User talk:Wnt

For comments February 2008 to December 2010 see User:Wnt/Archive/1.
For comments January 2011 to December 2013 see User:Wnt/Archive/2.

Please add new comments at the bottom, not here.

Your request for undeletion

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that a response has been made at Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion regarding a submission you made. The thread is Ward J. M. Hagemeijer. JohnCD (talk) 09:15, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

January 2014

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• 2013 the [[La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company]] was granted [[orphan drug]] status for testing of 4-(6-(4-(piperazin-1-yl)phenyl_pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidin-3-yl)quinoline hydrochloride for treatment of

Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 17:42, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Awww hell, my source has it wrong. I wonder if the Orphan Drug status doesn't count if the official announcement fails to balance its parentheses... Wnt (talk) 18:06, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Regardless

Regardless of the issue at hand, I have to say "Even Moses said not to muzzle the ox that treadeth the grain!" is the best allusion I have seen at Wikipedia in months. μηδείς (talk) 22:11, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Hey, thanks! Though any truly viable analogy can be argued both ways... The rule about muzzling the ox at once expresses modern humane sentiments, yet seems rather repulsive, even before we get into the question of what they did or didn't do about the other end of the ox. It will be valuable as Refdesk respondents for us to try to strive that our digressions do more to pursue knowledge than to dump on the discussion, so we're at the right end of the metaphor. :) Wnt (talk) 22:41, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks

I wrote you a long reply and it has disappeared due to an edit conflict, so briefly...I set up the Ram site in 2001 to combat all the pernicious lies that have been spread about the case.

If you check old versions of the page you will find my corrections and the reverts they made. I didn't have an account then and don't know why I bother.

Everything about that case is lies, including the four citations at the bottom of the page now, lies.

I didn't brand Ram a murderer, the jury did that, and his conviction was held up twice on appeal and rejected by the CCRC.

The official documents on the site are far more reliable than left wing press reports, they include the Court Of Appeal transcripts.

Such is the bias of Wikipediots is that they have even removed my updates, like about Ram's recall to prison and his rearrest. He spent several more years in gaol.

These people are not interested in the truth.

Tell me by the way how this thug is "notable" while David Webb is not?

Thanks for your interest.

Thanks for your edits to The Day We Fight Back! I wouldn't have thought to include that information. All the best, Ross HillTalk to me! 06:04, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

AfC in talk space

I saw you wondering why AfC is in TalkSpace, but I didn't see that your query was answered. It actually was a clever idea, with some unfortunate consequences. The community has decided that IPs ought not to have the ability to create a new article in mainspace, which means that an AfC concept would prohibit IPs from contributing if the draft had to be in mainspace. Creating them in talk meant that IPs could contribute, as well as the minor additional benefit that it was easy to No-index.

However, this left the awkwardness that you noticed, and troubled me, there are times you want to add some comments or advice or whatever, and the "natural" place to do this is on the article talk page, except that it is already in the Talk page. The second choice might be the editor talk page, but if they are an IP, that might not work, especially if they are a dynamic IP.

This is one of the main reasons I fully supported the concept of the Draft space. It means:

• IPs can contribute
• Comments can be placed in the natural location, the talk page of the draft
• No-indexing is easy
• I hope, but do not yet know, that it will make searching easier. I field questions every day on OTRS about some article which turns out to be an AfC submission. It isn't easy to find. I hope that will be easier in the Draft space, but this is a minor point, the first three are the big ones for me.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:53, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

I worked as a research scientist in aerospace and other government supported programs from 1956 to 1998. In that 42 year period I never heard of any government supported program that ran for anything remotely like the 23 years that the SRI program had support. At Lockheed where I was saving aircraft from wind-shear and air turbulence, we had to fight to get one year extensions. And though NASA loved the program, they simply didn't support any outside research past five years. I propose you drop the idea that that we were supported for "only" 23 yeas, shows a defect in the research. That's an absurd proposition. Knowledgeable people are stunned that the CIA supported is for two decades. Torgownik (talk) 17:29, 18 May 2014 (UTC)Russell <russ at Targ.co>

Re: the filter thing

Thanks for your help, I'll try accessing the test page you put up when I'm at school tomorrow and see if it's blocked. Getting online in school hours is pretty hit and miss, but I'll do what I can. The thing that bothers me is that this is a really common blocking system in England; I think I actually remember it from primary school so for all I know it could be stopping millions of schoolkids from accessing those articles. For the moment I've been able to find a workaround (using HTTPS instead of HTTP seems to do the trick most of the time) but I'd much rather the pages were unblocked for everyone. Aethersniper (talk) 19:06, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Wow. That is a really, really, really dumb filter :) Wnt (talk) 19:09, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, what makes it worse is that the pages I mentioned are blocked under "intolerance", which means that even the staff can't access it without a workaround. Also blocked are a bunch of BBC revision pages on drugs and puberty. The really scary thing is that it always blocks things that shouldn't be blocked, but when it comes to things that actually should be blocked (virus ridden websites, etc) the filter's nowhere to be found. Thanks again - Aethersniper (talk) 19:16, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, unfortunately, one of the rites of passage for the intelligent modern schoolchild is to help his teachers bypass the school's censorware. Wnt (talk) 19:19, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

By the way, I just visited the test pages you posted, and there's no block on either of them. Thanks - Aethersniper (talk) 09:32, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

USA Freedom Act

I just wanted to let you know I created the article you suggested and others have been helping to improve it. I want to apologize for not acting on your suggestion earlier. I hope you don't think that I don't value your opinion-- when you take on a whole new endeavor, it takes a while to get your bearings and prioritize. Your excellent suggestion temporarily slipped through the cracks, and I deeply respect the time you took to bring that suggestion back to our attention so we could revisit it. I will continue to work on the two articles you suggested in the coming days and weeks. Thanks again for your participation at Wikipedia:Surveillance awareness day. Your contributions have 100% helped increase the likelihood that it will be a productive effort.

I look forward to further guidance from you and other main page experts about how we can improve the quality of the proposal or the proposed content items. --HectorMoffet (talk) 21:22, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! Make sure to propose these for DYK and to reserve them specifically for February 11. Wnt (talk) 21:36, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

How's this for a hook: " ...the the proposed USA Freedom Act, which would undo much of the Patriot Act, was submitted by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, author of the Patriot Act?" --HectorMoffet (talk) 19:46, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, remember that Section 215 was "but one ring, one segment" of the Patriot Act that had provisions for anti-terrorism laws, border enforcement, money laundering, etc. I would say " ...that the proposed USA Freedom Act, which would undo certain mass surveillance provisions of the Patriot Act, was submitted by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, author of the Patriot Act?" Wnt (talk) 19:53, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Nominated at T:TDYK! did I do it right? --HectorMoffet (talk) 20:25, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

• Just a random comment... this really is an interesting hook. Here is how the Guardian worded it: Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, who worked with president George W Bush to give more power to US intelligence agencies after the September 11 terrorist attacks, said the intelligence community had misused those powers by collecting telephone records on all Americans, and claimed it was time "to put their metadata program out of business". petrarchan47tc 23:38, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Zyprexa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2013_August_3#Zyprexa_interacting_with_vitamins. "How are they supposed to use the web at all without a search engine?" Easy. You don't have to use a search engine for Wikipedia, YouTube, Armor Games, USGS, Live Quakes Map, Rival Ball, UTorrent. Right? Those are the sites I have access to. --78.156.109.166 (talk) 20:32, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm. In a sense anything with a search is a search engine, but it's true that you can get at some things with unusual search engines. But I'm surprised all those searches work without access to Google's Javascripts. I thought YouTube was part of Google. Anyway, I suppose it depends on how you use the web - I suppose often I search for something obscure where I want every means. (I suppose PubMed also would count as an alternative search engine) Wnt (talk) 20:41, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Can you use simple words? How to play your trivia quiz? I was thinking proper search engines.--78.156.109.166 (talk) 19:29, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

...

http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Earthquakes_in_2013&action=history --78.156.109.166 (talk) 20:47, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Look closely. See anything unusual?--78.156.109.166 (talk) 20:47, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Not really. What?

I should add that I notice you have a strong interest in the Revelation of John, but I find the popular interpretations of it to be unnecessarily gloomy. Yes, looking over a white-knuckled standoff with the Soviet Union, it was easy for people to see a "nuclear apocalypse" coming any day. But this doesn't seem compelling on an emotional level. If God is a good parent, why would God reward children for having a tantrum by giving them all new and better toys? It seems to make more sense that first humanity should make the world as good as it can possibly be, and then, since it is imperfect, everything falls apart again (at which point things like deaths from earthquake and plague will truly stand out from the course of history), and then, having learned to do our best with it, mankind is given a new revision. I would suppose Hitler could say on Judgment Day that some little Jewish brat beat him up for his lunch money when he was in first grade. Only in a perfect world can it be apparent when evil arises without any cause whatsoever. There is many a way to read a religious text for inspiration, and for all the prophecies of doom and gloom, there should be as many for peace to break out. I can see how someone might expect a nuke over Syria, but maybe this will be the time that people, by the will of God, finally bind up oppression and war and famine and death at the banks of the Euphrates, and usher in a millennium of peace and freedom. We live in a world where childbirth can come without pain, menstruation is optional, work seems to be becoming all but unnecessary except as a demand of poorly organized society, where the bite of a poisonous snake doesn't have to be fatal ... why shouldn't people picture a world where people dance joyfully to the very gates of Eden? Wnt (talk) 04:57, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

See line number 16 counting from top of the revisions. Can you use simple words?--78.156.109.166 (talk) 19:22, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Draft:FISA Improvements act

I want to refer you to the draft and invite your collaboration. If you wish, you can submit it to DYK. I personally am of the opinion that scheduling more than one DYK about mass surveillance on Feb 11 requires a site-wide polling. But you have a good argument that the Olympics are just as value-laden as any other social movement, and I don't want to be an impediment to you making that case.

I nominated one DYK for Feb 11, which is enough for my level of comfortability. I'm going to keep working on relevant articles, and I'll leave it to you or an RFC to nominate others for DYK on Feb 11 or not.

I'd also invite you to participate in Wikipedia:WikiProject Mass surveillance. --HectorMoffet (talk) 16:25, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Draft:FISA Improvements act now meets minimum length requirements. If you feel it's ready for a DYK nom, move it into article space and nominate it. --HectorMoffet (talk) 13:58, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

@HectorMoffet: Here goes... [1] I'm not the greatest hook writer; someone else might have a sexier way to put it. Wnt (talk) 16:50, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Would you set up an RFC?

There's a growing consensus that we need a sitewide RFC, asap, to discuss any plans to do something special on Feb 11. I'm hesitant to set it up myself, as my attempt to lead this didn't work out so well. Since you were one of the clearest and earliest voices calling for us to do something special, would you consider setting one up? --HectorMoffet (talk)

My position, as I'm saying on Jimbo's page,^[2] is that I don't think we need to have an RFC (provided that exceptional obstructionism doesn't require us to have one to do what everyone else does already) because I think we can do all that we practically can do about the Feb. 11 protest as individuals working together. I don't think it's likely that Wikipedians in general want to have the site come forward in favor of the USA Freedom Act instead of the FISA Improvements Act, which leaves the question of what exactly the notice could be. As I've said there, I think Wikipedia should come forward in favor of specific victims of censorship, which is ultimately the effect of surveillance that we all worry about, but in order not to come off like we're just sounding off on any political issue we feel like, we have to be able to demonstrate a very clear connection to the work we do as volunteers here. Wnt (talk) 19:59, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Next up in the article queue

So, per your above opinion, I think Petrarchan47 is taking point on the RFC once Petra has finalized the wording.

In the mean time, I've been spending my time trying to create relevant articles that WP really should have. The two obvious omissions were USA Freedom Act and FISA Improvements Act. Now that that's done, what looks good to you?

I think Draft:Stop Watching Us is looking good, but please visit Wikipedia:WikiProject Mass surveillance and look at the drafts there or add some. I have some time on my hands, and as long as there's lots of NPOV/V/NOR sources, I can keep writing, day by day. Your input into the articles that would be good fits at WP or DYK would be most appreciated.

Keep up the good work and the good leadership! :) --HectorMoffet (talk) 21:43, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Intelligence redirects

I was trying to follow your valiant efforts, but it seems Wikipedia:WikiProject Intelligence redirects to Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Intelligence task force -- and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Intelligence simply redirects to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history.

Just thought you should know, as those redirects might impede your efforts -- unless you might prefer to keep it as a task force off of WP:MILHIST.

Thanks for your efforts so far,

— Cirt (talk) 04:59, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Sorry! -- there's a WP:WikiProject Intelligence Agency (which I saw you'd been at) and a Portal:Intelligence associated with it... and I must have gotten mixed up somewhere when describing links. Wnt (talk) 06:01, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Incomplete DYK nomination

Hello! Your submission of Template:Did you know nominations/FISA Improvements Act at the Did You Know nominations page is not complete; see step 3 of the nomination procedure. If you do not want to continue with the nomination, tag the nomination page with {{db-g7}}, or ask a DYK admin. Thank you. DYKHousekeepingBot (talk) 08:31, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Another draft for your eyes

Check out Draft:Mass surveillance in North Korea and see whatcha think. --HectorMoffet (talk) 06:29, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Do you think Draft:Stop Watching Us has a DYK in it somewhere? --HectorMoffet (talk) 12:25, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Thx for your suggestions on Stop Watching Us, i've tried to implement them. I'm still on-board with supplying you content for DYK-- if you have any suggests for where I should focus my efforts, I'd welcome it. --HectorMoffet (talk) 05:11, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Article on journalism post leaks?

Is now here petrarchan47tc 07:23, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

This is an impressive set of information (really, you should have posted this to WP:WikiProject Mass Surveillance). Even so, I still wouldn't be surprised to see an article on the "Snowden effect" end up at AfD with a proposal for a forcible merge into Snowden's biography, or one about the intimidation of the Guardian likewise being shoved at that article. The thing about all this surveillance stuff is that it all ties in together - whenever I pull on any one thing, I find myself sidetracked again and again. How do we drive a stake in this thing and say here is our article?

When I think of it, the real issue I'd like to see gotten at is how secrecy is morphed into censorship. That's the story, after all, with the Guardian's hard drive or Barrett Brown's html link or federal employees told not to read Wikileaks (or even that thing with Quenton Tarantino's leaked script on Gawker). Honestly, I think a valid (though remote) analogy is the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Before this was passed, an escaped slave was the master's problem; residents of Northern states were free to treat them with kindness, and resentment of the Southern institution. But the effect of the bill was to press many Northerners to either become de facto slave-catchers, or else break the law. The situation with leaks and national security letters seems to be headed the same way, where random people are forced into complicity over somebody else's problem. And as a result, we see a transition from "this is secret and nobody better find out about it" to "YOU, peasant scum, aren't allowed to know things like this." Now to address that feeling in an article, document its roots and expressions comprehensively, is still a tough thing to plan. I'm thinking there should be something about censorship of classified information, or leaked information, or secret information, etc., but that doesn't feel precisely right either. Wnt (talk) 02:26, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

It might be easier if you didn't consider it a feeling - ie, amorphous, unobservable, unverifiable - it's simply a matter of following, and documenting, the story of classified information, leaks, retaliation and resulting suppression of information. YOU, peasant scum, aren't allowed to know things like this has, of course, always been the ideology at the top. petrarchan47tc 06:41, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

• "Society really seems to have developed an unquestioning obedience towards spooky types… Did we get to where we are today via a slippery slope that was entirely within our control to stop? Or was it a relatively instantaneous sea change that sneaked in undetected because of pervasive government secrecy?" -Edward Snowden 2010 Seemed a bit similar to your post. petrarchan47tc 11:42, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Did I do this right?

Second attempt, at DYK nom. Look if over, if you would, and make sure it meets the standards. --HectorMoffet (talk) 18:44, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I think the hook is OK (caveat: I think that in common usage, any "part-time informer" is indeed an informer, the necessary threshold of involvement being as low as for a traitor, I suppose, but I don't know for a fact that this is true of all English around the world). However, the section in the article was very confusing so I rewrote it. I still don't understand whether the 'Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter' was a full time paid position or something else, but that doesn't directly affect the hook. Wnt (talk) 19:17, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Awesome-- please feel free to suggest any alternate hook text-- your article improvement was much appreciated. Any suggestions for what at WikiProject Mass surveillance might make a good DYK hook? We have several drafts brewing over there, and if you can think of any articles we'll missing, I'll get to work on them-- I make a lousy leader, but I can do some pretty good writing sometimes. :)

Additionally, if you feel like it, you might review Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution which is now at FAC. Peer feedback said it was ready for FAC, but more eyeballs the better. --HectorMoffet (talk) 19:56, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to join WikiProject Freedom of speech

• WP:WikiProject Freedom of speech

There is a WikiProject about Freedom of speech, called WP:WikiProject Freedom of speech. If you're interested, here are some easy things you can do:

1. List yourself as a participant in the WikiProject, by adding your username here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Freedom_of_speech#Participants.
2. Add userbox {{User Freedom of speech}} to your userpage, which lists you as a member of the WikiProject.
3. Tag relevant talk pages of articles and other relevant pages using {{WikiProject Freedom of speech}}.
4. Join in discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Freedom of speech.
5. Notify others you think might be interested in Freedom of speech to join the WikiProject.

Thank you for your interest in Freedom of speech, — Cirt (talk) 01:20, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

So, what are we missing?

Assuming we had a consensus to put NPOV content on mainpage, how are we doing? We have Afroyim v. Rusk for TFA is no repeats are allowed, and maybe Freedom for the thought we hate if repeats are allowed. We have solid POTD Template:POTD/2014-02-21.

Do you think the DYKs are good enough to merit inclusion? Do you think there are any pages we're missing that we should create and propose at DYK?

I've got some time, and I'll leave it to the experts to decide the scheduling. --HectorMoffet (talk) 15:17, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Can you help fix the concerns raised at Template:Did you know nominations/Arizona Fourth Amendment Protection Act? --HectorMoffet (talk) 16:13, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Thx for the improvements at the Arizona article! Any response to the concerns raised at Template:Did you know nominations/USA Freedom Act? --HectorMoffet (talk) 17:04, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

This was left at my talk page

Arizona Fourth Amendment Protection Act citations

I see that in addition to being the DYK nominator, you are the original drafter and major editor to date of Arizona Fourth Amendment Protection Act. I note that many of the citaitons in this article are to bare URLs. It would be better practice, as discussed in WP:CITE to provide such metadata (the term is perhaps ironic in this particular case) as author, date, and source where this is available. This can be done using the cite templates such as {{cite web}}, {{cite news}}, {{cite journal}}, and {{cite book}}, or it can be done manually, or via any of various other methods. I like the cite tempaltes myself, and I also like list-defined references, but any method may be used. I could have placed a twinkle maintenance tag, but I didn't want to hold up the DYK. Can you look into adding metadata to the cited references? DES ^(talk) 17:03, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Friendly check-in

Hey, I just want you to know that, despite how it might seem, I'm on your side on this (to the extent there are "sides"). I just want to make sure we're complying with Wikipedia policies and guidelines while we go about our good work. :-) --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 04:45, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't really seem that way. I mean, that's probably the most definitive announcement of this event. Sure, it's a Reddit thread, but an official thread from named persons to answer questions, on the site whose founder the event commemorates. You may or may not personally favor NSA reform, but interactions like this do much to illustrate that on Wikipedia, the main "sides" worth speaking of are still the inclusionists and the deletionists. Wnt (talk) 05:26, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

I urge you not to think of things in such a black-and-white manner. There are some articles in which I have only a passing interest, and for those I tend to critique other's work (which effectively means I do a lot of deleting). There are other (fewer) articles in which I take a more active, creative role. That's just my editing style. Some folks just do copy editing. We all bring our own skills and contributions to the table. Trimming the fat is a very important part of the process. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 06:20, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Up to you

So obviously, I've been harassed pretty successfully. Initially I didn't submit content to DYK, but the complaints about that led me to nominated at DYK. A little voice in the back of my head said "What if someone tries to sabotage this initiative by fast-tracking nominations so the run BEFORE feb 11, despite the stated hold request?". But I thought "Come on, this is Wikipedia-- Assume Good Faith! No one would be that much of an ahole".

I was wrong. The OWNers of mainpage are so offended by any suggestion pf NOTBUREAUCRACY is being 'vetoed' by main page apparatchiks, not that they actually have that power.

It clear I don't have the skills set to generate a consensus. I hope you and Jimbo and our other board members do have that skillset. I've done my best to generate options for the community if consensus emerges, but I'm deeply troubled by how a small handful of users presumes to prejudge the outcome of a discussion.

It's time for me to check out-- I got you a POTD and 8 DYK noms, but I don't have the constitution for the ensuing debate. Feb 11 may or may not be special-- the responsibility for making it special lies with you and jimbo.

Do your best. :) --HectorMoffet (talk) 07:45, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

@HectorMoffet and Wnt:Just wanted to weigh in that I've been quite successfully harassed as well. You can view my talk page for the (mostly deleted) proof, as well as the histories of the Russ Tice article and Snowden talk page. It's one thing to 'keep the faith', but at a certain point, an editor sometimes has to walk away. This I have discovered can happen when folks decide to gang up, join forces, and spent heaps of time and energy pursuing a goal. Blessings to you both, petrarchan47tc 21:15, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

@Petrarchan47: I do see some significant issues with deletions on Snowden, but it's hard for me to be as sympathetic about Tice. My position is inclusionist, so I can't get behind something like [3]. I realize that people from multiple points of view are going to edit these articles, and I don't expect the articles to end up slanted toward my point of view; I just want them stuffed by all parties involved with all possible information out of a moral certainty that when all the information is put down, the article will have the effect of persuading people to my point of view (or, I should hope much less likely, of forcing me to reevaluate my point of view). I would urge you to avoid the extremes of forcefulness and disillusionment, focusing instead on being creative and looking for now things to edit about. Wnt (talk) 21:49, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

The revert you show is a revert to work I hadn't done, but it reverted the Wikilinked "psychotic" that had been added to the first prargraph of a BLP. When I finally tore myself away from the project I was working on to tend to the Tice article, I created this section to deal with his dismissal - rather than have it be the first thing one reads and presented in a way that leaves the reader wondering about Tice's sanity. In fact, his sanity is not questioned and he was only last month referred to as a whistleblower, and asked for feedback on the NSA story by the Guardian, Reuters and PBS Newshour. Wikipedia should read more like these sources, who don't even mention the government's reason for letting him go (though I am not suggesting we omit this), but only refer to him in the most respectful ways. It shouldn't be people who edit here whose points of view end up on the page, but really that of RS. petrarchan47tc 23:13, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, the placement can be different, and I'd love to see you use all those sources to refute the allegation of psychosis more convincingly than the present version, but I don't like to see sources go away. I think the reader can be trusted, by this point, to take anything and I mean anything the NSA says with a grain of salt, given their apparent ability to lie flat-out to Congress and get away with it, and all they need is the factual counterpoint to reinforce that feeling. Wnt (talk) 01:39, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

To be more specific: according to your section, According to Tice, claims that he had psychological problems are "bunk" and that 'that's the way the NSA deals with troublemakers and whistleblowers. This is very weak, because it makes us wonder if he's telling the truth or not. Are there third parties who say (in context of his case, to avoid "synth" objections) that this is in fact the case? More generally, that draft doesn't even really make it clear why he's a 'whistleblower'! I mean, it's not really already counted as whistleblowing in official circles in the U.S. to report a Chinese spy ... is it? Wnt (talk) 01:46, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

I would love to have the time to really devote to his article. I knew very little about him prior to these edits, but I knew that a wikilinked "psychosis" in the first para, especially after following the linked article, was a gross misuse of the source, a wildly inaccurate portrayal of the (interesting) story, and a prime example of a smear on a living person. Simply removing that edit, though it reverted to a version that was less informative, was an improvement overall per NPOV, et cetera. I used up a few days' worth of Wikipeida-time researching this man and trying to find all I could on him (not, mind you, with a focus on refuting the NSA's argument, but just to tell the story as it is told in RS). I kept my focus pretty narrow, and stuck to the story of his firing. The placement at bottom I won't defend, except to say that it seemed awkward anywhere else. As I argue on his talk page, the story does need its own section. Bdell555 has insisted upon weaving it into his bio according to a timeline, which to me is sloppy and again not in alignment with RS, which when any aspect of this is mentioned, discuss it in full. I should have stuck around to give the entire article some structure. There is no mention of this man being born and raised, for instance. But I don't have time to do this, and that's the truth. I asked for help at the talk and at BLP noticeboard. I received none, except that Rybec removed the link to "conspiracy theorist" which was added by Bdell555, I believe. So this was the best I could do. Take a look at the edit history. Prior to the one I showed, you will find a diff where I added a quotation from a third party, Sibel Edmonds, from the very source Bdell555 had brought to the article. He then argued here that she was a truther and couldn't be quoted. So in this section, I played it very safe because everything I was doing was being reverted. People are being smeared on Wikipedia in the open, and no one is doing anything about it. A project may have been sidetracked in some ways by this, and that is hard to swallow. The Snowden article has been completely peaceful until around the time we started talking about TDWFB. Welcome to Wikpedia (and the world), though, huh? petrarchan47tc 03:57, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

@HectorMoffet: some points for you to consider.

• To begin with, this DYK response, though infuriating, is not actually surprising to me. I knew that there was something off about the DYK process from my very first comment about the idea, "fishing in the contentious waters off Gibraltar", and this collision was the expected outcome, though not the one I'd hoped for. Before this, people imagined the DYK process was as neutral as I said it should be; now we realize that some people in power are choosing what causes it is OK to feature. Wikipedia has failed to consider the theory of a good, fair DYK process, and that is a problem. As I said in the debate, the clearest issue going forward is religion. DYK has accepted a "Special Day" for the elevation of cardinals of the Catholic Church. It is time now to hunt around among Old Catholic Church, American Catholic Church, Liberal Catholic Church, Universal Catholic Church and find comparable events for which a "Special Day" of DYKs might be requested. (An initial search, leading to [4], is a bit less than satisfactory, but proof of principle) If DYK refuses a Special Day, they can and should be keelhauled for religious discrimination; but if they accept it, then it is clear that Special Days need not be "widely recognized" and the regime will be further exposed and isolated. (Doubtless some wag will say that violates "WP:POINT", but what part of creating articles or fighting religious bias on the Main Page constitutes disruption?)
• Now let's remember also: you have succeeded in all but the most trivial detail. TDWFB was announced as a "month of activism culminating in" February 11, and the early run means that your DYKs go out in that month. At least they do go out, people do read them, regardless of the day, and maybe they will join the new WikiProject. The NSA isn't going away soon, so there's no need to focus so much on one day.
• In general, these things with global surveillance carry the heavy pall of an apocalypse, and no small one at that; it seems as if we must either go out with the destruction of all rights and the subjugation of all people, or with the acceptance of all humanity with all its foibles and everything it has to say. But this is not the first generation to make that choice, and several preceding ones have not failed in the end. It is not in our nature to be holy men, but as things progress we are forced either to go in that direction, or in the other. So it is going to be very important to try to find faith, and to try not to give into frustration.
• Some reflection on Daoist philosophy is also in order. The most forceful action (trying to change all policy and take over the main page) is the least effective. The least forceful action (steady, thoughtful editing about what you find interesting) may be the most effective. Wikipedia is most effective when it is most unpredictable^[5] -- perhaps even when we are not even sure ourselves what we are trying to achieve.
• That said, I don't mean to underestimate the value of your effort; the appearance of great writers ... [who take a solid and persistent interest that troubles us] ... I know nothing about this, but I suspect it all sounds expensive. You can donate money to Wikipedia and have them spend dollar for dollar in combat with these folks, or accomplish the same for free at the cost of nothing but ... frustration. Just because Wikipedia pays nothing doesn't mean it costs nothing for somebody with the opposite agenda and little general public support. There have been idiots who have gone down to protests to smash shop windows who may have inflicted less financial expense, and that at random. Remember, the whole point of opposing an adversary who is out to deny your rights is that simply by doing things that are fully within your rights you are causing them grief.

Wnt (talk) 15:54, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

First off I want to say that I like everything you wrote in bullets 1-4. However, regarding bullet 5, as the heavy editor of ALEC and the one who notes on my userpage that my views don't represent those of my employer, it's clear that you're referring to me (despite the fact that I've hardly edited at Wiki-PR). I find your semi-veiled accusation of paid COI extremely ignorant, offensive, and uncivil. I demand that you review my edit history, retract your accusation, and apologize. It's downright wiki-libel. I've consistently taken a hard line against paid COI editing, not only stating on multiple occasions that at a minimum editors should be banned outright for not disclosing paid COIs, but also actually taking a couple of editors to WP:COIN for undisclosed paid COI editing. One of them eventually got site banned. The other was (I believe) a paid shill for, of all organizations, ALEC. While she was actively editing I consistently battled to keep reliably sourced material that happened to be bad publicity for ALEC, and remove promotional material. This is all easily verifiable, just skim through this for example... so for you, a veteran editor, to be making accusations that are so blatantly the exact opposite of reality is really just... astounding. And what I have to do with the TDWFB DYK is beyond me; I've watched it with interest, but I've never even commented on it. Really, I'm dumbfounded. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 19:07, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

And I suspect Capitalismojo (another active contributor at ALEC) will laugh at loud at your ridiculous accusation. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 19:43, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Heh, well it's more of a snort and a chuckle than laughing out loud. Good humor. Thanks for pinging me. Dr.F may be many things, but having a COI with ALEC is the least likely one I can imagine. Capitalismojo (talk) 20:06, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Note that I made no accusation, nor did I suggest how anyone stands on those topics, and indeed I don't know. You aren't the only person I had in mind when I made that comment, anyway. The way you keep materializing - here in response to a conversation with one other editor, at Restore the Fourth right after I reverted a removal by a different editor, and your persistent removals at The Day We Fight Back do make me suspicious. In any case, as I did not name you let alone accuse you, and as I do expect the pro-surveillance side to take some kind of action at some point, there's nothing to retract here. Wnt (talk) 20:15, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

That doesn't read like a retraction or an apology. Please tell me exactly whom you were referring to. Now, before I request administrator attention. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:20, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

If you're going to be like that, surely it won't do any good to bring anyone else's name into this. Wnt (talk) 20:29, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree, it wouldn't, since there's no one else whose name might be brought in. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:46, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

(ec) Nonetheless, to avoid further distraction, I'll remove the very general description there, because it doesn't really say anything and therefore not really very interesting. Wnt (talk) 20:26, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

You're getting warmer, but that doesn't read like a retraction or an apology either. More like a whitewash. Hurry along, now. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:31, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:31, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Feb 8

What do you about a hook: DYK ... The government of China has installed over 20 million surveillance cameras across the nation?
I've stepped on enough wasp nests for one lifetime, but it's a suggestion you can nominate if you feel it has merit. --HectorMoffet (talk) 16:35, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

It sounds like a good hook (I haven't checked the article, I'm in the middle of one for PCLOB), but you shouldn't be like that. There are editors who put out hundreds of these DYKs. With Wikipedia it's often more useful to focus on what you can do than what you can't, and they haven't banned you from putting them in. Wnt (talk) 16:41, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

That said, I did nominate it. Wnt (talk) 19:01, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

check your email, but basically, but the noinclude thing was a templating problem where passed articles go invisible on dykn.

I think it unlikely that anything special will happen on feb 11, but I will stick around to preserve the option, i.e. make sure holds are held. If, on Feb 10, our board issues a unanimous statement calling on our community to do something special on Feb 11 and an overwhelming majority endorses the plan, then they'll have that option.

Is that gonna happen? probably not. But do I feel that I deserve the same respect on hold dates as any other editor, yes, passionately. They can schedule none for feb 11, one at a time thereafter, or not use them at all. --HectorMoffet (talk) 04:16, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

You need to be watching Template:Did you know/Preparation area 3 and Template:Did you know/Preparation area 4 if you don't want them to run your content ahead of time so it will be unavailable for use. HectorMoffet (talk) 04:38, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

@HectorMoffet: you're getting bogged down on the smallest points. The main thing is to have an article, and make it a good one. A detail is to have a DYK. When that DYK runs is a detail of a detail, and whether it runs on the 10 or the 11th is the smallest detail of a detail. Even the event organizers called for a month of action, not a day of action, and I suspect this detail has subtly cascaded through to our present situation. Had there been one day of activism on the anniversary of Swartz's death, we would have had an easier time getting a special event recognized. Now to be sure, I have and will protest the centralized power and bias inherent in having a few people controlling whether an event can be recognized, but I don't want editors "semi-retired" or worse over this. It's not worth it. What's worth it is the work you put in getting all those articles written. I've had DYKs before -- they get thousands of pageviews, sure, but not that many thousands. I couldn't even tell you whether the impact of running a whole batch of DYKs on a topic is outweighed by fatigue and chance - whether it would be better to let people interested in spying have day after day to click on just one. So please -- focus on the central aspect. We have hundreds of redlinks that can be turned into useful information for all those who read future news stories and political editorials - stories we ought not predict - and need to know the real story behind the news, not just a one-sentence platitude by some talking head. I hope you will realize that this issue doesn't end on the 11th, nor is it the only issue; the real issue of all Wikipedia is knowledge and the right of the people to have it all. Wnt (talk) 05:23, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Surveillance awareness day

Hello, Wnt. Despite our disagreement, I respect your efforts to improve Wikipedia and genuinely aim to be helpful.

I attempted to build upon your rewording/reformatting in the hope of explaining the endeavor's background and current status as clearly and impartially as possible. HectorMoffet reverted, noting only that my "changes are without consensus".

In response to a message that he left on my talk page, I've requested that he explain his objections. If you have any thoughts on the matter (including constructive criticism or suggestions), I'd sincerely appreciate your input. Thanks in advance. —David Levy 04:06, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Wnt. You have new messages at David Levy's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

—David Levy 07:36, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

I could use your help

Hey Wnt, I could use your support in convincing people Category:Slave owner is valid, User:Ryulong is reverting my most recent edits, nothing scientific but the slave owner category is an important listing to see the list of slave owners. No one is questioning Jabba the Hutt and the other fictional slave owners I listed, but apparently George Washington being a slave owner is being questioned. I did not know if their were pages for proposing categories or for reporting wikihounding, I've gone a couple of places though, reference desk, jimbowales, ANI board. I also added a couple bioremediating organisms recently wondered about nano particulate from prosthetic titanium implants. I'm also trying to add a ridiculous and sadly accurate amount of terrorist categories as unlike any other crime the definition is limited to each country. CensoredScribe (talk) 06:48, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

DYK for Stop Watching Us

Another draft approaches publication, but I want make sure our hooks comply with the rules.

What do you think of this DYK:

• .... that Stop Watching Us, a protest against mass surveillance, was supported by Daniel Ellsberg, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Lawrence Lessig, Wil Wheaton, and others?

pls rewrite if you can improve it or don't think it would make a good hook. --HectorMoffet (talk) 07:55, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

As you know, your approach was the correct one

There are about 8 articles now at DYK, but I depend on you to find the best wording for them and make sure they meet our standards. --HectorMoffet (talk) 21:25, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your help at ANI; Ryulong is still reverting everything I do

I'm not sure if this will carry over to anything outside of anime and science fiction; either way I'm not breaking any restrictions. I have not yet evven suggested Category:Time travelers. CensoredScribe (talk) 04:11, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, you're getting a lot of unfavorable feedback. I don't think the process should hit you with an expanded topic ban, but it's looking like a matter of time, and time may be up. I'd recommend you just avoid categorizing stuff even if it's not a formal ban, until you've done some other editing. The Wikipedia category system is hopelessly outdated and ineffective anyway - it's not really worth that much effort until somebody upgrades the code. Wnt (talk) 16:55, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the advice Wnt; I will take it and stop adding categories; they are pretty seriously broken if it takes that long to delete them and there is that little consensus about what elements are defining in a given work. I thought only the biographies of living famous people would be more reverted than medical articles; however I think fiction edits may be more frequently reverted than medicine articles as well. I'm trying to look for something which shows the pages most reverted but only recently; I figure George W Bush may have the long term record but is probably not always the most consistently reverted page. I figure it would show useful trends in what people are arguing about like the top 5000 popular pages. CensoredScribe (talk) 23:59, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

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re The ALA RFC

I'll leave the timing on when to start up to you.

I'd suggest that when you do, you post neutrally-worded-notices to central locations including WP:Village pump, WP:CENT, and other places.

Btw, quick query, is the Internet Archive a member of the American Library Association?

Are there other associates that Internet Archive is already a member of, that might be helpful for Wikipedia to join, as well?

— Cirt (talk) 06:27, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Outstanding suggestion! It is indeed - see [6] for precisely the logo and text I had in mind (though I was thinking smaller). That's the only organization I see listed there, but I haven't researched it further yet. Wnt (talk) 06:51, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

re Library Bill of Rights

Regarding Library Bill of Rights, I strongly agree! — Cirt (talk) 21:05, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

@Cirt: - but do you agree that it is best to keep it separate from the RFC, or should I try to fold it in as proposal #3? I'm not sure if it makes sense to mix a proposal to ask for membership with an independent idea that would affect policy. Wnt (talk) 21:07, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

It should be separate. — Cirt (talk) 21:09, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

OK, that's what I thought. Wnt (talk) 21:14, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Farewell, and thank you

Hey Wnt! Thanks for all your help in the last month. It's been great working with you. It was always a long shot that we would do something "special"-- as it should be, and I'm not at all disappointed that a controversial idea wasn't adopted. I had a lot of fun working on it.

Unfortunately, I found out some things about how parts of Wikipedia are run, and they just don't sit with me. I spent two years without really looking at mainpage, and I probably could have happy spent two years more without looking. If you like sausage, don't watch how the sausage is made, I suppose.

Please look after WP:SAD-- last I saw they was edit-warring still, two weeks after it was abandoned. A1candidate has promised to mediate if problems recur.

But I couldn't leave without saying goodbye and thanks for all your hard work! If you ever get bored with with this place, come over to scholarpedia-- all the joy of editing Wikipedia with any of the drama of editing Wikipedia. --HectorMoffet (talk) 01:58, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

@HectorMoffet: dammit, don't be like this. I mean, to take an event Wikipedia is pushing ... you look at these odd people who go off to the Olympics, they spend years of their lives training for something like pushing stones around on ice or sledding down a track. In one of the few bits I watched, some speed skater got sent home, try again in four years, because after the starter took too long to fire his "gun", she supposedly flinched her arm a little bit while waiting. People doing these pointless tasks nonetheless keep getting back up, having some Frankenstein try to piece their knees back together or whatever, and go on to get tripped or sick or "bobble" a step all over again. If people who want to get the truth out about things like government surveillance, like you, want to win, they're going to have to try to have a little more of that kind of weird determination, a little less oh it ran on the wrong day I have to give up. Why is it anyway that we spend all our determination on the most trivial and worthless and outright wrong and misery-making things, and so little of it on the things that can be of benefit?

Don't be bashful about un-resigning when you're ready. It's really really common. People get fed up, they throw in the towel, then they change their mind in anything (even the Olympics I suppose) and just because there's an edit history to look at here doesn't make it any different. Wnt (talk) 03:12, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

ALA RFC

What's the latest update on this, how's it going so far? And where was that link again? :P — Cirt (talk) 02:57, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, the idea is at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Should Wikipedia ask WMF to join the American Library Association on its behalf? The problem I have is simply that, going over [7] and [8], I just haven't made my case well enough. I just don't know enough about the organization and what it can do beyond my narrow areas of interest, and while they have tons of information online, I haven't really gone through much of it as of yet. Above all, I'd rather hoped that whatever his position on certain related issues, Jimbo Wales would personally weigh in in favor of the idea since it is the logical affiliation to fight SOPA and NSA surveillance and the like. I want to have more confidence about the success of the idea before I take it to a large-scale vote. Wnt (talk) 03:42, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Understood, please keep me posted, — Cirt (talk) 00:05, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board report on mass surveillance

Hello! Your submission of Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board report on mass surveillance at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! BlueMoonset (talk) 01:28, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Navboxes and search

Hi! I saw this comment you left about navboxes. I have some ideas about how to address this problem, and it would help me if you could provide some links to search queries that demonstrate the problem. Thanks, Bovlb (talk) 18:27, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Hmmmm, I'm actually having difficulty reproducing the problem now! Unfortunately, the actual history for when I first ran into this problem doing a search like this, which is I think the better part of a year ago, was lost to a disk crash. But I'm pretty sure I saw this when I simply typed in a search for "revolution 9" "rubber soul". I definitely remember getting lots and lots of Wikipedia spammage on a search like that, and now I'm not seeing anything. It's possible that Google fixed the trouble on their end in the meanwhile, or ... something else happened. Wnt (talk) 22:52, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

OK. There are a few different ways that I know of to mark a section of a page as not for indexing. We could usefully add a couple of them to the navbar template, but I'd prefer to have evidence of the problem before making the proposal. Cheers, Bovlb (talk) 23:58, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

DYK for Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board report on mass surveillance

Thanks for your help Victuallers (talk) 23:32, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

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March 2014

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Jimbo's talk page

Jimbo is taking up your suggestion. User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 158#Proposal from Wnt. --Pine^✉ 23:06, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

GREAT! Wnt (talk) 23:35, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

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Stop Watching Us waiting on your consent

Some time ago the three other active participants in the discussion at Talk:Stop Watching Us reached a consensus, but since you were the most active opposition to the idea, wanted to wait for you to weigh in. It's been quite a while now and you haven't weighed in. Would you mind popping over there and giving your $0.02 so that we can make the relevant changes or not?

P.S. You really need to archive your talk page, jeez! 0x0077BE [^talk/_contrib] 18:49, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I thought I expressed my feelings well enough before. I don't see anything in that conversation that is "dangling" awaiting some answer, and it's just not very appealing to edit an article that keeps losing content. Wnt (talk) 04:50, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Suicides

Hi I noticed on the Jimbo Wales talk page back in February, regarding a then 'recent' suicide, some suggestion by you that certain things may have been subsequently wiped from their page. I agree with your point about that making it harder to "identify and fix the social phenomena specifically involved in things like this". I'm also unsure why in the discussions there seems to be such avoidance of giving the username, as seems to be given regularly in other cases. I don't seem to have your sleuthing skills to find it myself, assuming it wasn't as long ago as User:AaronSw. Did you confirm any of this by any chance? Sighola2 (talk) 23:47, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

I didn't find anything in the page history that expressed a sentiment that should have warned anyone something like this would happen - I don't know if it was removed or not. But ever since the discussion has been raised, Wikipedians have been attacking one another like mad, with little rhyme or reason, with one casualty after another being called out by administrators or resigning in disgust - the current contention on Jimbo's talk page traces directly back to it. Because of this ongoing trouble, despite my usual inclination, I'd prefer to avoid answering this one, except to say that if you look at talk pages for people originally in the conversation, you should find it. With so many options for retroactively making conversations go away around here, it's a lot easier to search out the name than to figure out what actually happened. Wnt (talk) 00:42, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

It did seem to be definitely stated that he put up then hatted a mental health template didn't it, so I am troubled if that has been wiped away (such a user doesn't seem to show up from 'what links here' at that mh template). I had tried following your route to the name via the prior commenters and tried again but just can't find any mentioned - guess I'm missing something or perhaps they've been wiped too?? I understand if you don't feel able to indicate further, though I'm not aware of where the ongoing trouble is now that the Eric-vs-admin and template-delete stuff seems to be over. Thanks, Sighola2 (talk) 02:41, 12 March 2014 (UTC) p.s. oh unless it could potentially include what I'm involved in regarding wp-is-not-therapy essay which was linked from that same mh template. Sighola2 (talk) 03:28, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

No, nothing was wiped away. It is still there, I've just checked. It is one of these cases, when an editor asked to be heard and understood, but nobody noticed, because as Wnt correctly noticed "Wikipedians have been attacking one another like mad, with little rhyme or reason". They are busy with attacking each others, not being kind and understanding to each other. That so called Wikipedia community is very sick, and in most situations not because of editors with mental health issues, but because of those psychotic, sadistic bullies who call themselves "the Wikipedia community".71.202.123.2 (talk) 04:56, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

DYK for Mass surveillance in China

The DYK project (nominate) 02:08, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Hey

Would very much appreciate your comment at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#Polyethylene_Glycol. Blessings. Ben-Natan (talk) 01:41, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

barnstar awarded for you

	The Barnstar of Diligence
	For your improving work at Syed Ali Shah Geelani - good work Wnt - Mosfetfaser (talk) 17:41, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/Stop Watching Us

Wnt, since Hector isn't around any more and you've been shepherding some of his DYK submissions through the process, I thought I'd let you know that this nomination has some issues that need to be addressed. Is this something you're willing to take on? If so, please respond on the nomination template. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:39, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. Wnt (talk) 21:29, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

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Thanks for the numbers.

Aside from being a very good post, it was informatively posted at 4:11 and self-contains 1,408 bytes. Cosmic. InedibleHulk (talk) 15:22, March 17, 2014 (UTC)

CensoredScribe has been blocked indefinitely

You've helped my friend a lot already; but if you are willing to help for what is likely the last time, please contact Drmies Vsmith LadyofShallot and Jmh649. CS wanted me to tell you and those others thank you for your support and to say thanks in general for writing the worlds largest and most read encyclopedia. The only thing they had left to do was finish adding the references from Lives of the Necromancers; they stopped at Pythagoras. Not sure how many users get brought back after being blocked; good bye. 128.138.108.181 (talk) 18:31, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Honestly I don't think it can help at this point. By the time an editor is hit with a topic ban he's already pretty much on the way out - the admins and any enemies he's accumulated will just stay on him relentlessly looking for ever smaller offenses even as his exasperation grows. Given his interest in fiction there are lots of other specific wikis he could start on fresh that do a better job covering it (I'm thinking of http://www.supernaturalwiki.com, for example); or he could lend a hand in getting http://www.deletionpedia.org or http://www.speedydeletion.wikia.com up to speed; or he could even get serious and go for www.scholarpedia.org, www.openwetware.org, etc. which is actually much more respectable than WP. There are also exciting political wikis - I'm not sure if http://www.echelon2.org/ is going to be open to contributors again, but _that_ is an example of a little wiki that cast a long shadow. There are many others. He needs to find a successful base of operations instead of trying to hang on by a thread here. He would also benefit by focusing more on skills than accomplishments - learn how to program Javascript, PHP, Lua, learn how to run bots, learn to set up his own sites. When years have passed and he's forgotten all about his interest in Wikipedia categories, then he can try starting from scratch here if he wants, if he's prepared to stay absolutely mum about his prior account name and have no interaction with it... but he seems too readily tempted to make that work. Wnt (talk) 21:36, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

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re Another essay attempt...

This may not go well, but I thought I might as well try writing up WP:Internet Employees' Bill of Rights as a general idea, expressing some statements that I've made in recent cases, and in response to the absolutely appalling precedent of Brendan Eich being forced to resign from Mozilla (no, I'm not a section 8 fan, but to me that just isn't the point). Do you think anything good can come of it? Wnt (talk) 02:39, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Your idea is a sound one, but I'll respectfully defer to you for your editorial judgment about its contents. Please do keep me posted when it's more of a complete work, and I'll take another look. — Cirt (talk) 15:22, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

DYK nomination of FISA Improvements Act

Hello! Your submission of FISA Improvements Act at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! BlueMoonset (talk) 17:22, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

DYK for FISA Improvements Act

Thanks from → Call me Hahc21) 16:03, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

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Templates and "What links here"

Hello, Wnt. I seem to remember a discussion where someone, and I think it was you, pointed out how adding topic templates to the bottom of multiple pages affected the "What links here" function by greatly inflating the number of articles linking to a topic, sometimes articles that are only marginally related to the one they link to and wouldn't mention it in the text itself. Do you know whether this has been discussed anywhere, or whether there are ways to make the WLH function ignore links in those templates? (Apologies if I'm mistaken and it wasn't you). ---Sluzzelin talk 19:22, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

I didn't realize we had a Help talk:What links here discussing this very topic. (Though of course I should have; Wikipedia not only HAAOE, but also ADiscussionOE. Sorry for the distraction and have a nice week :-) ---Sluzzelin talk 19:29, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

This message will self destruct in...

This is supposed to be under the modern India section of the India article. New users can't undo or edit that article. "India has the most slaves of any country at 14 million; over 1% of the total population." Here's the bare url. http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/world/millions-in-modernday-slavery-half-in-india-survey/article5243964.ece

Looks like a good idea, so I made an edit. [9] Wnt (talk) 12:21, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

One last thing; should you choose to accept it. This was on the page for free will but is not mentioned on the page for schizophrenia; when it's allegedly one of the key diagnostic criteria.

Similarly, one of the most important ("first rank") diagnostic symptoms of schizophrenia is the delusion of being controlled by an external force. People with schizophrenia will sometimes report that, although they are acting in the world, they did not initiate, or will, the particular actions they performed. This is sometimes likened to being a robot controlled by someone else. Although the neural mechanisms of schizophrenia are not yet clear, one influential hypothesis is that there is a breakdown in brain systems that compare motor commands with the feedback received from the body (known as proprioception), leading to attendant hallucinations and delusions of control.

This tape will self-destruct in five seconds. Thank you and good luck :)

The first bit is in there - the rest I should look up, but it may be a few days until I get to it. Wnt (talk) 17:25, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

This isn't part of an official Japanese policy on population control; the Japanese government is actually trying to have more births not less. However I added a section for Japans birth rate dropping by 25% in certain years do to the influence of Chinese astrology; I didn't think all forms of population control had to be officially ordered by the government in order to count.

In Japan, a strong belief in astrology has led to dramatic changes in the fertility rate and the number of abortions in the years of "Fire Horse". Women born in hinoeuma years are believed to be unmarriageable and to bring bad luck to their father or husband. In 1966, the number of babies born in Japan dropped by over 25% as parents tried to avoid the stigma of having a daughter born in the hinoeuma year.

Did you notice

Hi Wnt: In looking at the "Wikipedia" Page, there is someone that deleted your Ashburn edit, did you notice. FelixRosch (talk) 18:47, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Sigh. The problem is, they might have something of a point about relevance, and at least they left the part that it was in Ashburn. Still, yeah, the level V security and data center alley should be reintroduced. Maybe there's a way I can improve the sourcing to make it look less like "synthesis". Wnt (talk) 19:35, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, and if you could add any further "planning information" it might help as well. For example, "The new site is expected to meet Wikipedia needs until MMDDYY", or, "It is expandable up to MMDDYY or indefinitely". Historically, it was also funded by a Google grant from a few years ago and designed for the purpose of enhancing system-wide reliability, which if you can document, might make the edit work. FelixRosch (talk) 17:02, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

May I ask; and have answer?

Hello Wnt. Because I have seen numerous discussions where you have commented; gleaning a wide breadth of intellect, I'll skip the part about "they know not what they do", and; directly ask: why have you raised a straw man against me on Jimbo's talk page? I've only ever known you to be a "straight shooter". Yet, for some reason, the first time I would ever see you deviate that straight course, happens to be when answering a concern raised by me. I can't help but wonder why?—John Cline (talk) 12:08, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

As I explained there, I don't see it as a straw man. I had used the same example previously, and Jimbo had made an "all the way" comment that didn't even seem opposed to the idea. A corporation and a military unit seem very similar, and to be fair, the allegations against the Chinese military unit that they massacred (at that time the article said) 10,000 people were both poorly founded and extremely prejudicial. I prefer to try to line up policies between different areas, which means that on one hand we should avoid giving too much credibility to sensationalistic figures, while not imposing a systematic bias on the other. Wnt (talk) 12:32, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Russell Targ

FYI the item you added to the list of journal articles on the Russell Targ article was not a journal article. It is already in the references also. There was one article (Targ & Puthoff, 1974) published in nature and a series of comments, letters and matters arising peices discussing the actual article. There is are two sections of discussion on the talk page discussing what papers should be in the list. If you want to add to the list please weigh in at the discussion Talk:Russell Targ#WP:UNDUE and list of works. Thanks for your contributions to WP and happy editing. - - MrBill3 (talk) 05:14, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Whoops. I thought someone had caught it up by accident with the others, but true, it's just a matter arising. Wnt (talk) 13:46, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Arbitration amendment request(Fae)

An arbitration amendment request(Fae), to which you contributed, resulted in a motion.

The original discussion can be found here. For the arbitration committee --S Philbrick(Talk) 16:09, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

[re Russell Targ ]

Bobby Fischer: if you want info about my relationship with Bobby Fischer, you can look at "A psycho-biography of Bobby Fischer," By Joe Pontorotto. It has a sweet 1961 photo of 18 year old Bobby, his sister, me and baby Elisabeth at my home in NYC. I am not contributing any family photos to this bio page until Wikipedia decides to treat me with a little respect, rather than mockery and derision. You are able to hide in the dark of the aether and amusingly call yourselves red-balls and blue-balls, and write any mocking insults that come to mind regarding me or my work. So you feel that you get to sit around and decide what kind of relationship I had with my brother-in-law. How absurd is that? And I have no recourse. Don't you guys have any sense of decency? SILVER: I published a paper describing our success with silver. There is an article in the WSJ, and there is a BBC documentary interviewing by broker. What do you want? You publish all kinds of BS from the notorious James Randi. But my published data is no good. Cheers, Torgownik (talk) 04:09, 18 May 2014 (UTC)Russell

@Torgownik: Well, don't blame me for what those other people did; so far as I know I have not mocked or derided you, and try to be open minded, though there are some things I may not easily be convinced of. The problem with a book photo is that Wikipedia needs a free licensed photo and only includes copyrighted photos in some really narrow cases. I think you have suggested some good sources there and I hope to see you get fairer consideration in your article. Wnt (talk) 06:46, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

I have no interest in providing any photos of Bobby or my family to be held up to further "pseudo-unscientific" ridicule. Do people remember that in the big AIR report published for the CIA, in 1995 the president of the American Statistical Assn., Prof. Jessica Utts said that the remote viewing work at SRI was comparable in statistical significance to any other research on "weak to medium strength" phenomena,such as aspirin for prevention of heart attacks. She points out the our average "effect size" over a decade of work, is ten times greater than the effect size for aspirin preventing heart attacks. Why do you guys prefer to align with Randi the amazing, and the lifelong skeptic Ray Hyman instead of Prof. Utts? Just for a change of pace, could you please take a look at the four examples of remote viewing we did for the government on my website, www.espresearch.com. You might actually find it interesting. Torgownik (talk) 07:43, 18 May 2014 (UTC)Russell Targ

I am pretty near certain that no, as Wikipedia editors we do not remember that - certainly I'm no where close to knowing things like that offhand. Some of the problem here is that you're assuming the articles are edited by experts but they're really not. The same people edit articles about anything from airplane crashes to medieval history. This is both the cause and the effect of Wikipedia rules like the one against "WP:original research/WP:original synthesis". Wikipedia is more an assembly line than a mechanic's workshop. The problem is, some people have learned a strong contempt for all speculative topics - rooted, to be sure, in no small number of real examples of deceit with such things, but still an overly broad blanket response - and aren't playing by the rules. Wnt (talk) 13:34, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

FAIRNESS: OK. I understand. I am in jail, begging the guards for crumbs. ii is clear that you have to power to slime my bio page any way you wish. If I don't like I get ignored banned. Let me repeat what I consider the beginning of fairness or truth. OTHER OPINIONS: If you Wikipedia editors have any tiny spark of integrity, you should include the following, which is the other half of the famous CIA sponsored AIR report, which I am sure you all know about. Jessica Utts is a statistics Professor at the University of California, Irvine, and is president of the American Statistical Association. In writing for her part of a 1995 evaluation of our work for the CIA in the AIR report, she wrote: “Using the standards applied to any other area of science, it is concluded that psychic functioning has been well established. The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted.… Remote viewing has been conceptually replicated across a number of laboratories, by various experimenters, and in different cultures. This is a robust effect that, were it not such an unusual domain, would no longer be questioned by science as a real phenomenon. It is unlikely that methodological flaws could account for its remarkable consistency.” I will be looking for some part of this to appear on my bio page. If not, I will just assume that you have no interest at all in presenting the truth. It is not the truth that "science" considers remote viewing to be pseudoscience. You can start with the president of the American Statistics Assn. Torgownik (talk) 21:26, 18 May 2014 (UTC)Russell <russ at targ.co>

Trust me, we're not guards - Wikipedia is frustrating for everyone. I haven't moved very quickly on your article; I look in on Wikipedia now and then as I have a chance or my mind wanders, and I was hoping for signs that the discussion was turning. I think though that the tide is turning now, because your article is not the way that most here like to see biographies treated. I'll look into the report you mention (be assured we don't all know about anything). Wnt (talk) 21:33, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Isotretinoin

I don't know how this ping thing works or if you got my message. But I reacted a little emotionally to you your notes on the ANI and Isotretinoin Talk page, please take the emotional content of my notes and divide by 3. I did not mean to be offensive (or if I did, I regret it now :>))Formerly 98 (talk) 21:53, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

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On your Trivia Questions

Not to nitpick but the IRA per se did not exist until January 1919. Thus none of your multiple choices are correct and I suspect that the answer might well be Tipperary. If, on the other hand, one accepted equating the IRA with earlier Irish nationalist organizations, one might well be able to go back as far as 1798 if not earlier. Juan Riley (talk) 16:02, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

I think the article used to say that the organization conducting the Fenian raids was literally called the Irish Republican Army. It still does say that, in passing, in the Fenian raids article in the title of the inspector-general of it. I understand that (as with many such organizations) there could be different organizations with the same name - not to equate the two, but the first example that pops to mind is the Ku Klux Klan, which has been repeatedly refounded from scratch, yet often is thought of as the same group anyway. Wnt (talk) 21:31, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

• One should not use big letters, e.g., a particular organization like the IRA, to mean small letters, e.g., a militia of Irish men and women with republican sentiments. As noted above, none of your multiple choices are correct whichever vague choice you make. Juan Riley (talk) 21:52, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Fortunately I don't have to edit war with you about this, but do be assured that other sources use "IRA" to refer to this. [10] The phrase "Irish Republican Army" appears in the 1910 s:Troublous Times in Canada: A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870. It is worth noting the parent (?) organization was sometimes called the Irish Republican Brotherhood. I haven't fully explored the various references in the literature, but I'm reasonably convinced that this conflict from the United States was at least something of an inspiration to those who ultimately formally declared the IRA, and that the identical phrase being used was no coincidence. Wnt (talk) 23:22, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Interesting comment

You state here [11] "Rather, it is well known that Wiki Med, Inc., one of the resources linked from WP:MED, has external funding sources". As the president of WPMEDF I have not heard of any of these external funding sources. In fact the organization has never raised or been given any money and does not even have a bank account. An organization we are partnering with, Translators Without Borders did receive $12,000 from the Indigo foundation to develop their translation center in Kenya to work on our project but other than that all work by all involved is as volunteers. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 04:57, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

I will note your response. I had the impression from reading over the initial proposed bylaws and conversations like [12] that the organization was going to be receiving outside funding routinely, and I did interpret some other comments in this light. I do welcome this statement of independence. Wnt (talk) 05:10, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

We would not ever accept finances from an organization that does not share our goals. Such organizations would include the pharmaceutical industry. We would accept funding from organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Current though none has been offered and we are not really set up to handle it if it was. We have mainly provided advice to like minded organizations like Cancer Research UK, the NIH and Cochrane collaboration. We have also done some collaboration between language communities such as Persian and Italian. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 05:46, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Press mention

See http://www.dailydot.com/news/wikipedia-traking-information-how-long/ Best, Andreas JN466 23:12, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

As flattering as it may be to be quoted, I don't feel like that article adds enough value to the discussion. I should give you credit for finding the policy about dissemination of information (though it actually lacks any statement about when it is disseminated, only gives advice how to improve your odds). But overall, I think my forum post was a request for information, which Jimbo said he'd look into, and your article doesn't give any insight on what that response will be. By and large when a news article has a headline that ends in a question mark, it's not going to be that satisfying. Wnt (talk) 05:15, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

TALK PAGE: The talk page is worthless, if I receive no reply. Just the erasure of what I write. You are happy to denigrate my father, who was a most distinguished NY editor and publisher for fifty yeas. Why can't we include The Godfather among his other junky books? He actually created that book. Why can't we include the Wall Street Journal citation of my silver futures forecasting, instead of saying that there is no citation? And what's wrong with including Jessica Utts saying that the work at Stanford was done correctly? Such editing gives Wikipedia a terrible reputation, even among people who are not ESP enthusiasts. Such obviously biased writing is anti science. Torgownik (talk) 21:33, 3 June 2014 (UTC)Russell

@Torgownik: Did you post this in the wrong place? I'm the one who added the mention of The Godfather, and also support the Wall Street Journal reference. The Utts reference I'm not totally sure about - last I looked the current version didn't mention the AIR report, and since it was an evaluation of the program in 1995 under a different agency, I can sort of see leaving it out of your biography. Still, that's all wrong, I admit. I was hoping Tristessa would change something - I can make another try at it to register my opinion, but with the people they have lined up I can't really win at an edit war. Wnt (talk) 01:32, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

DYK for Christopher Senyonjo

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:20, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Reference Errors on 7 June

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Obiwankenobi

Do you know that User:Obiwankenobi has edited from a POV agenda, on the subject of his employer, without disclosing his affiliation? One might say those types of users are exactly the sort who should have some of their online privacy exposed, when they are actively trying to impugn the reputations of real-named people while hiding behind a pseudonym cloak. February 23, 2012, if you want the truth. - 2001:558:1400:10:DC33:3186:3BC3:3AEF (talk) 16:10, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

The people at WO seem good at running administrative processes against people - nonetheless, he seems in good standing now and I'm certainly not going to initiate something against him. What I can do is to make minor modification to better detail the data he tried (but failed) to keep out of the article. There is some limit to what I can do there because so far I'm not getting the range of sourcing I would like to see. In any case it is a "punishment" commensurate and appropriate to the "crime", and what better way to punish than growing the encyclopedia? Wnt (talk) 18:08, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

rollback

Just revert my edits where I messed up your comments...I inadvertently rolled you back twice.--MONGO 19:25, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Did you know we

have a stub for Libby Weaver? I suggested a merge, meant to do that much earlier. Dougweller (talk) 18:24, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Re: this

See the AN request and more details on this talk page thread. I agree that the renumbering was clumsy, and looking back on it, it would've been better to move the "old" archive under Archive (old) or something similar than to jostle everything around as I did. Sorry for the mess! ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 18:19, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

July 2014

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Media Viewer RfC case opened

You were recently recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Media Viewer RfC. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Media Viewer RfC/Evidence. Please add your evidence by July 26, 2014, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Media Viewer RfC/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. Before adding evidence please review the scope of the case. For the Arbitration Committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:10, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Refdesk qn - colour of osmium

I did some further research on this, but still have a question. Any chance you might be able to answer it? (It's under the same header for July 17.) Double sharp (talk) 13:54, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Latest stage of submission to the Speaker's Commission on Digital Democracy

Hello there. I thought I would drop you a note as you kindly took part in the first stage of the efforts to crowdsource a submission to the Speaker's Commission on Digital Democracy. The second stage is now live and can be seen here. It would be great if you could help with putting together the submission on the second theme, which relates to representation. Also, if you have any suggestions on how we can widen participation, that would be very helpful. Thanks again for all of your help. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 11:19, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Bet you thought you'd never get a barnstar from me, did you?

		The Original Barnstar
		Someone has passed along to me in a email the following words attributed to you, which is one of the smartest and best things I have heard this year: "Wikipedia is an effort to partially roll back the idea that the poor should be deprived even of their right to learn, receiving only as much knowledge as they can scrape together the money to buy." — If you said it, take a bow; if you didn't say it, take the credit. My best wishes to you. Though we frequently disagree on specifics, sometimes bitterly, I am coming to believe we see alike on The Big Issues. best, —Tim /// Carrite (talk) 15:43, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

---

Heh. This is a welcome surprise! :) Wnt (talk) 16:34, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

A barstar for you

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		For answering my question on Refdesk and finally completing my long search! Keresaspa (talk) 02:06, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Media Viewer RfC draft principles & findings

Hello. This is a courtesy note that the draft findings and principles in the Media Viewer RfC case have now been posted. The drafters of the proposed decision anticipate a final version of the PD will be posted after 11 August. You are welcome to give feedback on the workshop page. For the Committee, Lord Roem ~ (talk) 02:50, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

[David Webb - moved from top]

At last someone is showing some common sense re David Webb. If you really want to set the cat among the pigeons you might ask why this scumbag is considered "notable". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satpal_Ram stabbing a diner to death in a restaurant. Over the years these idiots have deleted almost all my amendments to it. A Baron VennerRoad (talk) 12:32, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

@VennerRoad: I assume you must have been editing as IP back then; I'm not sure which additions were yours. I see one big deletion that is hard to contest - Wikipedia policy definitely isn't going to support painting someone as a murderer based on a GeoCities user site. And you can't possibly expect an edit like [13] to stand - that's the article, not the talk page. I should add that when you edited my talk page, you left your comment at the top instead of the bottom; if I were a little less careful I could have missed it and never responded, because the convention is to put them at the bottom. I want you to seriously consider that you simply haven't learned enough about how Wikipedia works -- how to source your facts and write things the way they should be written. To do that it would be helpful to do some practice editing about a topic that you don't have such strong feelings about, so that you can feel comfortable backing off from any arguments that might arise. Until then, please, don't go running around calling people idiots. You'll piss people off and sooner or later you're bound to land at "WP:AN/I", which is a cattle chute with only one final destination no matter how honest your feelings. Like anything else on a computer, it works better to learn how to work Wikipedia first and then get frustrated with it. Wnt (talk) 14:02, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

@VennerRoad: On further examination, I see the situation is sticker. I was looking for what happened to the GeoCities site and I see that it is defunct, but searching for "flick-knife" I found the same name "satpalramisguilty" now at: http://www.satpalramisguilty.20m.com/ . I was going to look around your site for usable sources, but going to the site index I was hit by an antivirus warning (at http://www.satpalramisguilty.20m.com/ram_site_index.html ) that a "JS-site-redirector [Trj]" had been found. So I haven't gone through that as of yet. In any case, when you start putting your own site into articles as a reference, especially when it's a self-published reference in a BLP, you're seriously going to run into trouble on Wikipedia. See WP:COI. For a change like that you should propose it on the talk page and get another editor to do it, only I'm afraid in this case they really won't. If you're looking for more site traffic this is not a good way - getting the virus warning off your page is! The only way to make this argument in the article is to cut through all your text to the original source news articles. The good news is that I think there is a lot of room to expand on the anti-Satpal Ram side of things, and if done right the overall balance of the article can be improved. Wnt (talk) 14:13, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

A Baron VennerRoad (talk) 14:22, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

I wrote you a long reply and it has disappeared due to an edit conflict, so briefly...I set up the Ram site in 2001 to combat all the pernicious lies that have been spread about the case.

If you check old versions of the page you will find my corrections and the reverts they made. I didn't have an account then and don't know why I bother.

Everything about that case is lies, including the four citations at the bottom of the page now, lies.

I didn't brand Ram a murderer, the jury did that, and his conviction was held up twice on appeal and rejected by the CCRC.

The official documents on the site are far more reliable than left wing press reports, they include the Court Of Appeal transcripts.

Such is the bias of Wikipediots is that they have even removed my updates, like about Ram's recall to prison and his rearrest. He spent several more years in gaol.

These people are not interested in the truth.

Tell me by the way how this thug is "notable" while David Webb is not?

Thanks for your interest.

A Baron VennerRoad (talk) 14:24, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

You don't have to lose your work to an edit conflict! The edit conflict screen has a copy of your text in one of the windows; just follow the instructions. (Personally I find it easier to go back one page, copy my text from the usual edit window, press the section edit link from my history sidebar, and paste it in there, but whatever works for you) I hope this doesn't cause another edit conflict........ Wnt (talk) 14:28, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Another couple of points, you should not get a virus warning off the Ram site but you can use the Archived version if you want, on the Wayback Machine.

Also, I have been researching in the British Library since 1988 so I know how to do it and to get reliable sources and information.

The simple fact is that a lot of what is published about cases like that is simply lies, and it doesn't come simply from friends of people like Ram but from the likes of Amnesty International, Reprieve and other agenda-driven special interest groups.

A Baron VennerRoad (talk) 14:31, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

This was a decent editorial citing a good primary source about the recall to gaol. You're definitely good at writing and sourcing, so you should be able to succeed with Wikipedia once you do it the right way. But for Wikipedia the thing they're always yammering for is secondary sources, news articles ... so as good as this is I'd be more comfortable if I had a non-editorial news story about the parole violation and this hilarious argument over whether he can collect a government settlement while living as a fugitive. There ought to be something though, I just haven't even started looking yet. Wnt (talk) 14:36, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

To give an idea of how aggravating Wikipedia can be: another copy I found of your site includes a copy of an article from the Scotsman. [14] This article is exactly what I want. However, WP:EL is dead set against me citing a "pirate" copy of a news article; besides, I should give the reader a way to verify it is genuine. I went to the Scotsman web site but although I get search results back to 2002 I don't get this one. [15]. I even went to Internet Archive Wayback, [16] but as usual that's worthless - it's a page of 2014 news, because all the images aren't even there, and I have no idea what the original URL was to look more specifically. Anyway, I think the key thing with articles like this is to throw whatever you actually have at it, no matter how minor, and hope that as the data builds up something will pop out that helps you find the rest. Wnt (talk) 15:06, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)Wnt, remember that technically, you don't need to have an on-line version of the article to use it as a reference IF you've got full information about the source (newspaper, date published, section and page, etc). You might check if someone who's got some of the Wikipedia Library accounts could find something for you. My watchlist has a message at the top talking about new resources available, including a newspaper database that might help. HighBeam may also help out there. Even if you don't have access, you can probably ask someone who does (sorry, I don't have anything) to e-mail a copy of the article to confirm the info. Ravensfire (talk) 15:20, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Module:Highlight

Thanks for that effort, back in February. Lua's regex-like language doesn't have the | operator, or anything to replace it, right? So pages can only be previewed for one phrase or pattern at a time? I'm looking to highlight multiple phrases on a page. (Mediawiki is no help so far ... my bugzilla request has "low" priority.) - Dank (push to talk) 14:22, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

@Dank: There are a lot of ways to skin the cat here, but what I've focused on first is whether we can get full Javascript like regex searching for Lua, at [17]. Doing that from scratch would not be fast and would not be easy! But I'd like to scout out a path in that direction. Meanwhile though, I see now the immediate problem with that module is much simpler; I just need to come up with a way to pass in multiple patterns. Wnt (talk) 14:34, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Fantastic, thanks for working on that. Yeah, there are a lot of things that would work ... what I've got now at User:Dank/rollyourown is nice because it uses Mediawiki functions, which I assume will be faster when I've got a truckload of strings to check, and because I like the popup-on-hover feature. That code includes the function mw.util.$content.highlightText, which takes a single string as an argument, but within that string, it uses spaces to delimit the arguments that are passed to some other function (presumably) and highlights any of those arguments on any page (for the user only, it doesn't actually make changes to a page). It works great ... except that a space is a bad choice for an argument delimiter, since that makes it impossible to search for and highlight a two-word phrase. I don't know how to get at the code in highlightText ... if I could, I'd ask for a new function (in Mediawiki or not) that gets rid of the line that parses the input string into a character array, because if I could pass it a character array, I'd be golden. - Dank (push to talk) 15:05, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I remember we had a split in purpose from the beginning - the Lua was to avoid people having to do custom javascript or to make something to show other people, but the javascript would be expected to have more raw power and versatility. I've neglected these topics lately... I'm finding some things like that the editor (and in particular the "script error" simply does not work at all on Firefox now). And that I still have a long way to go when navigating gerrit/git. But I did see mw.util.$content at [18], and some version (I don't know if it's the most recent for sure) of the highlightText at [19] with the infamous split-on-space at line 12. The Lua requests board is the wrong place, but there's actually no right place I know of on Wikipedia to ask for Javascript help, so you might want to see there if some of those folks (several of which are very active in updating the site software) can provide a fix or suggest a workaround. Wnt (talk) 16:03, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Will do! - Dank (push to talk) 16:23, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Could I ask one more thing? My code looks amateurish without an array to hold the data, but I don't know lua to fix it. My script is getting an enthusiastic reception (see for instance Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Kangana Ranaut/archive1, at the end), which is nice considering it doesn't do anything yet :) Here's my test script, User:Dank/wishywashy.js:

if (mw.config.get( 'wgAction' ) === 'view')
mw.loader.using(['jquery.highlightText', 'jquery.tipsy'], function() {
    mw.util.$content.highlightText(' wishy washy');
    $('.highlight').tipsy({
        title: function() { 
            if ($(this).text()==='wishy') returntext = '"Wishy" is a very silly word; don\'t use it.';
            else if ($(this).text()==='washy') returntext = '"Washy" is even worse.';
            return returntext;
        }
    });
});

I want to start off defining a character array with 4 elements (in this case: 'wishy', '"Wishy" is a very silly word; don\'t use it.', 'washy', '"Washy" is even worse.'), then iterate through that appropriately in highlightText and tipsy. I'm sure it's simple, but so am I, when it comes to code. - Dank (push to talk) 11:18, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you say Lua then show me Javascript/jQuery. There are lots of sources about setting up arrays in Javascript - here's one, no particular recommendation for it. (I'm not so good at Javascript that I'd suggest code without actually trying it though!) Wnt (talk) 11:49, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Here's pseudocode ... no problem if you don't want to give this a shot, I'll ask around. I hate coding with a passion. - Dank (push to talk) 13:13, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

var phrases = {'wishy': '"Wishy" is a very silly word; don\'t use it.', 'washy': '"Washy" is even worse.'};
var argstring = '';
for (var i=0; i<phrases.length; ++i) { argstring = argstring + ' ' + (some function that picks out the keys (ids) in "phrases", one by one) }
if (mw.config.get( 'wgAction' ) === 'view')
mw.loader.using(['jquery.highlightText', 'jquery.tipsy'], function() {
    mw.util.$content.highlightText(argstring);
    $('.highlight').tipsy({
        title: function() { returntext = phrases.getElementById($(this).text()); }
            return returntext;
        }
    });
});

Got the answer, script works fine, now just waiting for an improved highlightText. - Dank (push to talk) 00:21, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Right to remember

Rather than clogging up Jimbo's talk page, I've replied here. It isn't Gerry Hutch causing the problem in a Google search, other users are agreed on this. As I've said, the list of living people mentioned in the current version other than Hutch is:

• Mike Tyson: Why he would want to block an obscure Wikipedia article averaging 25 views a day is a mystery, and he is not producing the "results removed" message anyway. Only European citizens can make these requests.
• Jim Sheridan, the well-known Irish film director. Not producing the "results removed" request.
• Alan Devine: Irish actor who once portrayed Hutch on screen. Not producing the "results removed" request.
• Felix McKenna: chief of the Criminal Assets Bureau until 2006. He is producing the "results removed" message on google.co.uk and google.ie.

So McKenna is the only name that makes sense, even if he did not initiate the request personally. From the Key personnel list at Global Risk Solutions, here is my list for a "results removed" message on Google;

• Arthur "Kip" Radigan Principal - yes.
• Vincent Levito CPA, CFE - yes.
• David L. Huff ESQ
• Steve Gosser - yes.
• Ross Gagliano CFE - yes.
• Anthony Satira ACA, CGA -yes.
• Doug Radigan ACA -yes.
• Falin McMellon CGA, CFGA, WRS - yes.
• Douglas Maestas AIC, AIS, AINS, CGA - yes.
• Adam Gutman - yes.
• Chris Faiella CCST CCE CHFI - yes.
• Michael J. Perullo CPA - yes.
• Anthony Campo ACA, CGA - yes.
• David Coffman CGA - yes.
• Mark Lowy - yes.
• Bruce Edmund JD - yes.

Can you see a pattern emerging here?--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 10:47, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

@Ianmacm: But after doing these searches, did your controls stay negative? Still no message when searching for Mike Tyson and the other negatives? Because like I said, my problem was that at some point I started getting the message for the controls, making me unsure if any of my results were really "yes". Wnt (talk) 10:49, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I also did sample searches for "Tony Smith", "Joseph Williams" and "Richard Johnson", and these did not produce the "results removed" message. This suggests that the message is not being produced automatically for all names in Europe.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 10:58, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

From what I have tested, any search using the name of a "non-public" person seems to return the "result removed" message on Google. For instance try some random names such as "Dan Milford" or "Alan Becker". So it could just be a standard message that always shows when googling a random name. The sample searches you mention ("Tony Smith", "Joseph Williams" and "Richard Johnson") just happen to be "public" figures -- in fact all 3 have wikipedia articles; in that case the message does not appear. Bottom line the names from the Global Risk Solutions list could just fall under some "non-public" name rule that always triggers the message and might not be linked to a specific removal request. Of course this doesn't solve the mystery, just deepens it... Dawansv (talk) 23:10, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Awww hell, I just found one clear factor: I'm getting the notice when I run names in quotes, but no notice when I run the same searches without quotes! That includes for your "public figures". Wnt (talk) 23:45, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

• As an aside, the coverage of this in today's British newspapers is pretty poor.[20] They are far more interested in whether a monkey can own the copyright on a selfie than in whether Google and faceless bureaucrats can block access to non-defamatory Wikipedia articles.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 11:49, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Really, that may be the more important issue; I'd have brought it up myself but there's only so much I should post about at once... While this "right to be forgotten" is a stupid and terrible thing, it is so impossible to implement that it ought to tear itself apart. So far it hasn't even tried to touch Wikipedia directly. Copyright, on the other hand, is already implemented and already deprives us of most of the content we could carry. There are a near-infinite number of inconsistent court decisions about it - anyone who claims that putting a satellite out into orbit and having it shoot photos of the Earth is creativity worthy of copyright might very well claim that handing a monkey a camera gives you copyright also; and if handing a monkey a camera gives you copyright, why can't your cell phone manufacturer claim copyright of any photo you shoot with it? After all, the poor or working-class consumer is less than a monkey - if you doubt that, contrast the popularity of government funded retirement homes for research chimps with the reception the same proposal would receive if lower-class humans were the beneficiary! It is a "sweat of the brow" view of copyright that would greatly increase its scope, eventually to the Holy Grail level of assigning copyright on every PD photo in Commons to whoever snapped the photo or made the scan. So the media's priority on the issue is actually quite correct. Wnt (talk) 16:12, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

The media is still fascinated by the monkey selfie. Yes it is important, but Gerry Hutch has been removed from Google's European search engine results for reasons that we cannot fathom or appeal against. Whatever happened to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in particular Article 19, which says "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." I want my rights back.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:29, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, the problem is, so far I haven't even seen the evidence that this result has been removed. At least when I do it, the search on www.google.co.uk produces a message that results could have been removed, if I search in quotation marks, but not if I don't search in quotation marks, but even the search in quotation marks with "Wikipedia" added pulls out the Wikipedia article as the top hit, 'censored' or not. I don't know if Google is still setting up to do it, still arguing it, or what. OTOH the claim that google.org would be exempt while www.google.co.uk wouldn't seems very hard for me to picture, so maybe people with IPs geolocating in the UK do have it censored, and the rest of us only get the message while trying, in vain, to figure out what's going on. All I know is that so far there isn't a single statement that I or anyone else has made about this issue that I actually have any confidence is true... Wnt (talk) 18:21, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

As Jimbo and yourself said, the amount of work required to prove that certain search terms are leading to a block is massive and infeasible. Let's be honest, if Google had not sent the WMF this, we wouldn't even know by now, because Gerry Hutch was previously an obscure article and off the beaten track (average 25 views per day in July 2014). Nevertheless, Google did send the message to the WMF, and presumably someone filled in this form. It is reasonably certain that Hutch did not initiate the request himself, although the system is so silly that it is hard to be 100% sure.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:55, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

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Media Viewer RfC arbitration case - extension of closure dates

Hello, you are receiving this message because you have commented on the Media Viewer RfC arbitration case. This is a courtesy message to inform you that the closure date for the submission of evidence has been extended to 17 August 2014 and the closure date for workshop proposals has been extended to 22 August 2014, as has the expected date of the proposed decision being posted. The closure dates have been changed to allow for recent developments to be included in the case. If you wish to comment, please review the evidence guidance. For the Arbitration Committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:00, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of "Mark Marek"

A tag has been placed on "Mark Marek" requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G6 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is an orphaned disambiguation page which either

• disambiguates two or fewer extant Wikipedia pages and whose title ends in "(disambiguation)" (i.e., there is a primary topic); or
• disambiguates no (zero) extant Wikipedia pages, regardless of its title.

Under the criteria for speedy deletion, such pages may be deleted at any time. Please see the disambiguation page guidelines for more information.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. --Animalparty-- (talk) 06:30, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't see why we need to pick which of two people with the same name gets the redirect, but since I'm forced to, I'll point to the one I was interested in. This is not an improvement, though. Wnt (talk) 09:36, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

James Foley article

I am a PhD student at UofT in political science, so I am well versed in sources. My first source states quite clearly that Foley worked for USAID "I got to know Jim Foley in 2009 when both of us worked on USAID-funded development projects in Baghdad." http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/james-foley-1973-2014_803537.html. The second source quite clearly shows that USAID fomented rebellion in Cuba "the perfect excuse” to groom Cubans for anti-government activist" and compared USAID with the CIA "Bolton, who once worked at USAID, supports U.S. plots to undermine the Cuban government and hopes the CIA is conducting more professional operations" http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/08/04/another-usaid-cuba-spy-program-exposed. Another source I was about to post more directly compares USAID with the CIA "Is USAID acting too much like the CIA?" http://www.abc2news.com/nct/video-is-usaid-acting-too-much-like-the-cia. My sources directly support what I have written, and all of my sources are legitimate American news sources, so my edits should not have been deleted.

Nobody knows if your credentials are real; we don't take ID cards here. The way to prove you are educated to us is not to frame sentences like "In 2006, Foley worked for US AID in Iraq, US AID operatives spied on,and attempted to foment rebellion in, Cuba." [21] When you have a defective sentence like that, any interpretation (such as "Foley ... spied on and attempted to foment rebellion") contributes to the meaning.

More to the point, there is defective logic here. Just picture if I wrote "Pope Francis worked for the Catholic Church, the Catholic church has molested children and covered up the evidence." Not a fair sentence for a biography!!! Just as the Catholic Church has generally disavowed the child-molesting, USAID generally distances itself from this sort of political interference. Plus, that is an uncharitable characterization of their activities in Cuba, which were essentially peaceful propaganda so far as I recall; I tend to be very critical of many intelligence-related stunts but this one seemed innocuous to my mind.

Plus there is the procedural problem that you double-reverted on an article clearly marked to revert only once. Wnt (talk) 01:17, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Media Viewer RfC arbitration case - motion to suspend case

You are receiving this message as you have either commented on a case page or are named as a party to the case. A motion has been proposed to suspend the Media Viewer RfC arbitration case for a maximum of 60 days due to recent developments. If you wish to comment regarding the motion there is a section on the proposed decision talk page for this. For the Arbitration Committee, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs). Message delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 02:33, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Torrent link for YouTube video at Foley article

Please don't add torrent links. It's never been agreed we can use them, they worry readers, they generally need an external application, and a lot of them aren't stable. Editors also don't know what size it will be. And it's bloody slow too, I'm waiting ages to get it. Ah, got it. And that isn't copyvio? (side issue, the main issue is the torrent and need for a client) Dougweller (talk) 17:05, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Surely you can't think it's a copyvio - multiple sources complain that ISIS disseminated the video. I would welcome a stable HTML replacement for the torrent, but I had some trouble with links that no longer function. At least for me the download seemed quite fast. My feeling is that in this day and age expecting to access the Internet without a bittorrent client is like trying to do everything with Gopher after HTML came out. There's just a point where you have to recognize it's standard software, and I think we've reached that. Wnt (talk) 17:10, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

So they recorded Obama? In any csae the consensus there is don't add it. Please remove it. You can't just set a new standard on your own. Dougweller (talk) 17:19, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Say what? I'm not setting a new standard. There's no "standard" against citing magnets. In fact - as demonstrated here = magnet:?xt=urn:btih:VFFKTDZLZIZYDUVOOMFS5MJD2JCNC4IR&dn=James%20Foley%20beheaded%20journalist.mp4&tr=udp%3a%2f%2ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3a80&tr=udp%3a%2f%2ftracker.publicbt.com%3a80&tr=udp%3a%2f%2ftracker.istole.it%3a6969&tr=udp%3a%2f%2fopen.demonii.com%3a1337 = Wikipedia automatically blue-links them so you can click in your browser, which normally is auto-configured to take it straight to the torrent client. So this is part of our routine site software already. As for the recording of Obama, that's a U.S. government work and public domain, obviously. Wnt (talk) 17:22, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

The part showing the decapitated body of Foley in "Message to America" is pretty tasteless, and virtually all media outlets have declined to show this. There was a debate at LiveLeak about the suitability of this type of propaganda video.[22]--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:59, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

LiveLeak was the site I'd intended to cite when I found the link invalid. I was deeply disappointed with them for this, but it was clear from the articles that this was an internal choice rather than driven by a legal claim over copyright or law. But LiveLeak is, ultimately, an entertainment site. Here on Wikipedia, we need to research to the bottom of the issue. However "tasteless" it might be to link to a video that shows one picture of Foley's corpse that other news outlets blur out, we need to balance that against the far greater impact that failure to discuss the video has had on our culture and foreign policy. By not calling ISIS out on their little magic trick, we have encouraged a dialog that says "Oh my goodness, we must not help the thousands of women and children stranded on a mountaintop waiting to be butchered, lest we annoy the great and powerful ISIS!" When in reality I think Foley was already dead when those airstrikes were authorized, with ISIS just waiting for an excuse to play one of their little backup speeches followed by a shot of a head severed from Foley after he died for some other reason. We don't neutralize ISIS propaganda by ignoring it; we neutralize it by understanding it. Wnt (talk) 18:07, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support, Regarding the OP, motivational disaproval of the video incident, yes. Murky legal perspectives, dubious educational qualities, disconstraintive developmental projections based on those principle features, questionable stability on availability. There are videos around, don't pick me up the wrong way, it's a horrid incident, But there are murder videos around of worse torturing than this and we are not rushing to get them up into print, are we? I've seen official US pictures of Jane/John Does, but displaying that sort of work has a different sort of relevance, and its origins are clearly defined. I've no interest in examining a beheading, or inviting others to. Sure, there could be some excuse to further examine that video in search of clues, but we aren't supposed to determine that by referening external resources before debating the transmission method? This media fails to establish notability. ~ R.T.G 23:00, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

censored & sanitized

Hey Wnt, from now on even the discussion is censored & sanitized! Sophie --79.223.11.1 (talk) 08:37, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Case Opened: Banning Policy

You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Banning Policy. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Banning Policy/Evidence. Please add your evidence by September 16, 2014, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Banning Policy/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Seddon ^talk 12:33, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Unbanning

I've been released from my ban. Feel free to help me with Austin Tice. I'm going to stay away from Sotloff for awhile.MeropeRiddle (talk) 22:39, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

To be honest, I'm really not that interested in working on the details of these articles. I opposed your ban and this censorship so that I wouldn't have to go through all this data myself! I really ought to focus first on getting better coverage of the real horrors where ISIS is concerned. Wnt (talk) 02:40, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Files for deletion

See Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2014 September 5#Steven Sotloff. Another victim of this madness. ~Technophant (talk) 08:47, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia being half nuts about NFCC files isn't actually new. There is a need to ensure that the encyclopedia is redistributable without being caught up in somebody's copyright crusade. I think the ISIS tape is likely free-licensed or public domain, but saying that a lot isn't actually a substitute for proving it. If we could prove it we could legitimately host an intact copy of the video, not one scene, which would actually be useful for people to analyze rather than merely decorating the article, but unless we're doing that I'll be content to reference it. Wnt (talk) 12:32, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Talk page section removal

I typically do revert talk page trolling/bragging by banned users like Russavia. If that's not what you wanted, I apologize, and I will restore the section if you like. NawlinWiki (talk) 12:41, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

@NawlinWiki: Well, I don't usually delete non-bot comments, especially not interesting ones, so yes, I'd prefer you restore it as it was. Wnt (talk) 12:43, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

OK, here is the Russavia section for your reading pleasure. NawlinWiki (talk) 12:47, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Message from Russavia

That blocked editor isn't me, but I am pissing myself because of the collateral damage. Ask @Dougweller: on what basis it was determined that the person they have blocked is me. If it is the fact that the person inserted a name that has has 307,000 hits on Google into an article on someone else who was beheaded, then the evidence is pretty fucking shaky. But now that I know what it takes to have someone blocked as me, let's see how many long-term editors who should have been booted long ago I can get blocked for being sockpuppets of me. Do you have anyone in mind? :>

And do you know the worst thing Wnt, this poor sod is going to become notable because his article was censored on WP, rather than being dealt with via normal community processes. I'm pissing myself at watching the entire OS team build a big fucking hole for themselves, because defending a pisspoor decision by one of their own at any cost is more important than anything else. These are the people who will lead to the destruction of WP; not people like myself.

Oh, and there's this too. It appears @NawlinWiki: has based his information on this comment to him from me on Commons. Given the guy has not a single clue, he will never want to RfA again on Commons given his total and utter cluelessness. :)

Well as you can see, Canens doesn't feel like answering any questions. He's playing the usual tactics of staying silent. If you are wondering what he revdelled it was me telling him that I have contacted the media about his abuse of oversight. The person's name wasn't mentioned at all. It's not so much the deletion of the article, but the outright abuse of OS by Canens which is a fucking disgrace. 190.92.46.158 (talk) 07:41, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

There are plenty of people who don't agree with what's going on here in relation to this mess, so there's plenty of people who know about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:AbuseFilter/history/58/diff/prev/12792. It's no secret, believe you me. To even prevent discussion on the person in question is disgraceful. I am dumbfounded that people are not speaking up and questioning what they are doing amongst themselves. They actually are engaging in censorship!! Now, can I ask one thing, if you have messages for me in future which relate to en.wp please leave me messages at User:Russavia/messages. I will put it on my watchlist; I'll respond back here if needed.

By the way, did you see that they have decided after all the blocked editor isn't me. By the way, there's a nice little easter egg that's been left for a specific group of editors on English Wikipedia....when they see it they will shit bricks lol. Best, 151.237.156.42 (talk) 12:10, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Note: Russavia is, yes, banned on en.wikipedia, but for the crime of "creating drama" by commissioning the artist Pricasso to post a video of his rather remarkable method of painting portraits.^[23] See the section above. Meanwhile... at least this time I reread this to the end. HOWEVER, the page Russavia linked (User:Russavia/messages) is not merely deleted but blocked so that I could not even create a new one. Which is interesting - I didn't realize admins would go to that length to keep a banned poster from receiving messages. Wnt (talk) 13:04, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I wasn't involved in the Pricasso discussion or the Russavia ban, but I have read it and I think Ponyo summarized it best: "Russavia has crossed the line from questioning those who have perceived power to actually creating drama and purposeful disruption in an attempt to mock and shame. It's unacceptable." I would say he has continued that with, among other things, his "nice little easter egg" (vandalism of two userbox templates, since reverted). NawlinWiki (talk) 13:23, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Wnt, here's the easter egg i left for them -- http://www.peeep.us/1c039215 and http://www.peeep.us/5c8abe02 -- that's not vandalism. That's a statement of fact, in addition to clearly mocking, which if course they bring upon themselves. :)

Email me champ, I've just re-enabled it. 151.237.156.42 (talk) 13:50, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, actually, that pretty much is vandalism. Still, the response of literally oversighting the history of the template [24], a file that would just about never be looked at, in order to conceal a name that is so widely disseminated in the free-world media... well, the whole reason why vandalism is wrong is that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with an educational mission that vandalism disrupts. But if Wikipedia's foremost purpose were to skew and distort the news and "protect" the reader from the facts, then vandalism would no longer actually be wrong. Actions like these make that distinction ever less clear. But to be clear: my top priority here is to figure out how much censorship is going on, how it is being done, and stop it; taunting people is just an indulgence. Wnt (talk) 14:18, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

To answer your question from my Commons talk,

20:32 . . NawlinWiki (Talk | contribs) protected "User:Russavia/messages"‎ ‎[create=sysop] (indefinite) ‎({{pp-create}})

That was done 90 minutes ago, almost immediately after I posted the message before. So they are obviously watching this. You better be careful, they might call you a meatpuppet or some shit -- or Nawlinwiki might block you as my sock and say that I was messaging myself. :>

As your message to NawlinWiki on his talk page, he's found this discussion because I purposely pinged him before. Can you ask him why he marked that editor as my sock, it might be interesting to get his answer on that. Particularly as he didn't like my trout slap. He does say on his userpage he is open to being slapped with a trout when he acts in a dickish way. I call blocking someone because of some "SECRET" oversightable information, and then immediately CONFIRMING that they are one of my socks, a big dick move. 178.88.208.204 (talk) 14:05, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

The thing I'm still most interested in is whether you know a way to get any further information about what edit filters exist than that one. Not being inclined to trust such mechanisms in the first place, and seeing reason to think it is being used to censor content, by this point I just wish someone would send Wikileaks and Cryptome copies of the whole edit filter database so the world would know what Wikipedia censors. The one filter you cited is interesting (though I can't even view that), but there are specific things I wish I could query for to see how far the censorship goes. Wnt (talk) 14:18, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Gender neutral

Thanks Wnt, for accurately clarifying the meaning of my ANI statement, mentioned at the Gender Gap Taskforce :) GoodDay (talk) 00:22, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Wargames

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/jul/08/wikipedia-censorship-seth-finkelstein#start-of-comments — Preceding unsigned comment added by MeropeRiddle (talk • contribs) 12:09, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

This is already covered in Kidnapping of David Rohde. However, note that that article ends with a statement by Jimbo Wales that "We were really helped by the fact that it hadn’t appeared in a place we would regard as a reliable source." There has clearly been a massive extension between that point and the one where it is deemed improper to include the name of a person whom reputable newspapers throughout the world have covered in depth. Wnt (talk) 12:22, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Wnt don't tell me you bought the nonsense stated by @Jimbo Wales: when he said "We were really helped by the fact that it hadn’t appeared in a place we would regard as a reliable source." The fact is Wnt (and User:MeropeRiddle), it WAS reported by a reliable source.

Let's look at this unreliable source. Pajhwok Afghan News was founded in 2003 with assistance from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) through the UN's International Organization for Migration. By 2009, the news agency was the largest in Afghanistan. The director of the new agency, Danish Karokhel, was in 2008 given an CPJ International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Pajhwok isn't just one of the most reliable sources originating in Afghanistan, but is probably the MOST reliable source of news eminating from Afghanistan since 2004. Now, when Jimmy says "reliable source" he of course must be talking about Murdoch media BWAHAHAHAHA.

Jimmy lost of lot of respect in my eyes the day I read that nonsense of his in the media. And from the above you can understand why. 109.185.4.109 (talk) 05:20, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

I did not want to come out and accuse someone of lying based on my non-knowledge of the initial media reports; what matters is that, truth or lie, we can't allow an exclusion based on unreliability to establish a precedent against reliable sources. And there is a related phenomenon, just as ugly, at work on Wikipedia: the footprint of Britain here also means that there is a strong prejudice against "wogs" of all varieties. If you cited a fact from that source today, even in a non-controversial context, there's a real risk you'd get the same reaction. There are crusaders who run around trying to get articles about real towns in India and Pakistan deleted because they claim it makes the encyclopedia look bad because the people there tend to say "beautiful" or name a leading family more often than others. Even people who don't buy into it end up preferring newspapers from the US and UK routinely because they don't want to deal with a negative reaction to local sources. But on consideration, maybe these two phenomena aren't all that separate after all. Maybe the British prejudice against publications from the region dates back to the occupation of India, where indeed their version of D-notices and DA-notices may have made it very unsafe for British newspapers to repeat things said in the Indian press without running them through censors first. Wnt (talk) 13:50, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

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Fanny Chmelar

Hi, I have taken a cautious approach towards The Chase (UK game show) gameshows references about the person because of the WP:BLP policy. I recently dealt with a similar one relating to Drew Pickles in the Rugrats, meaning that I might come from a different viewpoint than yours. I do not believe that this is about censorship, but the lack of significance. However, if you think it is notable then such incident should belong to The Chase (UK game show): that is probably the article that is most relevant. What do you think? --Marianian^(talk) 17:26, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, the vandalism is actually a clue. When a whole stream of people come to an article to add something - even if it is in a juvenile way - that is evidence that the incident is notable for that person. Like it, hate it, we didn't make the world, so don't blame us for it. We just have to field it. And if we field it properly, we can make it so that people see no, it's not a big deal, and at the same time, send the vandals off to watch the original YouTube video and have a laugh instead of entertaining themselves with our site. We should also take a step back and remember, this isn't actually a negative thing about Fanny Chmelar! What it means is that her sports achievements are so widely known that they make suitable material for a quiz show, that's the bottom line. If you're not going to respond "harshly", the easiest thing would be for me to just try an edit with the news story and YouTube video, trying to be reasonable about it; or I could propose on the talk page. (I don't know if adding some extra fluff like [25] would be any improvement) Oh, I should add that the biggest change I'd like to see is something incidental but relevant: I think we could alter Template:IPA to provide mouseover letter by letter so that you can look at what "x" is pronounced like. I'm still thinking that over because we have some huge IPA module already under development and I haven't honestly figured out what it's for yet! Wnt (talk) 17:43, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

2013 Islamic State kidnapping of British aid worker

The article Draft:2013 Islamic State kidnapping of British aid worker is created and ready to go however User talk:G S Palmer is wanting community consensus approval for this article to be included. I emailed the functionaries 2 days ago for their approval in publishing this draft but have not received a reply. I started a discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#2013 Islamic State kidnapping of British aid worker.~Technophant (talk) 20:49, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

ISIS

I saw your edit summary about "History" and can understand your frustration. Have you read the Talk page discussions on this? Please see here in particular, and especially my para before my suggested reordering of the sections (Suggestion No. 3). I have a good deal to say there about the "History" section and handling the history of this group, and elsewhere in recent discussions on the Talk page. --P123ct1 (talk) 17:16, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I was thinking about it, and I think we have an even bigger conceptual problem: we're editing the wrong article. ISIS as an organization is a thing of the past - this really is The Islamic State, in the sense that the leader of the organization has now styled himself Caliph and claims the loyalty of Muslims. The concept that any Muslim, even Sunni Muslim, submitting within territory he claims to any other leader but him is an apostate, and that apostates should have their heads cut off, seems to be central to its new philosophy. But I really don't understand these things! Still, just as a Wikipedia-worker, I'm thinking that a new draft article for The Islamic State should be started, which refers in summary style only to the past history, including the ISIS era. Wnt (talk) 18:29, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Have you not seen the discussion about that? There have been suggestions already about splitting the article into State and Organization, but no conclusion has been reached. In the meantime we have to work with the article as it is. Perhaps you would like to add your comments to that discussion here. It really is worth looking at past discussions on the Talk page. --P123ct1 (talk) 19:16, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Hmmmm, I have a hard time seeing this as the same issue... Wnt (talk) 19:41, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Foley Video

I'm writing you on your talk page because the discussion at VPP has petered out and I was not sure you monitored that section anymore.

I've finished my draft to change the James Foley (journalist) section on "Beheading" in this subpage: User:RoyGoldsmith/Foley. I plan to substitute this text and associated footnotes for the first two paragraphs of that section. The link to the actual video is reference 2 in the note. I have also somewhat expanded the description of the beheading in the article's text.

If you get the chance, please read this draft and make any comments you want. I will monitor this talk page section. I plan to make the substitution before the end of the weekend. Thanks. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 08:00, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

@RoyGoldsmith: It's hard to comment on this change because I'm not totally sure what it replaces (I assume the first two paragraphs, so it is a net 1-paragraph addition?). It would be best for you to change your draft to the original text, then revert so that a diff can be viewed. In general, I'm all for adding sources, all against taking sources out. I don't really like "Foley then recites a long message of regret" seems to give an impression it's his feeling rather than a script he's very likely forced to read. Also, "The actual beheading shown in the video clip takes place in less than ten seconds although the entire recording uses over four and a half minutes" seems absurdly wordy because it's focused only on the one narrow issue; I'd rather see something that describes the entire anatomy of the video (introduction, recited speech, putative decapitation/fade to black, photo of the body, and threat) or else just shorten it. Wnt (talk) 10:52, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your time. Yes, I added significantly to the details of the video between the third sentence of the current article (ends with ...filmed in several takes) and the fourth (It does not show the actual moment...). That accounts for the new paragraph. The diff between my draft and the current article is here. I have added a bunch of new and improved references but have not removed any.

I did list the five sections of the video: Obama's speech, Foley's message, the threat, the "beheading" and Sotloff. I too was concerned about the "recites a long message of regret" passage in my draft but I couldn't find enough reliable sources to stick in the part about that he's only reading a script. Most RS's gave one or two sentences of Foley's speech verbatim and let it go at that. I felt that was too long for an encyclopedic summary so I substituted "a long message of regret." I even was worried about the word "recites", rather than a more neutral word like "delivers". Can you think of something better for that sentence?

Because I didn't want to interpret the video (as a primary source) and because of WP:WEIGHT, this made my text somewhat disjointed. But I had to go where a majority of RS's led me. Most sources (and virtually all news coverage) played down the actual beheading as something their viewers might find offensive. But I did find several sources about the times of the video, so I included the "The actual beheading..." sentence. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 01:36, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm uncomfortable interpreting the video itself in my editing. The actual video is a primary source and must be edited according to our NOR policy. For example, in your revision you say "the video appeared to show the beginning of Foley's decapitation" (my emphasis). I checked the two references provided (Rukmuni and SITE) and neither implied that the decapitation was anything but factual. Have I missed something in the citations? Also, the references do not say anything about the "beginning" of Foley's decapitation. Again, what is your secondary source, not including the actual video, for either appeared or beginning?

In my modification, I say (about the actual beheading) that "It does not show the actual moment of Foley's decapitation". But this is not new; it's currently in the article and was added by someone else sometime ago. In my opinion, WP:NOR prevents us from using anything that was shown on the video unless it's corroborated by secondary sources. I think that we could have used the exact spoken words in the video for direct quotations (even if SITE had not provided us with a transcription). But you can't quote a visual image and, if you say "it's obvious that so-and-so happened in such-and-such a way" as shown by the video (or any picture) then that's interpretation of primary sources. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 09:28, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm not entirely clear what you're referring to in the second paragraph. I'll admit "appeared" is a little edgy, but sources like [26][27][28] were also skeptical. I didn't think using the word was going too far. But ultimately what I care about is preserving the sources and fundamental facts; these little wording issues aren't so important. Wnt (talk) 13:26, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Susan Lindauer

Thanks for reverting me. I seem to have somehow bypassed the edit conflict screen, and accidentally overwrote a bunch of comments. Good catch. Ivanvector (talk) 18:36, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

RfC

That was an excellent post you made at the RfC. You are absolutely right about all those issues, and you're the first I've seen on these articles to really talk about it. Well said. Can you work up something you can put in the articles about that? I think readers are going to want to know about that. It'd be nice to see that in articles. What do you think? Thanks. SW3 5DL (talk) 22:45, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Re [29] - Well, on Wikipedia I can only follow the sources, not lead them, and the media is, well, only barely past the point where they realize Ebola could become airborne. And I'm not in Liberia, so when I read news articles about, say, people breaking into Ebola clinics to steal bloody bedsheets I know something smells, but I can't call them on it. It's possible I might add something here or there, but I can't use Wikipedia for philosophical speculations. I was pushing things already just to speculate on future developments in regard to how our articles are likely going to end up being organized. Wnt (talk) 01:17, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Lua library to implement Javascript regexes

FYI: In case you want this, there's a PD lua script translated from python in apostata.web.fc2.com --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 11:09, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks!!! Wnt (talk) 12:02, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Molecular gyroscope lead image

Glad to see Template:Did you know nominations/Molecular gyroscope accepted! I think the discussion of which image(s) to use where was unresolved. Should the image with the m-methoxytrityls go into the lead? Or some other variant of it? Or some edits needed on the existing one with the concentric caged compounds? I'm having trouble following the other discussions to know which specific chemical is the one whose speed of rotation is the hook. DMacks (talk) 20:54, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, the problem is, neither of the two chemicals in the images actually spin that fast. That rate is the theoretical limiting rate for the rotor portion of the molecule if nothing interacted with it at all, but despite considerable progress, the existing molecules don't manage to keep it free of interaction completely. I really was never fond of trying to use that hook with one of the pictures; I didn't propose it. Wnt (talk) 03:14, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Now hold on, the hook is "...(pictured) can spin at 2,400,000,000,000 revolutions per second". But the pictured one isn't it? And "can" is just a hypothetical? And 2.4x10^12 isn't in the article at all? WTF is up with DYK process and WP:V? DMacks (talk) 03:48, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

It's a bit complicated because the free rotation can be derived as a component of the experimentally observed motion - my comments at the DYK explain it about as well as I understand it. One person there just really wanted to work the largest number into it, and the picture also, and ... well, they don't really line up. Wnt (talk) 05:11, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

DYK for Molecular gyroscope

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:02, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Your article is in the first place for DYK views this month, ~ R.T.G 22:18, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

I can only shake my head and note the above conversation. In the new social media the number of hits is everything, and a surprising degree of artistic license with headlines is obligatory, so the person who DYK'd this was doing it right... but I'm still not feeling the love for the new social media. Wnt (talk) 02:42, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

be warned

If you unhat this pseudo science it will be reported to WP:ANI based on Wikipedia:General Disclaimer μηδείς (talk) 20:36, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

See

This is basically Aspro's fault, but see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents μηδείς (talk) 21:23, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

LOL ... in the end it appears that everybody but non-admin refdesk regulars completely ignored the thread, letting it sit until it was auto-archived without making any comment on it at all. [30] I'm totally OK with that; the Refdesk can get by perfectly fine without knights riding in to the rescue. But from there and the original discussion at [31] I think a reasonably strong consensus agrees with my take on the matter. Wnt (talk) 02:39, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

DYK

I have a horrid suspicion that I sound passive-aggressive over the Internet and give you a kitten in recompense should that be true.

Panyd^{The muffin is not subtle} 17:41, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Not at all. I asked something you didn't have to answer, you did anyway, and it was interesting. :) Wnt (talk) 22:16, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

smooth smokes

Hi, regarding "I assume all the various tars and toxins and stink of it tends to self-limit consumption" -- the answer is, they would, at least to some extent, but the cigarette industry has developed sophisticated engineering of its product to mask harshness and keep the sensory characteristics from kicking in.

E.g. did you know that 90 percent of America's entire licorice supply is used as a cigarette sweetener? Menthol is an anesthetic and a cough suppressant. Various other additives, flavors; if you're interested, it's a long list and includes processes as well as substances. A good search term is "smooth smokes". Cloudjpk (talk) 06:37, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

That does seem interesting, but rather than sending me the data I'd far more appreciate it if you used it for article building. Currently cigarette additive redirects to a simple list; either you could add data like this to a preface there, or completely separate the two and make the redirect into a traditional non-list article. Liquorice doesn't actually match your statistic (maybe demand for tobacco use has fallen? Let's hope) but still, using an anti-asthma herbal medicine in this way is definitely interesting. Wnt (talk) 15:44, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Sure, I will try to add it to the article.

I checked my statistic (Stanford historian Robert_N._Proctor in his massive history of the tobacco industry) and it was the 1980s. So liquorice#Tobacco seems consistent and I bet you're right about why the decline! But of course 73% is still a surprising number, and yes, goes to the interesting questions of: why? why an anti-asthma herbal medicine? and why so much? Cloudjpk (talk) 02:02, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

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Hmmm, that's odd. I actually asked for something on the talk page rather than editing the article. Seems this is a 'warning', per "if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia...", yet is being delivered without any particular reason. I'm reminded of once when I was moving out of an apartment near a college, where local ordinance required landlords to notify tenants in advance of apartment showings, so every few days for six months they would leave every outbound tenant a stack of apartment showing notices for each of the next few days. Wnt (talk) 05:51, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

I just occasionally go through the page and talk page history and send out notifications to people who haven't gotten one yet. Just informational, not a warning or implication of any kind that you have failed to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia. — Strongjam (talk) 14:36, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Aggression and aggressors (moved from RD/H)

Greetings: I'm moved the off topic conversation that was started here this to your talk page:

The question started (copied from RD/H):

It looks like Portugal was created by the will of Ferdinand I of León and Castile in 1065, who carved out a province of Galicia in the west (setting part of the north-south boundary). The sons then turned on the one who held Galicia and partitioned it, though I'm not quite sure that's what set the northern border. The elongated north-south shape was from the Reconquista, a sort of international jihadist movement where foreign fighters poured in to combat the Muslims. See also History of Portugal (1139–1279). Wnt (talk) 14:22, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

This might be politically correct but please do not compare the people who fought the Muslim aggressors who had occupied Spain in 711 and the "international jihadist movement". For one thing the jihadists have killed more Muslims than they have killed supposed "Crusaders" and more Muslims than those "Crusaders" have ever killed. I know the BBC (an extremely high quality news outlet when it forgets about political correctness) likes to do that. In a documentary about Islam a few years ago on the World Service (radio) Owen Bennett-Jones compared the Knights of Malta who were resisting a Turkish attack to Al-Qaida. Lisa Jardine in an article on a completely unrelated art history subject casually mentioned the supposedly "unprovoked" attack of Charles V on Turkish Algiers. Unprovoked? The Turks had been waging aggressive war in the Mediterranean and in the Balkans for a few centuries. What were they doing before Vienna? Or did the Austrians resist Ottoman conquest in an "unprovoked" manner? Please. This is a reference desk. Let's refrain from politically correct asides and stick to facts. Contact Basemetal here 14:39, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, you're talking about a four century gap after the Umayyad conquest of Hispania. If a group of Native Americans ran into Indianapolis today and scalped the mayor for invading their lands, would you call that self defense? (That's only two centuries) In any case I was not really seeking to condone or condemn ancient events I little understand; the similarity of having a holy war backed largely by the migration of foreign adventurers looking to fight for their faith just struck me. Wnt (talk) 15:20, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

My answer:

I think your logic is shaky. Are you saying that if in X number of years aggression couldn't be reversed then it should stand and the definition of who's an aggressor and what's an aggression reversed? There had never ceased to be a state of war, at a more or less intense level, between Muslim and Christian Spain, for hundreds of years, all resulting from that original invasion of 711 and the decades that followed (which saw the Muslims even try to invade France in the 730s). (Similarly for the Balkans with the Turkish invasion.) The liberal logic never fails to puzzle me. Why don't you turn your logic around? If we're not entitled to think of the Muslims as the aggressors because they had invaded Hispania so long ago, why think of the Christians who were trying to reverse that original invasion as aggressors. It's been a very long time also. The comparison with a group of Native American citizens of the United States who would suddenly, without warning, run into an American city to commit murder and destruction is hardly appropriate. On other hand if say, a state of war had continuously existed between Mexico and the U.S. for hundreds of years over the loss of Mexican territory, and if 150 or 200 years after the fact the Mexicans finally managed to regain some of the territory they had lost you could hardly call them aggressors. On the condition that the relations between the two countries had never been normalized and that the action is an appropriate reaction to the original aggression. (Which means that it wouldn't be ok on the grounds of "making the US pay for the war of 1846-1848" to just go assassinate the American ambassador in Australia.) That's certainly not the same as a bunch of Mexicans or of American citizens of Mexican descent blowing up a building or a subway and claiming it was a revenge for the loss of Texas. As to the "similarities" you mention, which you say are what caused to indulge in that aside, similarities can be very superficial. Note how many of today's Jihadists come from the European countries that they say they hate even though they're sons and daughters of people who moved there for a more prosperous life. Were the "foreign adventurers" of the Reconquista citizens of Muslim countries born there because their parents had moved there for a better life that suddenly turned on their country of birth for ideological reasons? The supposed "analogies" that form the basis of the liberal view of these questions frankly need to be re-examined. I keep wondering if liberals are really honestly misled by those analogies or if those supposed analogies are not just an excuse for conclusions that the liberal credo (that it is almost certainly the West that's at fault in about anything) seems to demand from the beginning. Contact Basemetal here 16:41, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Out of interest, when was it said the original Muslim invaders weren't aggressors? It doesn't seem to have been said in the discussion you referred to, so are you referring to an older discussion with Wnt? Nil Einne (talk) 17:36, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

No there was no older discussion with Wnt. No one said explicitly invading Muslims weren't aggressors. But it is implied or at least the criticism seems invariably to be reserved for "Western aggression". For instance when Charles V's attack on Algiers is termed an "unprovoked" attack. Contact Basemetal here 17:40, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Implied by who? It doesn't seem to have been implied by anyone in the discussion you referred to. Nor does it seem to be implied by the comments you referred to. Other than by some Muslim commentators, most people liberal or whatever seem to be willing to accept Muslims can and have been guilty of aggression just as Christians and plenty of other people can be. Whether or not it's accurate to call Charles V's attack on Algiers in 1541 an unprovoked attack (and to be clear, I'm not commenting on whether it is or isn't), would surely have to do with analysis of the situation around the time of the attack, not what happened over 800 years before which is only useful in understanding why things were how they were around the time (but not useful in any way for providing justification for stuff which happened those 800+ years later). In any case, it's probably best if you keep your dislike what people outside wikipedia have said away from the RD. If you want to criticise what Wnt has said sure, that's fine. But there's no reason to bring what others outside wikipedia may or may not have said or believe, which may not be shared, or even known by Wnt or anyone else on the RD. Nil Einne (talk) 17:46, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

You're welcome to go ahead, analyze the situation in the Mediterranean in the mid 1500s (not "800 years before") and come back and tell me if Charles V's attack can reasonably be called "unprovoked". The reason to bring such things up is not to fault Wnt with them, but to show Wnt's was a typical reaction. There's a context. His remark about the foreigners who joined the Reconquista being like Jihadists (which had absolutely nothing to do with the topic of the section and added absolutely no information to the discussion) is not something that can be judged in isolation. Contact Basemetal here 17:57, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

(EC-I noticed you replied, just to let you know I won't be replying further since I've already gotten more involved than I intended) BTW, to be clear I acknowledge you did make some other points, re: why you regard the unprovoked but as highly inaccurate and it was only stuff in ~700 you referred to. And I'm also not denying there are some non Muslim commentators who may deny there was any Muslim aggression. My point is you appear to have come up with a claim which is unsupported by anything you're quoting, and more importantly, seems to be completely unsupported by anything Wnt or anyone else on the RD said. It may be true some commentators don't discuss Muslim aggression much (which is quite a different thing from say they don't accept it or only reserve aggression to refer to Western aggression), but as much as anything that seems to relate to the fact it's still fairly common to give very little consideration to anything not done by "Westerners" whether good or bad. Perhaps it's true that some such commentators tend to downplay the bad and overplay the good, on the otherhand it seems to be equally true that some overplay the bad and downplay the good. Then again, getting back to my early point, it seems clear as much as anything it's a case of lack of knowledge. Personally, I find such most such analogies between modern times and older times a bad idea however you do it so wouldn't agree with Wnt (who isn't exactly a typical commentator anyway nor could they be called PC) nor the other person you mention comparing the Knights of Malta. That said, even if not you, people on all sides quite commonly do make such (IMO) flawed comparisons when it suits them. Nil Einne (talk) 18:27, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

My general prejudice is that in historic times just about any crown was worn by an asshole. The likelihood of continued offense (even between brother and brother, as with the founding of Portugal) did indeed justify a perception of self defense in many situations where our modern sensibilities would not readily accept it. (Then again, our modern sensibilities certainly have their own long list of well-oiled loopholes) My quite substandard knowledge of Spanish history is that in the days of El Cid the major conflicts were not aligned along religious lines - the notion that Christians should fight Muslims or vice versa was not so well established, and in those pre-Inquisitorial days even Jews were tolerated. Only the most expert student of the history could begin to weigh in on which person in a particular conflict was the aggressor - and they might even disagree - and certainly I'm not ready to do so here. I note only, as from the start, that the particular strategy of declaring holy war and then recruiting people from all over the world to come and fight it seems to be the same today as it was then. Wnt (talk) 22:03, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

DYK for Acute flaccid myelitis

 — Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:40, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Module:Hex

hi.

please note that this module uses the mw.text.strip() function, which is no longer available (see latest technotes in wp:vpt). i also tried to understand what is the purpose of this module and what is it good for. one thing i found strange is your use of data table to map 0-255 into "00" through "ff". why not simply use

string.format("%2x", byteval)

instead of maintaining the data table? was this module just an exercise, or is it actually meant for something practical?

peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 20:08, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Early on with Lua I had been confused by strip markers that turned up in the output; sometimes I didn't know if I could search for something in it or not. This was just a way of checking byte by byte what I was getting from some particular situation, which seemed generally useful (if only very occasionally). The answer about the table is simply that I hadn't been aware of string.format at the time, and once the module was working, I didn't do anything more with it. Wnt (talk) 02:56, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Blackstone

I didn't want to extend ANI with a sidetrack but you seemed interested enough to look it up. Your interpretation of Blackstone is somewhat correct. The difference is that the distinction between correction and violence didn't exist in Blackstone's time either. He, like you, referred to an earlier, less enlightened time of "old common law" that was no longer in practice. Henry Kelly is the source for the interpretation (who is rather universally accepted as the expert and it was an excerpt from this piece that SY86 was misquoting). It's a 25 page article that I suffered through. It's available on JSTOR [32] if you wish ("Rule of Thumb" and the Folklaw of the Husband's Stick, Henry Ansgar Kelly, Journal of Legal Education Vol. 44, No. 3 (September 1994), pp. 341-365.) It's the last two pages where he deals with Blackstone and the quote. From Kelly:In more recent times, Blackstone has been more mistreated. A common mistake has been to cite his account of the older law allowing wife-beating as still current in his own day, and as justified by him. Kelly then goes on to point out how both Sommers and Hirshman at various levels incorrectly state Blackstone as saying violence had basis in law (Hirshman writing that "Rule of thumb" was the law, Sommers writing that lower classes and courts still used old common law - he refutes both). He goes on to say ...from Blackstone through the American judges if the last century to the modern writers on wife-beating, we see a tendency to believe that customs were worse in the earlier eras and other lands than in the writer's own more enlightened time and place.... No one likes to be associated with wife abuse. But we must all guard against unfairly accusing others of harboring beliefs or engaging in practices for which there is no evidence and we should be concerned to give due credit to those in the past tried to mitigate the harsh customs and practices of others. I believe this is where Paul B. is coming from and he is correct. It was nit to use Kelly as being critical of Sommer's book (a corrected version was noted in the footnotes as it wasn't a main point by Sommer's - in fact, I think it makes her point more strongly to omit it). It's an entire fabrication to use Kelly as the basis for "Rule of thumb" as a legal term. Those were my objections to SY86 in both articles. --DHeyward (talk) 20:26, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm, it's true I haven't looked into things deeply enough to keep all the implications straight, and I certainly see how it takes some care and patience to try to put up a good text for an article like this. Wnt (talk) 22:12, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

"Donated to charity"

You said here that Wales had graciously donated his $500,000 prize from the UAE government to charity. The Daily Dot indeed reported that Wales had pledged to donate the money to charity, but that turned out to be incorrect and has been changed at Jimmy Wales' request: The headline now says, Jimmy Wales pledges $500k UAE award to human rights causes, and the text has been updated with a clarification from Wales that indicates he will keep the money to start a Human Rights Foundation of his own with it. Cheers, Andreas JN466 14:04, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh, while I'm here, you might find this interesting. Andreas JN466 14:08, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

depression and tiredness.

It would be a shame to have to hat your response due to your expressing your opinion on the efficacy of a drug used in treatment. Can you edit that out so the rest can be left in place? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 01:22, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

I see nothing inappropriate in mentioning that the study found that some people with depression 'respond to' paroxetine. I did not suggest it was the best drug, that it was devoid of side effects, or that it was a good idea for the OP to use it. I think you're reading in something here that I did not say. Wnt (talk) 01:27, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

File:George Zimmerman head welts (ABC, Daily Caller, Forensic Protection).png listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:George Zimmerman head welts (ABC, Daily Caller, Forensic Protection).png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. - Cwobeel (talk) 23:25, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

The article seems to address this image from the news very specifically. It doesn't seem like this should be contentious to keep. Wnt (talk) 02:45, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

FYI

Please carefully read this information:

The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is here.

Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.

This message is informational only and does not imply misconduct regarding your contributions to date.

—Given that the remedy has just been enacted, I am providing this notice to everybody who has participated in the discussion on Jimbo Wales' talk page for their information. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:42, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't really see the relevance. We were discussing the issue of MEDRS and this is some motion about acupuncture. Even if defining "complementary and alternative medicine" is likely to be elastic, nor are the "discretionary sanctions" particularly well defined... I'm sure all this must mean something to an admin or two, but to the rest of us it is just another flag and pile of rocks by some river mouth that ArbCom thinks gives it claim to a continent. Wnt (talk) 22:31, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

This is Russavia

You may be interested in this. It is what was sent to me by Philippe after I was locked. There was no discussion, etc.

A couple of weeks ago I posted this in relation to the abusive use of CU tools by a Commons admin. I also informed the OC and WMF legal. I made the comment to numerous users that my pressing the issue of the clearcut CU abuse on Commons, and the distribution of my CU data to all and sundry (except to me), would likely result in my being globally locked.

Sure, I've socked here on English Wikipedia, and created some pretty content content in the process. I've also engaged in "calling a spade a spade" commentary on those who have being allowed to attack me unabated. The comments about history of legal concerns is fucking nonsense, as is their other ToU violations -- name them you fucking clowns.

Enough said for now. :) 194.181.242.15 (talk) 01:46, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused by the whole CU thing. When you admit to sockpuppeting, under Wikipedia policies, it's hard to see how you can effectively argue the CU should never be allowed. But the thing is, Meta:Terms of Use doesn't mention sockpuppeting as a violation! They talk about fraudulently impersonating other users, which is obviously a more severe thing, especially if they are named. I remember that was one of the things I paid attention to when they passed them.

To do WMF's explanation for it, I would suppose the "other legal issues" part would be the thing mentioned in meta:WMF Global Ban Policy where they talk about "repeated harassment of another user". Their claim would be that by uploading a cartoon by a third party about Jimbo, that you were "repeating" what they deem "harassment", and because it was done on Commons and then promptly linked from Jimbo's talk page, it was "on multiple projects", the other part of the policy they've just made. Now, if you were behind the IP posting to Jimbo's talk page your case is harder than if you simply uploaded the comic. I would argue that anyone could have reasonably found that comic about Wikipedia to be funny and germane to our project, and uploaded it with innocent intent, and how can it be harassment to upload what is innocent? But to deliberately rub his nose in it was nastier. Nonetheless, nastier or not -- that part of the "harassment" would be limited to Wikipedia, and it is still not an extreme case. I mean, when I look at their bold print policy I'm thinking of people who out editors, try to get them fired from their jobs, libel them as criminals and make that a top Google hit for them... I'm not thinking comics. It is still a huge overreach, from everything that I've seen, to take this Wikipedia spat and make it into something that costs us a productive Commons admin and prolific uploader.

And it bothers me more that it is using a brand-new mechanism by which top WMF people can bypass all community discussion and explanation. Simply put, the medium is the message. So long as computers are a hierarchical top-down resource owned and controlled by one person, all the pretenses of not censoring and ruling by consensus are nothing but vain hopes. Only a decentralized forum, like Usenet or Bittorrent, can possibly preserve a functional political system. In the end any centralized computing system appears doomed to be dominated by high priests who need not publish any Twelve Tables of their laws, but who simply swoop down without explanation or apology. This is a lesson we will have to learn and learn soon as the truly creepy technologies slouch rapidly past the gates of Bethlehem. Wnt (talk) 03:04, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Hey, I just clicked here by accident, but then I read the last entry anyway. I'm not really sure what's being discussed, but don't forget about freenet as a modern thing that sort of inherently prevents top-down control of anything on its network :) SemanticMantis (talk) 00:08, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, but we need something big and fast, capable of swallowing up a Wikipedia edit stream's worth of data without a hiccup. And I think that Usenet really would benefit from hosting a project that provides a renewed sense of purpose a la Star Trek I. Wnt (talk) 01:39, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Sock policy is set by individual wikis and not by the WMF, though I can understand the WMF banning someone for repeatedly breaking local wiki policies even if the policies being broken aren't WMF-wide. The English Wikipedia incremental revision dump is around 500MB a day compressed, not too bad, but I can't tell from the above what you want to do with it. I bet it could be made a lot smaller by squashing it into a diff stream instead of a stream of complete copies of every new revision. 50.0.205.75 (talk) 18:03, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

mass surveillance dyk

I saw further up you were looking for mass surveillance DYK's. I just did about 3x expansion of the Citizenfour article and there's plenty more good expansion possible, but I'm sort of out of steam. The DYK requirement is apparently 5x in 7 days so maybe someone else can join in. I have a bunch of sourcing notes that I can post if anyone wants them. It seems like a good article to be expanding, since the film appears likely to win the best documentary oscar in a few weeks. I've always opposed the DYK program and wasn't thinking about it when I did the expansion, but I can understand why people get into it. Have you read Greenwald's book No Place to Hide? I haven't yet, but its content apparently overlaps the film a lot, so it's likely to be useful for the film article. 50.0.205.75 (talk) 17:56, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Paid access

I saw your note about JSTOR charging for publicly available text. Of course one can also think of it as chargeable text having a freely available overattentive - it's surprising how often a free version of something can be found.

But I thought you would be interested in http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-361776905.html - this is interesting for three reasons:

1. It makes a claim to copyright "COPYRIGHT 2009 NewsRX"
2. It is attributed to a "staff writer" of Medical Devices & Surgical Technology Week, when it is a word-for-word copy of a press release by Clitoriad
3. It is attempting to charge for access to something of little value, and available freely elsewhere

As I replaced this reference (and an effectively identical one attributed to Health & Medicine Week) it occurred to me that it might be valuable to have a list of journals which regurgitate press releases in this manner.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 12:52, 29 January 2015 (UTC).

Misc ref desk

I would be interested in your take on the bruxing discussion which another editor zapped. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:48, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

ANI notification

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Does Wikipedia offer medical advice now?. Thank you. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:02, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

re

re something you said, email me, about something I've said indirectly there and elsewhere but....since I'm being watched would rather discuss privately, not out of fear though.Skookum1 (talk) 07:28, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

More like prudence.Skookum1 (talk) 08:11, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I really don't want to get into private information here - when I'm on Wikipedia the goal is to get what can stand up in an article for the world to see. I don't expect you to trust me with a confidence (in unencrypted email, yet, which is a laugh!) and I'm not ready to trust that you know the facts for an article better than published sources either. If this is about other Wikipedians, well ... I think it's much more productive for you to filter the argument at your end by coming up with a list of bad diffs, i.e. specific bad edits to the encyclopedia against which you protest, rather than focusing on the editors who made them. Especially if they are shills, focusing on them as individuals tends to blow up into the wrong kind of fight really quickly since I would expect a true shill is highly prepared for a fight, may have powerful allies ready to help him, and in the end is free to regard his account as expendable and therefore is ready to make a sacrifice play if that's what it takes. Wnt (talk) 15:09, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

All too true...and I get irked by people demanding diffs when I raise something that has been going on or went on in the past. What I was wanting to say was an observation and not about any one article but about the whole general thing we are seeing so much more of but has always been around; and have powerful allies, including those similarly here all along. And yes don't kick a dragon in the knees if you don't have a magic sword, someone I used to know once said. Not that I do, but I'm tired to being played by their game (of whichever faction/agenda) and by the general decay of this place into misrule by guidelines and procedure and those who run/inflict them. I've some thoughts on reform and though I've said them elsewhere earlier don't wish to discuss them with hostile eyes looking on. Sad that that would be the case, but after all this is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. And mess with, and you....and not just in Wikipedia.

Being monitored is a given it's what to do about the infiltration and manipulation that the system has so many ways to do; what was supposed to be wiki - quick and easy - is becoming more and more arduous and complicated; which are guidelines and renderings/statements about them more and more and more; more rigidity, more mechanistic ways of thought, an obsession with numerical statistics (quantitative analysis) and invoking guidelines if Holy Writ, and no qualitative considering of what is right and what is wrong; the amorality is breatheaking sometimes....and that speaks to the matter also, in terms of an account being expendable... just like people. I haven't looked at the list of missing wikipedians lately....it's been growing steadily I imagine huh?Skookum1 (talk) 16:15, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

e.g. .... like a mantra, or from a manual, and there are indeed such manuals, about such tactics to denounce discussion or the person fielding it; my most recent here and note my recent response on JimboTalk. Same old line over and over; by people who don't or won't read what you have actually said, alleging NPA and AGF against you in response, and criticizing your writing which they won't even read. Absurd or what? So sad how far this place has fallen, but more and more the entrenchment of these tactics is institutionalized into the place and treated as if the valid norm; it's not, and for those who aren't doing it deliberately it speaks to an inability to read and think or understand complex sentences and/or sustained argument. They want it all in point form - 1000 =- that's almost as constraining as Twitter. And presume to be writing an encyclopedia for god's sake. That also implicitly and by definition information suppression and control and persecution/condemnation of those resisting it.

Innocent or by systematic design or professional assignment, there's getting to be more and more of it, and less and less good content and more and more bad decisions and/or completely tainted one. I tire of it, and don't need to hear criticism from people who refuse to read what they do not know; because they do not listen, and do not want to. (talk) 16:39, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Whether by lack of reading/thinking ability or lack of knowledge of the subject and issues, or by design or contract, there's too much of it going on and too many people with the power and influence to condemn someone without even ONCE discussing any of the content issues that led to the dispute. 3000 words is fine in a newspaper even rather short, for a magazine. Makes me wonder how much such people have read, and what they are capable of reading and/or understanding. Perhaps most just do not; I'm of the opinion this is a semi-literate or post-literate age....but that, too, is by design, unwitting or immanent or by contrivance; look up the Book of the Machines and have a read.... hm no article or redirect on it; look in gutenberg.org or marxist.org or various other places.... it should redirect to Erewhon but maybe no one ever mde oneSkookum1 (talk) 17:03, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Ref Desk proposal

Hi Wnt, I don't know if you've been following the recent threads on the ref desk talk page, but based on some review of that material, I have a simple proposal that I'd like your feedback on before I shop it to the whole group. It's very simple: For a trial period (1 month?), we agree to not remove or hat any questions for reasons of seeking medical/legal advice (and perhaps extend to include requests for opinion). Rather than a free-for-all, we first respond with boilerplate or a template, something along the lines of this:

“ Hello, and welcome to the Wikipedia Reference desk. Your question seems to be seeking medical or legal advice [or perhaps a request for opinion]. We do not give this type of advice [links to disclaimer and guidelines, header, etc], but our users will be allowed to post citations/links to informational references. We hope this information might be useful to you. If you further pursue advice here, this question may be removed. ”

At that point, we can remove any responses that diagnose, proscribe, treat any illness or legal situation, but allow links to RS. Perhaps even demand that any responses include references, or risk removal. Would that seem ok to you? The thing is, we really don't get that many medical legal questions, and I like how this puts us in the position to police ourselves as respondents, rather than posters. As I see it, this proposal is consistent with our guidelines, and it might forestall some debates, because hopefully the use of a template will warn all our regulars (and irregulars) to be on their best behavior. On the upside, we can then provide useful information, such as links to other people's opinion pieces, links to WP pages that are about medical topics, peer-reviewed literature, etc. So, any thoughts? Would you support such an experiment? Thanks, SemanticMantis (talk) 15:04, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't think you'll get it past them, but I'd prefer a wording that doesn't seem as discouraging to the questioner at first glance. Perhaps "Hello, and welcome to the Wikipedia Reference desk. Your question appears to invite medical or legal advice. Our users may answer you with informational references that may help you to learn more about your topic, but it is inappropriate for us to provide professional advice [link to guidelines]. You should not rely on it as such, because anyone can write these replies [link to anyone can edit statement] and Wikimedia disclaims responsibility for erroneous or even malicious suggestions. [link to disclaimer]" Wnt (talk) 15:22, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, I wasn't terribly optimistic, so that's why I asked a few people individually first :) I'm happy to tweak the details, work on the wording, etc. Your wording does seem like an improvement. Part of why I thought this might have some support is that it's sort of a compromise - people who want to police get to put the template up, and people who want to give non-advice responses can still do so. I'll see what the others say, and maybe post on the talk page over the weekend. Thanks, SemanticMantis (talk) 16:40, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe

Would you please look at Talk:Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe#Maximum rate? From your comment in Daily rate on the same page, it looks as if you might understand the issue better than I do. TIA. --Thnidu (talk) 21:17, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't really understand it. The numbers appear to be straight from the CATO Institute source [33] and are "month-to-month" and "year-to-year" rates. But when I take the last 12 months 796000001*6900001*125*32.9*27.0*9.39*5.334*3.1254*3.8129*2.2586*2.2083*3.4006 I'm off by something like five orders of magnitude from the year-to-year rate. I could easily be missing something obvious. Wnt (talk) 21:52, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Your Costas Vaxevanis quote

After seeing your copyedit of Finn Nørgaard I went to your user page and saw your the quote: "I'll say something that's very simple: Journalism means publishing something that others are trying to hide. Everything else is public relations."

On that note I wanted to point out that in Denmark a journalist whose publications fall in the latter category is referred to as a 'mikrofonholder', literally a 'microphone holder'. Is there an English equivalent? Thanks and all the best. Lklundin (talk) 19:21, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

The word "mouthpiece" is used this way, but perhaps it is a more general term than yours? (Note that despite doing the translation... I don't actually know Danish! :) So I just hope I didn't foul anything up too badly. Wnt (talk) 22:21, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Maybe it is not so close. The 'microphone holder' is decidedly pejorative, whereas 'mouthpiece' seems more neutral, or no? I think translations are challenging, one has to balance being accurate and idiomatic. Especially translating headlines into English is hard, because in English the phrases and the usage of verbs seem quite different than in normal text. Anyway, as far as I can judge your copy-editing of English articles clearly created by non-native speakers is fully correct. Lklundin (talk) 23:00, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

February 2015

Welcome to Wikipedia. I have noticed that some of your recent changes, such as the one you made to Tintin in the Congo, have conflicted with our verifiability policies. While we invite all users to contribute constructively to Wikipedia, we urge all editors to provide reliable sources for edits made. When others disagree, we recommend you seek consensus for certain edits by discussing the matter on the article's talk page. Keep in mind that this is a Featured Article that was reviewed by may different reviewers. Feel free to contact me if I can answer any questions. Prhartcom (talk) 20:40, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Wnt, Wikipedia is not a soapbox or a place to tell the world about your noble cause. The article you are disruptively editing is a classic comic book; it is not the place to inform readers about former atrocities of the Congo. If you have any questions I will be glad to discuss them with you. Prhartcom (talk) 21:31, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Why then is it not a soapbox to complain about the 'cruelty to animals' of going on a safari, as you do interminably in your not-worthy-to-be-a-featured-article? I think you're the one on the soapbox, presenting a phony analysis of the comic in terms of generic issues that have NOTHING to do with the historical context in which it was being written. Wnt (talk) 21:34, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Hell, your article doesn't even explain what 'breaker of rocks' means because previously according to the talk page somebody (I haven't looked up who, but I have a guess) decided to delete the explanation about Stanley. Wnt (talk) 21:35, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Transfer of copyright

There have been discussions on Commons for a few years about this, refer to c:Commons_talk:Transfer_of_copyright. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 10:06, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Hi Wnt

Thank you for being so kind to a rank newbie. I hope you like kittens. I'm kinda more of a sabertooth kinda person, but I would say that, given that I'm something of a nerd and I like ancient history, heh. Sorry for using person. I'm kinda gender-confused, if you know what I mean. But that's OK on the wiki, right? I am so glad your not judging me for my interest in fashion. I may be a woman, after all. My mom took me to all those shows when I was little, and I could have been a model, only now I got pimples which makes me kinda sad and emo, but yeah, yolo, whatever, right? Have a great day and keep up the good work. Your my inspiration. :-)

Plastic-Al1ty (talk) 05:23, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Heather Bresch

It's a non-issue at this point, but @Hipocrite: did specifically say they were being sarcastic when asked.

If you have a minute, I'd appreciate it if you took a look here to see if that addresses your concerns. As stated at ANI, I never intended to imply that her government lobbying was philanthropic, nor did I ever support such a depiction. The suggestion to add more information/context seems perfectly reasonable to me.

CorporateM (Talk) 01:53, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

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bold

My original position was that we should not use bold as a rule - glad to see you agreed. Collect (talk) 13:00, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

It's not really "agreeing"; it's just that if I have a choice between having you bold half the section that uses a slightly darker font or not bold the two sentences that were in larger/darker font than those with them, the latter option is better. I remember a time when getting bold font on a dot matrix printer was a cool new extra, so I can live the lapse. Wnt (talk) 13:53, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

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Areas of Interest/Expertise

Hi Wnt, would you please consider adding some topic headings to your entry at Wikipedia:RD_regulars? I know you are quite expert at some types of biology, but there are probably lots of other things I haven't even guessed :) I'm hoping to get participation up, so that it can become a useful resource for all of us. Thanks, SemanticMantis (talk) 14:36, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Your vote

Appreciate your input on the discussion at the Amos Yee AfD. Just wanted to share with you, Yee's views in his video might not be totally accurate. For one, his statistics are uncited and are most likely bollocks. For example, the income tax rate for residents can never rise above 20% - and that's for the wealthiest people earning above S$320,000. But because it's a progressive tax, if you earn less than S$20,000 a year, you pay 0%. Check this tax calculator download from this website. Also, Yee's view that Lee thought "money = happiness" is nonsense IMO. Having read Lee's book Hard Truths To Keep Singapore Going, he establishes even in the introduction that economic progress was vital to have strong and technologically superior defence forces. Having experienced colonial masters over Singapore, in Japan and Britain, IMO Lee was far more concerned about keeping Singaporeans "safe" than "happy", especially since Singapore is surrounded by other nations with different ethnic ratios. Lastly, there are easily 30 more countries with larger income inequalities than Singapore by various indexes. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 03:30, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

That tax structure sounds similar to the U.S., minus the earned income credit and with lower taxes for the wealthy; still, I'd have to be an expert at the two tax codes to really compare how each affects people meaningfully, and I'm certainly not. What's easier to say is that the list of countries with higher income inequality is dominated by African and other poor countries that are not often held up as examples for anyone. It seems pretty clear to me that both Singapore and the U.S. have reached levels of income inequality that are already incompatible with meaningful democracy, and approaching the point where even the trappings of democracy are unsupportable. Wnt (talk) 13:13, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

There are actually quite a few prominent examples of countries with higher inequality than Singapore which are not African or poor. Amongst North/South America, I count at least Chile, Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina and Costa Rica which are above the world average for GDP per capita. Hong Kong and Malaysia are Asian examples. Lastly, three are members of BRICS (Brazil, China, South Africa). About democracy, the United States has vowed to embody that, but I don't think [ http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/03/lee-kuan-yew-conundrum-democracy-singapore/388955/ Singapore has ever similarly championed] democracy or political rights. But if democracy isn't acceptable, what is? starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 23:35, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Uruguay seems really out of place on that list, since I think of it as a level-headed and democratic country (thanks in fair part to Mujica). Indeed, I'm finding a lot of sources putting its Gini coefficient at 0.379 in 2012 e.g. [34], though the World Bank is quoted for the 0.45 figure in the article. Apart from that, I'm not sure what to say here. Wnt (talk) 23:59, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

• Just the last bit I asked then. Are you championing democracy or another political system? starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 00:11, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

I believe I was saying the loss of democracy due to economic inequality is a legitimate concern. Wnt (talk) 12:50, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

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Template:Z33 - Cwobeel (talk) 03:18, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

@Cwobeel: I don't know why it has become so routine to post these, but do you realize this doesn't even say which topic you're giving notice about? So many things have become considered as vaguely related to some Arbcom case or other... Wnt (talk) 11:26, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

The topic is BLPs, as said in the notice's first paragraph. - Cwobeel (talk) 13:46, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Wikipedia:Lua/Modules

Wikipedia:Lua/Modules, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Lua/Modules and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:Lua/Modules during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Steel1943 (talk) 20:25, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Edit Conflict on WP:RD/S

An unfortunate, accidental edit-conflict removed one of my comments. As this comment was primarily an apology directed from me to you because I was being grumpy, I thought I could just note on your talk page rather than messing with the reference desk page history. Happy reading! Nimur (talk) 11:48, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Oh, I know that reading Fox News is asking for abuse. :) But as it happened, eventually a good explanation was put forward, and sometimes it's just interesting to know where the errors in the news come from. Wnt (talk) 20:56, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Kostas Vaxevanis

Hey,

Random query after glancing at your user page;

I think the quote you're ascribing to Kostas was originally said by Orwell right? Is there a reason you credit it to Vaxevanis? NickCT (talk) 12:39, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

See Kostas Vaxevanis for the relevant circumstance. (Incidentally, when I put it up, I don't think the outcome of the case had been decided) My feeling is, he earned the cite. :) Wnt (talk) 20:53, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Hmmmm.... Interesting. Thanks. NickCT (talk) 01:53, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

COI commentary

I suggest that you read https://www.change.org/p/jimmy-wales-founder-of-wikipedia-create-and-enforce-new-policies-that-allow-for-true-scientific-discourse-about-holistic-approaches-to-healing and think for a moment about what these people want.—Kww(talk) 00:04, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Nay, that doesn't work. The thing about trying to be open minded is you know that 99.44% of the stuff you're open to will be pure unadulterated nonsense; it's the remaining 0.56% that pays for all. If Wikipedia is bombarded by alternative medicine POV pushers - and that's the most that I see in the petition you cite - that's no reason to abuse our COI policy, which addresses a quite specific situation, just in order to shut the door on open-mindedness. Wnt (talk) 03:19, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

RfC: Guidance on commas after Jr. and Sr.

Following the closure of a recent RfC you participated in, I have started an RfC on the separate but related issue of commas after Jr. and Sr.. Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) § RfC: Guidance on commas after Jr. and Sr. and feel free to comment there. Thanks! —sroc 💬 06:03, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Template:Interlanguage link

You left a note on Template:Interlanguage link in November 2013, about {{Link}}. What became of that proposal? Please can you update (or remove) your note? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:41, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

GM food RfC

Note about this RfC where you !voted. I tweaked the statement to make it more clear that it is about eating GM food and health. I'm notifying each person who !voted, in case that matters to you. Sorry for the trouble. Jytdog (talk) 21:08, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Shawskank

The article Shawskank has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

WP:NEO

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DYK nomination of Shooting of Walter Scott

Hello! Your submission of Shooting of Walter Scott at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and some issues with it may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! BlueMoonset (talk) 22:58, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

DYK for Shooting of Walter Scott

Do try and pass this thank you on. Thanks. Victuallers (talk) 00:10, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree with your comments

It's also that people here become a bit too much emotionally involved in supporting certain policies (or the way they should be implemented). It's purely factional/tribal warfare driven by a sense of an "emergency" that is felt by one side, but which is not based on a real problem. Count Iblis (talk) 20:39, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Comment request

Hi! I was wondering if you could possibly comment on this discussion? Thanks! Chihciboy (talk) 18:44, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Standard Offer unblock request for Technophant

Technophant (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Technophant has requested an unblock under the standard offer. As one of about 60 editors who has contributed to User talk:Technophant you may have an interest in this request. Sent by user:PBS via -- MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:48, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm not going to riddle all of this out right now, but I made a comment about the bit I remember at [35]. Wnt (talk) 15:21, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Russian Political Pressure

Hey, thanks for your input on the Charas article, I think this issue is more about 'Sputnick' than detailing drug cultivation :-) Anyway, they are insistent the entire article comes down which would be completely unacceptable. Tbh, I think you mistook my attempt at wit for self-censorship, I was trying to conflate Putin with his wish to return Russia to the bad old days of the USSR and 'censorship', it obviously didn't work. Moving on, I edited the article after discovering that there were no sources and the entry detailed the manufacture of illegal drugs. To protect Wikipedia's independence I left the article in the main alone and contacted Jimmy for a policy request, best wishes. Twobells^t@lk 14:22, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

[untitled Refdesk]

Hi Wnt, thanks for your answer to my questions on the Science Reference Desk. There were at least two recently, one was about gravitational potential energy. I have replied the other one, concerning brown dwarf stars.Regards, Rich Peterson144.35.45.43 (talk) 14:49, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Proposed amendment to WP:ADMIN regarding paid editing

You recently commented on a brainstorm that discussed banning administrators from paid editing. A concrete proposal to amend the administrator policy to this effect has been made at Wikipedia talk:Administrators#Proposed change - 'No paid editing" for admins. Your comments would be appreciated. MER-C 08:17, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Research

Hello Wnt! Your username appears in a chapter of my PhD thesis about the progress of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 Wikipedia English article. I'd love to share a pre-publication version with you if you'd like to review it? Let me know :) Many thanks. Best, --hfordsa (talk) 16:31, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Vision

Hi Wnt. I happened to run upon your comments here. I thought they eloquently laid out the central principles our wikis are based on. I think they encapsulate something very beautiful and important which is overlooked a lot. I wanted to invite you to create a page for them on meta, listing the points about history, revision, archives and the ability to revert every edit, along with all comments being equal - these should be guiding principles for future development that I think most community members would agree with but doesn't seem to be communicated well enough. You can call it philosophy or the wiki way or a vision or whatever you deem suitable. I really hope you take me up on my offer. I'm mostly active on meta if you wanna reply, I'll be happy to help. Thanks. Kind regards. Theo10011 (talk) 20:52, 16 September 2015 (UTC)