User talk:A Man In Black

Hello there. If you're going to leave me a comment (or yell at me, which is seeming increasingly common lately), please start a new header at the bottom of the page (or add to an old one), and sign your comments by adding ~~~~ to the end of them.

If you're here about a specific page, be it an article, talk page, user talk page, AFD page, or whatever, PLEASE LINK THAT PAGE. Odds are I'm going to have to check back to it anyway to reply, and more than once someone has left a comment about an unspecified page and gotten no help from me because I had no idea what they were talking about. LINK THE PAGE YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT.

IF YOU'RE COMING HERE TO REPLY TO A COMMENT I MADE ON ANOTHER PAGE, STOP, GO BACK TO THAT PAGE, AND REPLY THERE. For example, if I made a comment on your talk page and expect a reply, your talk page is on my watchlist. I'm not interested in starting parallel discussions on my talk page.

Archives: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

• Miscellanous archive
• Random awards and other crap left on my talk page

File:Nixon.jpg

A Dick on my talk page

Infobox CVG syntax guide

I began drafting a syntax guide to go along with aforementioned infobox and I'm inquiring if there's any interest in one being made. I suppose the reason is mainly to clarify certain fields and bring it closer in line with other projects such as films and books etc. Anyway, you'll find it at User:Combination/Sandbox. Thanks for your time. Combination 18:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Atomic Fire images

Hi. I just closed Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion/2006 July 19. While removing the images you nominated from articles, I noticed a number of other images from the same source. I did not include them as part of your deletion request, but I'm not sure if it makes sense for us to be republishing them. Thoughts? Jkelly 23:28, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Anything from Atomic-Fire not attributed to a specific primary source is copyvio, and the only user who could have sourced most of it recently left Wikipedia, so I think they all need to go. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:33, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Are you able to identify them all? Jkelly 00:46, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Identify them how? List the images from AF, or identify where they came from? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:47, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I meant list the images from this website so that there is a list one could go through for deletion. Jkelly 01:05, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I've been tagging them with {{nsd}} whenever I see them, but I don't know any good way to list them other than going through Category:Mega Man media one by one (a laborious task on dial-up). - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:03, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I see. That's not ideal. The thought of going through that cat is intimidating. By the way, given your comment here, would you mind repeating it? This is still going on, even after both of our comments on AN/I and a comment I made at the user in question's talkpage. Jkelly 19:01, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Minomadam

Note to self: hack {{Pokémon species}} to make Minomadam work. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 16:08, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, make {{Infobox Air character}} and {{Tenchi Muyo Character Infobox}} not suck. Plus any other template still using {{Oh My Goddess Infobox-Generic/Text}}. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:03, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and credit Mark Newland (ahuxley in #alephone) for the M1 scan. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:26, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

On the subject of primary source sourcing...

I'm aware of your (imo extreme) pickiness about sourcing, and wondered your opinion on the Final Fantasy VII featured article and it's use of sources. They do include gaming magazine references and an undergrad paper from Stanford, but the plot, setting, characters, and story are all referenced to the game itself. (A few references also apparently are derived from official databooks.) Further, as the game cutscenes are not a printed medium, they are actually referenced to notes in the article which give the quotations from the script used to back the article's description. (Bear in mind, this is a Featured Article.) Is this, in your opinion, an acceptable system of reference and verification? If not, would the sections be better left unverified? --tjstrf 02:09, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I have a philosophy about primary sources. They're empty calories. They can be useful to flavor the staples (secondary sources), but you shouldn't be sucking them up when you can have something healthier (so, to use the video game example, if you can describe the gameplay using reviews or other similar secondary sources, do so), and they can't sustain anyone (an article that is sourced only to primary sources is probably describing a non-notable topic).

Does that make sense? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:17, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

For notability, of course. For verifiability? No. From this example for instance, a magazine saying that Cloud was ranked as a first-class SOLDIER member is inherently less reliable than the game itself saying he was. The magazine authors just played the game after all, their memory is not certified as being better than the wikipedia author's is, and the wiki author could very well have typed the quotations while looking at the game window. (and no, that's not original research any more than typing the quotes in from a book would be)

The purpose of WP:RS is to ensure the accuracy of articles. In the case of real-life subjects, saying that scholarly secondary sources are the best is a perfectly good standard. We wish to strive for objectivity and neutrality and avoid subjectivity, so we attempt to avoid non-neutral sources like hate blogs or self-published information, and we wish to ensure that the people we cite know what they are talking about, so we cite scientists and governments rather than the National Enquirer. In the case of a fictional subject though, the fictional universe is not subjective, rather being objectively determined by the author.

In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, for instance, mock turtle soup is made from Mock Turtle. Now, you could find a published cookbook, a chef, or some other citeable professional expert and discover that mock turtle soup is most definitively NOT made from mock turtle. But would it even make sense to cite that in the article on the Mock Turtle? Of course not. Instead you cite the book, which verifies quite nicely that within Wonderland, Mock Turtles are the basis for Mock Turtle soup. In an article on Wonderland, the professional chef is not an expert, instead, it's the Queen of Hearts. Or to be more precise, it's Lewis Carroll, speaking through the persona of the Queen of Hearts.

Basically, when it comes to establishing the real-world notability of a fictional article, I believe we should obviously stick to real world reliable sources. But when it comes to verifying the accuracy of a fictional article, I'll take the primary source over a 3rd party commentary anyday. The only thing I can think of that would be more reliable than the primary source for accurate information on a fictional universe would be a published interview with the author in which he explicitly stated a correction to the primary source. --tjstrf 02:56, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

However, you (accidently, I'm sure) ignored my second question. Which was whether or not using direct quotations from the game in reference tags was stylisticly acceptable, and if not what should be done with them. --tjstrf 02:56, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I favor secondary quotes to avoid the inevitable evaluations that people end up making, where it goes from "Cloud is a member of SOLDIER" to "Cloud is an atypical member of SOLDIER". I'd rather cite secondary sources to avoid doing OR-ish editorializing, and this doubles as a hedge against speculation, OR literary analysis, and similar essay material. What using secondary sources instead of primary sources does is that encourages us to write summaries, because what is written about FFVII or any other fictional work is more likely to be a summary. That way we don't get undue weight on unimportant details, we don't push interpretive theories, and we just generally don't end up with all the problems you tend to see when personal observation is used as a source.

Part of this is an explicit rejection of "fictional universes." Not every work of fiction makes a "fictional universe," and exceedingly few works of fiction have aspects that are significant artefacts in the real world, independent of the works in which they appear. Superman has a life separate from the work in which he appears. He's appeared in many works in many different forms and media, he's a symbol of America and of DC Comics and of comic books and of superheroes, and there's a great deal said about Superman that is not description of the works in which he appears.

Contrast this with Disgaea characters#Laharl, the protagonist of Disgaea, a video game (and its spinoff anime and manga). Laharl, too, has appeared in a several games a manga, and an anime. However, the first game, manga, and anime are all telling different versions of the same story, and in the games after the first Laharl is merely appearing as a mascot of or reference to that first game. Laharl is a part of the first game; you can't talk about him without talking about that first game, and anything that is said about Laharl is talking about that first game. Most fictional characters (and nearly all fictional places and things) have no role, place, or being in the real world save as parts of the works in which they appear.

Once you start accepting "fictional universes," there's the natural desire to describe those universes as though they were...well, universes. People want to fill in all the corners, mistaking fictional stories for descriptions of a world. Disgaea (using my example from before) isn't a history, it's a story, and it's not a source for anything. Any summary of events, descriptions, settings, objects, that's all plot summary, even if it isn't in the traditional this happened then that happened then the other thing happened form. It shouldn't be mistaken for description of any thing.

As for Alice in Wonderland, my question would be, why are we noting the mock turtle soup pun if no reliable source has ever mentioned it? If a reliable source has mentioned it, iour business is to reflect what has been written about Alice in Wonderland instead of writing our own (however inane) personal observations. If no reliable source has ever mentioned it, then clearly it's a trivial detail that doesn't bear mention in an encyclopedia, which should be synthesizing secondary sources.

As for the Final Fantasy VII styling, I don't think it's ideal, but I also don't feel like it's a fight worth fighting. Final Fantasy VII is clearly a subject with a great deal of commentary in secondary sources, and I'm not going to fight with users doing a lot of good work synthesizing those secondary sources over the plot summary section.

Sorry that this is so scattered and rambly. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

On the subject of including fictional universe stuff as a whole, I might be inclined to agree with you if it weren't for the fact that the articles already exist, those that aren't are being written as we speak, and will presumeably continue to be written at an ever-faster pace. At some point down the road, we might decide to create some sort of official wikimedia project for covering fiction, or at an even more extreme junction we might even decide to speedy delete all unreferenced articles older than x days and deal with them that way. But until then, they exist, and they are in tremendously widespread use online. If you've ever looked at the top 1000 pages, you'll notice that there are at least a dozen character articles right there on the list.

You are never going to be able to afd everything, and doing it sporadically just annoys people. Especially in cases where the article that was deleted was well-written, informative on the subject, etc. The attempt at merging the information is often far worse than the previous article. As a particularly heinous example, the recently deleted List of attacks in One Piece was partially replaced by the god-awful Franky Schematics, for instance. Where the previous article was merely badly written and not referenced to an outside source, the new one is even more in-universe, speculative, far worse in its style, and equally ill-referenced. So while I support deleting some cruft articles, I only support deleting those cruft articles which are badly written, as deleting well-written cruft seems to me to be utterly counter-productive to actually improving the encyclopedia. --tjstrf 05:12, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism, hoaxes, vanity, ads, lists of quotations, directories, and image galleries are also being added all the time. No, I'm not going to be able to clean up everything, but that's not any reason not to keep trying. (I do have a windmill on User:A Man In Black/Cruft for a reason.) I convinced Deckiller (talk · contribs) that merging such articles is a good idea; from there he merged a great deal of Xenosaga cruft, and then went on to help found one of the most strongly mergist (and productive) fiction Wikiprojects around. Even if everything I've done with WP:PCP or in helping with WP:WAF or many other less-important cleanup and merge tasks didn't count for anything, then at least something good has come of trying to clean things up.

Usually I don't bother well-written cruft save to merge it up. There's always a worse case to deal with. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:30, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

MJ-12 Document Removal

Dude, you might find yourself getting increasingly 'yelled' at because you rampage articles without first contributing to an existing discussion on those articles. Your removal of the MJ-12 documents, which had previously been hosted on the page about them, is fine and good, as that's what three of those of us working on that page had agreed to, but we'd agreed to put them in Wikisource, with a link at the bottom of the page, since clear transcriptions are hard to come by (and some of us had put a lot of time into editing those). Could you kindly revert your change temporarily, copy that text with its formatting, and host them in Wikisource with a link? Or at least explain your oh-so-autonomous decision on the MJ-12 talk page? Thank you. -- Kosmocentric 20:21, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I would be happy to if it were necessary. However, it's not. Click the "history" link at the top of the page, then click the timestamp of the older version you'd like to view. This lets you see any version of the page that has ever been posted. Now, if you want to see the source wikitext of an older version, do all that then click the "edit this page" link.

As for why I deleted it, well, we don't keep source documents here on Wikipedia. I see, on talk, that this has been pointed out in the past. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 21:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Dad. And I didn't say put the source documents back on Wikipedia. I said Wikisource. "Source" documents. Wikisource... That's what we'd decided, and the Wikisource policy would seem to jibe with the particular "documents" in question. Kosmocentric 01:28, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh. I don't have a Wikisource account, and I'd rather not post under my IP. If you'd like to have them on Wikisource, feel free. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:57, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Mediation

The Mediation Committee has received a request for formal mediation of the dispute relating to Example. As an editor concerned in this dispute, you are invited to participate in the mediation. The process of mediation is voluntary and focuses exclusively on the content issues over which there is disagreement. Please review the request page and the guide to formal mediation, and then indicate in the "party agreement" section whether you agree to participate. Discussion relating to the mediation request is welcome at the case talk page. Thank you, [signature]

I urge you to reconsider your rejection of mediation. Otherwise I suspect the edit wars between you, I and others will just get worse. -- Y|yukichigai 02:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

You realize this is the second time you've ever commented on my talk page, right? You may want to ask me what I'm doing and why before using a (mostly inactive) dispute resolution page. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I should point out that the very top of your talk page instructs people to talk to you concerning article edits at the article talk page. I have done this. Repeatedly. I think this last bit of edit wartacularness is evidence that the discussion has gone nowhere. Hence the mediation request. -- Y|yukichigai 02:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Additionally, what do you have to lose by agreeing? -- Y|yukichigai 02:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Let's talk here, then, since this isn't just about Deus Ex. (RFM is a big pain in the butt, frankly, and it's fairly inactive.)

WP:V is paramount. Our foundation is the sources we use, and articles are only as useful as the sources we use. No amount of being interesting or being useful or being popular or being well-liked or handwaving or vowing to revert until a page goes to AFD can overcome that. You're going to see me removing unsourced claims pretty much on sight, with the notification that the claims are problematic being the removal itself. I will warn you now; if it's not a trivial claim (with trivial claim being interpreted in the narrowest possible fashion) and it doesn't have a ref tag next to it, consider it tagged for removal. While it's reasonable to make a an exception for cases where there's such a massive body of work on the subject that referencing it is superfluous (grass is green, birds have wings, usw.), I don't work with many articles like that and we're not talking about articles like that. I freely acknowledge that I'm not omniscient in this respect; feel free to revert any such thing I remove citing a lack of sources as long as you provide a reliable source to support the assertion.

Similar to this is how I feel about advertising. We're not here to be the first people to report on something. While we may have other lists of mods with nothing but a brief description and a link, that isn't a reason to keep even more advertising links. If a mod is so noteworthy as to be mentioned in reliable sources independent of the mod's makers, then by all means let's write an article or article section based on those sources. If there aren't any sources, why are we allowing the mod's makers or fans to use Wikipedia as a sandbox?

This is only tangentially related to issues of plot summary/setting detail, which is a separate discussion (although expect me to be saying "nontrivial coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject" a lot). - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:10, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Your use of admin rollback on Deus Ex

The use of admin rollback in content disputes is strongly discouraged. Please limit your use of admin rollback to clear-cut vandalism. If my edits were construed as vandalism (which is false, the removal of unsourced information is not to be considered vandalism), a warning must be posted to my talk page, too. If you can't justify posting a warning, you, frankly, cannot justify using admin rollback to revert my changes. 138.130.165.178 09:09, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmmmm. Blanking the plot summary. I dunno, pretty sure there's nothing wrong with using rollback on that. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:11, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Removal of unsourced information is not vandalism. The plot summary was unsourced. Therefore the blanking of the plot summary was not vandalism. I provided appropriate description of the purpose of my edit in the edit summary. 138.130.165.178 09:13, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Addendum: Checking your edit summary for that edit, I would strongly encourage you to reread your policy on personal attacks. Calling me a troll is un-called-for. You have no evidence to show this. Please show a little decorum in dealing with me. 138.130.165.178 09:14, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Interesting point. However, longstanding convention allows uncontroversial plot points to be sourced directly to the work in the absence of other sources. There's a relevant discussion on this point at WP:CVG and above on my talk page; did you have something to add to either?

All that said, in the meantime, please don't blank those sections. To breach standing convention, especially when deleting sections of an article, is difficult enough as an established editor; to do it as an anon requires some terribly compelling arguments on talk pages, and I'm not yet convinced that this is a good idea. I'm about as sympathetic an editor as you'll find, though, so if you want to make your case here would be a good place to start.

You may find a bit more luck convincing others under the username under which you clearly usually edit, however. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:21, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I see no reason why I should be less convincing as an anonymous user than as a registered user. To quote Jimmy Wales, "There must be no cabal". Clearly, there is a cabal, and this is one of the reasons I edited Wikipedia. My regular username will be evident from my contributions. If we cannot verify plot summaries, we must simply go without. It is, in my opinion, that simple. 138.130.165.178 09:35, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I can think of three different users you might be. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 20:09, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Try me. 138.130.165.178 09:29, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Now, make a case of why we shouldn't have plot summaries sourced to the work itself, and I'll see if I'm convinced. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 20:09, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

You're sourcing it to the work itself? Hmmm... interesting. I'm not sure much of that would be considered a reliable source. 138.130.165.178 09:29, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

As a rule, it's not a good source to be using. In this case, however, there is encyclopedic information to be related, and the story is needed to lend context. In the absence of a secondary source, we use a primary source for uncontroversial claims about the subject. Such primary sources can't establish importance, but they can be used for simple, uncontroversial claims in the absence of any alternative secondary source. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:57, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Interesting idea, thanks for the insight there. 138.130.165.178 01:12, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Deletion of Half-Life series storyline

Hi, can you maybe supply a source for the statement you made when deleting the above article [1]. Currently, wikibooks definately does contain game storylines, e.g.: [2]. Regards, --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 10:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I was chatting with a Wikibooks admin and they said that Wikibooks isn't taking game stuff any more. I will look into this further. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 20:30, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I would greatly appreciate to know if this is becoming their official policy. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 13:21, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, have you been able to find a reference for the non-gameguide policy at Wikibooks? If not, I would appreciate it if you restored the article mentioned above until it is either transwikied or such a policy is present on wikibooks. Regards, --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 08:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Working on it. As for undeleting, it's just as easy to transwiki deleted as undeleted. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:18, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Transwiki-ing deleted articles is not possible for someone who is not an admin, making it not as easy. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 09:17, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, when it's from one Wikimedia project to another, transwiking any article is usually admin-only. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't know that. Is that to preserve the article history? Still, by deleting the article, transwiki-ing to a non Wikimedia wiki (which can be done by non-admins) is made impossible. Also, by deleting it the reminder that the conclusion of the AfD was to transwiki rather then delete is lost. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 11:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

You'd need an admin to delete it afterward anyway. I'm on it, in any case. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 11:09, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[3] and [4] are Jimbo's word on it, and there's a ton of discussion at b:Wikibooks talk:Computer and video games bookshelf; the upshot is that Wikibooks doesn't want Wikipedia's castoffs. I'm looking for an alternate home. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:28, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for supplying refs, I'll look into those. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 09:17, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Reading those refs, I stumbled on: [5]. Perhaps it can be added there as a storyline appendix?. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 09:25, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah. I'm asking a Strategywiki local if they want something like this. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Category:Famous uncompiled computer games

You're a rogue admin, can you sort this out without doing all the process crap? You should know by the title what "sort out" means. - Hahnchen 04:26, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

AMIB apparently doesn't respond to random requests (my request for the Metal Gear template went undone), so I emptied the category out and tagged it for speedy deletion. If that fails, I'll go through CFD. Hbdragon88 23:47, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh! I respond to random requests all the time. I just got pulled away from my computer before taking care of this. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:58, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

In Archive 11 my request for you to check out the Metal Gear series was not fulfilled (I just checked the Solid Snake page and the Metal Gear template still swallows up the SSB one). Hbdragon88 08:43, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Hm. I'll look into it. I don't recall why I didn't before. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:47, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Ugh. This isn't working. We need a unified appearance for these templates, and it sure as hell shouldn't have this div hide/show crap. (Frustrated? Me? Never.) I'm going to bring this up at WP:CVG. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:01, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

The funny thing about that category is that I don't see a way to check out if the category has really been emptied for four days or not. If the admin checks out the user contributions of the tagger, it would show up (because I wrote "removed a pov category" before tagging the category for speeedy deletion), but otherwise...I don't see how they could really tell. Hbdragon88 08:46, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

There isn't a good way to tell. It's been brought up on the CSD talk page before, but I don't think anything ever came of it. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:47, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

So the "four days" stiuplation is just to scare people away from wielding the C1 too liberally? Hbdragon88 09:17, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can tell. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:18, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

MGS2 and Big Boss clean up

If you don't mind could you address the issues I've raised on the MGS2 discussion page, and the one point I've made on the Big Boss discussion page. I wouldn't of bothered you, but the points I've made have been left unanswered for about a week. - Metal gear ninty 20:05, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll take a look. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:57, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant MGS2 charachters discussion page. - Metal gear ninty 14:58, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Wal-Mart name change

You beat me to reverting... Thanks. Another page with a similar debate going on is I Love New York/I ♥ NY. (They've even gotten into using inline colors on that one!) Feel free to chime in on the talk page if you feel inclined. – flamurai (t) 02:10, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Dennis Calero

Hi, I;m not yelling at anyone.

My understanding is that it is considered civil to discuss an issue with an article before marking it for deletion. Why is it people aren;t simply bringing their concernsto me first or even seem to want to read the discussion page? This is my first wiki article and I am becoming extemely disconcerted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ughmonster (talk • contribs)

Hi! I didn't think you were yelling at all. I've mentioned some of my thoughts, as well as some explanation, on your talk page, and I'd be happy to answer questions there. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:04, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi Man, I'm extremely depressed at this point. I came home to find an email from Dennis Calero saying that he was nervous about giving me any permission to use jpegs even on his site, even though copyrighted material elsewhere on wiki.

And then going to follow the discussion, apparantly someone tried to erase some comment and now I've been accused by some australian guy, who does appear to only show up to say nasty things, of being some other user. So that's once someone accused me of actually being the artist, and now being accused of going under another name and deleting someones comment, even though I've actually been really open to answering and taking criticism and advice, that is when I'm not being told to not comment at all.

I was really excited to do this first article and was emobldened by all the talk of civility, but frankly, a lot of people here seem like territorial nuts and very few people seem to want to actually help. i don't know what to think at this point. I mean does being an active member of wikipedia really mean spending hours a day just defending yourself and undeleting edits? --Ughmonster 02:15, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Don't feel the need to follow this up or anything, I think the whole is just silly, but...

"just chiming in....i have done numerous edits, most of that have resulted in pages getting deleted for being tripe. pls refrain from deleting my votes. 4.18GB 02:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC) "

This 4.18 GB happened to show up here User_talk:70.19.97.253 2 minutes after Midge decides to again accuse me of "suck puppetry." I would point out though that referring to something as "trip" meaning crap, is distinctly Australian. --Ughmonster 03:04, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Sockuppetry aside, what do you think of the ecurrent edits? I'm trying to get permission from a small website with a photo of the artist. --Ughmonster 12:14, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry about the AFD right now. Concentrate on improving the article. As for the image, make sure you're asking the small website to release the image under a free license (see Wikipedia:Image copyright tags for some free licenses); just asking permission for Wikipedia to use it isn't a good idea. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 12:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Has it been 5 official days yet? --Ughmonster 01:40, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Oh My Goddess! character

Mind also making the "title" an optional parameter? --Cat out 12:27, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Um. Why? I can, but I need to know what to do if it isn't filled in. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:29, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

You dont trust me much... There is hope for you yet :)

Sometimes I will need to use multiple info boxes. Welsper for instance had undergone serious changes. He was originaly a boy, was punished/reincarnated as a male cat and later became a female cat. It is hard to try to explain this in one template.

--Cat out 01:08, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

No, it's not a matter of trust, just a matter of what I need to do. Hm. Can you link the article so I can get an idea what I'm working with? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Dude I was kidding about the trust thing (hence the smiely). It was a quote from Star Trek. :P

Welsper will need to display the three different forms of welsper: once as a boy, once as an adult, and once as a cat (with his demon-angel). All three is the same character. It is quite complicated. :)

--Cat out 02:16, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I will fiddle, but I don't think three infoboxes in a single character's article is a good idea, especially considering how bloated this template is. I don't think it will be practical unless a ton of the fields in this template went away. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:17, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh not at all. Only a few of his data has changed (most notably becoming a cat). It'll make more sense once you are done :) --Cat out 02:27, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

If that's the case, then just use <br> to separate the changing attributes. See Final Fantasy VII for an example of how you might deal with multiple versions of one thing in one infobox. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:29, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes... well. That is how it is now and I feel it is hard to follow. --Cat out 09:40, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

WDCW

No yelling intended... just wondering why you're removing the logo gallery for WDCW. My opinion is that it is a good illustration of the evolution of the station's branding (i.e. from TV50 to WB50 to Washington's WB, and so forth). I wonder why this station should lose its gallery while other stations get to keep theirs? 68.100.152.9 04:57, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Other stations don't, that's the thing. I've just been working my way through pretty haphazardly. This is discussed at length here. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:00, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

A couple of thank yous

First, thanks for spearheading the CVG-wide effort to streamline the navboxes. I had more or less gotten outvoiced (and gave up for the time being) when {{Halo series}} started to include references to individual machinima series (as much as that's my primary topic of interest here, the connection there was very tenuous).

Second, after thinking about your answer to my questions about being an admin a few weeks ago, I decided to self-nom for adminship, which went over well, so now I've been entrusted with a mop. Your response was helpful in my decision to have an RfA, so thanks for providing that perspective. — TKD::Talk 07:56, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Glad I could help! - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I feel compelled to chip in: THANK YOU! I was tired of that choady navbox for the Legend of Zelda series. This should also help discourage cruft. If it wasn't for editors like you, the CVG project would look so much worse than it currently is. --Tristam 06:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

You're absolutely welcome. I've been pleasantly surprised with how well-recieved the redesign is; I expected the resistance, but the support has blown me away. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:40, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Sai Argyle

I'm curious why you reverted my edit of this page. Sai Argyle Edward321 01:36, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Because you changed it from present tense, the way articles about works of fiction should be written, to past tense. You may want to read WP:WAF; it better explains how articles such as these should be written and why. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:20, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation and the link. I'll go back to it later and try to work on the article while maintainig present tense. (And fix a few more I previously changed tenses on.) Edward321 06:34, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Foundation of campaign going well

My Star Wars anticruft campaign has its groundwork laid out.....I am almost ready to sound out the true beginning, which will involve at least 100 merges in one hour. — Deckiller 05:01, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

It's always exciting when a plan comes together. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:04, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

A bit of harmless spam......

I WAS ATTACHED TO THAT IMAGE, YOU STUPID LEGALHEAD!!!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Raven's Apprentice (talk • contribs)

Alien³

I see you moved all Alien³ game pages to Alien 3. I can't say I agree with you but nevertheless, if you are going to move an article please change all the wikilinks to match the new article name. --Mika1h 20:48, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

In general, names should follow common usage, instead of reflecting idiosyncratic logos. As for fixing every single link, I'll get to it when I get my laptop working again. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Batman/Superman template widths

Because you are of the people who have edited these templates, I'd like to request your input at Template_talk:Batman#Template_width so those of us who have been working on these templates can agree on how to standardize them. Doczilla 21:53, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Kira Yamato cruft

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kira_Yamato

The revert that you did this morning to eliminate the Star Wars cruft from this Gundam Seed page has already been changed back. I think it's the same person, though a different ISP. 203.87.188.94 has posted it twice today, 203.87.211.107 once today. Both have posted it earlier this month, as has 58.71.20.195 and 58.71.27.194 Edward321 23:52, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Acid Reflux

This required possibly the biggest chill pill I've ever needed in my editing history. I'll try to keep a clearer head in the future. There's very little in the article that can't be readily confirmed on the website, but if it's any good, Acid Reflux got a glowing review on Tangents, which certainly is a respected and popular site in its community. --Kizor 00:31, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Request for assistance/advice

Hi Man in Black -

I was wondering if I could get some advice, it is being incorrectly asserted here by User:Ughmonster that I am operating two different accounts (this one) and apparently User:4.18GB. Is there a way admins can determine the IP addresses etc of the different accounts in order to clear my (and User 4.18GBs) names? I havent contributed (via a keep or delete) to the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dennis Calero discussion and dont intend too as I dont know enough about the subject. I did, however, revert the deletion of a Delete comment by User:70.19.97.253, I should also say that I originally marked the article (pre-AFD) for a speedy deletion on the grounds of notability concerns. Any advice would be appreciated,

Thanks in advance, MidgleyDJ 05:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll stomp out that brushfire if it's likely to escape that AFD, but rest assured that nobody thinks that you are either that anon or 4.18GB. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 12:38, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much MIB, I wont post further in that AfD as I think it will only continue the problem. MidgleyDJ 19:13, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

First off, my assertion was more along the lines of "well, you're accusing me of this...isn't it odd that the same thing seems to be happening on the other side." But of coure, Midge neglects to mention that he clearly began the tirade of accusatons. Am I blameless? Of course not. But he's the more experienced user and I felt he was acting like a bully and I'm not the only one.

And I think it bears scrutiny that on the one hand Midge admits that he knows little about the subject yet was very quick to mark the article for speedy deletion and clearly cared enough to come back to this subject and put in his two cents. Why so often if for no other reason than he had decided at some point this article shouldn't exist and to heck with anyone who disagrees.

I'm not claiming that Midge is a bad guy and he does a lot of admirable work on wiki, but a even a cursory examination of the discussions on his page make it clear that this isn't the first time he's become embroiled in some sort of minor contraversey over a hasty decision to delete or mark an article for deletion without giving it due thought.

ManinBlack, you've been incredibly helpful, and I appreciate the fact that you think it best to simply let problems like this get quashed, and I don't disagree. But surely, it's also clear that wiki seems to be rife with people for whom this is a hobby to which they donate an inoridinate (and perhaps innappropriate) amount of time and that somehow makes them feel overly territorial.

I suggest, and I hope you agree in spirit, the wikipedia rules seem designed to welcome new users and not bog them down in dogma or only allow users whose point of view matches those already contributing. Wiki is potentially a resource of near-infinite space and length. There should be room for everybody. --Ughmonster 01:55, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi MIB, User:Ughmonster has also posted this on my talk page, I'm unsure why, but presumably because he thinks this is somekind of witch hunt on my part. I havent lodged any complaint about Ughmonster's apparent use of sockpuppetry in the deletion discussion in question. I'm unsure why he continues to persue this issue. I've not even participated in the Denis Calero deletion discussion except to revert his/her removal of a comment by User:4.18GB. Finally, I strongly disagree with his/her assertion that my talk page is an indication I'm embroiled in anything. It shows I've been actively involved in a number of articles and little else. MidgleyDJ 03:34, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I wish Midge had read the comment above or on his own discussion page before looking on the Dennis Calero deletion page buecause we have since "made up": " I will, however, apologise for not notifying you of my adding speedy delete tags to the article, this is clearly not the ideal approach, and I'm endevouring not to make that mistake again."

I have elected to refrain from further comment but I just wanted to point out that this happened. --Ughmonster 13:59, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Leinil Francis Yu image

this is in regard to the image of Leinil Francis Yu. i have already rendered all the possible tags for this image, and the background is already stated in its talk page, but it doesnt seem to fit on your preference, but rather, my tagging is replaced with --->

and so, being an experienced administrator and with the present image tag stating that "An experienced editor should help the uploader determine the status of this work...", id like to know what is the suitable image tag for Leinil Yu? because if none of the tags i placed suits, i dont understand any reason as to why youre still keeping the image and putting other tags such the one above, when you can just delete it? †Bloodpack† 14:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Basically? A screen capture from a random YouTube video of undetermined origin is not sufficient source nor would it ever be a sufficient source unless the image or the video was somehow iconic and in and of itself a subject of commentary. I'm left the image, tagged, because I meant to also tag it as a replaceable fair-use image and either forgot to or got distracted. It really just needs to go, and I'll take care of it when I'm not on an extremely limited desktop. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 14:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

thanks for a prompt response. i took the image from Gerry Alanguilan's website http://komikero.com and the YOUTUBE video is attached to the blog of his site. I still dont understand the meaning of "iconic and in and of itself a subject of commentary" for the subject matter (image). Does the subject (Leinil) needs a specific pose for his shot to make it look iconic? what about the word "commentary?" †Bloodpack† 14:58, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

When I say "iconic", I mean the Zapruder film. where we're actually talking about the image, not merely using the image to illustrate an article that happens to be about a person in the image. We don't need random images from unrelated websites to illustrate biography articles; we're almost always better off with no image at all than a badly sourced one. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 15:16, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

i still dont see any reason of still tagging the image of leinil when its already bound for deletion for having not complied with the correct licensing. so to make the long story short, why not just delete it? its obvious that no one would step in and help with the tagging †Bloodpack† 19:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I haven't deleted it yet because I'm dealing with other headaches at the moment, that's all. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:27, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Logos

Might I ask... What are you doing??? --WIKISCRIPPS 07 WED OCT 25 2006 1:26 PM EDT

Removing galleries of images that violate WP:FUC. Check WT:TVS for a long explanation. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 17:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Cleaning the castle

Following a seemingly unsuccessful AfD nomination of Castlevania timeline I thought it would be a good idea to get a reality check before contesting related articles, such as Castlevania recurrences. These two, to me, are redundant and don't really stand on their own as separate articles, and sources are virtually non-existent with parts grabbed and assembled from a number of fan sites which may well be based on direct observations by the authors. Perhaps I was simply not clear enough in my argument?

Anyway, thanks very much for your time. Combination 18:34, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Rat on Misty talk page

In Misty's talk page, and other places like Ash's talk page and several user pages, Rat235478683 (t c) has been pestering to have information about shipping between Ash and Misty be added to the articles. Because of our opposition to the idea, this user has added us to a list of enemies, and I was wondering if this sort of behavior is against Wikipedia policy, and if any appropriate action could be taken. --Brandon Dilbeck 21:10, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, never mind, it's being handled. --Brandon Dilbeck 05:17, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Removal of Warnings

Hello! You've removed a recently added user warning template from your user or user talk page. This tends to give the impression that you didn't read it. User warning templates contain valuable information and although you may disagree, it's best if you consider them. Thank you. As an admin. you should know better. I'm just following the rules--Salvax ^{T - C}--22:50, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

There is a difference between warning a newcomer as to deleting content (test1a) and giving an experienced editor such a warning for disagreeing with the removal of trivia from an encyclopedia (a bold move, but one many will and would endorse). — Deckiller 04:25, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I didn't read it. I know exactly what test1a says. If you have some problem with something I'm done, I'm happy to hear why, but boilerplate fails to convey any information whatsoever. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:32, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

3RR block of User:A Link to the Past

You recently blocked User:A Link to the Past for violating 3RR. While it appears he did violate it, you were involved in the dispute; the three-revert rule policy states that admins should not issue 3RR blocks related to disputes they are involved in. Perhaps it might be a good idea to reconsider the block. --Slowking Man 00:12, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree that it was an incorrect course of action. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:37, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm curious about your reasoning as to why policy doesn't apply in this case. The 3RR policy is rather unambiguous on this point, and judging by the talk page, consensus supports this. I think you're a good editor, and as a fellow admin, I would advise against such actions even if policy said nothing about them, because they create the appearance of a conflict of interest. If you had brought the matter up on IRC or at the noticeboard, I and other admins would have been happy to handle the situation. --Slowking Man 08:44, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Fabu-Vinny

Oh god, s/he's back, isn't s/he?—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:33, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

At this point I'm just laying indef blocks. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:35, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know why Dmcdevit didn't start doing that once it was confirmed.—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:44, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Eh. I'll just block any that pop up again. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:47, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Going to kill the main, then, too?—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:51, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Bobabobabo is a productive editor most of the time. I just don't have the energy to do anything more than hammer the socks. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:54, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

But what about the clear fact that s/he is behind all of these for no reason other than to edit war/upload copyvio images?—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 06:18, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't have the energy to deal with it. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:20, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Blocked user

I noticed you blocked User:A Link to the Past for 3RR, but it appears you were actually involved in revert warring right along with him in the page history. Now, I'm not an admin anymore, but I do know that an admin should never block in a case where he is one of the parties involved in the dispute. I think you should unblock and then see if anybody else is willing to reinstate it. Everyking 10:38, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, let me amend that, it actually looks like the block should have expired about two hours ago. In that case all I can say is that you shouldn't have done it. Everyking 10:40, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Fabu-Vinny

Hey AMIB. I got emailed by Woopert regarding the block of Fabu-Vinny. I'm not totally sure if I got this straight, but did you block Fabu-Vinny because you believed he/she was a sockpuppet of Interrobamf? I'm hoping you'll shed some light to the issue, so I can address the user's question.

Here's the email I was sent by apricetx@lycos.com.

letter removed

Thanks. Nishkid64 21:22, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

It's a sockpuppet of Bobabobabo (talk · contribs), who has refused repeatedly to actually discuss any merge of these articles, and constantly reinserts her favorite copyvio and unnecessary images. It's gotten to the point where I just block the socks on sight. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:04, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

More Bobabobabo

• Netto-kun (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
• Buscade (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

—Ryūlóng (竜龍) 22:12, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi! I have some questions

My problem is, I want to remove all commands on my talk page completely. Can't you make an excrement? I also want to delete my my User: Lieutenant Dol Grenn. Please help me.

PS: Your talk page is funny. Lieutenant Dol Grenn 16:49, 28 October 2006 (UTC)