From User talk:Jimbo Wales
I wonder if you might consider...

I wonder if you might consider simply removing your political/religious/etc. userboxes and asking others to do the same. This seems to me to be the best way to quickly and easily end the userbox wars.

Userboxes of a political or, more broadly, polemical, nature are bad for the project. They are attractive to the wrong kinds of people, and they give visitors the wrong idea of what it means to be a Wikipedian.

I think rather than us having to go through a mass deletion (which is what is likely to happen if the userbox fad doesn't go away), it will be better to simply change the culture, one person at a time. Will you help me?--Jimbo Wales 10:53, 21 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

From WikiEN-l
[...]

The current situation with these things being in the main Template namespace, and promoted as if healthy and normal in the Wikipedia namespace, is that they are damaging to our culture. They are attracting the wrong sort of people, and giving newcomers the wrong idea of what it means to be a Wikipedian.

That's why they need to go. Not to censor people's self-expression, but to make it clear that as a whole the community considers these things to be divisive and inappropriate. Jimmy Wales (jwales at wikia.com) Mon Feb 20 19:34:13 UTC 2006

From Wikipedia:Userboxes/Beliefs
[...]

'It should be noted that use of such userboxes is strongly discouraged at Wikipedia, and it is likely that very soon all these userboxes will be deleted or moved to userspace soon. Their use and creation is not recommended at this time.Jimmy Wales Mon Feb 20 18:01 UTC

Info for visitors:

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I will respond if you leave your (~~~~) Immediately below are reminders for myself. You can disregard.

Tags that I'm collecting

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User_talk:Opes/tags ------------------ User:Opes/Sandbox

Stargate stubs?

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Some of the episode articles you tagged as stub are ones I don't consider to be stubs. for example, Lost City (Stargate SG-1) has general info, a full synopsis and trivia. I think it could use some tightening, but why do you consider it a stub? --MeekSaffron (Jaffa,Tree!) 02:03, 2 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

MSUM alumni list

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Hey, Opes. I have been trying to maintain the MSUM alumni list as of late. Anonymous users keep putting in non-notable alumni and taking other notable ones out. For some reason, they seem to love removing Kevin Sorbo from the list.

For some time now, it has seemed to me like Alex and I are the most active editors of North Dakota related articles. I am pretty satisfied with the progress I have made to Grand Forks and its related articles. Next, I'm going to work more on Fargo. I have lived in the Red River Valley for my whole life so it is pretty easy for me to work on GF and Fargo articles, but more difficult for me to work on Bismarck and Minot articles. Alex seems to have a better familiarity with the western part of the state. I would welcome any help that you can give in trying to upgrade North Dakota's presence on here. There are many articles that need to be expanded, revised, or even still need to be created. Since you're from Whapeton and are probably quite familiar with that area, I would encourage you to do what you can with those articles. You also seem to be familiar with the Jamestown and Moorhead areas so you would probably have a lot to offer there as well. I would be happy to have you join the ranks of Alex and I in reviewing and expanding ND-related articles. There aren't many North Dakotans on here so we need to stick together and work together.

P.S.-I'm not sure if Alex keeps an eye on my talk page, so you might want to drop him a line on his page. --MatthewUND(talk) 01:23, 5 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Welcoming

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I chose not to use a template and used a copy-paste message. Emersoni 22:34, 20 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Thanks

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Thanks for sticking up for me in the recent debate over the NDSU/Wisconsin game. I shouldn't have just reverted the anonymous user's edit, but I was in a bit of a hurry and I wasn't aware of how much of a "pinnacle" the win was. I didn't know that my action would result in so much distress on the part of the anonymous user. --MatthewUND(talk) 02:54, 24 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

User:Arfarmen

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I blocked him for 36 hours. thanks for the heads up. If you need anything in the future, don't hesitate to let me know. keep up the good work :-) Alhutch 00:38, 30 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, I really don't know what to do about User talk:METALGOD42088. I think I blocked him about 5 times, but he keeps wanting to come back and write swear words on his talk page. As long as he doesn't vandalize articles, I don't really care what he does (although he did vandalize since his most recent block, I believe).--Alhutch 00:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Ma$e

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I must admit, I was never much of a Mase fan. His music was good, but my personal taste leans more towards someone like Nas. As far as right now, I thought it was admirable of Mase to come back to hip hop with a clean album...and then he goes and joins G-Unit. Eh.

I personally think approximately 75% of the hip hop artists & acts out there nowadays are producing unlistenable pap, and need to seriously step their games up. --FuriousFreddy 01:59, 30 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Well, Nas and Jay apparently ended their animosity. And I'm sure Def Jam is a better label than Columbia for a rapper like Nas. --FuriousFreddy 02:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

i'm a little slow :-)

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i was still looking at the talk page and the history when i got your message to disregard. I'm glad to see it got worked out. I'll try to move a little faster next time, but I'm not making any promises ;-) Keep up the good work and I'll see you around the wiki.--Alhutch 01:15, 31 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

definitely a good idea to go with the third party and avoid big silly revert wars.--Alhutch 01:22, 31 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

RfA

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I don't think you're supposed to add it yet. I believe the candidate has to accept first, and then the candidate adds the request to the main RfA page.--Alhutch 01:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

that seems to be what the instructions say at least. They're not perfectly clear. hope it helps.--Alhutch 01:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
I'd be happy to.--Alhutch 18:47, 1 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
I'm kind of in a hurry to get out the door right now, but I will assess the situation and make some suggestions and/or vote as soon as I can.--Alhutch 18:48, 1 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
I looked through his edits for a while, and I couldn't help but support, along with what you said about him being a major contributor on North Dakota related articles. If I had just gone by the number of edits he had in certain namespaces (Wikipedia, User talk, Talk), I probably would have opposed, but looking at the substance of his contributions, I found them to be very good. And of course the nominator is very trustworthy :-). I hope the RfA succeeds. See you around, Alhutch 20:34, 1 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

RfA...Thanks!!!

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I want to thank you so much for your kind gesture in nominating me for administratorship! That was so nice of you and I really appreciate it. You're a good wikifriend (or whatever the term is..haha). Thanks again! --MatthewUND(talk) 09:12, 1 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

Here here! Opes, you have truly done a service for North Dakota's Wikipedians. Cheers! --AlexWCovington (talk) 16:56, 2 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
Thanks again for the nomination, Opes! I'm not too upset about not passing this time. I wouldn't mind trying again...maybe this spring or summer. I will try to get more experience with "wikiprocess" and get out there and communicate with other users more. As far as nominating Alex, I would support him 110%, but I think he might worry about not passing approval due to some of the same reasons that I didn't. Once again, Thanks!--Matthew<UND(talk) 23:23, 9 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

METALGOD

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glad that got taken care of. it was definitely a waste of resources. Thanks,--Alhutch 03:27, 2 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

Wikiproject North Dakota

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Hi Opes, you might be interested in helping Wikiproject North Dakota off the drawing board. --AlexWCovington (talk) 21:43, 2 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia:WikiProject North Dakota is official! Sort of. Lot of cleanup needed on the project page and plenty of work to do making a decent to-do list, etc. etc., but it all starts somewhere. Thanks for all your help! --AlexWCovington (talk) 05:29, 24 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

Your welcome message

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Hi, Opes. Thanks for kindly taking the time to welcome newcomers! :) There's a formatting error in your welcome message, though, which makes them display like this instead of this. Please use the code here instead for your welcomes. Spacing is quite important. ;) Cheers, Sango123 (talk) 22:43, 3 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

Jean-François Porchez

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Please do not add speedy tags based on "non-notability" to articles which clearly assert the notability of their subjects, as this one does. I removed the speedy tag in this case. If you find the claims insufficient or suspect, you can take it to AFD. Uppland 07:35, 4 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

I think you need to explain in the AFD debate how you consider Porchez non-notable in his field. That is really the only thing that matters, not if you personally care about him or his work or what "10 million Chinese" think. Do you think most Chinese "give a shit less" about all the baseball, cricket or hockey players with articles around here? Uppland 14:59, 5 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

Wahpeton, Dean Blais

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Sorry about not realizing that Wahpeton is the most industrialized city in the state. I guess to me, "most industrialized" is kind of a confusing term. Does it mean that there are more people working in the manufacturing sector in Wahpeton than in any other ND city?

As far as Dean Blais...you're right, I should make an article for him. Actually, it would be good for me to think about working on articles for lots of the more popular coaches from UND past and present. The tough thing is that I'm not very into sports. I'll have to see what I can do though. --Matthew<UND(talk) 08:49, 4 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

Johan Bojer

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You added an ISBN for Johan Bojer. It is unlikely that it applies to the early edition cited there. Suggest you add the actual edition you reference the ISBN for.

Thanks - Williamborg 02:10, 6 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

Left Behind

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I don't think you understand. Like I said, I wasn't going to revert again. I was going to put up the appropriate tags on the page. JackO'Lantern 21:01, 9 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

Coco Crisp

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I don't need to be lectured by you about what is rude. that info can be added elswehre. Zzz345zzz

My RfA

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--Matthew<UND(talk) 05:29, 23 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

Templates and server load

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About [1]: Lead developer User:Brion VIBBER has said there's no obvious server load problem caused by templates.[2][3] It's a myth. — Omegatron 02:11, 4 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

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Thanks for uploading Image:Myhead.jpg. However, the image may soon be deleted unless we can determine the copyright holder and copyright status. The Wikimedia Foundation is very careful about the images included in Wikipedia because of copyright law (see Wikipedia's Copyright policy).

The copyright holder is usually the creator, the creator's employer, or the last person who was transferred ownership rights. Copyright information on images is signified using copyright templates. The three basic license types on Wikipedia are open content, public domain, and fair use. Find the appropriate template in Wikipedia:Image copyright tags and place it on the image page like this: {{TemplateName}}.

Please signify the copyright information on any other images you have uploaded or will upload. Remember that images without this important information can be deleted by an administrator. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. Thank you. Shyam (T/C) 00:27, 24 March 2006 (UTC)Reply


Forkbeard..

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Just wanted your input, would you use sweyn, sven or Sven as a consensus? Ciriii 18:41, 7 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

Where are you?

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Where have you gone, Opes? I miss seeing you around. --Matthew<UND(talk) 21:26, 16 June 2006 (UTC)Reply

Category merged

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Hello, please not that Category:User Wikipedia/Stargate was merged to Category:Participants in WikiProject Stargate. Conscious 17:58, 22 June 2006 (UTC)Reply

Nice to see you on this week!

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Still busy, I take it? --AlexWCovington (talk) 06:03, 22 September 2006 (UTC)Reply

MatthewUND's RfA

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I just self-nominated myself for administrator's status on Wikipedia. As an active member of WikiProject North Dakota, I feel that having admin status would allow me the ability to be more useful to the project and to curtail vandalism and other problems. An admin is able to protect pages that are being bombarded with vandalism and to more quickly revert pages that have been vandalized. I've always hoped that we could get an admin to join the WikiProject so we would have someone to turn to in times of need. Since we still don't have an active admin within the project's membership, I decided to nominate myself. I really hope you will visit my request for adminship and support me. Thanks! --Matthew<UND(talk) 10:47, 29 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

Hey Opes. Nice to see you around...been too long. Hope things are going well in your life. I'm really not too upset about losing another RfA. I agree that it has become a very subjective and politicized ritual. Sometimes I think those who don't spend all of their wiki-time debating with each other are the editors who really make the biggest contribution to the project. Oh well. I wish you still edited. There are plenty of people on the WPND membership list, but Alex and I still must do about 80% of the quality edits to ND articles. --Matthew<UND(talk) 21:43, 21 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

The WikiProject North Dakota Newsletter - Issue 1

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The WikiProject North Dakota Newsletter
Issue 1

Visit the WPND talk page

New articles
There are always new North Dakota-related articles on Wikipedia. The following articles were recently created. Please help to expand and improve them.

Welcome to the WPND Newsletter!
This is the first issue of the new WikiProject North Dakota newsletter. You're receiving this because you have previously signed up to be a member of WPND. If you do not wish to receive future issues, please add your name to the opt-out list.

The WPND newsletter is a work in progress. Future issues may have different types of content and may use a different look. If you have any interesting ideas about what you would like to see in future issues or about the appearance of this newsletter, please share your ideas at the newsletter's talk page. Together, we can make this an interesting, informative, attractive newsletter. Watch for the next issue of the WPND newsletter!

News
-Assessments-
An intial round of assessments was recently done on all pages within the scope of WPND. These initial assessments...all 1,200+ of them...were done by MatthewUND. Matthew tried to generally follow the assessment guidelines found at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment.

To see the assessment of any North Dakota page, simply go to the page's talk page and check the WPND banner. The assessment is presented in a color-coded field in the WPND banner. To change an assessment, edit the page and change the word after "class=" in the WPND banner. Add one of the following codes:

Stub - for very small articles
Start - for slightly longer, higher quality articles
B - for high quality articles of an appropriate length
List - for lists
Cat - for categories
Template - for templates
NA - for pages that are not articles, templates, or categories

Any WPND member should feel free to change any page's assessment. However, keep in mind that there are assessments (particularly GA for "Good Article" or FA for "Featured Article") which can't be applied without having gone through a nomination process.

Current project statistics

North Dakota
articles
Importance
None Total
Quality
  FA 1 1
  A
  GA 2 2
B 41 41
Start 709 709
Stub 573 573
Assessed 1326 1326
Unassessed 0 0
Total 1326 1326


If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter, please add your name to the opt-out list.

This newsletter has been delivered to you by --Matthew<UND(talk) 05:54, 31 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

The WikiProject North Dakota Newsletter - Issue 2 - July 2007

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The WikiProject North Dakota Newsletter
Issue 2 - July 2007

Visit the WPND talk page

Current project statistics

North Dakota
articles
Importance
None Total
Quality
  FA 1 1
  A
  GA 2 2
B 45 45
Start 727 727
Stub 659 659
Assessed 1434 1434
Unassessed 6 6
Total 1440 1440


News
---North Dakota Portal---
Wikipedia now has a new portal devoted exclusively to the state of North Dakota. Check out Portal:North Dakota.

WPND member NDCompuGeek has constructed the initial framework for the portal and it should now be easy to update the portal on a month-by-month basis. The portal will serve as a kind of "front door" for people using Wikipedia to learn more about North Dakota. It is a great starting point for branching out into the many aspects of the state.

Each month a different article, picture, city, and biography will be showcased along with current news and happenings from around the state. The July version of the portal showcases the Mandan tribe, Governor John Hoeven, and the capital city of Bismarck.

Visit the portal's talk page to share your opinions and ideas regarding the portal.

New articles
An exceptionally large number of new North Dakota-related articles were created during June. Please help to expand and improve the following articles which were created during the past month.

The WikiProject North Dakota newsletter is a work in progress so please share your ideas about how the newsletter can be improved.
If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter, please add your name to the opt-out list.

This newsletter has been delivered to you by --MatthewUND(talk) 22:04, 4 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

The WikiProject North Dakota Newsletter - Issue 3 - August 2007

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The WikiProject North Dakota Newsletter
Issue 3 - August 2007

Visit the WPND talk page

News
---Grand Forks now a Featured Article---
Grand Forks, North Dakota was recently designated as a Featured Article. This means that the article has gone through a nomination process in which it was reviewed and its quality was assessed. The fact that this article made it through the process shows that it is a high quality, well-written, well-sourced article. Currently, there are only a little over 1,500 Featured Articles in the almost two million articles on the English language Wikipedia. That means that only about one in 1,270 articles has been given this designation.

The Grand Forks article is a great example to follow when working on other city articles, particularly those about North Dakota cities. We would be very well off if our other major city articles were similar to the Grand Forks article. Keep the Grand Forks article bookmarked and refer to its structure and style when you work on similar articles.

---New assessment parameter---
You're likely aware that all WPND articles now include a quality rating located on the article's talk page. Now, a new assessment parameter is being implemented. The importance rating aims to gauge the "importance" of the article's subject as it relates to North Dakota. As an example, Bismarck, North Dakota would not be considered as being very important in relation to the country or the world, but it is of top importance when considering just the state of North Dakota.

The importance of each article is gauged as either Top, High, Mid, or Low. Since "importance" is a rather subjective term, some WPND members are trying to come up with a general set of guidelines. Check out this thread on the WPND talk page to see proposals and to share your own opinions of what is and isn't "important" in the state.

Please help to improve and expand these articles which were recently added to the WPND project:
Cities Area Transit | Dakota Territory Air Museum | Fight On Sioux | Fort Totten State Historic Site | Grand Forks Chiefs | It's For You, North Dakota U | List of people from Grand Forks, North Dakota | Log Cabin Museum, Sheyenne, ND | McKenzie Electric Cooperative | North Dakota Democratic-Independent Party | North Dakota Railroad Commission | North Dakota State Cabinet | Old Main (Minot State University-Bottineau) | Pembina State Museum | Politics of North Dakota | Ruth Meiers Hospitality House | Spirit Lake Casino | Stand Up and Cheer (song) | Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation | UND Alma Mater

The WikiProject North Dakota newsletter is a work in progress so please share your ideas about how the newsletter can be improved.
If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter, please add your name to the opt-out list.

This newsletter has been delivered to you by --MatthewUND(talk) 00:26, 1 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Your welcome tag

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Cool though some people may describe your welcome template, it would perhaps be cooler if you added the terminating </div> tag so as the rest of the user's talk page no longer has a grey background. Many thanks. ---- WebHamster 00:32, 8 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

WikiProject Stargate

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  Hello, Opes! Your username, as well as the usernames of other members of Wikipedia: WikiProject Stargate, has been moved to the inactive members list, as part of a process for update the activity of the wikiproject. If you would like to continue to be an active member, please follow the instructions on the top of the participants page to add your name to the active participants list.

Thanks! – sgeureka tc 16:26, 22 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

File:Myhead.jpg listed for deletion

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A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Myhead.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Kelly hi! 18:32, 10 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

ArbCom elections are now open!

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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) 13:09, 23 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

ArbCom elections are now open!

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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) 13:33, 23 November 2015 (UTC)Reply