to start the other Cats to. Hopefully all will be userfied soon. Æon ^{Insane Ward} 22:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Fuzzy lumpkins

You decided to keep this article when there was already a consensus to delete. I don't think you can do that, given that the article has only been kept for way less than 5 days. Marcus 00:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

"Fuzzy Lumpkins" is a character in the Powerpuff Girls TV show. It's mentioned in the article. Deleting this redirect would be a disservice to our readers. You haven't advanced any reason why it should be deleted. --Cyde Weys 00:54, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

If you want a reason, I'll give you a reason. The name "Fuzzy lumpkins" is spelled incorrectly because it has a lowercase "L" at the beginning of "Lumpkins". And it should also be deleted because no one, if not, hardly anybody will type "Fuzzy Lumpkins" the wrong way. It's just a wasted redirect. Marcus 02:41, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

First of all, capitalization issues are ineligible as reasons for deletion and actually qualify as speedy keep rationales. One of the reasons redirects were implemented was because of capitalization issues. For instance, is it Nethack or NetHack? And second of all, "because something is wasting something" isn't a deletion reason. Realistically a single redirect uses up so little space that it's inconsequential. Not to mention that nothing is ever deleted permanently, thus you cannot save space by deleting stuff. In fact, by going through the deletion process and such you're using up hundreds of times the space on the server deleting something. Redirect pages are small ... discussion pages like WP:RFD are big, and the entire page source needs to be saved to the database on each edit. --Cyde Weys 02:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Userboxes

So in other words, if you don't like it or agree with it it should be removed? I won't reinstate the "No GFDL" one but I believe that there should be a template for users who do use Fair Use.--CyberGhostface 13:54, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Please see WP:GUS. The main issue is that they shouldn't be created as templates. --Cyde Weys 14:06, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, well instead of just deleting new user boxes why don't you advise the creators of the new policy? That's if it is a binding policy. If it isn't then what are doing deleting them? I've just created a user box and then wasted a considerable amount of time trying to get it to display on my user page. It was never going to because you promptly deleted it without advising me. Arcturus 16:08, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

And which userbox was that? I have been advising people on the userboxes that are acceptable in userspace. --Cyde Weys 16:11, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

The user box was Template:User Real Lancashire. I've now set up the equivalent in my userspace as described elsewhere - no problem. However, you should post a comment on a user's talk page advising them of the new policy and then let them sort it out for themselves, rather than just deleting something with no explanation. As for Jimbo's views on this matter, I find them somewhat perverse, but as valid as anyone else's view on the matter. He's not a Wiki-dictator (yet) is he? Cheers, Arcturus 16:45, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean by perverse? And remember, Wikipedia is not a democracy. Jimbo has always been our "Wiki-dictator", albeit a benevolent one. Why do you think we call him God-king Jimbo? --Cyde Weys 16:51, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Perverse - I think I'd go for one of the definitions from Dictionary.com - wrongly self-willed or stubborn. I don't know Jimbo, but I get the impression listening to interviews he's done, and reading some of his thoughts, that's he's "always right". Maybe I've misread him, but it does seem that way. I've never heard of God-king Jimbo. I've heard the description "benevolent Wiki-dictator" and it leaves me slightly uneasy. OK, Jimbo started the project, but it's now the Foundation, and there shouldn't really be a place for a dictator in this kind of project. Just a few thoughts! Arcturus 17:01, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Regarding your message: A) I have re-worded the notice to reflect the NPOV reality of what is happening. B) I don't see why you have taken it upon yourself to be judge and jury on this issue. I really don't think you should be deleting new userboxes created in the template space, unless they go through the usual process, which rarely results in consensus. C) It is just your opinion that "they should have been created in userspace in the first place per WP:GUS." The German solution is is not a policy, it's just a suggestion, and frankly not a very popular one. In any case, it is CERTAINLY not policy. So please don't insist on pushing your POV on everyone else. This only serves to circumvent the normal value in how the Wikipedia operates. --NThurston 14:57, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

GUS is policy now, though few dare say so. You couldn't overturn it with a team of horses. --Tony Sidaway 22:53, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Tony: No new policy is needed to do this, and this is not a policy proposal. Just go ahead and do it. That's policy? Fredil Yupigo ^{What has Wikipedia become?} 21:05, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

How do you think policy is made? Something is done consistently over the course of months ... Cyde Weys 22:23, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, Cyde, that's close, but as Wikipedia:policies reminds us -

• A proposed policy being adopted by consensus.
• A slow evolution of convention and common practice eventually codified as a policy.
• Jimmy Wales, the Board, or the Developers, particularly for copyright, legal issues, or server load.

Note that the first option suggests "consensus" and the second option suggests "convention and common practice," both of which get to the concept of community and agreement. In short, I am disappointed that neither of these seem to catch your fancy as you would definitely prefer to force people to do it the GUS way and you are claiming that those who disagree with you are "disruptive." By the way, I am still waiting on your response to why you deleted two perfectly valid templates that I created. --NThurston 22:39, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

You might want to look at the histories of how a lot of the policies you take for granted today became policy. And which two userboxes are you referring to? Assuming they're not overly inflammatory I will provide you the code so that you can recreate them in userspace per WP:GUS. --Cyde Weys 22:52, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The deleted template I am most curious about was User:Template_SUS, which was created in userspace. I am mostly interested in why you thought you should delete it. The other one was the userbox regarding "this template has been restored per SUS." I have a pretty good idea why you deleted that one and wouldn't want it restored anyway, since I have agreed to cooperate with you all.

Speaking of cooperation, now that I have cooled off a bit, I could point out a couple of things that are really the source of what irked me the most. 1) The perceived violent and storming manner in which GUS came into force - "Come on guys, let's get em" sort of attitude. Anywhere in Wikipedia this is in itself disruptive and causes even level-headed guys like me to turn into jerks. 2) The lack of refinement. There is still a lot of work needed to fine-tune GUS to make it workable. a) It seems that there are a lot of userboxes that will be left on Template space (which I support), but it's not clear which ones or how that decision will be made. And, it's not clear that new userboxes in those classifications are allowed (or not) or even if they should be. Something to discuss. b) I am fine with moving divisive and inflammatory userboxes to userspace, but I keep hearing that they are simply being Speedy Deleted, not moved. c) There should be some logic and discussion as to where in userspace these things end up. The rush to userfy has ended up with places that look almost as official as template space, but with much longer and unwieldly names. Hence, the only plus is that the pointer begins with User: instead of Template: and there are several minuses, namely, weird and inconsistent naming (hard for newbies to figure this out); scattered, but still locally concentrated locations; userboxes deleted instead of being moved: See Template:User Crane. So, I propose a slow-down in the rush to userfy until there can be an attempt at consensus on some of the implementation details.--NThurston 13:56, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Userboxes

Having gotten your attention that I am serious about this, I will stop. AND I issue you the same stern warning (as per the discussion on the GUS talk page) that you immediately stop the unilateral userfication of existing userboxes in the Template space. This violates at least two Wikipedia policies, especially regarding the appropriate way to handle moving and deleting templates. This is causing massive disruptions already as userboxes all over the place are being replaced with the unsightly GUS template. The long locations are disrupting formatting everywhere. And people are thoroughly confused as to what is going in. In addition, you (and your cohorts) are making unfounded POV claims that GUS is generally accepted, when it clearly is not. There is no consensus and in such situations, it is the status quo that should reign until something can be worked out. --NThurston 22:32, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm not going to stop. All that's going on here is you violating WP:POINT by doing the extreme opposite of the current consensus and then trying to establish a false middleground wherein the current consensus stops. That's gaming the system and no one is going to fall for it. --Cyde Weys 22:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

You are claiming a false consensus. READ the talk pages. The majority of people think you are wrong on this. --NThurston 22:36, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh really? If I'm so wrong then why did two userbox people come to me immediately saying that you needed to be stopped? --Cyde Weys 22:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Only two? Hardly think that's a consensus. READ the straw poll page. READ the talk page. That aside, I have been convinced that the GUS patrol is headed forward, so it's better to work with you than against you. Is there some logic in deciding which userboxes are project related and which are not? I have worked with several groups of userboxes that are clearly project related and many that are also related to qualifications, and I want to know what the "consensus" criteria would be, and where those are listed. Also, on what basis did you delete User:Template_SUS? --NThurston 22:51, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Just checking to see if there is a decision on which userboxes in Template do not, in fact, need to be moved. Just want to know because if some of the ones I work with are going to get moved/deleted, I would rather serve my colleagues by doing it myself so that it doesn't get screwed up as has already happened to a couple of them. --NThurston 13:50, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Userboxes/Zodiac

is ready to be deleted. :) —Mira 02:00, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks like Wikipedia:Userboxes/Automotive is ready as well. —Mira 01:09, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

RfA/RandyWang

Just letting you know I dropped you a comment. ~ PseudoSudo 20:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Userbox deletion without constructive input

I appreciate your efforts to help me to correctly add a new userbox but you have not been clear enough in your messages on my talk page in what you expect from me. I looked at the link you provided but I assume that your problem with my addition has nothing to do with the the style of the box as discussed in the link. Please be more explicit when deleting someone else's work if you feel that the form of that work is incorrect. Not everyone spends all their free time on Wikipedia. One the main criticisms of Wikipedia is that it has a hard time attracting experts because of the cultish user community turns them away. While I'm no means an expert in userboxes, you could be much more helpful. Telling someone "You're wrong" without providing a path to doing something the right way is not constructive. What seems like common sense and obvious to you is only that way because you have the required domain knowledge here. You were new at one point and it was probably when Wikipedia was a much less complicated place. I'm quite willing to do things within the guidelines and standards of wikipedia but am not willing to spend a weekend guessing what on earth is the problem with my added content. I assume that you can point me to the correct wikipedia policy for what you feel was done incorrectly and that this is not simply you attempting to impose a personal preference on the community. AubieTurtle 01:10, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

WP:GUS has an explanation near the top on how to userfy userboxes. Is the explanation not clear enough for you? --Cyde Weys 01:14, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia

Thank you for your warm welcome! First, let me remember I didn't asked you your point. 2nd I only registered the English Wikipedia for 48 hours, so I didn't had time to edit several articles. This is pretty easy to understand, unless you're too dumb for it, or maybe there's an untold reason why you don't want me here in the English Wikipedia, wich is, as far as I can remember, open and free to "everyrone" and not YOUR property. Now considering your stupid sentence: "there are plenty of places that you can go for the social networking aspect, such as MySpace" yes, for sure, I think that's what should do, why don't you go to Myspace you'll probably find many people like you to talk with. Now sorry, but I have to go, but please next time you need to say something stupid, ask for someone else. I didn't registered to read stupid, trivial, PoVs. Bye. Buenaparte Social Club 03:15, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

• sigh* Buenaparte Social Club, please visit WP:NPA, Cyde, I suppose you know WP:BITE. I'll lie down now and try to catch some sleep - Cyde, can I borrow a bag of ice from ya? I've got head- and toothaches still. CharonX/talk 03:25, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Whew ... with a response like that I'll give him two days to actually work on the encyclopedia, if not ... WP:NOT provisions come into effect. Nobody's ever contested a block on a person who hasn't made a single encyclopedic contribution. --Cyde Weys 03:40, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Article 12

Hi I have made changes to "article 12 " but it has been reverted. This change was made in good faith and to my knowledge is accurate.

Lynnetammi

Lynnetammi, first of all, Cyde is not the one who reverted you. Secondly, you added material that is under copyright, which is not allowed in Wikipedia. Please see Wikipedia:Copyrights for more information. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 12:05, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Bobby Boulders == WoW?

Your bot is replacing {{BB}} with {{WoW}} with edit summary "Robot - It turns out that Bobby Boulders is actually just another form of Willy." Can you provide some information to back up that statement? MER-C 13:34, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I've seen the evidence and am convinced. Kelly Martin (talk) 13:46, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I've seen plenty of evidence to the contrary, as well. For one thing, Willy is in England and Bobby is in Los Angeles, CA. They are very clearly different people. At the very least, a vote should be taken on something like this before making unilateral and drastic changes to the way we've organized everything. Bobby is NOT Willy, and you need to change everything back until a majority decides you're right. Dr Chatterjee 15:06, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Is this evidence fit for public consumption or is it something that needs to be hidden because of the privacy policy or WP:BEANS? (In the latter case, could you drop us sceptics an email?) As said above, the vandals seem unrelated geographically. MER-C 02:56, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Email acknowledged. MER-C 14:35, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Would it be okay if I had some insight into this? I think it's fairly odd for them to be the same, since their MOs seem very different, plus the geography thing. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 23:07, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Best response to possible socks

There are a number of AfD discussions on articles created by User:MathStatWoman, who has a previous history of sockpuppets. The Elaine Louise Zanutto article was created by new User:Ksingh20 with the same text as MathStatWoman's previously speedied Elaine Zanutto article, based on which I suspected socking. Another new User:MxMP eace has also exclusively been commenting on these AfD discussions. There has also been a 3-edit User:Bioinformatician on one of the AfDs.

Since you've seen more than your share of this sort of thing, I thought I'd consult you on the best way to continue. Since MathStatWoman is threatening to leave (presumably having enough of the "powermongers" and "bullying administrators" [11]), it may just solve itself, but if not, she is probably heading for an RfC (the possible socking, repeated attacks and claims of mysogyny, etc). MxM Peace, unasked, made a point of being IP-proof (here), it may be some sort of meat-puppet or logrolling. - David Oberst 15:13, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks like MathStatWoman has made herself known to most of the ARBCOM members (Fred Bauder has apparently identified a couple more socks), so I probably won't have to worry about this much. Thanks - David Oberst 18:46, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Seriously, Bobby Boulders is not Willy on Wheels

We should take a vote or something, or at the very least, you should present whatever "evidence" you have that caused you to make such drastic changes to the LTA organization system. Dr Chatterjee 15:17, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

My e-mail address is up and running

You can contact me there. If it's not working, let me know on my talk page. Thanks. Dr Chatterjee 15:22, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Nice FP perl script

It is funny, but I wrote a similiar(but of course different) perl script to do the same thing, and finished before finding Featured pictures visible aswell. HighInBC 18:23, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Great minds think alike :-P Cyde Weys 18:25, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

RE: Signature

Your post: Hello there, I was wondering if you would please modify your signature to conform to the guidelines laid out at Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages. The general guidelines are that signatures shouldn't contain images, they shouldn't contain unnecessary internal links or any external links, and they shouldn't be unnecessarily long in Wiki source. The reasoning for this final bit is that overly long signatures tend to overwhelm the actual comments in edit mode, making it hard to track down and respond to specific comments. You can fix your signature by removing any images and external links, any unnecessary links (like links to Wikipedian organizations, articles, or subpages in userspace), and removing excessive color, font, and formatting code.

Reply: Sorry, I don't quite follow. Could you please be more specific. --GW_Simulations_{|User Page | Talk | Contribs | Chess | E-mail} 19:36, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

The contribs, chess, and email link are unnecessary in your signature and should be removed. The signature is a minimal set of information necessary to identify you, and you've put too much stuff in it. People can get the rest of those links directly from your userpage anyway. --Cyde Weys 19:38, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 19:46, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Much better, although you could make your signature smaller by having your name link directly to your userpage like so: GW_Simulations _talk ———— Cyde Weys 19:49, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Wiarthurhu, redux

Hi Cyde, thought I'd alert you to a new development in the case of this banned user who is now asking for a lifting of the ban under certain conditions. As you took place in the original discussion leading to the ban I thought I should contact you directly about this new discussion. Thanks, Gwernol 21:43, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Inaccuracy in Xena image

I just thought I'd let you know, an image that identifies as having something to do with you is using the incorrect size measurements of Xena. Xena is actually about the same size as Pluto, not significantly larger. --Cyde Weys 17:13, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the image dates from before an accurate measurement (from Spitzer/Keck/Hubble combined images) was available, it was quoted at that time as being 2000-3000 km. — Nicholas (reply) @ 21:53, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

So, can it be fixed? --Cyde Weys 03:53, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Block of JarlaxleArtemis undone

I have unblocked JarlaxleArtemis for three reasons

1. A block for one edit was unjustified.
2. A one month block for an edit that was in not any sense vandalism was excessive.
3. The fact put in was correct until 24 hours ago. On balance of probabilities the edit was done in good faith on the basis of not knowing about the updated information. In addition article talk page shows no evidence of the user having been there in the last 24 hours and so being aware from there that the information had changed. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 05:02, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Given that it's JarlaxleArtemis though, I highly doubt that this was a valid mistake. And by the way, you're supposed to discuss with the blocking admin, not just reverse the admin action on your own and then inform of it afterwards. --Cyde Weys 05:13, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry. I was trying to. My internet link is crap tonight. It keeps collapsing. I spent about 10 minutes trying to leave a message on your page but the link kept going. I finally sent it but when I went to look at your page again my screen was registering an error message and still had not sent it. I just gave up in frustration and ended up trying him on another screen. For some reason his one did the unblock instantly so I left a message on his page (8 attempts it took), then went to yours again and changed the message. (It went first time. Damn this system! It is all over the place.) Sorry it ended up being in that order.

Re the issue of the edit, it is quite possible. But as there was a strong possibility of a genuine mistake as the story is new, and I couldn't be sure that it wasn't a mistake, and there was no evidence of his having edited anywhere where the change had been discussed, and it was one edit, I had to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe some hidden text should be put on the Pluto page beside the dwarf planet reference explaining that things had changed as of yesterday. Other users may genuinely not have heard about the change and in good faith add in a link to planet. FearÉIREANN\^(caint) 05:46, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Bot wrecked subst: userboxes on homepage

I used the subst: bit in my userboxes, but apparently Mr. Bot doesn't like that, and he wrecked all of the formatting. I reverted it, but apparently this subst: "advice" is for the friggin' birds. -m13b 12:05, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Well that does seem a bit strident but I noticed that Cydebot made changes to my page that seemed to mess up the page, and would rather see it not do that if possible. See User:Lar/Babel... in particular this diff: [12] shows the boxes OK, and the next one [13] shows that Cydebot messed up the formatting somehow. I can fix it I think, but I'd rather that the bot not do that if at all possible. I think it has something to do with moving categories out from inside the boxes??? Some edit caused something to happen, but I am not sure what. Note that I am not at all upset, I'd just like the bot not to do that again. and if IT could fix what it did instead of my having to, so much the better... ++Lar: t/c 16:53, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I think I found what the problem is. In removing categories, it may be removing a line feed that needed to stay. Many of these userboxes use table syntax and a table close needs to be '|}' as the first two chars of the line. The '|}' on several of mine, after the bot removed the category, did not have a \n directly in front of them, they were just somewhere on the end of a line. This meant the tables didn't close, which messed things up. Putting them at the front of lines sorted things. Maybe your regexp isn't quite right? Hope that helps. ++Lar: t/c 18:32, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Template:Torah portion on deletion review

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Template:Torah portion. Since you closed the deletion discussion for (or speedy-deleted) this article, your reasons on how or why you did so will be greatly appreciated in the above review. BigDT 14:34, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Justification for deleting Userboxes

Cyde. Still waiting on a reply regarding the deletion of User:Template_SUS. This is the third request. --NThurston 15:05, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

RE: Unverified Statements

Well, ya know those crazy people in Quatar... but. you're right, it was probably vandalism, but I wasn't going to delete it right away. I thought maybe there was an article about it or something. It had been a while since I edited that so I just forgot to check back. Cyberia23 16:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

falun gong pages

Hi, I notice that you have protected the Persecution of Falun Gong page. Currently there are heated revert wars on these two pages: Li Hongzhi and Teachings of Falun Gong. Protecting these two pages will prevent edit warring going further, thanks.

PS: you might want to protect this page Criticism and controversies about Falun Gong as well. All these pages related to the Falun Gong have Request for Mediation tag on them. --Kent8888 20:48, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Torah portion

Cyde, can you say why you deleted this? Cheers, SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:46, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

It runs contrary to what Wikipedia is about. We're not a church (or a synagogue, whatever) and Wikipedia is not for recruiting new followers. --Cyde Weys 23:53, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

You should probably put it up for deletion in that case, because I think lots of people would want to keep it. It's very useful to people who want to see what's being studied each week. I'm going to undelete it unless you have strong objections, so let me know if you do. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:24, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

The point of WP:DRV is to prevent wheel-warring. Let it run its course. --Cyde Weys 03:49, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I think it should go up for deletion, Cyde, before needing to go for deletion review. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:51, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

More userbox fun

Wikipedia:Userboxes/Univeristy of durham college templates is empty (the one userbox displayed there is also on the main UK page). —Mira 02:06, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/MONGO

Hello,

An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/MONGO. Please add evidence to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/MONGO/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/MONGO/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Thatcher131 (talk) 13:48, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Esperanza/User Page Award

Cyde, thanks for signing up for the Esperanza User Page Contest. The judges have received the fifteen entries, and are ready to start judging. The judges will take a week to complete the judging process, and they will contact all the participants when the judging is done.

Please drop by the contest page for contest updates and questions. Take care, and good luck! May the Force be with you! Shreshth91($ |-| ŗ 3 $ |-| ţ |-|) 15:10, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Err .. wait, I'm in this thing? Didn't realize that ... Cyde Weys 16:15, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Jorcoga entered you and a couple others into the contest. It is a nice page, you know :) The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 16:40, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I see that now, I still didn't realize until I received this message that I was even in the running, though. --Cyde Weys 17:41, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Guinnog's RfA

Hi Cyde. Would you care to reconsider you oppose to Guinnog's RfA? He has registered a separate account for AWB use as you requested. Thanks, Gwernol 18:00, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Userboxes

Sorry about that. I was under the impression that userboxes denoting certain skills, or affiliations could still be created in template space. I will recreate at my userspace. KnightLago 21:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Re: New Userboxes

Thank you for the note. I had done some research and asked around before making the templates, and found the German userbox solution page; it specifically states:

"Userboxes can be of a clear value to the encyclopedia-building project. Examples include those related to claiming professional or academic expertise, WikiProject affiliations, and claiming access to specialized resources and a willingness to conduct research using them upon request. Templates for these userboxes could stay in template space. Controversial and unencyclopedic userbox templates should be moved to user space."

All userboxes I created are affiliated with a WikiProject (WikiProject Ancient Egypt and one for WikiProject Ottawa) and I noted that very nearly all other WikiProject userboxes in Category:WikiProject user templates are in template space. I understood that they would be safe, or that I would at least recieve a warning before they were moved. Luckily I created a backup last night at the suggestion of another user, so I will re-create them as subpages of my userpage or the WikiProject's page (as another user suggested).

I know that some were not in use yet, and I'm glad to see the ones that are have been left; but the ones not in use had only been created for one day and as yet I had not notified the WikiProject of the new versions. The reason for so many is that Gods, Goddesses, Kings, and Queens can be seen as icons of certain things, and not everyone might want a userbox that would associate them with possibly controversial subjects; for example, Akhenaten and Isis. Now the two remaining userboxes feature a controversial queen (the very much visible wife of Ahkenaten), and a female goddess who early on was viewed as protector of the liver-jar-god Imsety.

I would rather have these userboxes as subpages of the WikiProject, if at all possible, because my username is not an easy one to remember; improper capitilisation (Editor at large, Editor At Large) and spacing mean links don't work. I have a problem remembering it myself, and I use it daily! I would appreciate knowing if they would be acceptable as subpages of the WikiProject before I go ahead and create them all over again.

I know you are busy, and I sincerely hope you don't mind my (very) long message!

Regards, — Editor at Large ( talk) 21:11, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject-related userboxes should most definitely be created as subpages of the relevant WikiProjects. You can go create all the different userboxes with whatever images you want there. But having all of that stuff in template space is unnecessary. Thank you for understanding, Cyde Weys 21:12, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Your userbox generator (a bug report of sorts)

Hi, well I've always known it generates a lot of userboxes with dead pictures and I guess it included some with fair use pictures, too, as noticed by this bot edit to my userpage. I think the thing is really funny; I am just hoping you do some maintenance on it, that's all. Anomo 22:34, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Huh? That image says it's public domain by now. How is that fair use? --Cyde Weys 02:10, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

On a slightly different subject this black death jpg that is in your generator was turning up blank. Somebody found the correct image now or a replacement. (this) I think it's a replacement as I don't recognize it (I remember one with skeletons). By the way, Image:Black Death.jpg is an excellent image for a userpage when on a wikibreak due to illness. Anomo 22:07, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I now have 1000 userboxes on my userpage. They are mashed together and it looks great! :-D Anomo 04:28, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Just give me a list of all of the images that are broken and a suitable free replacement and I will make the necessary changes. --Cyde Weys 04:33, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the bubonic plague was the only one. I have 1000 and they repeat and that's the only dead image that appeared. I think, though, that the broken images got replaced by text, like "veritas", "0mni", etc. unless that's how the userboxes are/were supposed to be. Anomo 04:40, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject redirect deleted without apparent consensus

Why was the WikiProject redirect deleted. The vote wasn't even in the majority for deleting it. And even if "weak keeps" are counted less, there is no "rough consensus" for the deletion. What's going on? Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 04:35, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Where did you get the idea that RFD was a vote? It's very clearly a discussion. It's even in the name. --Cyde Weys 04:48, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

If rough consensus is no longer adhered to, there's no point in participating. If there's no consensus for a delete, it shouldn't be deleted, and no arbitrary decision from an admin should overrule that. It's like the dignity of our participation has been undermined. It's anti-democratic and unsound to overrule our contributions. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 07:26, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not overruling your contributions, just forcefully suggesting that WikiProject-related userboxes should reside in a location associated with the relevant WikiProject. Is that unreasonable or something? --Cyde Weys 04:34, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

GUS Question

Hello Cyde. I have userfied every Humor Box but I'm at a loss as to what to do with Humor Userbox page. Should I tag it for Deletion and if so what tag? Æon ^{Insane Ward} 19:12, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Actally, listing them here seems to work best. They're deleted under CSD G6, but it's Cyde gets to them faster this way.

And actually now that I look, when you're deleting the humor page, could you also get Wikipedia:Userboxes/Funny? It's a redirect. Thanks. —Mira 19:45, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

A few more pages for deletion (many are redirects, but I'm trying to get the Wikipedia:Userboxes space cleaned out): Wikipedia:Userboxes/NEAT/Science/Music/Electronic Wikipedia:Userboxes/NEAT/Science/Music Wikipedia:Userboxes/NEAT/Science Wikipedia:Userboxes/Hobbies Wikipedia:Userboxes/Other Wikipedia:Userboxes/Anime Wikipedia:Userboxes/Books Wikipedia:Userboxes/Location/US States Wikipedia:Userboxes/User Emotions Wikipedia:Userboxes/Schools Wikipedia:Userboxes/US Sports Wikipedia:Userboxes/Media/Anime

And a few more: Wikipedia:Userboxes/Education/The Netherlands Wikipedia:Userboxes/Computing/Internet Service Providers Wikipedia:List of soccer userboxes Wikipedia:Userboxes/Football Wikipedia:List of Australian rules football userboxes Wikipedia:Userboxes/Aussie Rules Wikipedia:Userboxes/Radio types Wikipedia:Userboxes/School types Wikipedia:Userboxes/Ideas Wikipedia:Userboxes/Projects Wikipedia:Userboxes/National Basketball League Wikipedia:Sports Fans —Mira 09:51, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Could you intervene?

See discussion at Talk:Golden_canon_of_page_construction#Last_edits.

Dicklyon (talk · contribs), has decided unilateraly to merge 5 stubs into one article, while we were discussing the fact that it may not be best to do so. This user has contributed no content to these articles, just WP:POINT and disruptive edits, such as adding weasel words to diminish the POVs of experts in book designg, because it offends his math. Your intervention will be appreciated. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 05:53, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Giant Plane Diagram

Hi Cyde, Thanks for nominating my giant plane comparison diagram to be featured picture. I have since uploaded an improved SVG version... it was always my plan to update it, and having just done so, I wasn't aware of the nomination! The new diagram is under the name Giant_planes_comparison.svg

cheers, Clem --Ctillier 07:00, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

User Bard College

Thanks for the note about the userboxes. Where did you put the one I had created at Template:User Bard College? I can't seem to find it anywhere (e.g., User:Jun-Dai/Userboxes/User Bard College). If you deleted it can you put it somewhere else, or restore it temporarily so that I can do that? Thanks. Jun-Dai 07:05, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Marudubshinki

Hello,

An Arbitration case involving you has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Marudubshinki. Please add evidence to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Marudubshinki/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Marudubshinki/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, --Tony Sidaway 10:52, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Confused

Can you explain to me what I did on the Alex Jones infobox that was vandalism? Seriously, I guess I need an education about what I did that constitutes vandalism.--MONGO 06:11, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Nevermind, I suppose it's conceivable that you didn't realize it had been vandalized when you edited it to fix up the vandalism. --Cyde Weys 16:44, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm still not sure what I did that was vandalism...should I have removed the images? I offered to speedy the template...what's the beef exactly, and if you explain it to me then I'll know what not to do next time. You're more experienced in fair use and issues such as this as I don't dally in those areas much.--MONGO 19:15, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Re: ==Categories==

I agree, but I think, for example, taking out the Wikipedia:gay Wikipedians category wasn't a very good idea. So maybe reform &,,, reinstate? Here's how I see it: a category for of who eats pizza is just arbitrary. You could also say that its culturally arbitrary, & culturally imperialistic.100110100 07:52, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas!!!! and happy holidays! -hotspot ^{(come say hi)} 24 December 2006 (UTC)