Hi Elanna, I see that you have changed the indexing of surnames of people called McX. Where they hve been indexed as Macx, you have changed it to Mcx: [1], [2], [3], [4]
The reason given in one edit is "per Wikipedia:Categorization of people#Ordering_names_in_a_category", however I don't see any such guidance in that guideline. There was a discussion on the talkpage, but no consensus was reached (see Wikipedia talk:Categorization of people#Ordering_of_Mac.2C_Mc_and_M.27). I'm sure that this was a good faith mistake, but please don't go changing indexing on the basis of a guideline point which isn't in the guideline. Thanks -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 03:01, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Next time you create a batch of {{ england-earl-stub}}s, could you include William John Manners Tollemache, 9th Earl of Dysart in it? At the moment he's a gaping redlink in the article I've just written on Hammerton's Ferry, but as far as I can tell he seems to have had a truly dull career, which seems to have consisted of born - won lawsuit against ferry company - died. — iride scent 13:51, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Oops, I think I've probably used "otherpersons2" instead of "otherpersons" in a vast number of pages, not just the Paul Andersons you've just found. This is because the page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Hatnote#Other_people doesn't make it clear that "otherpersons" works this way - it looks (to me) as if it can only be used to point to a "Paul Anderson (disambiguation)" page, not just to "Paul Anderson". I wondered, but didn't experiment enough. But having worked through a batch of Wikipedia:Suggestions for name disambiguation, I've now moved onto a new game: ridding WP of one of my pet hates, people using "is been" when they mean "is being". Or sometimes "has been". Or "is". Inspired by Wikipedia:Typo. PamD ( talk) 14:48, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
To link to a disambiguation page (instead of a specific meaning), link to the redirect to the disambiguation page that includes the text "(disambiguation)" in the title (such as, America (disambiguation) rather than America). This helps distinguish accidental links to the disambiguation page from intentional ones. See Category:Redirects to disambiguation pages.
Another editor has added the "{{ prod}}" template to the article John Carroll (Irish politician), suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but the editor doesn't believe it satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and has explained why in the article (see also Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia:Notability). Please either work to improve the article if the topic is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia or discuss the relevant issues at its talk page. If you remove the {{ prod}} template, the article will not be deleted, but note that it may still be sent to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. BJBot ( talk) 02:29, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Here when you say "Contested prod, with explanation offered for removal of prod tag", did you mean to say "... no explanation..."? PamD ( talk) 08:42, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Sources added. OK?? Hans Sentis ( talk) 15:30, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi BHG happy new year to you just wondering did you get the email I sent you regarding the new article I am working on still having trouble with a couple of math formulas thanks. BigDunc ( talk) 18:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
BHG, this article is protected yet User:R. fiend is using his admin privilages to continue editing he has been warned before about doing this when he is involved in a content dispute on the article.-- Padraig ( talk) 00:17, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I have reviewed the above article, which you nominated for as a good article and have placed the article on hold. My concerns can be found on the article's talk page. Cheers, CP 02:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Hello Brown Haired One -- It was good to see your name turn up again in a few CFD discussions, though you seem to have shifted your priorities to other areas of late. All the same, you might want to take another look at the CFD for Category:Cultural Enthusiasm, where some interesting -- but very obscure -- names have been proposed. I've signed on in support of one of your suggestions, and I think the discussion would benefit from your input at this juncture. Cgingold ( talk) 09:12, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Please note, I have acted on the consensus I have seen on the main RfC page, and opened a Request for Arbitration. You may add (brief, 500 words or less) statements Here. Thanks! SirFozzie ( talk) 23:21, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi, I notice you've added the Category:Local councillors in County Sligo to the John Perry (Irish politician) article (and it appears also to the Eamon Scanlon article). Unfortunately, neither of these politicians are local councillors at present, as they are both TDs, and as such are precluded from being councillors at the same time. Is the category for those who are councillors at present, or who were councillors? -- The.Q (t) (c) 10:17, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi, sorry about that, very careless of me. It was an honest mistake and I'll try to avoid making it again. Thanks for correcting it. Cheers, Waggers ( talk) 22:59, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
An editor has nominated 1248 in Ireland, an article on which you have worked or that you created, for deletion. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also " What Wikipedia is not").
Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1248 in Ireland and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).
You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate. Thank you. BJBot ( talk) 20:44, 12 January 2008 (UTC) Sarah777 ( talk) 01:43, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi BHG - have you seen this - you may wish to comment. (Your earlier input re 1284 eetc was much appreciated) Ardfern ( talk) 20:48, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Folks, you might (or might not) be interested in this discussion Sarah777 ( talk) 23:17, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
In case anyone is looking for me, I thought I should explain I'm afraid that I don't I don't expect to be around much in the next few days.
My laptop has chosen to develop a severe disabillity in its power supply just at the point when I was rebuilding my desktop, so I currently have access to the web only in the laptop's increasingly rare moments of lucidity, or temporarily in test builds of the desktop.
Once the penguin has made itself at home, I expect to be back in business as usual ... except that I haven't figured out yet how to run BHGbot without windoze, so that'll probably have to wait until the laptop is back from hospital. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 01:10, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Please visit the Sima Mafiha page and help to extend the article. I found little info about her. I am afraid that she could be forgotten at all. I think she desrves much more attention. What do you think of that?-- Faikpro ( talk) 01:57, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi, BrownHairedGirl. We're talking about divvying up Portal work over at WT:GS#Portal proposal. User:Grrrlriot said she'd take feminism or Portal:Women, but I thought since you voiced interest in the Women portal, maybe you'd like to start that (no obligation), Grrrl could do feminism and I'd start Gender studies. What do you think? Phyesalis ( talk) 03:38, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
BH, could you take a peek at Category:11th century in Ireland and Category:Years of the 11st century in Ireland; I think your bot has a lithp :) Sarah777 ( talk) 10:09, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Emperor00 ( talk · contribs), presumed, based on behavior. Although he's confined himself to talk pages thus far. Choess ( talk) 23:02, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
BHG can you block this vandal [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Kriss_Cross_Cry Kriss c
Cross Cry] he is repeatly vandaling the Derry article and others.--- Padraig ( talk) 23:11, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
What exactly would you like to see done with the article to improve it's notability? I'll look to see what reliable sources I can find on the subject. Is there anything else you have in mind? It's a real important music reseller in the Contemporary Christian music industry, and I just added it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Christian music. Royalbroil 19:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I see you have a history of working on the article George Fletcher. I am looking at it from the project Wikipedia:Unreferenced articles where it is one of the longest {{ unreferenced}} tagged articles that does not meet at least the barest minimum of verifiability. It has been tagged and completely without references since June 2006. It would be extremely helpful if you had some references you could add to the article to help support its verifiability and notability. Thanks for any help you can give. Jeepday ( talk) 14:16, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Hello again. I trust that your master has given you permission to return to our conversation in that little siding we were talking about? For I am on the verge of archiving it, and that could complicate things a little. By the way, I hope that the evil specimens of technology in your possession will not create any more problems with regards to your editing.
Oh, and I have an extra lure: an Ireland-related question. You can't miss that one... (Evil grin) Waltham, The Duke of 15:57, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
You may be interested in this. -- The.Q (t) (c) 16:49, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
I wonder if you have anything you could offer here: Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/The Troubles#Recent Block of Vk by SirFozzie. Rockpocke t 18:06, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi BHG i was wondering if your bot could do a small job on Category:Gaelic Athletic Association competitions, and remove Gaelic Athletic Association competitions if either the article is in Category:Hurling competitions or Category:Gaelic football competitions and removed from Category:GAA County Championships if in one of the sub categories Gnevin ( talk) 23:02, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Looks as if this baronetcy could do with linking up. Current Baronet is Richard Carew Pole. Best wishes Vernon White . . . Talk 19:03, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
FYI there is a dedicated page at Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/The Troubles/Enforcement requests, shortcut WP:TER. Tyrenius ( talk) 21:18, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
The new Category:Gaelic Athletic Association cups is currently a subcat only of Category:Gaelic Athletic Association. Shouldn't it instead be a subcat of Category:Gaelic Athletic Association competitions? -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 06:22, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi. As someone who has edited the Inniscrone and/or Enniscrone page recently, you may be interested in this. Regards, -- The.Q (t) (c) 15:49, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
So i've created Category:Hurling clubs in Ireland by county and Category:Gaelic football clubs in Ireland by county . Now i've also defined Category:Gaelic Athletic Association clubs but the more i think about it I think that Category:Gaelic Athletic Association clubs in Ireland by county is pointless as the two above now do a better job . What do you think ? Gnevin ( talk) 22:31, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Hello BHG. I noticed your comment in this discussion. If you prefer not to go into this on your User talk, there is no need to respond. But, due to my concern that the thread we had both joined there was not working at a very collaborative level, I started to wonder if any more factual points could be mustered. This puts me at a disadvantage since I hardly ever use any of these map links. I just remember my own annoyance and personal experience with the ISBN situation, which I circumvent with my own monobook. If you use maps, do you think it might be possible to prepare some more convincing examples, that we could put in front of the participants at WT:EL? Otherwise it'll probably come down to a war of personal preferences, and lead to a non-terminating discussion. I agree 100% with your point about usability, but don't know how to exhibit that in more precise detail. In particular, I didn't understand why you said:
Don't get me wrong, this system is a great idea; it's just that it still has such poor useability that it is grossly premature to force its use to the exclusion of all other methods..
I don't know what other methods you believe to be realistic options to consider. EdJohnston ( talk) 05:50, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Look what they are doing now.... Category:999 in Ireland ...and so on with many more years. Sarah777 ( talk) 20:02, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Howdy! I just spotted this revert. Personally, I believe the previous edit was correct: the coordinates both within that section as well as inserted at the top-right of the article provide the necessary links and do not lend any explicit preferance to one service over another. In my opinion, keeping the Terraserver link is a slippery slope to a complete enumeration of Google Maps/Earth, Yahoo, MS Live, etc... Your thoughts? Just to make sure I notice the response, I would appreciate a response on my user page. Cheers! -- Bossi ( talk • gallery • contrib) 05:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
After reading AN/I, I am even more puzzled by your edit diff at Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre. You seem to have wanted to change the scale of the map from showing where AECC is in Aberdeen to showing where it is in Aberdeenshire. Was this your intention or were you attempting to change on grounds of a perceived policy? Thincat ( talk) 14:02, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I saw this yesterday and assumed that as it had not been reverted it was a good edit. So I started, using AWB, to remove the links to it from various articles. I did 100+ before stopping and followed up with another 90 today before I noticed that the link was working again. I checked the template and saw this. At that point I saw the above, the ANI and the EL discussions. I can't just roll them back as there were other valid edits made to some of the articles. Fixing the "coord" template, references, spelling, etc. However, I do have the list of the ones I did and am willing to restore the WikiMapia template if you think it would be best. Cheers. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 20:16, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Hello. If you've a moment, can you take a look at this article? This was just created tonight, and I know that it's author did not create it as a joke---it was created more to prove a point (if you look here [ [5]], you will see what I mean by that). Though not intended as a joke, I certainly do not believe this is anything that can be taken seriously. Before I prod it or take it to AfD, I would like the opinion of an uninvolved party. Thanks for your time. Cheers! --- RepublicanJacobite The'FortyFive' 03:57, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Now nominated for deletion: see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Weedpunk. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 14:27, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi, currently there are two categories for Sinn Féin politicians, Category:Irish Sinn Féin politicians and Category:Sinn Féin politicians.
Irish Sinn Féin politicians is for those 'who were members of the original Sinn Féin party in the early 20th century (1905–1926)' and Sinn Féin politicians is for those 'who are, or were, members of the Sinn Féin, an Irish republican party in Ireland, originally founded in 1905 and established in its present form as Provisional Sinn Féin in 1970.'
This is a bit confusing for anyone not familiar with the history of Sinn Féin and all the splits in the party. I propose leaving the Category:Sinn Féin politicians as it is, being populated by modern politicians. The other category could be renamed Category:Sinn Féin politicians (1905-26), since at that stage the pro and anti treaty factions had left to join Cumann na nGaedhael and Fianna Fáil at that stage. But then what about the rump that was left, do we need another category for 1927-69? Any thoughts? Snappy56 ( talk) 19:27, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
You're right, not much interest there, so we better sort it out ourselves. Any renamings will have to through WP:CFD, but new categories can just be created, so I suggest that you and I continue the discussion at WT:IE and see where get to. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 02:43, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I've made a point about custom edit summaries in an ANI thread. See here. Notification left because the thread was previously marked "resolved" (I've removed the resolved label as I felt the issue is not resolved). Comments would be welcomed. Carcharoth ( talk) 01:22, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm back. Well, I've never really left, as I still use Wikipedia, The "Free" Encyclopedia which only Admins like you have a voice in and the rest of us just create stupid little stubs, for school projects etc.
Where should I begin? First off, I want to wish you a HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY from Pennsylvania (though nowhere near Punxatawney). Second I appreciate your recent edits to -- except a certain group. A very large group.
You know what I'm referring to. And I'm sure you are thinking "Better block this sock immediately." (Hey - it rhymes!) That's the position of other Administrators who look at my block log, see that I created a sockpuppet, and automatically block me without a reason. (I'm talking about you, Sandstein.)
I could have chosen him to send this message to. But he isn't the main case involved in this bizzarre wiki-drama. And with my indefinate block by Luna Santin, most of it stopped.
But this is far from over.
Robert Young still is disrupting Wikipedia through Bart Versieck. And I wouldn't blame him. He is indefinably blocked and he has no chance of being unblocked--UNLESS you listen to this.
He was blocked for disruption. He disrupted Wikipedia. I was blocked for sockpuppetry/disruption. The sockpuppetry will be discussed further down, and I disrupted Wikipedia. You, however, have disrupted Wikipedia about as much as we have and you have not been blocked. Interesting.
I consider myself calm now. We are all here trying to build Wikipedia. Young and I have just got furious over you (and others) destroying some of our well-sourced content that we spent a while on TRYING TO BUILD AN ENCYCLOPEDIA.
This is one of the most unusual and little-documented chapters of Wikipedia history. The first AfD at the List of <insert nationality here> Supercentenarians atracted far too few editors for such an important case that it should have remained open until actual consensus was reached. (Note: you deleted several of my articles claiming that consensus was reached to delete. Since so little editors contibuted in the discussion -- and I know if Robert Young could edit that he certainly would have pushed it to a keep-- it was actually a no consensus, default to keep.)
To the sockpuppet stuff: I did create sockpuppets after my block. YGM and IBYB were two of my friends sharing my computer. I created the sockpuppets because my talk page was unjustly protected. (Hey, what else am I supposed to do besides post the unblock template on my talk page when I was unjustly blocked?) Besides, people keep telling me to email you. I CAN'T! There is something wrong with my e-mail stuff. Therefore, this is the only way I can get my thoughts out.
My point is: It's been a month, I'm willing to contribute constructively again (I really never did stop), and at the very least can you unblock my main account so I can file a request for arbitration agaist you. Sure, I could use this account, but it probably wouldn't be taken so well. Delete this, block me, but please understand that this will still appear in the edit history.
All the same, I just wish that you could do something about this. Have a nice Day. Kit3 ( talk) 02:22, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
I populated the models subcats you and created additional ones to fill the sets. You might want to look. Hmains ( talk) 23:48, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
The entry for Noel Browne on the said page has a speedy tag on it. Could you remove it? bibliomaniac 1 5 01:10, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Hey, thanks for all your help earlier on weedpunk. Too bad it didn't work out. Anyway, could you look at Fat Acceptance Movement. I think it should be up for deletion, there is no sources that mention the movement, few sources in general, and what I believe is original research or at best non-notable neologism. Thanks! -- Banime ( talk) 16:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
BH, why is this still open? It is an obvious FAIL due to 'no consensus' with a strong 'keep' majority. Yet is is still open while those all around it are closed. I am suspicious that something may be afoot. Sarah777 ( talk) 00:23, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi, it's me, the anon who edited the Bill Phillips disambig to include a William Phillips. I agree that you were totally justified in deleting it. The only reason I added that William Phillips is that I have actually met him, and he was referred to exclusively as Bill. Should I suggest a move? Or do you think that info is too unsupported. Anyway, thanks for your time, and thanks for cleaning up any confusion I produced!-- 66.65.125.206 ( talk) 02:07, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Hello,
I hope you don't mind but I randomly came across Template:YearInIrelandNav, seemed like a really good idea so I copied it and created Template:YearInPakistanNav - but there appears to be a problem somewhere, for example 1981 in Ireland lists the decades in the navbox - however the link for "2000s" actually goes to Category:1960s in Ireland.
Cheers
Pahari Sahib
14:28, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi, I'd just like to say thanks for disambiguating
Andy O'Brien to
Andy O'Brien (EastEnders) after you moved the page, especially on image description pages. Most people simply move a page and create a disambiguation page in its place without considering the consequences, so it was very much appreciated.
anemone│
projectors
10:47, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
(deindent) WP:DAB isn't much help wrt to people, but WP:NCP is more helpful, particularly WP:NCP#Qualifier_between_bracketing_parentheses.
My own principle in applying the guideline could be summarised as "enough to clearly distinguish, but no more", e.g. "Ian Wall (politician)" and "Ian Wall (congressman)" are not clearly distinguished, but "Ian Wall (Texas politician)" and "Ian Wall (Idaho politician)" are clearly distinguished ... and if they were both Democrats it would be inappropriate to include "Democrat" on the disambiguator, because that is not a characteristic which distinguishes them.
In this case, the word "British" shouldn't be part of the disambiguator, because it doesn't distnguish them. PamD is right that the gender-neutral term actor is preferred these days, but I would also add that the year is used in the disambiguators in a way that's unclear — Olivia Grant (1983 British actress) could refer to some whose notability is based on an event in 1983.
So I would suggest that if disambiguation is needed, then the two articles should be called "Olivia Grant (actor born 1983)" and "Olivia Grant (actor born 1996)". I say "if", because as the notability of these actors has not yet been established by reference to substantial coverage in reliable sources. If either or both of the articles is deleted, then do disambiguator is needed. If only one article is kept, it would be sufficient to have a hatnote in that article noting the existence of the other (non-notable) Olivia Grant.
Hope this helps. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 14:10, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Just thought you might be interested in this: Wikipedia:WikiProject Gender Studies/Feminism Task Force -- Grrrlriot ( talk) 00:02, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Done Any chance you could semi-protect this page for a while BHG to discourage the vandals? Thanks. - Galloglass 20:53, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
you should be aware of an unblock request just made on my talk page. [6] DGG ( talk) 23:40, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi BHG. I think you might be interested in the following edits by a new user called Crazy Eddy who created a new centenarian article yesterday. The article itself on a Mariam Amash looks fine as the lady might actually be the oldest person in the world and is sourced. What struck me however was the comment by Crazy Eddy on the article talk page here [7] and one made by Kitia in his edit summary a few hours later here [8]. At a guess our young friend has not noticed he's been unblocked and has decided to carry on with his puppetry. If course I could be wrong but I don't think so. I leave it in your capable hands. Cheers - Galloglass 12:34, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Like ONIH, I doubt that it's Kitia ( talk · contribs). Apart from the age of the account, there are several issues of editing style and subject matter which distinguish the account from Kitia (including some rather well-done referencing). And Mariam Amash's case has been getting a lot of publicity recently, so I'm not surprised that it would prompt a dormant editor to get to work. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 16:11, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
May I email you with some information that's been made aware to me on this issue regarding the discussion at WP:TER? SirFozzie ( talk) 18:32, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
A tag has been placed on Template:Oireachtas-database-member requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section T3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a deprecated or orphaned template. After seven days, if it is still unused and the speedy deletion tag has not been removed, the template will be deleted.
If the template is intended to be substituted, please feel free to remove the speedy deletion tag and please consider putting a note on the template's page indicating that it is substituted so as to avoid any future mistakes (<noinclude>{{transclusionless}}</noinclude>).
Thanks. -- MZMcBride ( talk) 04:13, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for leaving me a note on my talk page before accusing me of making unsourced commentary on the Paudge Connolly article. Its good to see that some people know the meaning of common courtesy. Goodandhonestwhig ( talk) 13:08, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Hello, I saw that you are ranked number 6 according to this with a grand total of 109,418 (holy sh**!). But anyway, I noticed that you hadn't updated your userbox. I was going to do it, but I think it's bad form to modify other's userpages so I am just going to write it in here! Cheers!-- Sallicio 16:52, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
LOL! I've got a paltry 1,200 edits to my credit. I need adoption, can you be my step-mom?-- Sallicio 17:29, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
EW. What's wrong with those Brothers Grimm? Hmm, I gues for my own well-being, I should just remain at the orphanage.-- Sallicio 17:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Danke schön, Mutti! Thanks for being my adopted mom!-- Sallicio 23:49, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi BHG. Could you take a look at the above article when you have time? It looks like it was created by the person themselves. I have no idea if the person actually meets the notability guidelines as I have no idea what Otolaryngology actually is. It looks a bit iffy to my untrained eye but you're a better judge of these things than me. Thanks - Galloglass 22:19, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi. FYI, you left block notices/tags for Thornintheside ( talk · contribs) but the account was never actually blocked. It never became active again but I thought you might want to know. — Wknight94 ( talk) 00:51, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
You might remember we had a little to-do about years in Ireland. I was wondering if you were meaning to change the templates, or whether I should go ahead and inflict my (arbitrary) fix. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:45, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
I have opened up a request for comment on a discussion that you had been previously involved in regarding Ruby Muhammad. If you wish to participate, your input would be highly valued, and you may comment here. Cheers, CP 07:36, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
In this article, I took out the name of the officer under investigation because he was still under investigation. The user here added the officers name back. Isn't there something about living persons and pending cases...it just seems a bit off to me. Another editor has already reverted the change, but I was just curious. Thanks!-- Sallicio 06:09, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the help. Removed the unsourced statement, too! :D-- Sallicio 19:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Duly noted! Good looking out! :) -- Sallicio 23:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
BHG, you are so wise! We should put you in a cave on top of a mountain and charge admission! lol! :)-- Sallicio 01:36, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
LOL! That's ok, I'm a police officer, so I can provide executive protection from the "evil-doers!"-- Sallicio 03:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Maybe you were talking to the wrong people. If that were the case here, the length of a pointless, drawn-out trial would have rested on the shoulders of the State's Attorney/District Attorney's Office (depending on the state one lives in) or the US Attorney (for federal crimes). In the US we're completely independent from the SA's Office. (If the story was that juicy, it could've been a good WP article! Did you write one?)-- Sallicio 03:39, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Once again you have proven your wisdom! You're like Superman...mild-mannered strategist by day, then...BAM, Wikipedia superhero by night! :) -- Sallicio 03:57, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Sigh...that's what they all say!-- Sallicio 04:48, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
You are too kind. Good call down there, too! This is why I needed adopting! :)-- Sallicio 05:28, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Hey, mom... this user here is starting to be uncivil (about the aforemention article and may need to sit in the "time out chair" if he can't control his/her behavior.
It is my opinion that writing style should be bold, not dull and boring. It is common knowledge Mary Harney retook the leadership position reluctantly! Goodandhonestwhig ( talk) 13:50, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
-- BorgQueen ( talk) 20:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
What's the process to nominate a category to move , or can you nominate these two
Category:Football in the Republic of Ireland to
Category:Association football in the Republic of Ireland and
Category:Irish police officers
Category:Members of Garda Síochána
Gnevin (
talk)
08:49, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
There don't seem to be many Irish articles hitting the front page, so I am trying to get some of my recent creations into Did you know? box on the front page. The two suggestions which I have made at T:TDYK are Fintan "Lazarus" Coogan and Pól "20 press-ups" Ó Foighil.
Fingers crossed :) -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 22:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I happened to notice your Pól Ó Foighil article in the DYK "waiting room" a last night and left a complementary note beneath it. I see no reason why it shouldn't make front page. U haven't checked out your "Lazarus" Coogan article but will. Go n'éirí an t-ádh leat. -- House of Scandal ( talk) 15:10, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Sorry if this is old news, but I'm thinking you may have missed my note. Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2008 February 18#(Some) Years in Ireland categories may be of interest. Please do have your say, and if you can think of anywhere to advertise it that would be great. TIA, Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:35, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Hiya BrownHairedGirl :)
Just what is going on with the Barnsley East/Barnsley East and Mexborough articles? I have amended the former to include confirmed candidates, so this redirect issue is rather confusing! Do you have any ideas what is going on, and why we cannot have the Barnsley East article standing alone? And Sheffield South East, too - there are candidates selected (see http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/guide/seat-profiles/sheffieldsoutheast ). So I wondered if we can "release" these articles for use?
Cheers doktorb words deeds 11:24, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
-- Victuallers ( talk) 21:41, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi BHG. I just wanted to let you know that I found your comment very unhelpful and have asked you to clarify what exactly you think I should do in future, the next time another admin asks for my help on a problematic article. The statement that I am perceived as biased by Sarah and certain unnamed other editors is a very serious allegation. Please provide diffs or evidence to support what you said there, or else retract the statement. Thanks in advance. -- John ( talk) 22:46, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar | ||
99% major/100% minor edit summaries! Amazing! That kicks the crap out of my 70/100 stat.
For taking the time to fill out them edit summaries, I, Two One Six Five Five (21655), award BrownHairedGirl with this Defender of the Wiki Barnstar. Two One Six Five Five τ ʃ 18:40, 25 February 2008 (UTC) |
Hi, would you have a moment to look at Roosky please? Looks to me like User:CianDiffl has added a whole bunch of content which might be fluff and is probably not encyclopaedic, but I'm no expert. Would appreciate your opinion, please. Thanks! -- AndrewHowse ( talk) 22:56, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I watched you in the ISBN discussion, and I started questioning myself elsewhere. I f I promise to explain to you the origin of the word pedant, would you care to look over another discussion and offer a comment?-- mrg3105 ( comms) ♠♥♦♣ 04:04, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi BHG -- I noticed you hadn't been doing CFD much lately, and I have to say, your approach & sense is much missed. -- Lquilter ( talk) 15:58, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Appreciate you have other things to do, but I need some sort of idea on how you want things done. A simple if < 1100 would be easiest, but if you've got a better plan I'd like to hear it. Thanks, Angus McLellan (Talk) 20:51, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Something's amiss with the red block of text at bottom of the page - it's obscuring the last message, so presumably will now hide part of this one! PamD ( talk) 21:43, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
{{UserTalkReplyhere|cat=yes}}
to {{UserTalkReplyhere|cat=no}}
. Seems OK now :) --
BrownHairedGirl
(talk) • (
contribs)
21:57, 27 February 2008 (UTC)Just suffered a 24 hour block (which I managed to get lifted) for being disruptive in Years in Ireland. See my talk page - makes you glad to be a part of this. Ardfern ( talk) 22:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi BHG, is your bot up and running again ? Is so can you have it add {{ WikiProject Ireland}} to pages in Category:WikiProject_Gaelic_Games_articles, Thanks Gnevin ( talk) 17:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
PS Pls can you explain further what the problem is with {{ GaelicGamesByYear}}. I can't see anything wrong, but I may not be looking in the right place :) -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 01:19, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
User:Tvarkytojas is removing (at speed) a lot of articles and sub-categories from Category:Protestant Reformation. I'm no expert on this but suspect these (and other) edits are often dubious. T is also putting categories in alphabetical order ... is this recommended somewhere? -- roundhouse0 ( talk) 18:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
-- Sallicio 04:01, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for closing Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of massacres (2nd nomination) because it was not an easy one to do. -- Philip Baird Shearer ( talk) 16:44, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Tiananmen_Square_Massacre Kittybrewster ☎ 13:48, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Hello BHG. I wonder if you will reconsider your message to me left on Sarah's talk page for a number of reasons. Firstly, shouting doesn't make your point any more germane than typing in regular text. Secondly, I have my own talk page where you can draw attention to error you may think I have made and thirdly, last time I read WP:NPA and WP:CIV, it didn't permit name-calling, so I politely reminded Sarah of that, asked her to stop, warned her what would happen if she continued along those lines and informed her of the due process to express her grievances. I have quite a good relationship with Sarah, and as it has in the past, had hoped that my discussion with her may prevented this from escalating further. I didn't block her and had no intention of blocking her. So if you consider those actions be "victimisation" and "too trigger-happy" then what exactly do you call your message to me?
Furthermore, clearly Sarah herself didn't consider that I was "victimising her" [9] and your less-than-helpful message was set after her apology and unblocking, so exactly what purpose is is supposed to serve? Sheesh. Rockpocke t 17:38, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
BHG, your points are rhetorical but not validated with evidence. The point Sarah was making about Ardfern's block had been addressed before her remarks: he was already unblocked, when she made them. You say univolved admins have produced better results. An univolved admin Rjd0060 reviewed the block and endorsed it, but I don't think you are saying this is a better result. Naturally User:SlimVirgin's suggestion to unblock is going to get a positive response—that would happen any time someone is unblocked. However, it was not unilateral: it was done in liaison with an "involved" admin, me, and it was a collaborative decision. [12] Your statement that I am "involved" as regards Sarah is not validated by the clarification discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/The_Troubles#Request_for_Clarification_of_Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration.2FThe_Troubles. According to your suggestion, none of the admins listed at the troubles ArbCom should sanction any of the editors listed there. Is this seriously what you are suggesting? The description "punish-the-usual suspects exercise" is not true. No one is being sanctioned because they are a "usual suspect". They will be sanctioned if they offend. If they don't, then they will not be. I strongly object to your pejorative "the real problem there is Tyrenius wading in yet again." Perhaps you would provide proof of this, rather than just making groundless accusations. Otherwise, withdraw your statement. This is the first time I have blocked Sarah. Do you think that Alison was wrong to have previously blocked Sarah? If not, why not? If not, then you are applying inconsistent standards. I have made a full reply to your points at Wikipedia:An/i#Response_to_BrownHaired_Girl, which you have not acknowledged. Tyrenius ( talk) 18:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Hmm, there's a whole bundle of things here, and I'll try picking up on a few of the points, but I don't have the time to write an essay in response.
First, Tyrenius's claim that Ardfern's block had been addressed before Sarah's outburst. Actually, it hadn't: he had been unblocked, but there had been no follow-up on why such a bad block had been imposed in the first place, and why an unusually hard-working and stay-out-of-conflict editor had been pounced on so rapidly and blocked as if he had violated a policy.
Secondly, both of you are missing the point that there was no suggestion that Sarah was herself engaged in anything disruptive in relation to content of wikipedia, or disrupting any discusion process: her offence consisted solely of sounding off on her own talk page and on mine. Blocks are supposed to be preventive, not punitive, and I fail to see why there was a pressing need for Tyrenius to block Sarah at 00:28 [13], when Rockpocket had left a warning half-an-hour before [14] and there had been no further comment from Sarah. Please see Wikipedia:No personal attacks#Recurring_attacks:Recurring, non-disruptive personal attacks that do not stop after reasoned requests to cease should be resolved through the dispute resolution process. Especially when personal attacks arise as the result of heated debate over article content, informal mediation and third-party opinions are often the best ways to resolve the conflict. Similarly, Wikiquette alerts offers a "streamlined" source of outside opinion. In most circumstances, problems with personal attacks can be resolved if editors work together and focus on content, and immediate administrator action is not required.
Note that last bit "immediate administrator action is not required". Yet in this case, it's what happened, and as result a huge amount of energy has been displaced into discussion of the block rather than the underlying complaint.
This doesn't help, and that's why I have objected: one bad block (on Ardfern) produced an outburst, which was then followed up with another bad block, and objections to that block then produce another storm :( Rather than reaching for the block button, we would all save ourselves an awful lot of energy to devote to content if there was some effort to divert Sarah777 into effective use of the dispute-resolution channels ... but that isn't going to happen so long as the response remains a pile-in.
Rockpocket draws a comparison with my block of Vintagekits over the baronets renaming. If you check back on that saga, you will find a crucial distinction: that block was placed to stop an ongoing disruptive pattern of editing the content of the encyclopedia, when requests to desist had been unsuccessful. The situation was complex, and the explanation was necessarily long, which is why I blocked first and explained later: not as ideal thing to do, but as the lesser of two evils, to stop immediate and ongoing disruption of content. That wasn't the case with Sarah: her offence consisted solely of inappropriate adjectives on her own talk page, and I have seen no suggestion that she was in any way editing content disruptively.
I'm not now going to spend another huge chunk of time engaged in collecting diffs and trying to match the output of the three other admins. My main interest is in content, and that's where I want to devote my energies. I have raised this problem because, with regret, some admins who I have previously respected appear to have become overly focused on the single issue of Sarah's outbursts, and are not helping to divert those grievances down the proper channels.
Please, rather than engaging in further piles of diff-collecting, can we try working together to assist Sarah777 in using the dispute-resolution processes when she feels aggrieved? It would be far more likely to produce satisfactory results all round than focusing solely on the incivility, and if we can show Sarah how dispute resolution can produce mutually agreeable outcomes, we can all get away from this increasingly circular argument about language and about who said what when. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 22:41, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
My comparison with Vk's block was to with respect to Fram's block of Adfern (not Sarah's). As far as I can tell Fram considered there to be an ongoing disruptive pattern of editing to the content of the encyclopedia, when requests to desist had been unsuccessful. He said in justification:
That seems to be pretty similar to your reasoning for blocking Vk and hence not "grossly unfair and out-of-process" (your words). Now, there my be more to it than meets the eye as I'm not familiar with the background, but the reasoning behind it appears sound and pretty damn far from "fascist" behaviour.
Finally, I assume as you did before, you are again referring to me among "admins who I have previously respected" who "appear to have become overly focused on the single issue of Sarah's outbursts, and are not helping to divert those grievances down the proper channels." Did you actually read the message that you made that accusation in response to? [15] Because the whole point of that reply was to direct Sarah's grievances down the proper channels. So I understand you wish to get back to content writing, but I would very much like you to tell me what I did that justified your accusations because all you have offered so far was that a "bad block" was made (that had absolutely nothing to do with me and was made after I went off line) and that I was not helping to divert Sarah's grievances down the proper channels (when that was exactly what I was doing). If you don't wish to waste your time doing that then at least have the good grace to withdraw your accusations. Rockpocke t 23:41, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't really like to see hassle between two Admins I admire, Rock and BHG. (And Rock is correct that we have no issues - he seems to come closer than anyone at understanding where I'm coming from). But I must record that that isn't to say I am happy or feel that the blocks on Ardfern or subsequently myself were right. (In fact were it not for my attempts at civility I'd need to accurately express my true views and feelings on on both in very uncivil terms). I feel the agreement to compromise by my blocker after the intervention of Slim was due to the fact that the intemperate circumstances of the block would likely lead to embarrassment should this go to Arbcom rather than any sense of fair play. (This is my reading of the situation and I realise that the mere explanation of it leaves me open yet again to accusations of incivility; so please appreciate that my comments here are very measured. (Read the comments of the said editor at the ANI as to his preferred "solution" to the "problem" - aka, me - to understand why I feel as I do). And I realise that I'm not "tuned-in" to the dominant Wiki-culture but I must say that I find the characterisation of BHG's comments as "unhelpful" (code for what?) and demands for explanations sounds to me as somewhat intimidating to BHG; which I assume isn't the intention? Sarah777 ( talk) —Preceding comment was added at 23:45, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi BHG -- It's not a CFD but this discussion on Wikipedia talk:Categorization about use of HIDDEN to conceal some "intersection" categories has, I think, very broad implications for categorization policy. If you haven't looked at it yet I think you'll want to. Cheers, Laura Q / Lquilter ( talk) 21:24, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Hello. I see the earlier discussion here has been archived, but your restoration of Template:WikiMapia on January 31 was removed on February 10. I just noticed this today and have restored it again. As I mentioned in my edit summary, although I support the GeoHack effort, I feel that the WikiMapia template has its uses. Also, I've seen a lot of discussion at Wikipedia talk: External links but have not seen any consensus to disable the WikiMapia template. -- Zyxw ( talk) 14:40, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Done Would it be possible to move Ronald Arthur Dalzell, 12th Earl of Carnwath over Ronald Dalzell, 12th Earl of Carnwath? Both started out as dupes by the same author, but the first now has more history. Choess ( talk) 00:29, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the note and welcome to the minefield. Outstanding analysis, very clear indeed, if I may say so. The effort probably drained you of spelling energy - still a nice Freudian slip in your post: "altough"! Tyrenius ( talk) 00:52, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Well there was restuarant, but I've just changed that for you. Your latest proposal looks even better. I can't wait to get out of there! Tyrenius ( talk) 04:04, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
barnstar moved to User_talk:Tyrenius#Double_congratulations -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 06:20, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Nice work. Thanks for that. Take care. -- John ( talk) 16:50, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Is that true?
Do you do edit changes one letter at a time to boost your edit count? (that's supposed to be a joke. Lame though it is.)
Seriously though, 100,000 is huge!! compared to the edit numbers I usually see.
I don't really have much to say, except to express my amazement.
Best wishes, Wanderer57 ( talk) 06:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
{{ WikiProject Ireland category}} I see you have replaced the "conventional" tag with this - have you any guidelines as to where we should use this rather than the other one? Sarah777 ( talk) 11:29, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Just figured it out - that was a category page - tá'im sach mall ar maidin :) Sarah777 ( talk) 11:32, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Hello BHG, A previously deleted page has been recreated, how can I find the previous deletion debate? I looked at articles for deletion but there doesn't seem to be a way to search and I really don't have the time to trek through all of 2007 archives. The page itself, regrettably, doesn't have any clue either that it's a recreation of a deleted page. Valenciano ( talk) 20:04, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Hi BHG. FYI. Wanting to alert you to a discussion where I mentioned you by name. I'm still too involved, but I'm still following the various discussions around age-related and longevity and supercentenarian articles. I'm off to comment in the RfC on Ruby Muhammad now. Carcharoth ( talk) 23:39, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Please would you speedy delete this redirect. The "political activist" appears to exist, though in my opinion he is nn. The baronetcy and son of Lord Brown stuff is total nonsense. - Kittybrewster ☎ 15:10, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
You recently closed the AfD debate at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of massacres (2nd nomination) with a ruling that the list should be kept, but renamed: List of events named massacres. This has been done, but due to on going debate I need to ask you for a clarification.
Editors are debating the following: 1) the name change means that an event that is cleary named "massacre" in reliable sources can be included, or 2) the change means that only events that are named "massacre" in their Wikipedia articles (ie in the title or in BOLD in the lead) are to be included.
The prime example of this debate is whether to include the Tiananmen Square Massacre... called such in numerous reliable sources, but not called that in the lead of our Wikipedia article on the topic - Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 (note, however, that it is called a massacre later in the text.)
It would be helpful if you, as the closing admin of the AfD, were to pop over and clarify your intent as it relates to this issue. Blueboar ( talk) 15:23, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Hi,
Thank you for the detail you put into the difficult closure of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of massacres (2nd nomination) and for your subsequent explanation.
One issue on which you didn’t comment was the merits of the article for navigation purposes. I feel that more navigation aids are needed, but that we wikipedians are having trouble with summary articles for contentious subjects. Other examples include Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Psychiatric abuse (second nomination), which in the end was judged too much a POV target, and Animal testing, which through the controversy is coming along pretty well. Search functions are of limited use when you don’t know exactly what you are looking for. Categories are a rather dry way to browse. Navigation boxes are good if you are already close to where you want to be. Pages like List of events named massacre, to me, serve usefully like navigation boxes for broad subject areas. I’d be interesting in your thoughts. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 06:13, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
I would be very grateful if you could check that I have made the boxes on William Lemon and his son, Charles Lemon correctly, and all other necessaries . . . Vernon White . . . Talk 22:27, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Your views are sought at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Baronetcies#Peers_who_were_Baronets - Kittybrewster ☎ 23:20, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I cannot stress strongly enough that Bots should never be hardblocked. Aside from the fact that you will autoblock non admin Bot users who run them from their own IP, the damage that can be caused by blocking the toolserver IP is considerable. If you do accidentally hardblock a Bot, please lift the autoblock as soon as possible as well as reducing the block to a soft one. I have done this for the BetacommandBot autoblock - [16]. Thanks, WjB scribe 13:50, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Please could you help with Michael Williams (MP)? I got in rather a tangle! Vernon White . . . Talk 21:46, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Just a note of acknowledgement for your diligence - if I may - in helping to bring Betacommand to heel. I'd leave you a barnstar, but that seems to be debased coin. Thanks and good luck. Wiggy! ( talk) 02:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
The Barnstar of Diligence | ||
For all the crap that you've been facing for doing your job as an admin, and not backing down when called a "dumbass." Bellwether B C 06:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC) |
Thanks again, BellWether, for the nice comments. As to arbcom, I see where Carcharoth is coming from, and I personally don't want this to go to arbcom, because it's such a time-intensive process, and it rarely seems to breed any goodwill. However, I think that our success in avoiding that will depend to a certain extent on how BC conducts himself, and I rather despair on that front: the people issuing him barnstars despite his misconduct are entrenching him in his incivility and failure to work collaboratively, and the permanent-critics are goading him. The only potential good point on the horizon seems to be the long-overdue new bot, which should at least shield him from some of the random abuse. (HOW DAIR YEW FASHIST DELEAT MY IMAGE!!!!!!!! ITS A HUGE BAND And the HOTTEST GARRIDGE-PUNK GREWP IN SOUTH EEST DULUTH SINCE .... YOU ARE AN IGGGGNORANT ....) etc -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 11:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
I think one of the problems is that he takes the last type of criticism personally, and then lumps those who legitimately criticize him into that same category. I've done a bit of FUR image work in response to the mass-taggings, trying to bring some clearly compliant images in line with BC's "letter-of-the-law" tagging, but I just got discouraged and overwhelmed with the mass of images there are to look at, and I finally stopped. For awhile, I attempted to engage him at his talk, but that was met with resistance/hostility, so I stopped that as well. Anyways, since two of the most coherent critics aren't willing to go the arbcom route (I really have admired how both you and Carch have "carried yourselves" through this fiasco), I guess we've sixteen more days of incivility to get through. I may just leave the issue alone completely during that time, as I'm growing more than a bit weary of it. Regards, Bellwether B C 12:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
I see you are following up some of what has been happening with BetacommandBot. It is a complete mess at the moment, partly I think because some people are reacting very defensively. I was surprised though to see the reaction to your comments, as I know you are active in category-related matters (hence you noticed what was going on) and you don't seem to have been involved with BetacommandBot issues before. In other words, you were a newcomer to these latest debate, and you got treated very shabbily in my opinion. I had previously thought that the defensive attitude of Betacommand and others only occurred with non-free image work or those that had annoyed them, but it seems that there is a real disconnect happening here, a failure to engage with others, and to recognise genuine criticism and to respond politely. MickMacNee, who made some very strong criticisms earlier, seems to have been blacklisted and gets warned off regularly despite making valid points in an OK manner. As I said, a complete mess. Do you have ideas for what to do? Carcharoth ( talk) 02:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
I should explain that I have spent most of the last two decades involved pretty much full-time in various political or semi-political campaigning activities, where there are a lot of people heavily committed to things they feel very passionately about, and plenty of opportunities for disappointment, misunderstanding and conflict.
One situation which regularly occurs is where the leadership is forced by circumstances to pursue a course of action which will be controversial with the members/supporters, but which has to be done. Sometimes these are internal issues, such as budget cuts, and sometimes they are related to the organisation's goals, such as a choice having to be made between priorities. I have been sucked into countless bitter disputes in such matters, and they are always pretty horrible for all concerned. However, I eventually began to realise that since this sort of thing is pretty much inevitable, there's no point in simply bemoaning it: it's important to learn how to handle it in an effective way.
This situation seems pretty similar. The fair use image problem had to be dealt with, and it was inevitably going to cause a lot of very bitter objections. However, so far as I can see, there was very little effective planning on how to handle all those inevitable protests, and minimise the damage caused by the process.
I have not read little of the history, but from what I can see of how things are being handled now, the fundamental problem was that the fair use issue seems to have been approached primarily as a technical problem — how to identify, tag, and if necessary remove non-free images — when some minimal hazard analysis should have shown that the community-anger problem was in fact going to be much more serious.
That set off a pretty much inevitable cycle of a necessarily-hyperactive bot starting work, massive howls of anguish, too many of them turning into very unpleasant attacks ... leading to defensiveness and counter-attacks by a bot operator who must have felt with full justification that he was being savaged by a million mad dogs.
I have a huge amount of sympathy for Betacommand in this, who seems to have been ill-equipped and under-supported in this. He ended up an appallingly exposed position, and it must have been absolutely horrible for him.
I think it's quite unfair to pin all the blame for this on Betacommand: in many way, he has been hung out to dry. He clearly has great programming skills, but his communication skills seem poor (at least by now; he may simply be burnt out after too much flack); but above all, he simply didn't have enough backup, and enough supportive people to help him distinguish effectively between shooting-the-messenger abuse and valid criticisms of the processes in use.
The whole process should have been differently structured from the outset, with Betacommand concentrating on his main skill (programming), and a team of other editors to take the flack and -- crucially -- do the painful and difficult job of both defusing the attacks rather than escalating the responses, and taking great care to try to see whether the torrent of abuse and complaints included legitimate criticisms of the process. That last bit is vital: in these situations, many people who have valid complaints do not make them politely or constructively, but if the situation is going to avoid descending into a brawl, it is really important to accept that a person who is behaving in a hostile and unreasonable way may still have a genuine grievance.
Trying to find those genuine grievances takes a cool head, which can be hard to maintain under fire, which is why it's important to have a team of people taking the flack, who can take a break when it gets too much and who can remain open enough to keep on looking for ways to improve the course of action.
That doesn't seem to have happened here: so far as I can see, there was plenty of scope for improving the way the bot worked, with more conciliatory and informative notices, and perhaps a dedicated noticeboard for user grievances with a team of people trained to handle them, but that too much energy was spent on firefighting the protests rather than improving the process.
So we got into a deadly cycle where user complaints were not always effectively addressed even when there was scope for improvement, partly because Betacommand (the person who should have been implementing the fixes) was getting too scarred because he had been too exposed, and those who supported the work were too quick to rush to defence of BC's inevitable lapses, rather than trying to both support the bot operator and maintain high standards.
I know that this must read so far as a don't-start-here comment, but bear with me. I am sure that the flaws in process design which led to this situation were as usual the result of cockup rather than conspiracy, and that the very loose management structure of wikipedia makes it very hard to plan for and co-ordinate the handling of a situation such as this; most wikipedia processes are ad hoc and unstructured, and formal processes such as RfC, XfD, arbcom, etc, have evolved slowly over a long time to deal with issues where experience has shown a need for careful handling, and a lot of time has been available to buikd consensus on an appropriate process.
There's no point in crying over the fact that this could have been handled better; what matters is learning from what's happened, and improving the processes.
One of the necessary steps is already underway: taking Betacommand out of the front line as the operator of the non-free image bot. That should have been done a long tine ago, but notwithstanding concerns about he details, the fact that is being done now is a very welcome development.
That process has starkly revealed the other major flaw in the process: that bot approval and bot management is being treated as if it were a solely technical task. Your have rightly pointed to a need for BRFA reform, and I think that's crucial, because it seems clear to me that most of the problems with Betacommand's bots have not been technical, they have social. We need some structure for ensuring that impact of the bot on collaborative efforts can be reviewed before authorisation is given, because that collaboration is at the core of wikipedia. The intentions of Betacommand's bot have been generally good (with a few lapses), but as BAG's instant-approval of the new bot showed, there simply isn't any effective mechanism for examining the effect of bots on collaborative work, and on the techniques and patterns of work which editors have developed. That's a recipe for trouble, because it simply means that problems are not addressed until they become conflicts, and the ANI ends up becoming a forum for (largely unsuccessful) attempts at conflict resolution.
I think it's important to acknowledge that BAG does a fine job of technically assessing bots: assessing their suitability for the task, setting their edit rate, imposing limitations on their scope, etc. The fact that there are so many bots operating with so few technical problems is a credit to their work.
However, just as you or I don't have the technical savvy of programming and server technologies to assess the technical side, it's unreasonable to expect the technical wizards in BAG to be familiar with all the processes and conventions at work amongst editors. That's no criticism of the BAG people, just a reflection that of the fact few editors (if any) understand the whole of this huge and diverse project.
The problem now is that the storms seem to have left BAG feeling very defensive, and I don't know how it will be possible to reopen dialogue. But if that can be done, the best suggestion I have so far is that BRFA should be explicitly cast as a two-part process:
In addition to this, I think that there needs to be some lightweight process for discussing issues which arise with a bot, something without the intensity of RfC or the raucousness of WP:ANI. I didn't know whether WP:BOWN might fit the bill, but if a bot could be improved there doesn't currently seem to be in practice any intermediate step between a private note to the bot owner and a complaint at ANI (which is inevitably taken as an accusation). Take as one example the issue I raised wrt to BetacommandBot's edit summaries being so much less informative than Cyedbot's: there should be somewhere that this sort of thing could be raised in a constructive atmosphere, but in a placed where discussion is centralised.
That's pretty much all I can suggest for now. The one issue I haven't really touched on is Betacommand, because it's a difficult one to see solutions. I fear that it is headed to arbcom, which I think is unfortunate, because arbcom tends to polarise, at least until a case is settled. All I can suggest for now is that Betacommand should be moved into a much less exposed position wrt to non-free images, but the problem remains that his bots do many other tasks and however it has happened, he is now in no mood to hear any concerns about their operation as anything other than nonsense or personal attack. I don't know how that can be addressed without confrontation; arbcom is now areal possibility, but will polarise. I wonder if there might be consensus for some sort of diplomatic and neutral task force to review BC's authorised tasks and how they are run, and see if it can come up with a set of proposals for reducing conflict?
However, I'm afraid that I don't have much confidence that Betacommand can avoid arbcom. He seems to focus on the technical abilities of his bots, and is comparative weak in the collaborative aspects of understanding the potentially huge effects that these tools can have on wikipedia's very fragile ecology, and these problems are longstanding, predating the nonfree image cleanup. Would mentorship be appropriate?
Anyway, that's all for now. Hope this helps. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 06:50, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
On the test page User:Kitty53/Test page, I am working on creating an article on Louis Chirillo. He is going to have his Wikipedia article ready in the future. Brown Haired Girl, you may help me with the article if you have time, or have another user help me. Thank you. Respond on my talk page if you can't do so. Kitty53 ( talk) 21:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Please could you help with an MP box for Edward William Wynne Pendarves. Vernon White . . . Talk 23:03, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
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Hi Elanna, I see that you have changed the indexing of surnames of people called McX. Where they hve been indexed as Macx, you have changed it to Mcx: [1], [2], [3], [4]
The reason given in one edit is "per Wikipedia:Categorization of people#Ordering_names_in_a_category", however I don't see any such guidance in that guideline. There was a discussion on the talkpage, but no consensus was reached (see Wikipedia talk:Categorization of people#Ordering_of_Mac.2C_Mc_and_M.27). I'm sure that this was a good faith mistake, but please don't go changing indexing on the basis of a guideline point which isn't in the guideline. Thanks -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 03:01, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Next time you create a batch of {{ england-earl-stub}}s, could you include William John Manners Tollemache, 9th Earl of Dysart in it? At the moment he's a gaping redlink in the article I've just written on Hammerton's Ferry, but as far as I can tell he seems to have had a truly dull career, which seems to have consisted of born - won lawsuit against ferry company - died. — iride scent 13:51, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Oops, I think I've probably used "otherpersons2" instead of "otherpersons" in a vast number of pages, not just the Paul Andersons you've just found. This is because the page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Hatnote#Other_people doesn't make it clear that "otherpersons" works this way - it looks (to me) as if it can only be used to point to a "Paul Anderson (disambiguation)" page, not just to "Paul Anderson". I wondered, but didn't experiment enough. But having worked through a batch of Wikipedia:Suggestions for name disambiguation, I've now moved onto a new game: ridding WP of one of my pet hates, people using "is been" when they mean "is being". Or sometimes "has been". Or "is". Inspired by Wikipedia:Typo. PamD ( talk) 14:48, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
To link to a disambiguation page (instead of a specific meaning), link to the redirect to the disambiguation page that includes the text "(disambiguation)" in the title (such as, America (disambiguation) rather than America). This helps distinguish accidental links to the disambiguation page from intentional ones. See Category:Redirects to disambiguation pages.
Another editor has added the "{{ prod}}" template to the article John Carroll (Irish politician), suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but the editor doesn't believe it satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and has explained why in the article (see also Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia:Notability). Please either work to improve the article if the topic is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia or discuss the relevant issues at its talk page. If you remove the {{ prod}} template, the article will not be deleted, but note that it may still be sent to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. BJBot ( talk) 02:29, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Here when you say "Contested prod, with explanation offered for removal of prod tag", did you mean to say "... no explanation..."? PamD ( talk) 08:42, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Sources added. OK?? Hans Sentis ( talk) 15:30, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi BHG happy new year to you just wondering did you get the email I sent you regarding the new article I am working on still having trouble with a couple of math formulas thanks. BigDunc ( talk) 18:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
BHG, this article is protected yet User:R. fiend is using his admin privilages to continue editing he has been warned before about doing this when he is involved in a content dispute on the article.-- Padraig ( talk) 00:17, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I have reviewed the above article, which you nominated for as a good article and have placed the article on hold. My concerns can be found on the article's talk page. Cheers, CP 02:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Hello Brown Haired One -- It was good to see your name turn up again in a few CFD discussions, though you seem to have shifted your priorities to other areas of late. All the same, you might want to take another look at the CFD for Category:Cultural Enthusiasm, where some interesting -- but very obscure -- names have been proposed. I've signed on in support of one of your suggestions, and I think the discussion would benefit from your input at this juncture. Cgingold ( talk) 09:12, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Please note, I have acted on the consensus I have seen on the main RfC page, and opened a Request for Arbitration. You may add (brief, 500 words or less) statements Here. Thanks! SirFozzie ( talk) 23:21, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi, I notice you've added the Category:Local councillors in County Sligo to the John Perry (Irish politician) article (and it appears also to the Eamon Scanlon article). Unfortunately, neither of these politicians are local councillors at present, as they are both TDs, and as such are precluded from being councillors at the same time. Is the category for those who are councillors at present, or who were councillors? -- The.Q (t) (c) 10:17, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi, sorry about that, very careless of me. It was an honest mistake and I'll try to avoid making it again. Thanks for correcting it. Cheers, Waggers ( talk) 22:59, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
An editor has nominated 1248 in Ireland, an article on which you have worked or that you created, for deletion. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also " What Wikipedia is not").
Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1248 in Ireland and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).
You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate. Thank you. BJBot ( talk) 20:44, 12 January 2008 (UTC) Sarah777 ( talk) 01:43, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi BHG - have you seen this - you may wish to comment. (Your earlier input re 1284 eetc was much appreciated) Ardfern ( talk) 20:48, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Folks, you might (or might not) be interested in this discussion Sarah777 ( talk) 23:17, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
In case anyone is looking for me, I thought I should explain I'm afraid that I don't I don't expect to be around much in the next few days.
My laptop has chosen to develop a severe disabillity in its power supply just at the point when I was rebuilding my desktop, so I currently have access to the web only in the laptop's increasingly rare moments of lucidity, or temporarily in test builds of the desktop.
Once the penguin has made itself at home, I expect to be back in business as usual ... except that I haven't figured out yet how to run BHGbot without windoze, so that'll probably have to wait until the laptop is back from hospital. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 01:10, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Please visit the Sima Mafiha page and help to extend the article. I found little info about her. I am afraid that she could be forgotten at all. I think she desrves much more attention. What do you think of that?-- Faikpro ( talk) 01:57, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi, BrownHairedGirl. We're talking about divvying up Portal work over at WT:GS#Portal proposal. User:Grrrlriot said she'd take feminism or Portal:Women, but I thought since you voiced interest in the Women portal, maybe you'd like to start that (no obligation), Grrrl could do feminism and I'd start Gender studies. What do you think? Phyesalis ( talk) 03:38, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
BH, could you take a peek at Category:11th century in Ireland and Category:Years of the 11st century in Ireland; I think your bot has a lithp :) Sarah777 ( talk) 10:09, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Emperor00 ( talk · contribs), presumed, based on behavior. Although he's confined himself to talk pages thus far. Choess ( talk) 23:02, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
BHG can you block this vandal [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Kriss_Cross_Cry Kriss c
Cross Cry] he is repeatly vandaling the Derry article and others.--- Padraig ( talk) 23:11, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
What exactly would you like to see done with the article to improve it's notability? I'll look to see what reliable sources I can find on the subject. Is there anything else you have in mind? It's a real important music reseller in the Contemporary Christian music industry, and I just added it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Christian music. Royalbroil 19:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I see you have a history of working on the article George Fletcher. I am looking at it from the project Wikipedia:Unreferenced articles where it is one of the longest {{ unreferenced}} tagged articles that does not meet at least the barest minimum of verifiability. It has been tagged and completely without references since June 2006. It would be extremely helpful if you had some references you could add to the article to help support its verifiability and notability. Thanks for any help you can give. Jeepday ( talk) 14:16, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Hello again. I trust that your master has given you permission to return to our conversation in that little siding we were talking about? For I am on the verge of archiving it, and that could complicate things a little. By the way, I hope that the evil specimens of technology in your possession will not create any more problems with regards to your editing.
Oh, and I have an extra lure: an Ireland-related question. You can't miss that one... (Evil grin) Waltham, The Duke of 15:57, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
You may be interested in this. -- The.Q (t) (c) 16:49, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
I wonder if you have anything you could offer here: Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/The Troubles#Recent Block of Vk by SirFozzie. Rockpocke t 18:06, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi BHG i was wondering if your bot could do a small job on Category:Gaelic Athletic Association competitions, and remove Gaelic Athletic Association competitions if either the article is in Category:Hurling competitions or Category:Gaelic football competitions and removed from Category:GAA County Championships if in one of the sub categories Gnevin ( talk) 23:02, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Looks as if this baronetcy could do with linking up. Current Baronet is Richard Carew Pole. Best wishes Vernon White . . . Talk 19:03, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
FYI there is a dedicated page at Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/The Troubles/Enforcement requests, shortcut WP:TER. Tyrenius ( talk) 21:18, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
The new Category:Gaelic Athletic Association cups is currently a subcat only of Category:Gaelic Athletic Association. Shouldn't it instead be a subcat of Category:Gaelic Athletic Association competitions? -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 06:22, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi. As someone who has edited the Inniscrone and/or Enniscrone page recently, you may be interested in this. Regards, -- The.Q (t) (c) 15:49, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
So i've created Category:Hurling clubs in Ireland by county and Category:Gaelic football clubs in Ireland by county . Now i've also defined Category:Gaelic Athletic Association clubs but the more i think about it I think that Category:Gaelic Athletic Association clubs in Ireland by county is pointless as the two above now do a better job . What do you think ? Gnevin ( talk) 22:31, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Hello BHG. I noticed your comment in this discussion. If you prefer not to go into this on your User talk, there is no need to respond. But, due to my concern that the thread we had both joined there was not working at a very collaborative level, I started to wonder if any more factual points could be mustered. This puts me at a disadvantage since I hardly ever use any of these map links. I just remember my own annoyance and personal experience with the ISBN situation, which I circumvent with my own monobook. If you use maps, do you think it might be possible to prepare some more convincing examples, that we could put in front of the participants at WT:EL? Otherwise it'll probably come down to a war of personal preferences, and lead to a non-terminating discussion. I agree 100% with your point about usability, but don't know how to exhibit that in more precise detail. In particular, I didn't understand why you said:
Don't get me wrong, this system is a great idea; it's just that it still has such poor useability that it is grossly premature to force its use to the exclusion of all other methods..
I don't know what other methods you believe to be realistic options to consider. EdJohnston ( talk) 05:50, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Look what they are doing now.... Category:999 in Ireland ...and so on with many more years. Sarah777 ( talk) 20:02, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Howdy! I just spotted this revert. Personally, I believe the previous edit was correct: the coordinates both within that section as well as inserted at the top-right of the article provide the necessary links and do not lend any explicit preferance to one service over another. In my opinion, keeping the Terraserver link is a slippery slope to a complete enumeration of Google Maps/Earth, Yahoo, MS Live, etc... Your thoughts? Just to make sure I notice the response, I would appreciate a response on my user page. Cheers! -- Bossi ( talk • gallery • contrib) 05:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
After reading AN/I, I am even more puzzled by your edit diff at Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre. You seem to have wanted to change the scale of the map from showing where AECC is in Aberdeen to showing where it is in Aberdeenshire. Was this your intention or were you attempting to change on grounds of a perceived policy? Thincat ( talk) 14:02, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I saw this yesterday and assumed that as it had not been reverted it was a good edit. So I started, using AWB, to remove the links to it from various articles. I did 100+ before stopping and followed up with another 90 today before I noticed that the link was working again. I checked the template and saw this. At that point I saw the above, the ANI and the EL discussions. I can't just roll them back as there were other valid edits made to some of the articles. Fixing the "coord" template, references, spelling, etc. However, I do have the list of the ones I did and am willing to restore the WikiMapia template if you think it would be best. Cheers. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 20:16, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Hello. If you've a moment, can you take a look at this article? This was just created tonight, and I know that it's author did not create it as a joke---it was created more to prove a point (if you look here [ [5]], you will see what I mean by that). Though not intended as a joke, I certainly do not believe this is anything that can be taken seriously. Before I prod it or take it to AfD, I would like the opinion of an uninvolved party. Thanks for your time. Cheers! --- RepublicanJacobite The'FortyFive' 03:57, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Now nominated for deletion: see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Weedpunk. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 14:27, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi, currently there are two categories for Sinn Féin politicians, Category:Irish Sinn Féin politicians and Category:Sinn Féin politicians.
Irish Sinn Féin politicians is for those 'who were members of the original Sinn Féin party in the early 20th century (1905–1926)' and Sinn Féin politicians is for those 'who are, or were, members of the Sinn Féin, an Irish republican party in Ireland, originally founded in 1905 and established in its present form as Provisional Sinn Féin in 1970.'
This is a bit confusing for anyone not familiar with the history of Sinn Féin and all the splits in the party. I propose leaving the Category:Sinn Féin politicians as it is, being populated by modern politicians. The other category could be renamed Category:Sinn Féin politicians (1905-26), since at that stage the pro and anti treaty factions had left to join Cumann na nGaedhael and Fianna Fáil at that stage. But then what about the rump that was left, do we need another category for 1927-69? Any thoughts? Snappy56 ( talk) 19:27, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
You're right, not much interest there, so we better sort it out ourselves. Any renamings will have to through WP:CFD, but new categories can just be created, so I suggest that you and I continue the discussion at WT:IE and see where get to. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 02:43, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I've made a point about custom edit summaries in an ANI thread. See here. Notification left because the thread was previously marked "resolved" (I've removed the resolved label as I felt the issue is not resolved). Comments would be welcomed. Carcharoth ( talk) 01:22, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm back. Well, I've never really left, as I still use Wikipedia, The "Free" Encyclopedia which only Admins like you have a voice in and the rest of us just create stupid little stubs, for school projects etc.
Where should I begin? First off, I want to wish you a HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY from Pennsylvania (though nowhere near Punxatawney). Second I appreciate your recent edits to -- except a certain group. A very large group.
You know what I'm referring to. And I'm sure you are thinking "Better block this sock immediately." (Hey - it rhymes!) That's the position of other Administrators who look at my block log, see that I created a sockpuppet, and automatically block me without a reason. (I'm talking about you, Sandstein.)
I could have chosen him to send this message to. But he isn't the main case involved in this bizzarre wiki-drama. And with my indefinate block by Luna Santin, most of it stopped.
But this is far from over.
Robert Young still is disrupting Wikipedia through Bart Versieck. And I wouldn't blame him. He is indefinably blocked and he has no chance of being unblocked--UNLESS you listen to this.
He was blocked for disruption. He disrupted Wikipedia. I was blocked for sockpuppetry/disruption. The sockpuppetry will be discussed further down, and I disrupted Wikipedia. You, however, have disrupted Wikipedia about as much as we have and you have not been blocked. Interesting.
I consider myself calm now. We are all here trying to build Wikipedia. Young and I have just got furious over you (and others) destroying some of our well-sourced content that we spent a while on TRYING TO BUILD AN ENCYCLOPEDIA.
This is one of the most unusual and little-documented chapters of Wikipedia history. The first AfD at the List of <insert nationality here> Supercentenarians atracted far too few editors for such an important case that it should have remained open until actual consensus was reached. (Note: you deleted several of my articles claiming that consensus was reached to delete. Since so little editors contibuted in the discussion -- and I know if Robert Young could edit that he certainly would have pushed it to a keep-- it was actually a no consensus, default to keep.)
To the sockpuppet stuff: I did create sockpuppets after my block. YGM and IBYB were two of my friends sharing my computer. I created the sockpuppets because my talk page was unjustly protected. (Hey, what else am I supposed to do besides post the unblock template on my talk page when I was unjustly blocked?) Besides, people keep telling me to email you. I CAN'T! There is something wrong with my e-mail stuff. Therefore, this is the only way I can get my thoughts out.
My point is: It's been a month, I'm willing to contribute constructively again (I really never did stop), and at the very least can you unblock my main account so I can file a request for arbitration agaist you. Sure, I could use this account, but it probably wouldn't be taken so well. Delete this, block me, but please understand that this will still appear in the edit history.
All the same, I just wish that you could do something about this. Have a nice Day. Kit3 ( talk) 02:22, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
I populated the models subcats you and created additional ones to fill the sets. You might want to look. Hmains ( talk) 23:48, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
The entry for Noel Browne on the said page has a speedy tag on it. Could you remove it? bibliomaniac 1 5 01:10, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Hey, thanks for all your help earlier on weedpunk. Too bad it didn't work out. Anyway, could you look at Fat Acceptance Movement. I think it should be up for deletion, there is no sources that mention the movement, few sources in general, and what I believe is original research or at best non-notable neologism. Thanks! -- Banime ( talk) 16:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
BH, why is this still open? It is an obvious FAIL due to 'no consensus' with a strong 'keep' majority. Yet is is still open while those all around it are closed. I am suspicious that something may be afoot. Sarah777 ( talk) 00:23, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi, it's me, the anon who edited the Bill Phillips disambig to include a William Phillips. I agree that you were totally justified in deleting it. The only reason I added that William Phillips is that I have actually met him, and he was referred to exclusively as Bill. Should I suggest a move? Or do you think that info is too unsupported. Anyway, thanks for your time, and thanks for cleaning up any confusion I produced!-- 66.65.125.206 ( talk) 02:07, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Hello,
I hope you don't mind but I randomly came across Template:YearInIrelandNav, seemed like a really good idea so I copied it and created Template:YearInPakistanNav - but there appears to be a problem somewhere, for example 1981 in Ireland lists the decades in the navbox - however the link for "2000s" actually goes to Category:1960s in Ireland.
Cheers
Pahari Sahib
14:28, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi, I'd just like to say thanks for disambiguating
Andy O'Brien to
Andy O'Brien (EastEnders) after you moved the page, especially on image description pages. Most people simply move a page and create a disambiguation page in its place without considering the consequences, so it was very much appreciated.
anemone│
projectors
10:47, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
(deindent) WP:DAB isn't much help wrt to people, but WP:NCP is more helpful, particularly WP:NCP#Qualifier_between_bracketing_parentheses.
My own principle in applying the guideline could be summarised as "enough to clearly distinguish, but no more", e.g. "Ian Wall (politician)" and "Ian Wall (congressman)" are not clearly distinguished, but "Ian Wall (Texas politician)" and "Ian Wall (Idaho politician)" are clearly distinguished ... and if they were both Democrats it would be inappropriate to include "Democrat" on the disambiguator, because that is not a characteristic which distinguishes them.
In this case, the word "British" shouldn't be part of the disambiguator, because it doesn't distnguish them. PamD is right that the gender-neutral term actor is preferred these days, but I would also add that the year is used in the disambiguators in a way that's unclear — Olivia Grant (1983 British actress) could refer to some whose notability is based on an event in 1983.
So I would suggest that if disambiguation is needed, then the two articles should be called "Olivia Grant (actor born 1983)" and "Olivia Grant (actor born 1996)". I say "if", because as the notability of these actors has not yet been established by reference to substantial coverage in reliable sources. If either or both of the articles is deleted, then do disambiguator is needed. If only one article is kept, it would be sufficient to have a hatnote in that article noting the existence of the other (non-notable) Olivia Grant.
Hope this helps. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 14:10, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Just thought you might be interested in this: Wikipedia:WikiProject Gender Studies/Feminism Task Force -- Grrrlriot ( talk) 00:02, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Done Any chance you could semi-protect this page for a while BHG to discourage the vandals? Thanks. - Galloglass 20:53, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
you should be aware of an unblock request just made on my talk page. [6] DGG ( talk) 23:40, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi BHG. I think you might be interested in the following edits by a new user called Crazy Eddy who created a new centenarian article yesterday. The article itself on a Mariam Amash looks fine as the lady might actually be the oldest person in the world and is sourced. What struck me however was the comment by Crazy Eddy on the article talk page here [7] and one made by Kitia in his edit summary a few hours later here [8]. At a guess our young friend has not noticed he's been unblocked and has decided to carry on with his puppetry. If course I could be wrong but I don't think so. I leave it in your capable hands. Cheers - Galloglass 12:34, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Like ONIH, I doubt that it's Kitia ( talk · contribs). Apart from the age of the account, there are several issues of editing style and subject matter which distinguish the account from Kitia (including some rather well-done referencing). And Mariam Amash's case has been getting a lot of publicity recently, so I'm not surprised that it would prompt a dormant editor to get to work. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 16:11, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
May I email you with some information that's been made aware to me on this issue regarding the discussion at WP:TER? SirFozzie ( talk) 18:32, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
A tag has been placed on Template:Oireachtas-database-member requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section T3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a deprecated or orphaned template. After seven days, if it is still unused and the speedy deletion tag has not been removed, the template will be deleted.
If the template is intended to be substituted, please feel free to remove the speedy deletion tag and please consider putting a note on the template's page indicating that it is substituted so as to avoid any future mistakes (<noinclude>{{transclusionless}}</noinclude>).
Thanks. -- MZMcBride ( talk) 04:13, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for leaving me a note on my talk page before accusing me of making unsourced commentary on the Paudge Connolly article. Its good to see that some people know the meaning of common courtesy. Goodandhonestwhig ( talk) 13:08, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Hello, I saw that you are ranked number 6 according to this with a grand total of 109,418 (holy sh**!). But anyway, I noticed that you hadn't updated your userbox. I was going to do it, but I think it's bad form to modify other's userpages so I am just going to write it in here! Cheers!-- Sallicio 16:52, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
LOL! I've got a paltry 1,200 edits to my credit. I need adoption, can you be my step-mom?-- Sallicio 17:29, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
EW. What's wrong with those Brothers Grimm? Hmm, I gues for my own well-being, I should just remain at the orphanage.-- Sallicio 17:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Danke schön, Mutti! Thanks for being my adopted mom!-- Sallicio 23:49, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi BHG. Could you take a look at the above article when you have time? It looks like it was created by the person themselves. I have no idea if the person actually meets the notability guidelines as I have no idea what Otolaryngology actually is. It looks a bit iffy to my untrained eye but you're a better judge of these things than me. Thanks - Galloglass 22:19, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi. FYI, you left block notices/tags for Thornintheside ( talk · contribs) but the account was never actually blocked. It never became active again but I thought you might want to know. — Wknight94 ( talk) 00:51, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
You might remember we had a little to-do about years in Ireland. I was wondering if you were meaning to change the templates, or whether I should go ahead and inflict my (arbitrary) fix. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:45, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
I have opened up a request for comment on a discussion that you had been previously involved in regarding Ruby Muhammad. If you wish to participate, your input would be highly valued, and you may comment here. Cheers, CP 07:36, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
In this article, I took out the name of the officer under investigation because he was still under investigation. The user here added the officers name back. Isn't there something about living persons and pending cases...it just seems a bit off to me. Another editor has already reverted the change, but I was just curious. Thanks!-- Sallicio 06:09, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the help. Removed the unsourced statement, too! :D-- Sallicio 19:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Duly noted! Good looking out! :) -- Sallicio 23:15, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
BHG, you are so wise! We should put you in a cave on top of a mountain and charge admission! lol! :)-- Sallicio 01:36, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
LOL! That's ok, I'm a police officer, so I can provide executive protection from the "evil-doers!"-- Sallicio 03:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Maybe you were talking to the wrong people. If that were the case here, the length of a pointless, drawn-out trial would have rested on the shoulders of the State's Attorney/District Attorney's Office (depending on the state one lives in) or the US Attorney (for federal crimes). In the US we're completely independent from the SA's Office. (If the story was that juicy, it could've been a good WP article! Did you write one?)-- Sallicio 03:39, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Once again you have proven your wisdom! You're like Superman...mild-mannered strategist by day, then...BAM, Wikipedia superhero by night! :) -- Sallicio 03:57, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Sigh...that's what they all say!-- Sallicio 04:48, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
You are too kind. Good call down there, too! This is why I needed adopting! :)-- Sallicio 05:28, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Hey, mom... this user here is starting to be uncivil (about the aforemention article and may need to sit in the "time out chair" if he can't control his/her behavior.
It is my opinion that writing style should be bold, not dull and boring. It is common knowledge Mary Harney retook the leadership position reluctantly! Goodandhonestwhig ( talk) 13:50, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
-- BorgQueen ( talk) 20:26, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
What's the process to nominate a category to move , or can you nominate these two
Category:Football in the Republic of Ireland to
Category:Association football in the Republic of Ireland and
Category:Irish police officers
Category:Members of Garda Síochána
Gnevin (
talk)
08:49, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
There don't seem to be many Irish articles hitting the front page, so I am trying to get some of my recent creations into Did you know? box on the front page. The two suggestions which I have made at T:TDYK are Fintan "Lazarus" Coogan and Pól "20 press-ups" Ó Foighil.
Fingers crossed :) -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 22:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I happened to notice your Pól Ó Foighil article in the DYK "waiting room" a last night and left a complementary note beneath it. I see no reason why it shouldn't make front page. U haven't checked out your "Lazarus" Coogan article but will. Go n'éirí an t-ádh leat. -- House of Scandal ( talk) 15:10, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Sorry if this is old news, but I'm thinking you may have missed my note. Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2008 February 18#(Some) Years in Ireland categories may be of interest. Please do have your say, and if you can think of anywhere to advertise it that would be great. TIA, Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:35, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Hiya BrownHairedGirl :)
Just what is going on with the Barnsley East/Barnsley East and Mexborough articles? I have amended the former to include confirmed candidates, so this redirect issue is rather confusing! Do you have any ideas what is going on, and why we cannot have the Barnsley East article standing alone? And Sheffield South East, too - there are candidates selected (see http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/guide/seat-profiles/sheffieldsoutheast ). So I wondered if we can "release" these articles for use?
Cheers doktorb words deeds 11:24, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
-- Victuallers ( talk) 21:41, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi BHG. I just wanted to let you know that I found your comment very unhelpful and have asked you to clarify what exactly you think I should do in future, the next time another admin asks for my help on a problematic article. The statement that I am perceived as biased by Sarah and certain unnamed other editors is a very serious allegation. Please provide diffs or evidence to support what you said there, or else retract the statement. Thanks in advance. -- John ( talk) 22:46, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar | ||
99% major/100% minor edit summaries! Amazing! That kicks the crap out of my 70/100 stat.
For taking the time to fill out them edit summaries, I, Two One Six Five Five (21655), award BrownHairedGirl with this Defender of the Wiki Barnstar. Two One Six Five Five τ ʃ 18:40, 25 February 2008 (UTC) |
Hi, would you have a moment to look at Roosky please? Looks to me like User:CianDiffl has added a whole bunch of content which might be fluff and is probably not encyclopaedic, but I'm no expert. Would appreciate your opinion, please. Thanks! -- AndrewHowse ( talk) 22:56, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I watched you in the ISBN discussion, and I started questioning myself elsewhere. I f I promise to explain to you the origin of the word pedant, would you care to look over another discussion and offer a comment?-- mrg3105 ( comms) ♠♥♦♣ 04:04, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi BHG -- I noticed you hadn't been doing CFD much lately, and I have to say, your approach & sense is much missed. -- Lquilter ( talk) 15:58, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Appreciate you have other things to do, but I need some sort of idea on how you want things done. A simple if < 1100 would be easiest, but if you've got a better plan I'd like to hear it. Thanks, Angus McLellan (Talk) 20:51, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Something's amiss with the red block of text at bottom of the page - it's obscuring the last message, so presumably will now hide part of this one! PamD ( talk) 21:43, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
{{UserTalkReplyhere|cat=yes}}
to {{UserTalkReplyhere|cat=no}}
. Seems OK now :) --
BrownHairedGirl
(talk) • (
contribs)
21:57, 27 February 2008 (UTC)Just suffered a 24 hour block (which I managed to get lifted) for being disruptive in Years in Ireland. See my talk page - makes you glad to be a part of this. Ardfern ( talk) 22:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi BHG, is your bot up and running again ? Is so can you have it add {{ WikiProject Ireland}} to pages in Category:WikiProject_Gaelic_Games_articles, Thanks Gnevin ( talk) 17:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
PS Pls can you explain further what the problem is with {{ GaelicGamesByYear}}. I can't see anything wrong, but I may not be looking in the right place :) -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 01:19, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
User:Tvarkytojas is removing (at speed) a lot of articles and sub-categories from Category:Protestant Reformation. I'm no expert on this but suspect these (and other) edits are often dubious. T is also putting categories in alphabetical order ... is this recommended somewhere? -- roundhouse0 ( talk) 18:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
-- Sallicio 04:01, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for closing Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of massacres (2nd nomination) because it was not an easy one to do. -- Philip Baird Shearer ( talk) 16:44, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Tiananmen_Square_Massacre Kittybrewster ☎ 13:48, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Hello BHG. I wonder if you will reconsider your message to me left on Sarah's talk page for a number of reasons. Firstly, shouting doesn't make your point any more germane than typing in regular text. Secondly, I have my own talk page where you can draw attention to error you may think I have made and thirdly, last time I read WP:NPA and WP:CIV, it didn't permit name-calling, so I politely reminded Sarah of that, asked her to stop, warned her what would happen if she continued along those lines and informed her of the due process to express her grievances. I have quite a good relationship with Sarah, and as it has in the past, had hoped that my discussion with her may prevented this from escalating further. I didn't block her and had no intention of blocking her. So if you consider those actions be "victimisation" and "too trigger-happy" then what exactly do you call your message to me?
Furthermore, clearly Sarah herself didn't consider that I was "victimising her" [9] and your less-than-helpful message was set after her apology and unblocking, so exactly what purpose is is supposed to serve? Sheesh. Rockpocke t 17:38, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
BHG, your points are rhetorical but not validated with evidence. The point Sarah was making about Ardfern's block had been addressed before her remarks: he was already unblocked, when she made them. You say univolved admins have produced better results. An univolved admin Rjd0060 reviewed the block and endorsed it, but I don't think you are saying this is a better result. Naturally User:SlimVirgin's suggestion to unblock is going to get a positive response—that would happen any time someone is unblocked. However, it was not unilateral: it was done in liaison with an "involved" admin, me, and it was a collaborative decision. [12] Your statement that I am "involved" as regards Sarah is not validated by the clarification discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/The_Troubles#Request_for_Clarification_of_Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration.2FThe_Troubles. According to your suggestion, none of the admins listed at the troubles ArbCom should sanction any of the editors listed there. Is this seriously what you are suggesting? The description "punish-the-usual suspects exercise" is not true. No one is being sanctioned because they are a "usual suspect". They will be sanctioned if they offend. If they don't, then they will not be. I strongly object to your pejorative "the real problem there is Tyrenius wading in yet again." Perhaps you would provide proof of this, rather than just making groundless accusations. Otherwise, withdraw your statement. This is the first time I have blocked Sarah. Do you think that Alison was wrong to have previously blocked Sarah? If not, why not? If not, then you are applying inconsistent standards. I have made a full reply to your points at Wikipedia:An/i#Response_to_BrownHaired_Girl, which you have not acknowledged. Tyrenius ( talk) 18:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Hmm, there's a whole bundle of things here, and I'll try picking up on a few of the points, but I don't have the time to write an essay in response.
First, Tyrenius's claim that Ardfern's block had been addressed before Sarah's outburst. Actually, it hadn't: he had been unblocked, but there had been no follow-up on why such a bad block had been imposed in the first place, and why an unusually hard-working and stay-out-of-conflict editor had been pounced on so rapidly and blocked as if he had violated a policy.
Secondly, both of you are missing the point that there was no suggestion that Sarah was herself engaged in anything disruptive in relation to content of wikipedia, or disrupting any discusion process: her offence consisted solely of sounding off on her own talk page and on mine. Blocks are supposed to be preventive, not punitive, and I fail to see why there was a pressing need for Tyrenius to block Sarah at 00:28 [13], when Rockpocket had left a warning half-an-hour before [14] and there had been no further comment from Sarah. Please see Wikipedia:No personal attacks#Recurring_attacks:Recurring, non-disruptive personal attacks that do not stop after reasoned requests to cease should be resolved through the dispute resolution process. Especially when personal attacks arise as the result of heated debate over article content, informal mediation and third-party opinions are often the best ways to resolve the conflict. Similarly, Wikiquette alerts offers a "streamlined" source of outside opinion. In most circumstances, problems with personal attacks can be resolved if editors work together and focus on content, and immediate administrator action is not required.
Note that last bit "immediate administrator action is not required". Yet in this case, it's what happened, and as result a huge amount of energy has been displaced into discussion of the block rather than the underlying complaint.
This doesn't help, and that's why I have objected: one bad block (on Ardfern) produced an outburst, which was then followed up with another bad block, and objections to that block then produce another storm :( Rather than reaching for the block button, we would all save ourselves an awful lot of energy to devote to content if there was some effort to divert Sarah777 into effective use of the dispute-resolution channels ... but that isn't going to happen so long as the response remains a pile-in.
Rockpocket draws a comparison with my block of Vintagekits over the baronets renaming. If you check back on that saga, you will find a crucial distinction: that block was placed to stop an ongoing disruptive pattern of editing the content of the encyclopedia, when requests to desist had been unsuccessful. The situation was complex, and the explanation was necessarily long, which is why I blocked first and explained later: not as ideal thing to do, but as the lesser of two evils, to stop immediate and ongoing disruption of content. That wasn't the case with Sarah: her offence consisted solely of inappropriate adjectives on her own talk page, and I have seen no suggestion that she was in any way editing content disruptively.
I'm not now going to spend another huge chunk of time engaged in collecting diffs and trying to match the output of the three other admins. My main interest is in content, and that's where I want to devote my energies. I have raised this problem because, with regret, some admins who I have previously respected appear to have become overly focused on the single issue of Sarah's outbursts, and are not helping to divert those grievances down the proper channels.
Please, rather than engaging in further piles of diff-collecting, can we try working together to assist Sarah777 in using the dispute-resolution processes when she feels aggrieved? It would be far more likely to produce satisfactory results all round than focusing solely on the incivility, and if we can show Sarah how dispute resolution can produce mutually agreeable outcomes, we can all get away from this increasingly circular argument about language and about who said what when. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 22:41, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
My comparison with Vk's block was to with respect to Fram's block of Adfern (not Sarah's). As far as I can tell Fram considered there to be an ongoing disruptive pattern of editing to the content of the encyclopedia, when requests to desist had been unsuccessful. He said in justification:
That seems to be pretty similar to your reasoning for blocking Vk and hence not "grossly unfair and out-of-process" (your words). Now, there my be more to it than meets the eye as I'm not familiar with the background, but the reasoning behind it appears sound and pretty damn far from "fascist" behaviour.
Finally, I assume as you did before, you are again referring to me among "admins who I have previously respected" who "appear to have become overly focused on the single issue of Sarah's outbursts, and are not helping to divert those grievances down the proper channels." Did you actually read the message that you made that accusation in response to? [15] Because the whole point of that reply was to direct Sarah's grievances down the proper channels. So I understand you wish to get back to content writing, but I would very much like you to tell me what I did that justified your accusations because all you have offered so far was that a "bad block" was made (that had absolutely nothing to do with me and was made after I went off line) and that I was not helping to divert Sarah's grievances down the proper channels (when that was exactly what I was doing). If you don't wish to waste your time doing that then at least have the good grace to withdraw your accusations. Rockpocke t 23:41, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't really like to see hassle between two Admins I admire, Rock and BHG. (And Rock is correct that we have no issues - he seems to come closer than anyone at understanding where I'm coming from). But I must record that that isn't to say I am happy or feel that the blocks on Ardfern or subsequently myself were right. (In fact were it not for my attempts at civility I'd need to accurately express my true views and feelings on on both in very uncivil terms). I feel the agreement to compromise by my blocker after the intervention of Slim was due to the fact that the intemperate circumstances of the block would likely lead to embarrassment should this go to Arbcom rather than any sense of fair play. (This is my reading of the situation and I realise that the mere explanation of it leaves me open yet again to accusations of incivility; so please appreciate that my comments here are very measured. (Read the comments of the said editor at the ANI as to his preferred "solution" to the "problem" - aka, me - to understand why I feel as I do). And I realise that I'm not "tuned-in" to the dominant Wiki-culture but I must say that I find the characterisation of BHG's comments as "unhelpful" (code for what?) and demands for explanations sounds to me as somewhat intimidating to BHG; which I assume isn't the intention? Sarah777 ( talk) —Preceding comment was added at 23:45, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi BHG -- It's not a CFD but this discussion on Wikipedia talk:Categorization about use of HIDDEN to conceal some "intersection" categories has, I think, very broad implications for categorization policy. If you haven't looked at it yet I think you'll want to. Cheers, Laura Q / Lquilter ( talk) 21:24, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Hello. I see the earlier discussion here has been archived, but your restoration of Template:WikiMapia on January 31 was removed on February 10. I just noticed this today and have restored it again. As I mentioned in my edit summary, although I support the GeoHack effort, I feel that the WikiMapia template has its uses. Also, I've seen a lot of discussion at Wikipedia talk: External links but have not seen any consensus to disable the WikiMapia template. -- Zyxw ( talk) 14:40, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Done Would it be possible to move Ronald Arthur Dalzell, 12th Earl of Carnwath over Ronald Dalzell, 12th Earl of Carnwath? Both started out as dupes by the same author, but the first now has more history. Choess ( talk) 00:29, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the note and welcome to the minefield. Outstanding analysis, very clear indeed, if I may say so. The effort probably drained you of spelling energy - still a nice Freudian slip in your post: "altough"! Tyrenius ( talk) 00:52, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Well there was restuarant, but I've just changed that for you. Your latest proposal looks even better. I can't wait to get out of there! Tyrenius ( talk) 04:04, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
barnstar moved to User_talk:Tyrenius#Double_congratulations -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 06:20, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Nice work. Thanks for that. Take care. -- John ( talk) 16:50, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Is that true?
Do you do edit changes one letter at a time to boost your edit count? (that's supposed to be a joke. Lame though it is.)
Seriously though, 100,000 is huge!! compared to the edit numbers I usually see.
I don't really have much to say, except to express my amazement.
Best wishes, Wanderer57 ( talk) 06:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
{{ WikiProject Ireland category}} I see you have replaced the "conventional" tag with this - have you any guidelines as to where we should use this rather than the other one? Sarah777 ( talk) 11:29, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Just figured it out - that was a category page - tá'im sach mall ar maidin :) Sarah777 ( talk) 11:32, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Hello BHG, A previously deleted page has been recreated, how can I find the previous deletion debate? I looked at articles for deletion but there doesn't seem to be a way to search and I really don't have the time to trek through all of 2007 archives. The page itself, regrettably, doesn't have any clue either that it's a recreation of a deleted page. Valenciano ( talk) 20:04, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Hi BHG. FYI. Wanting to alert you to a discussion where I mentioned you by name. I'm still too involved, but I'm still following the various discussions around age-related and longevity and supercentenarian articles. I'm off to comment in the RfC on Ruby Muhammad now. Carcharoth ( talk) 23:39, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Please would you speedy delete this redirect. The "political activist" appears to exist, though in my opinion he is nn. The baronetcy and son of Lord Brown stuff is total nonsense. - Kittybrewster ☎ 15:10, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
You recently closed the AfD debate at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of massacres (2nd nomination) with a ruling that the list should be kept, but renamed: List of events named massacres. This has been done, but due to on going debate I need to ask you for a clarification.
Editors are debating the following: 1) the name change means that an event that is cleary named "massacre" in reliable sources can be included, or 2) the change means that only events that are named "massacre" in their Wikipedia articles (ie in the title or in BOLD in the lead) are to be included.
The prime example of this debate is whether to include the Tiananmen Square Massacre... called such in numerous reliable sources, but not called that in the lead of our Wikipedia article on the topic - Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 (note, however, that it is called a massacre later in the text.)
It would be helpful if you, as the closing admin of the AfD, were to pop over and clarify your intent as it relates to this issue. Blueboar ( talk) 15:23, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Hi,
Thank you for the detail you put into the difficult closure of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of massacres (2nd nomination) and for your subsequent explanation.
One issue on which you didn’t comment was the merits of the article for navigation purposes. I feel that more navigation aids are needed, but that we wikipedians are having trouble with summary articles for contentious subjects. Other examples include Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Psychiatric abuse (second nomination), which in the end was judged too much a POV target, and Animal testing, which through the controversy is coming along pretty well. Search functions are of limited use when you don’t know exactly what you are looking for. Categories are a rather dry way to browse. Navigation boxes are good if you are already close to where you want to be. Pages like List of events named massacre, to me, serve usefully like navigation boxes for broad subject areas. I’d be interesting in your thoughts. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 06:13, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
I would be very grateful if you could check that I have made the boxes on William Lemon and his son, Charles Lemon correctly, and all other necessaries . . . Vernon White . . . Talk 22:27, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Your views are sought at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Baronetcies#Peers_who_were_Baronets - Kittybrewster ☎ 23:20, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I cannot stress strongly enough that Bots should never be hardblocked. Aside from the fact that you will autoblock non admin Bot users who run them from their own IP, the damage that can be caused by blocking the toolserver IP is considerable. If you do accidentally hardblock a Bot, please lift the autoblock as soon as possible as well as reducing the block to a soft one. I have done this for the BetacommandBot autoblock - [16]. Thanks, WjB scribe 13:50, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Please could you help with Michael Williams (MP)? I got in rather a tangle! Vernon White . . . Talk 21:46, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Just a note of acknowledgement for your diligence - if I may - in helping to bring Betacommand to heel. I'd leave you a barnstar, but that seems to be debased coin. Thanks and good luck. Wiggy! ( talk) 02:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
The Barnstar of Diligence | ||
For all the crap that you've been facing for doing your job as an admin, and not backing down when called a "dumbass." Bellwether B C 06:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC) |
Thanks again, BellWether, for the nice comments. As to arbcom, I see where Carcharoth is coming from, and I personally don't want this to go to arbcom, because it's such a time-intensive process, and it rarely seems to breed any goodwill. However, I think that our success in avoiding that will depend to a certain extent on how BC conducts himself, and I rather despair on that front: the people issuing him barnstars despite his misconduct are entrenching him in his incivility and failure to work collaboratively, and the permanent-critics are goading him. The only potential good point on the horizon seems to be the long-overdue new bot, which should at least shield him from some of the random abuse. (HOW DAIR YEW FASHIST DELEAT MY IMAGE!!!!!!!! ITS A HUGE BAND And the HOTTEST GARRIDGE-PUNK GREWP IN SOUTH EEST DULUTH SINCE .... YOU ARE AN IGGGGNORANT ....) etc -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 11:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
I think one of the problems is that he takes the last type of criticism personally, and then lumps those who legitimately criticize him into that same category. I've done a bit of FUR image work in response to the mass-taggings, trying to bring some clearly compliant images in line with BC's "letter-of-the-law" tagging, but I just got discouraged and overwhelmed with the mass of images there are to look at, and I finally stopped. For awhile, I attempted to engage him at his talk, but that was met with resistance/hostility, so I stopped that as well. Anyways, since two of the most coherent critics aren't willing to go the arbcom route (I really have admired how both you and Carch have "carried yourselves" through this fiasco), I guess we've sixteen more days of incivility to get through. I may just leave the issue alone completely during that time, as I'm growing more than a bit weary of it. Regards, Bellwether B C 12:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
I see you are following up some of what has been happening with BetacommandBot. It is a complete mess at the moment, partly I think because some people are reacting very defensively. I was surprised though to see the reaction to your comments, as I know you are active in category-related matters (hence you noticed what was going on) and you don't seem to have been involved with BetacommandBot issues before. In other words, you were a newcomer to these latest debate, and you got treated very shabbily in my opinion. I had previously thought that the defensive attitude of Betacommand and others only occurred with non-free image work or those that had annoyed them, but it seems that there is a real disconnect happening here, a failure to engage with others, and to recognise genuine criticism and to respond politely. MickMacNee, who made some very strong criticisms earlier, seems to have been blacklisted and gets warned off regularly despite making valid points in an OK manner. As I said, a complete mess. Do you have ideas for what to do? Carcharoth ( talk) 02:15, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
I should explain that I have spent most of the last two decades involved pretty much full-time in various political or semi-political campaigning activities, where there are a lot of people heavily committed to things they feel very passionately about, and plenty of opportunities for disappointment, misunderstanding and conflict.
One situation which regularly occurs is where the leadership is forced by circumstances to pursue a course of action which will be controversial with the members/supporters, but which has to be done. Sometimes these are internal issues, such as budget cuts, and sometimes they are related to the organisation's goals, such as a choice having to be made between priorities. I have been sucked into countless bitter disputes in such matters, and they are always pretty horrible for all concerned. However, I eventually began to realise that since this sort of thing is pretty much inevitable, there's no point in simply bemoaning it: it's important to learn how to handle it in an effective way.
This situation seems pretty similar. The fair use image problem had to be dealt with, and it was inevitably going to cause a lot of very bitter objections. However, so far as I can see, there was very little effective planning on how to handle all those inevitable protests, and minimise the damage caused by the process.
I have not read little of the history, but from what I can see of how things are being handled now, the fundamental problem was that the fair use issue seems to have been approached primarily as a technical problem — how to identify, tag, and if necessary remove non-free images — when some minimal hazard analysis should have shown that the community-anger problem was in fact going to be much more serious.
That set off a pretty much inevitable cycle of a necessarily-hyperactive bot starting work, massive howls of anguish, too many of them turning into very unpleasant attacks ... leading to defensiveness and counter-attacks by a bot operator who must have felt with full justification that he was being savaged by a million mad dogs.
I have a huge amount of sympathy for Betacommand in this, who seems to have been ill-equipped and under-supported in this. He ended up an appallingly exposed position, and it must have been absolutely horrible for him.
I think it's quite unfair to pin all the blame for this on Betacommand: in many way, he has been hung out to dry. He clearly has great programming skills, but his communication skills seem poor (at least by now; he may simply be burnt out after too much flack); but above all, he simply didn't have enough backup, and enough supportive people to help him distinguish effectively between shooting-the-messenger abuse and valid criticisms of the processes in use.
The whole process should have been differently structured from the outset, with Betacommand concentrating on his main skill (programming), and a team of other editors to take the flack and -- crucially -- do the painful and difficult job of both defusing the attacks rather than escalating the responses, and taking great care to try to see whether the torrent of abuse and complaints included legitimate criticisms of the process. That last bit is vital: in these situations, many people who have valid complaints do not make them politely or constructively, but if the situation is going to avoid descending into a brawl, it is really important to accept that a person who is behaving in a hostile and unreasonable way may still have a genuine grievance.
Trying to find those genuine grievances takes a cool head, which can be hard to maintain under fire, which is why it's important to have a team of people taking the flack, who can take a break when it gets too much and who can remain open enough to keep on looking for ways to improve the course of action.
That doesn't seem to have happened here: so far as I can see, there was plenty of scope for improving the way the bot worked, with more conciliatory and informative notices, and perhaps a dedicated noticeboard for user grievances with a team of people trained to handle them, but that too much energy was spent on firefighting the protests rather than improving the process.
So we got into a deadly cycle where user complaints were not always effectively addressed even when there was scope for improvement, partly because Betacommand (the person who should have been implementing the fixes) was getting too scarred because he had been too exposed, and those who supported the work were too quick to rush to defence of BC's inevitable lapses, rather than trying to both support the bot operator and maintain high standards.
I know that this must read so far as a don't-start-here comment, but bear with me. I am sure that the flaws in process design which led to this situation were as usual the result of cockup rather than conspiracy, and that the very loose management structure of wikipedia makes it very hard to plan for and co-ordinate the handling of a situation such as this; most wikipedia processes are ad hoc and unstructured, and formal processes such as RfC, XfD, arbcom, etc, have evolved slowly over a long time to deal with issues where experience has shown a need for careful handling, and a lot of time has been available to buikd consensus on an appropriate process.
There's no point in crying over the fact that this could have been handled better; what matters is learning from what's happened, and improving the processes.
One of the necessary steps is already underway: taking Betacommand out of the front line as the operator of the non-free image bot. That should have been done a long tine ago, but notwithstanding concerns about he details, the fact that is being done now is a very welcome development.
That process has starkly revealed the other major flaw in the process: that bot approval and bot management is being treated as if it were a solely technical task. Your have rightly pointed to a need for BRFA reform, and I think that's crucial, because it seems clear to me that most of the problems with Betacommand's bots have not been technical, they have social. We need some structure for ensuring that impact of the bot on collaborative efforts can be reviewed before authorisation is given, because that collaboration is at the core of wikipedia. The intentions of Betacommand's bot have been generally good (with a few lapses), but as BAG's instant-approval of the new bot showed, there simply isn't any effective mechanism for examining the effect of bots on collaborative work, and on the techniques and patterns of work which editors have developed. That's a recipe for trouble, because it simply means that problems are not addressed until they become conflicts, and the ANI ends up becoming a forum for (largely unsuccessful) attempts at conflict resolution.
I think it's important to acknowledge that BAG does a fine job of technically assessing bots: assessing their suitability for the task, setting their edit rate, imposing limitations on their scope, etc. The fact that there are so many bots operating with so few technical problems is a credit to their work.
However, just as you or I don't have the technical savvy of programming and server technologies to assess the technical side, it's unreasonable to expect the technical wizards in BAG to be familiar with all the processes and conventions at work amongst editors. That's no criticism of the BAG people, just a reflection that of the fact few editors (if any) understand the whole of this huge and diverse project.
The problem now is that the storms seem to have left BAG feeling very defensive, and I don't know how it will be possible to reopen dialogue. But if that can be done, the best suggestion I have so far is that BRFA should be explicitly cast as a two-part process:
In addition to this, I think that there needs to be some lightweight process for discussing issues which arise with a bot, something without the intensity of RfC or the raucousness of WP:ANI. I didn't know whether WP:BOWN might fit the bill, but if a bot could be improved there doesn't currently seem to be in practice any intermediate step between a private note to the bot owner and a complaint at ANI (which is inevitably taken as an accusation). Take as one example the issue I raised wrt to BetacommandBot's edit summaries being so much less informative than Cyedbot's: there should be somewhere that this sort of thing could be raised in a constructive atmosphere, but in a placed where discussion is centralised.
That's pretty much all I can suggest for now. The one issue I haven't really touched on is Betacommand, because it's a difficult one to see solutions. I fear that it is headed to arbcom, which I think is unfortunate, because arbcom tends to polarise, at least until a case is settled. All I can suggest for now is that Betacommand should be moved into a much less exposed position wrt to non-free images, but the problem remains that his bots do many other tasks and however it has happened, he is now in no mood to hear any concerns about their operation as anything other than nonsense or personal attack. I don't know how that can be addressed without confrontation; arbcom is now areal possibility, but will polarise. I wonder if there might be consensus for some sort of diplomatic and neutral task force to review BC's authorised tasks and how they are run, and see if it can come up with a set of proposals for reducing conflict?
However, I'm afraid that I don't have much confidence that Betacommand can avoid arbcom. He seems to focus on the technical abilities of his bots, and is comparative weak in the collaborative aspects of understanding the potentially huge effects that these tools can have on wikipedia's very fragile ecology, and these problems are longstanding, predating the nonfree image cleanup. Would mentorship be appropriate?
Anyway, that's all for now. Hope this helps. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 06:50, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
On the test page User:Kitty53/Test page, I am working on creating an article on Louis Chirillo. He is going to have his Wikipedia article ready in the future. Brown Haired Girl, you may help me with the article if you have time, or have another user help me. Thank you. Respond on my talk page if you can't do so. Kitty53 ( talk) 21:36, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Please could you help with an MP box for Edward William Wynne Pendarves. Vernon White . . . Talk 23:03, 7 March 2008 (UTC)