Ryan Utt

glad to have you back! Dsol 11:52, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

[personal attacks removed]

In the upcoming weeks I will have a little more time on hands. Ryan Utt

Request for Image deletion

Slimvirgin is proposing that the table of Brecher images on his page violates fair use, at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2005 November 18. He might be right about the image that the eXile stole from the ehem band, but he's certainly wrong about the other two. Check out the arguments there and on talk:Gary Brecher, and if you feel like it you can leave an opinion on the copyvio page. Dsol 01:32, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Re your message

I had signed in the wrong place. I do not endorse that ip user. Thank you for calling my attention to it.--Dakota ^{t e} 21:07, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Exile Edit

Ryan thank you for helping out. You confirm everything I thought about Ekman and SlimVirgin. But here is the problem. SlimVirgin is an administrator that means she has a lot of power here and she is clearly abusing it in bad faith. It is easy to show it, but the question is how can you complain about her to get her to stop it? Can her activities not be reported to some higher-up person or board? Thank you! User:Tictoc 8:56, 10 Decmeber 2005

Seek Mediation/Advocate

Ryan, I looked at the process on how to resolve this. We should take the case of SlimVirgin's bad faith editing to mediation according to this process.[1] I suggest we first go to the advocates for help. But we should have the case written up very clearly which shows her clear bias, bad faith, and her collusion with this Peter Ekman guy. They seem to work together in tandem.

In order for that process to be fruitful, SlimVirgin's violations would need to be egregious. She would need to do something like maliciously ban people -- probably more than once. (once she did threaten to ban Dsol while engaging in a revert war with him , but she didn't actually go through with it). On the Exile talk page you can see the outcome of a request for mediation. Notice that a) nothing happened and b) The spurious accusation that a page editor, Dsol, was associated with the Exile was cited as a factor in maintaining the status quo. Aslo, make sure you check out (and consider endorsing) the Request for Comment on Ekman's pre-SlimVirgin conduct because it's a microcasm for the Exile page: Dsol writes a balanced and entirely legitimate criticism of Ekman's conduct and simply requests that Ekman cease. Ekman writes his "defense", an incoherant laundry list of accusations against the eXile. SlimVirgin writes an "outside view" criticizing the Exile article itself and ignoring Ekman's demonstratably bad conduct which, coincidentally, was the topic of the RfC. No concensus is formed.

So these sorts of actions are likely to be unproductive. And next week is finals week, so I'm not going to spend any time battling for the Exile page in the immediate future. I will probably return to the topic in January. brighterorange, who is also an admin, should have finished his thesis proposal by then and should have some time to participate in a discussion regarding the Exile. --Ryan Utt 18:49, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Albuquerque Academy mediation request

Ryan, I'd like to take this dispute to mediators. Please respond on my talk page. Please do not remove the citations until the mediation process is resolved. Another option is to ask for a third party opinion, or to ask informal moderators. -Vontafeijos 15:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

RE: Hi. Wikipedia has precedent for removing disputed material...

OK, it's fine to move them to the talk page for now. I actually hadn't seen that you'd moved them; I thought you just deleted them. (I know it says that on your edit summary. Apparently I wasn't paying attention.) We can take that off the list of topics now.

Please allow me to try and address your concerns straight-out in a last-ditch effort to avoid mediation. Please keep in mind that I am actively trying to find citations for the disputed materials; nobody is "responsible" for finding them (not even me, since I didn't write those parts), but I would appreciate it if you would try to find them as well.

• First, I believe that citing the school newspaper is valid. The Harvard University page cites its own student newspaper, so it seems to me that making collegiate newspapers valid and high school newspapers invalid is arbitrary and unfair. I have seen many high school newspapers that exceed many college newspapers in quality, so I think that it is never safe to assume that college newspapers are better, and therefore more reputable, than high school newspapers. They can even be a valuable source about a school, because no one can get the same inside information about a school as the school newspaper. An anonymous user claimed that any newspaper except a tabloid is an acceptable source on the Albuquerque Academy talk page; unfortunately they weren't signed in, so we can't ask where he/she got that piece of information.

The Harvard Crimson is a nationally syndicated newspaper. Peter Ekman is not its Editor. Rather, he is a creepy douche bag. Furthermore, Harvard University is one of the most distinguished institutes of higher learning on the planet. I encourage you to take a look at the "past editors" section of the Harvard Crimson and try and count how many names of Elite Journalists and World Leaders you don't recognize. Collectively, I think these details demonstrate absolutely that distinction between the Harvard Crimson and the Academy Advocate is neither arbitrary nor unfair, but is actually quite justified and quite fair. I have no doubt that Advocate is more reputable than some college newspapers. It's probably superior to the Daily Lobo. But that doesn't mean that it's the equivalent of an established newspaper.

I agree that student newspapers can offer an inside perspective into the school and information that cannot be obtained elsewhere. I want to talk now about the development of the "Guidelines for Schools". Initially there was a large number of people who wanted to get rid of high schools entirely on the basis of "Notability". Attempts to develop standards of notablity were proven too contentious. Ultimately the compromise was that any information would meet the threshold for notable as long as it could be verified in a newspaper . Consequently, when somebody pushes the envelope for verifiability, they also push the envelope for notability. Inserting material from a student newspaper forces the question that people were trying to avoid: Does this information belong in Wikipedia?

To specifically address the citations in the article, I believe the established dictum is that "sources should be appropriate to the claims being made." Citing a school newspapers for a few innocuous claims or as a second source of facts established elsewhere is fine-by-me. But the Advocate is referenced to make some serious allegations of criminal conduct about the school's rivals including acts of vandalism and violence. Those statements are inflammatory and they need real citations. I'm not saying Pius kids didn't commit acts of vandalism. I'm saying that those are serious allegations and they need serious citations, not an inherently biased article written in an Academy news-zine that has negligable distribution outside of the Academy campus.

(My comments are in italics now just to make things easier to follow.) In the citation for "Academy coaches generally regard this as the work of an individual rather than a plot by the St. Pius student body," the Advocate citation is appropriate because I'm citing interviews with coaches who say that it was the work of one "misguided" individual. The fact that the event happened is established by the Associated Press citation; in this case, The Advocate supports the previous claim only. No serious allegations are made in that statement, only the fact that coaches don't blame Pius as a whole for the incident. Is propose restoring that citation.

I agree to that. Citation [5] is also innocuous enough and can go back in. My concern is with the citations previously denoted as [6] and [7].

I still maintain that The Advocate is a valid source for claims of vandalism that happened to both schools. I think we're going to need a third party opinion on this. -Vontafeijos 05:39, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I saw somebody make the claim that all non-tabloids could be used as references. That person was mistaken and offered no links to policy pages to support his/her viewpoint.

• I also believe that a citation for calling The Advocate an "award-winning" publication is unnecessary. Do you dispute the veracity of the claim, or do you only want the information cited? I think we should be lenient in this case. As stated on Wikipedia:Citing Sources, "This (the "citation needed" tag) should be used sparingly; Wikipedia has a lot of undercited articles, and inserting many of instances of {{fact}} is unlikely to be beneficial." So let's just not make a big deal out of it. It's just a tiny piece of the article!

I don't dispute the veracity of the claim. However, people should be able to determine what is meant by "Award Winning". A sound reference will provide that information.

Notice that the New York Times page does not cite the fact that they recieved 90 Pulitzer Prizes. Award citations are also absent on the Los Angeles Times page, the Wall Street Journal page, The University of Alabama's The Crimson White's page, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Daily Illini page, and Cornell University's The Cornell Review page. In fact, I have found no newspaper pages on which award claims are cited. The Advocate is a newspaper as well, and it would appear that community consensus has made it so that award citations for publications are not necessary. I propose that the request for a citation on claims of "award-winning" be withdrawn; there is no justification for requesting a citation here. -Vontafeijos 05:39, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Like I've said before, the dispute isn't with the fact that the Advocate recieved the award, the dispute is with the fact that the award is contextually meaningless. As a compromise, I would accept a parenthetical sentence that explains what the award is. --Ryan Utt 04:15, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

• I am also claiming that the "X Marks the Spot" and "Vandalism events create furor" citations are complete. Every piece of information that exists about the reference is there; the publication date (day is not included because it's a monthly publication, so the issues are labelled by month only), the author, the title, and the publication name. Online sources are preferable but not required; Wikipedia:Verifiability has contingencies for if a source is not online. "Football player who sharpened buckle banned" is missing the exact publication date and the author, but that information is also unavailable. At any rate, there is a direct link to that article, so that satisfies the requirement that a reader must be able to find the source.

I am not contesting the completeness of the Advocate citations. In general, I have no problem with citations that are offline and I have never said that I did. I am o-k with the linked article and, in fact, I did not remove that citation to the talk page. The incomplete citation is the one regarding the "Award Winning" Advocate. Until a complete citation can be provided I think it should be moved to the talk page and left as so people know that a complete citation is still needed.

• You also disagreed with my citing the school itself in some cases. While the project on schools says that this shouldn't be done, those guidelines are suggestions only; it says so on the project page. I actually disagree with that guideline, by the way. How else are you going to find things like number of teachers, number of students of color, etc.? Even an outside source like a newspaper would have gotten that data straight from the school because the school is the only source that actually knows (unless a reporter actually went and counted the teachers one by one. I don't think that happens.) But that's neither here nor there.

I did point out those guidelines. However, my edits to the AA article did not concern those guidelines and were not enforcing those guidelines. I don't believe this is currently a point of contention.

I think that's everything. If I missed something, let me know on my talk page. I really would like to resolve this outside of mediation, because that takes forever.

I'm optimistic that mediation can be avoided.

I'm also sorry that the user Dyntyne made such an inappropriate comment on the Albuquerque Academy talk page. It was very rude. -Vontafeijos 04:57, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Dude, Don't worry about it. --Ryan Utt 07:38, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

LAHS photos

Public schools in the U.S. are run by local governments (I believe the exact arrangement can vary, but I think they are usually county- or city-run), not the federal government. Only "works of the federal government" are de-facto exempt from copyright (and even then, if there is a contractor involved it can complicate things). Unless it is known ahead of time for sure that a local or state government has explicitly enacted a statute saying that works created under its aegis are not copyrighted, it must be assumed that they retain copyright rights. That's my understanding of it, anyway. In any event, the photographs in question are surely not works of the federal government and cannot be tagged in that form. --Fastfission 17:09, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I see what happened. I didn't intend claim it was a work of the federal government, I meant to only say that it was the work of a "US Government Agency" (which actually tbe option listed in the drop down menu on the upload file dialogue). Anyway, I don't really care about the copyright as long as it doesn't open the door for somebody to delete the images. --Ryan Utt 20:52, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Freedom House

Hi, I found a citation for the information in the intro. Best, Kaisershatner 17:09, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Brecher Photo

The origin website clearly states that page is copyrighted, there is no statement that the image is for press use or publicity, it is a byline photo used by that site. To grab it off that site and use it here is a blatant copyright violation. If a valid press photo of the subject is produced then I'll be happy to see that it is posted. This image is no good and has been deleted. --Wgfinley 06:44, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I think there's a reasonable fair use case but would be basically content with links out to internet archive. I emailed the ehem guys a while back to ask if they knew about the whole thing, where in on the act etc. and they seemed surprised but nice, I bet you could get permission....In other news I have just got back from London and should be hopefully contributing a bit more rapidly. Dsol 11:12, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

NSA lead rewrite

"Our position is, is that the authorization to use force, which was passed by the Congress in the days following September 11th, constitutes that other authorization, that other statute by Congress, to engage in this kind of signals intelligence," seems better than Hayden's inarticulate statement, but you furnished no source for your edit. Who said it - Gonzalez? The article uses a system that makes footnotes automagical. Most of them use templates:

<ref>{{news reference |firstname= |lastname= |pages= |title= |date= |org= |url=}}</ref>

<ref>{{Press release reference |Organization= |Date= |Title= |URL=}}</ref>

<ref>{{Web reference |title= |work= |url= |date= |year=}}</ref>

Metarhyme 01:08, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks for adding the verification. I added that Gonzales said it December 19 and templated your references. I'm copying this to the article's Talk page. Metarhyme 17:37, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

This is a controversial topic, which may be disputed. Please read the talk page and discuss substantial changes there before making them. Metarhyme 02:16, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Are there any particular changes that you are concerned about? --Ryan Utt 02:21, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

The article has an easy, fairly clean Talk page. Be bold and don't discuss isn't policy, though it may be better than Be Bold and bloat discussion. Since you're already there, and policy on controversial articles calls for discussing large changes on the talk page, I suggest you be bold…but don't be reckless! Please discuss your changes. Metarhyme 03:23, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, Are there any particular changes that you are concerned about? --Ryan Utt 14:58, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Changing the lead. Adding a new section. If you'd like to follow the recommended procedure, say what you intend to do on the article's talk page. If you'd prefer to follow a less polite practice, say what you did to the article on the article's talk page. At least put something in the edit summary. Metarhyme 03:49, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

When editing an article on Wikipedia there is a small field labelled "Edit summary" under the main edit-box. It looks like this:

The text written here will appear on the Recent changes page, in the page revision history, on the diff page, and in the watchlists of users who are watching that article. See m:Help:Edit summary for full information on this feature.

When you leave the edit summary blank, some of your edits could be mistaken for vandalism and may be reverted, so please always briefly summarize your edits, especially when you are making subtle but important changes, like changing dates or numbers. Thank you.

Want to see a train wreck?

• Talk:Fresno, California Dsol 20:42, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

the eXile may require your attention again

New user with 0 edit history making large edits with lots of small POV changes, as well as outright blanking. Dsol 16:08, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Española Valley High School

Great eye! I have removed at least the Newsweek "Best High School" claim as per your evidence. I don't think there should be problem if you go ahead and remove suspicious claims — after all, the onus is on the editor who adds the claim to prove its veracity. If you can show that the claim is untrue (as you just did) then by all means remove the demonstrably false information. ... discospinster _talk 22:09, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Warning

Ryan, if you have some useful input to contribute to the discussion, please do so. But if you continue to attack your fellow editors, you will be blocked. Crum375 (talk) 22:11, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I have blocked you for three hours for personal attack on another editor. Please take the time to reflect on your actions and read the NPA policy carefully. If you continue with this behavior, your blocks will become progressively longer. Thanks, Crum375 (talk) 22:29, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Please do not restore that article in your userspace again. I have reverted the page and protected for the duration of the block. Dmcdevit·t 23:07, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

== Back Again ==

Hi,

My usertalk page was locked recently. Apologies to anybody who was trying to leave a comment. But its open now so please feel free to leave all your comments. I want to emphasize that your comments are welcome and I would love to hear from you. --Ryan Utt (talk) 01:40, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Abusive Admins

I was recently banned from wikipedia by User:Crum375. Crum banned me, silencing my criticism of another abusive wikipedia admin, User:SlimVirgin, on the Wikitalk page for Verifiability. On Dsol's talk page Crum falsely claimed multiple times that I was banned for using the "epithet" "liar". This is verifiably false. In none of my posts did I use the "epithet" "liar".

Yes, I did say that SlimVirgin lies. My defense for making such an accusation is that in the immediate moments before I made that post I saw her lie about me. But I didn't call her a liar. I merely said she lies. This happens to be true and is one of the many reasons SlimVirgin was voted "wikipedia's most abusive admin". Crum's accusation against me was false and his ban was baseless and abusive. --Ryan Utt (talk) 19:36, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Block

Hi Ryan, I have blocked you for violating WP:BLP after being warned about it. If you persist in this behavior, you will be blocked permanently. Crum375 (talk) 21:15, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Ryan, I would leave it be, although this is certainly no endorsement of either the impartiality or the competence of the admin(s) involved. I think a link on your use page to the relevant (non-WP) page would suffice, and I certainly don't think that user page links tend to be censored as your userpage is undergoing censorship. In practical terms, I think the fact that the subject of this censored material has repeatedely signed his name and title to public criticisms of his obsession in newspapers (esp. in Philadelphia) may qualify him as a public figure and exempt him from certain libel protections, but here I am no expert...best, Dsol (talk) 02:15, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Image:350px-LAHS.jpg listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:350px-LAHS.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media 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. —Bkell (talk) 11:48, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:War nerd logo.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:War nerd logo.jpg. You've indicated that the image is being used under a claim of fair use, but you have not provided an adequate explanation for why it meets Wikipedia's requirements for such images. In particular, for each page the image is used on, the image must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Can you please check

• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for each article the image is used in.
• That every article it is used on is linked to from its description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --FairuseBot (talk) 03:47, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Images listed for deletion

Some of your images or media files have been listed for deletion. Please see Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion/2008 December 1 if you are interested in preserving them.

• Image:350px-LAHS.jpg
• Image:Scc team.jpg

Thank you. Uncia (talk) 15:09, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Image source problem with Image:LAHS2.jpg

Image Copyright problem

Thanks for uploading Image:LAHS2.jpg. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, then a link to the website from which it was taken, together with a restatement of that website's terms of use of its content, is usually sufficient information. However, if the copyright holder is different from the website's publisher, their copyright should also be acknowledged.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their source and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If the image is copyrighted under a non-free license (per Wikipedia:Fair use) then the image will be deleted 48 hours after 14:58, 7 December 2008 (UTC). If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Uncia (talk) 14:58, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Possibly unfree Image:TheTopperman.jpg

An image that you uploaded or altered, Image:TheTopperman.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images because its copyright status is unclear or disputed. If the image's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. You may find more information on the image description page. You are welcome to add comments to its entry at the discussion if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Uncia (talk) 15:16, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Topperman Image

Your new description is much better, thank you! A couple of suggestions:

• Did you take the photo yourself? If so, say so explicitly in the Summary. That's part of the source information, in other words, how did the image get from Griffith Gymnasium to Wikipedia? (If this were cropped out of a much larger photo of the gymnasium it would be a different story; the photographer would own the copyright of the whole photo, and the mural would be both a derivative work of the original mural and of the photograph and you would need permission for both.)
• I believe that since this is a derivative work, there is no copyright in the photo (there is no creativity involved in taking a photo of a flat piece of art), so you should not attempt to license the photo; you can omit the Licensing of photo section.

Thanks. --Uncia (talk) 16:33, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image (Image:Toppers.png)

⚠

Thanks for uploading Image:Toppers.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice? It is orphaned because JWillems (talk · contribs) has replaced it at Los Alamos High School with a photo of the school entrance sign. Uncia (talk) 23:45, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:NNAA 4A

Template:NNAA 4A has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Uncia (talk) 19:22, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Disputed non-free use rationale for File:TheTopperman.jpg

Thank you for uploading File:TheTopperman.jpg. However, there is a concern that the rationale provided for using this file on Wikipedia may not meet the criteria required by Wikipedia:Non-free content. This can be corrected by going to the file description page and adding or clarifying the reason why the file qualifies under this policy. Adding and completing one of the templates available from Wikipedia:Non-free use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your file is in compliance with Wikipedia policy. Please be aware that a non-free use rationale is not the same as an image copyright tag; descriptions for files used under the non-free content policy require both a copyright tag and a non-free use rationale.

If it is determined that the file does not qualify under the non-free content policy, it might be deleted by an administrator within a few days in accordance with our criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions, please ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thank you. CT Cooper · talk 21:04, 28 April 2011 (UTC)