Free Bear

Striking your vote

Hello Free Bear,

Thank you for your interest in the Wikimedia Board Election. The Election Committee regretfully informs you that your previous vote was received in error and will be struck according to the election rules, described below.

The Election Committee regretfully announces today that we will have to remove approximately 220 votes submitted. These votes were cast by people not entitled to vote. The election rules state that users must have at least 400 edits by June 1 to be eligible to vote.

The voter lists we sent to Software in the Public Interest (our third party election partner) initially were wrong, and one of your account was eventually included to our initial list. There was a bug in the edit counting program and the sent list contained every account with 201 or more edits, instead of 400 or more edits. So large numbers of people were qualified according to the software who shouldn't be. The bug has been fixed and an amended list was sent to SPI already.

Our first (and wrong) list contains 80,458 accounts as qualified. The proper number of qualified voters in the SPI list is now 52,750. As of the morning of July 4 (UTC), there are 2,773 unique voters and 220 people, including you, have voted who are not qualified based upon this identified error.

In accordance with voting regulations the Election Committee will strike those approximately 220 votes due to lack of voting eligibility. The list of struck votes is available at https://wikimedia.spi-inc.org/index.php/List_of_struck_votes.

We are aware of the possibility that some of the people affected may have other accounts with more than 400 edits, and hence may still be eligible to vote. We encourage you to consider voting again from another account, if you have one. If you have no other account eligible to vote, we hope you reach the criteria in the next Election, and expect to see your participation to the future Elections.

Your comments, questions or messages to the Committee would be appreciated, you can make them at m:Talk:Board elections/2007/en. Other language versions are available at m:Translation requests/Eleccom mail, 07-05.

Again, we would like to deeply apologize for any inconvenience.

Sincerely,
Kizu Naoko
Philippe
Jon Harald Søby
Newyorkbrad
Tim Starling

For Wikimedia Board Election Steering Committee

Rollback

After reviewing your request for rollback, I have enabled rollback on your account. Keep in mind these things when going to use rollback:

• Getting rollback is no more momentous than installing Twinkle.
• Rollback can be used to revert vandalism only, and not good faith edits.
• Rollback may be removed at any time.

If you no longer want rollback, then contact me and I'll remove it. Also, for some information on how to use rollback, you can view this page. I'm sure you'll do great with rollback, just leave me a message if you run into troubles or have any questions about appropriate/inappropriate use of rollback. Happy editing! Tiptoety ^talk 23:24, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Your use of rollback

Rollback is only to be used to revert vandalism - can you explain to me how revert me to reinsert another wikipedia article as a source is anything but abuse and an act of vandlism on your part?

I mean you did checked the edit and you are aware (having read core policy) that wikipedia articles cannot be used as sources in other articles (strictly prohibited) and therefore my edit cannot be vandalism as I outlined it in an edit summary and it is in strict keeping with core policy.

Seriously - before I report your actions and ask that rollback is removed for your inappropriate use is there anything you'd like to say? Would you an opportunity to remove the invalid warning before I do so? --193.146.209.5 (talk) 20:28, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Don't you want to be free?

Don't you want to be free? Support the cause! It was constructive. Rise, fellow man, we must take back our freedom and oppose those who took it away from us! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.157.93.118 (talk) 11:39, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The only one vandalizing is you! Wake up, just wake up! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.157.93.118 (talk) 11:46, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Blacks on Tracks

Blacks on Tracks Media:Example.ogg

Thanks for your comments. I am a 63 year old African American and Amtrak Conductor who has travelled extensively across the USA by train since the 1940's. From 1954 to 1957 I experienced discrimination first hand when I was thrown out of lounge cars on the "Royal Palm" and "West Coast Champion" because of my color while traveling alone. I also have vivid and painful memories of eating behind a curtain at one of two tables next to the blazing hot kitchen of the Champion's dining car. When the curtain was removed by law I stood in line waiting for a "colored" table to open up on the "Palm" while white passengers were constantly being greeted and seated. Both trains carried filthy unmaintained "colored" baggage/coaches (CW40 and RP1)where black passengers were forced to sit - a startling contrast to the stylish coaches reserved for white passengers! - while the trains rolled through the "Heart of the South".

Station facilities in Orlando, Jacksonville, Atlanta and other southern towns and cities were always noticeably "Separate and Unequal". I have always loved trains but segregation and surly white conductors sabotaged good feelings I could have cherished forever had I been white. Only when trains crossed the Mason Dixon line at Cincinnati (or Washington, DC) were black passengers treated with respect by the New York Central, Pennsylvania RR, B & O, and other northern roads not bound by southern tradition.

Conductors and engineers were white male jobs while black males for the most part were only hired as porters, red caps, and menial laborers. That I am a Conductor on the very trains that made me feel so small and afraid - today's version of the Crescent, Silver Star, and Silver Meteor - is indeed ironic, so I go out of my way to make all passengers - especially children - have an unforgettable travel experience with no regrets. In the 90's I initiated "InnerCity Xpress - Adventures in Learning" at Amtrak to give Baltimore school children the opportunity to ride the train. It was very successful and a lot of fun!

I have written extensively about my experiences and love of trains and have been published in a number of publications, including The Washington Post, The Jacksonville Times-Union, Amtrak News, the National Railway Historical Society Bulletin, Orlando Sentinel, Baltimore Chronicle, Baltimore Urbanite, Baltimore City Paper, LIFE magazine, and even Classic Trains recently. Passenger Train Journal published "The Champion" in November 1987 and "Reflections in Black and White" in March 1988, "Night Train" (poem) and other articles and letters.

"Blacks on Tracks" is an epic poem about the total black experience on the railroad.

Samtrak (talk) 00:19, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Sierra Vista, Arizona

I've reverted your revert as the content removed was copied and pasted. --JForget 00:43, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Rwandan Genocide

When you revert, please try to make sure you're not reverting back other vandalism. [1] Thanks! --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:45, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Understood! I was just about to fix that mistake I made, you were quicker. Free_Bear (talk) 16:47, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

RickK Anti-Vandalism Barnstar

		The Anti-Vandalism Barnstar
		I've been seeing you around my watchlists and the RC feed and I commend you for your work on anti-vandalism efforts. Anti-Vandal work is one of the most important job for maintaining Wikipedia and your work is integral to the project's success.  Marlith (Talk)  04:46, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Altered Speedy Deletion rationale: Advanced Learning Solutions, LLC

Hello Free Bear, and thanks for your work patrolling new changes. I am just informing you that I have deleted a page you tagged (Advanced Learning Solutions, LLC) under a criterion different from the one your provided, which was inappropriate or incorrect. CSD criteria are narrow and specific to protect the encyclopedia, and the process is more effective if the correct deletion rationale is supplied. Consider reviewing the criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions or problems, please let me know. Thanks again! KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 16:21, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Crab Tree Springs

Hi, I see you reverted some edits on Crabtree Hot Springs, California just now. This article seems to be the focus of a dispute at the moment, with accusations made about the article being used to further a property dispute. Please do not make further reverts on this article - I have asked the same of the complainant. Thank you for your anti-vandalism work, which is much appreciated. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:46, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Altered speedy deletion rationale: The Holyfield Company, Inc

Hello Free Bear. I am just letting you know that I deleted The Holyfield Company, Inc, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, under a different criterion from the one you provided, which doesn't fit the page in question. Thank you. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 01:29, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

The Recent changes Barnstar

		The Recent changes Barnstar
		I hereby award the Recent Changes Barnstar to Free Bear, for not only reverting vandalism to my user page, twice, but also for their sterling work in patrolling recent changes in general. With users like Free Bear around, Wikipedia is a much cleaner and nicer place to be. Thanks! — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 14:54, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Carlos Slim

Please accept my apologies for the recent revert at Carlos Slim. I know the facts for that article inside out and have been fighting vandalism there for some time. Indeed, I "recruited" C.Fred to the cause. However, I completely misread the paragraph, with all of the in's and out's that these vandals do, and your initial revert was correct. Kuru has now fixed it and amended the paragraph slightly. Again, my apologies. - Sitush (talk) 01:34, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

No apology needed! In fact I was just about to revert that revert I made after looking at the article and and misreading that same paragraph. I'm glad you have made it clearer as it was a lexical hazard before. All the best.Free Bear (talk) 01:59, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I am sorry but i do not understand why you warned my page, could you please show me what i did wrong so i may not make the same mistake -razor2988 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Razor2988 (talk • contribs) 21:56, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I have had a look and I can't see what happened there, I must have made a mistake. I am so sorry! Free Bear (talk) 22:00, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Your recent warning

Hi, it would be great if you could be a teensy bit more careful in your use of Huggle. The warning you recently left on my talk page was clearly made in error. Anyway, thank you for your otherwise good edits. Guoguo12 (Talk)  19:31, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

My humblest apologies, I've had a look at what happened and this was definitely something I could have avoided by examining my actions more closely at the time, I managed to press the revert button just as you made your edit, normally Huggle pops up a dialogue to confirm an action on a logged in user, but something must have gone wrong.

I've changed the settings so that the program doesn't automatically switch to the newest revision, so hopefully I shall avoid making similar errors in the future. Again, sorry Free Bear (talk) 19:49, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

No worries. It's happened to me before too. Guoguo12 (Talk)  19:51, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

re: F.C. Porto

You beat me too it!

Did miss one though ;)

nikthestoned (talk) 15:40, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

• Yeah, noticed you went back further a little later, good catch! Free Bear (talk) 15:45, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Vandalism?

Yes it was. But...

Please make ClueBot refrain from making unconstructive reverts to human's contributions fo Wikipedia, as he did at Sheriff Stadium with this edit, and then there will be less humans willing to vandalise his page.

What is worse? Vandalizing a bot's pride sub-page. Or reverting legitimate human input? Think about it...

Good work! - 188.81.226.47 (talk) 12:47, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

About Dadaga

Hi Free Bear - I think Abhijith.da may have unintentionally blanked the article - your thoughts? --Shirt58 (talk) 12:54, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I think it was part of a copy and paste page move, however as you pointed out WP:EN states that titles are transliterated, so I have moved back the article to Dadaga along with one change made while it was on holiday. and redirected the ದಡಗ page to Dadaga Thanks for your help Free Bear (talk) 12:59, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, looked a bit WP:COPYPASTE-ish to me too, but all appears to be fine now. I was unaware of the {{noredirect}} call - and thank you for your help!--Shirt58 (talk) 13:11, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks...

		The Userpage Shield
		Thanks for reverting the note on my userpage. That Ole' Cheesy Dude (Talk to the hand!) 22:25, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Gosh you're good

Thanks for the quick reversions! By the time I went to my Talk page, you had already zapped the attacker's edits. Bento00 (talk) 23:46, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Free Bear (talk) 23:47, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Local Intelligence Networks

I've raised a question at Talk:South West Observatory and would welcome your views. Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:50, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Choking

Just having some fun, although all my sources were cited and credible lol. Mamos0403 (talk · contribs)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Mamos0403 (talk • contribs) 19:35, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Well I did check out your source, and it didn't mention anything about choking...

Although maybe that warning template I sent you mentioning a reliable source wasn't quite right, more like a source that's actually relevant right? (oh also it's normally best to sent messages to users on their talk page, not the user page) All the best Free Bear (talk) 18:46, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Lou Albano

I believe my account has been hacked, I will change the password immediately, sorry for the inconvenience, is it normal for your account to be hacked? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Danceyman (talk • contribs) 13:52, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

I suppose it depends on your password strength, maybe someone you know was editing on your behalf. All the best. Free Bear (talk) 20:10, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Message re

what does re mean? 190.51.153.31 (talk) 17:42, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

• I'm not sure I have ever used the word in correspondence, see re in the list of Latin phrases Free Bear (talk) 17:47, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

New Page Patrol survey

New page patrol – Survey Invitation Hello Free Bear! The WMF is currently developing new tools to make new page patrolling much easier. Whether you have patrolled many pages or only a few, we now need to know about your experience. The survey takes only 6 minutes, and the information you provide will not be shared with third parties other than to assist us in analyzing the results of the survey; the WMF will not use the information to identify you. If this invitation also appears on other accounts you may have, please complete the survey once only. If this has been sent to you in error and you have never patrolled new pages, please ignore it. Please click HERE to take part. Many thanks in advance for providing this essential feedback. You are receiving this invitation because you have patrolled new pages. For more information, please see NPP Survey

Huggle 3

Hey Free_Bear! I am Petrb, one of core developers of Huggle, the antivandalism tool, which you are beta testing (according to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Huggle/Members#Beta_testers). I am happy to announce that Huggle 3 is ready for some testing. You can read more about it at WP:Huggle/Huggle3_Beta. Please keep in mind that this is a development version and it is not ready for regular use. That means you must:

• Watch your contribs - when anything happens you didn't want, fix it and report a bug
• Frequently checkout source code and build latest version, we change it a lot

If you find any problem with a feature that is supposed to work perfectly, please let us know. Some features are not ready yet, it is listed in known problems on Huggle3 beta page, you don't need to report these - we know it! So, that's it. Have fun testing and please let us know about any problems, either using bugzilla @ http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ or #huggle ^connect. Please respond to my talk page, I am not going to watch your talk page. Thank you Petrb (talk) 10:57, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Huggle 3 beta is out - and we need more feedback!

Hey Free_Bear, how are you? I am Petrb, one of huggle developers, and you are currently subscribed as a beta tester of huggle on meta (meta:Huggle/Members. You may not have noticed, but this week I released first beta precompiled installers for ubuntu and microsoft windows! Wikipedia:Huggle/Huggle3_Beta has all the links you need. So if you can, please download it, test it and report all bugs that is really what we need now. Don't forgot that as it's just a beta it's unstable and there are some known issues. Be carefull! Thank you for helping us with huggle Petrb (talk) 16:20, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

We need your help testing latest huggle

Hello,

I am sending you this message because you listed yourself on meta:Huggle/Members as a beta tester. We desperately need attention of testers, because since we resolved all release blockers, we are ready to release first official version of huggle 3! Before that happens, it would be nice if you could test it so that we can make sure there are no issues with it. You can download it packaged for your operating system (see Wikipedia:Huggle/Huggle3_Beta) or you can of course build it yourself, see https://github.com/huggle/huggle3-qt-lx for that. Don't forget to use always latest version, there is no auto-update message for beta versions!

Should you find any issue, please report it to wikimedia bugzilla, that is a central place for huggle bugs, where we look at them. That is i mportant, if you find a bug and won't report it, we can't fix it. Thank you for your work on this, if you have any questions, please send me a message on my talk page, I won't be looking for responses here. Thanks, Petrb (talk) 15:11, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

New huggle 3.1 is going to be released soon

Hi Free_Bear, we are to release a new major version of huggle, but we did receive almost no feedback from our beta testing team, which you are a part of (see https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Huggle/Members). It would be of a great help if you could download it (if you have windows, all you need to do is getting http://tools.wmflabs.org/huggle/files/huggle3.1.0beta.exe and putting it to a folder where you have installed huggle) and test it. You can always get a help with making it @ #huggle ^connect!

Major changes:

• Multisite support - you can now log in to unlimited number of wikis in 1 huggle session and get a huge queue of all edits made to these wikis. This is good for smaller projects which gets overlooked often.
• Ranged diffs - you can select multiple revisions and get a huge diff that display all changes done to them.
• Fixes of most of bug reports we had so far

In case you found a bug, please report it to bugzilla: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?product=Huggle&list_id=147663 thank you! Petrb (talk) 10:09, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Huggle message

Hey Free_Bear! You are receiving this message because you are subscribed at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Huggle/Members#Beta_testers

I have recently launched a new downloads for beta testers that contains nightly builds of huggle, eg. versions that are built every day from our master branch and contains latest huggle. These builds are currently provided only for Windows and Ubuntu. You can find them here: http://huggle.wmflabs.org/builds/

Please keep in mind that these don't have any automatic updates and if you download and start using nightly build, you will need to update it yourself! So don't get yourself to running old version, it's possible to install both stable and nightly huggle, which is what I suggest.

Keep the bug reports coming to phabricator: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/create/?projects=Huggle Many thanks! Petrb (talk) 09:57, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:52, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, Free Bear. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)