This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

It's been a while since you introduced yourself, but I have a complicated question on Photographs for Submission, and thought that you would be a good starting point. If my question is beyond your knowledge base, could you possibly refer me to someone who can answer the question and give guidance about the procedure? I tried to read Wiki's page on permissions for photographs but left confused. I will soon to create a new article which will involve a historic event which took place in San Francisco near the start of the 20th century. San Francisco's library has a large stock of digitized historic photos, and I thought that it would be great if I could include a few of them in the article. Can you please give me your take on what I need to in getting this to happen for my article?

When I emailed the Photo Curator at the San Francisco Public Library with my desire to include some of there digitized photos, this was her response.

You may use images for the Wikipedia article. Please email me a filled out Permission to Publish form listing out the image(s) and the article title. The use fee noted on the form will be waived. You’ll need to use the credit line, SAN FRANCISCO HISTORY CENTER, SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY. It would be great if the credit line linked back to this page, www.sfpl.org/sfphotos

And this is the legal jargon on the Permission to Publish form, along with web links to the document.

http://sfpl.org/uploads/files/1/3/permissions_worldwide.pdf

http://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=2000017301

I understand that the copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or of other reproductions of copyrighted materials. It is not my intention to publish or otherwise reproduce any of the materials listed on this form which are possibly subject to copyright without first having obtained written permission from (a) the copyright owner, the heirs, or assigns and (b) from San Francisco Public Library, owner of the original materials. Subject to all specifications and conditions stated above, one-time permission to publish the designated materials owned by the San Francisco History Center is granted. Repeat use of these materials is not permitted without written consent. Permission to publish is granted only in so far as the rights of the San Francisco Public Library are concerned. The Library can claim only physical ownership of the material; responsibility for identifying and satisfying copyright holders must be assumed by users wishing to publish this material. The applicant agrees to send the San Francisco History Center one complimentary copy of the work containing the reproduction. The credit line should read. SAN FRANCISCO HISTORY CENTER, SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY. James Carroll ( talk) 16:07, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

The image use policy is at Wikipedia:Image use policy, which says (among other things) any image published before 1923 is public domain (any copyright has expired). This pertains to when the image was published, not when it was taken. You can get further assistance at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. -- Rick Block ( talk) 16:49, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Your statement from your user page,

"Wikipedia's newcomers are undoubtedly ignorant of many local rules and conventions, but some of them are experts and we desperately need them. Don't piss them off. Most of them mean well."

seems like it was written directly for the difficult individuals I'm dealing with on the Lap Dance article. When you get a chance, please look at the Talk Page for Lap Dance, and tell me on my talk page how or where I should go to resolve this mess. Thanx. James Carroll ( talk) 22:26, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

This is a few hours later, and I would like to report VANDALISM to the Lap Dance article by Candleabracadabra. In the late evening, and with no discussion on the article Talk page, Candleabracadabra tore out half of the article -- specifically the parts that I had research and written. I have reverted it back to the state before he started cutting. Please advise me. James Carroll ( talk) 04:26, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

I have undone James Caroll's reversion of Candleabracadabra's edits, since they are very clearly not "vandalism" but simply a difference of opinion, therefore a content dispute which needs to be dealt with on the talk page. BMK, Grouchy Realist ( talk) 04:36, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

And James Carroll just reverted me. BMK, Grouchy Realist ( talk) 04:39, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

You should all take a deep breath, and read WP:DR. Try to assume good faith (i.e. accusing folks of vandalism is generally not helpful), and try to work things out on the talk page rather than edit warring. -- Rick Block ( talk) 06:40, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

You or one of your admin associates needs to look more closely at the incident. These guys ignored the article for years, and it stagnated. After doing much work cleaning it up and adding research, Candleabracadabra without any discussion on the Talk page and during a late night hour, removed the majority of my work, cutting the article in half. His friend, Beyond My Ken who also has deleted the same work has received many complaints from users about his excessive reverts, his use of profanity in his comments, and has even been disciplined many multiple times for Edit Warring (see link below). I will not work on this article, or any other articles, unless Candleabracadabra and Beyond My Ken are banned from the page, in order to preserve the much researched and referenced work that I have invested in. Do you really think that any volunteer would continue with this type of treatment?

Notice of Edit warring noticeboard discussion to Beyond My Ken

https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=User_talk:Beyond_My_Ken&direction=prev&oldid=589258371 — Preceding unsigned comment added by James Carroll ( talk • contribs) 17:11, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Just a friendly note that Rick Bot is down updating pages. Thanks. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 07:46, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. It's running again. -- Rick Block ( talk) 20:01, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

D'oh, and back down again. I wonder why it keeps doing that.. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 09:37, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Ping! Bot still down. -- SB_Johnny |  ^talk✌ 00:00, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

And, it's running again. The issue has been that the bot's login expires (I think in 30 days), which it never used to do. After it expires, I have to run it manually and provide its password, creating a new login that then expires in another 30 days, etc. I have added a step to the automated script that now does the equivalent of a manual login (providing the password), but I'm not sure this is working yet. -- Rick Block ( talk) 18:20, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, that's strange, it only ran on the 23rd. It might not be the expiry date of the login. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 04:01, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Since you've been inactive, I don't suspect you ran the bot manually on the 30th. Is it possible you set it to only update once a week? Regards, — Moe Epsilon 06:32, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

The problem definitely has been the login expiration, but there seems to be a new issue where the machine I run the bot on is not invoking the automated script that runs it. Looks like it should be working again now, but we'll see tomorrow. I've been (and will continue to be) traveling quite a bit and not able to access the machine the bot runs on very often. -- Rick Block ( talk) 18:49, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

It successfully ran today (automatically). We'll see about tomorrow, but if it stops running I won't be able to do anything about it until next weekend. -- Rick Block ( talk) 18:48, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

And nothing. See you next weekend :P Regards, — Moe Epsilon 20:04, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

It updated today on the 9th, again, exactly 1 week after the last update.. Regards, — Moe Epsilon 04:24, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes - I'm watching it. Trying to figure out what the issue is. -- Rick Block ( talk) 16:16, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Two days in a row now. Thanks, you must have found the solution :) Regards, — Moe Epsilon 17:34, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Here's what happened. The bot's login has been occasionally expiring (for 6 months or so), and when it doesn't run I've been running it manually which refreshes the login. In addition, I fairly recently (about a month ago) changed the time that it runs. When I did this, I forgot that I also have to change the settings on my Mac so that it wakes up shortly before the scheduled time. So, if I was using my Mac (Mac not sleeping) including trying to figure out why the bot was not running, it would run fine (see Heisenbug). I've been traveling a lot lately, so the machine has been sleeping (and not waking up when it's time to run the bot). I think both of these issues are now fixed - the machine should wake up at the appropriate time and the login should be refreshed every time the bot runs. Sorry for any inconvenience this might have caused. -- Rick Block ( talk) 16:10, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

User:Scottperry has posted a reply to your comment on his talk page at: LA sublists. Please feel free to erase this message if you prefer.

I've had a username change from Truthkeeper88 to Victoriaearle - both are the same person, both are me. But at WP:WBFAN they show up as two different people. I don't really mind that much but seems that it would be nice to be accurate there. Is there any way of making the bot consolidate the two users? It was done manually here but then the bot changed it back here. I think there are other editors, too, who have had user name changes, but presumably the bot can't know unless notified? Anyway, I thought I'd post this query here. Thanks. Victoria ( tk) 21:28, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

You can do this by changing the name in the by-year lists (like WP:FA2014, WP:FA2013, etc) that the bot uses to generate the WBFAN page. Every time the bot runs it reads these by-year lists and regenerates the entire table at WBFAN. If this is not clear, please let me know. -- Rick Block ( talk) 06:22, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the response, it is clear. I think it's best to leave it as is so that the names on the year-by-year records match the archived/transcluded FACs. Just thought I'd ask. Victoria ( tk) 00:22, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

You could edit just the user link portion in the by-year summary, so it would continue to display as the original nominating user (the bot ignores anything following the "pipe" in the user link) - so, for example, in WP:FA2010 the nominator for Ernest Hemingway would be [[user:Victoriaearle|Truthkeeper88]] which displays as Truthkeeper88. The bot will understand this to mean the nominator was Victoriaearle, not Truthkeeper88. -- Rick Block ( talk) 03:43, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Another possibility is I could change the bot to look for redirected user pages. In your case, this would do what you seem to want. I'm not completely sure this is the behavior everyone would want - but it seems reasonable. I'll think about this. -- Rick Block ( talk) 03:59, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Oddly I noticed this because elsewhere an editor whose name I didn't recognize posted about having written FACs so I peeked at WP:WBFAN and then got curious (I don't have that page on my watchlist). Basically it's not a big deal to me, but yeah, I set up a redirect because I thought it would be helpful (it's not really, always, I've discovered, and does't work at all for notifications). I think for a situation like this where the transcluded archives maintain the Truthkeeper88 name, it's best to leave it as it is without too much fuss. But others have had name changes, so maybe it's worth bringing up for discussion on WBFAN page? I dunno. Anyway, thanks for your responses. Makes perfect sense to me. Victoria ( tk) 19:55, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Rick Block. You have new messages at Wikipedia talk:List of Wikipedians by featured list nominations.
Message added 05:05, 4 April 2014 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

— Vensatry _(Ping) 05:05, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Category:United States Department of Energy National Laboratories, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:46, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Is there a way to merge into User:Wadewitz, the prior contributions before the user-name-change, of User:Awadewit -- at Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations ?

Thank you for your maintenance of the page Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations,

— Cirt ( talk) 17:45, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Per just above ( #Query), the easiest approach is to change the name in the by-year nomination pages, e.g. WP:FA2010. -- Rick Block ( talk) 18:41, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Ah, okay, will do, thank you! Do I also need to change the name in the individual WP:FAC subpages? — Cirt ( talk) 00:37, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Changing the name in the by-year lists is enough. The bot regenerates the entire list at WP:WBFAN from these lists every time it runs. -- Rick Block ( talk) 04:09, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Ah, okay, in that case I think I should be done. I changed "Awadewit" to "Wadewitz" in all instances on pages WP:FA2007, WP:FA2008, WP:FA2009, and WP:FA2010. — Cirt ( talk) 04:28, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

1. Okay, it updated a bit, but some are still missing. User:Wadewitz is co-credited at Wikipedia:Featured articles promoted in 2007 for Mary Wollstonecraft, but not listed at WP:WBFAN, any ideas on how to fix that?
2. Also at Wikipedia:Featured articles promoted in 2007, User:Wadewitz is listed for Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, but not at WP:WBFAN, can we correct this somehow?

This would bring her total WP:FA count correctly to thirty-six (36), which correlates both with User:Wadewitz and Los Angeles Times which stated: "She also was the author of 36 "featured" articles, the highest distinction bestowed by other Wikipedians based on accuracy, fairness, style and comprehensiveness.".

Thank you for your time, — Cirt ( talk) 19:46, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

There are 34 listed, so if there are supposed to be 36 two are definitely missing - but it's not these two (if you look at the source for WP:WBFAN it's a little easier to see which ones are there). -- Rick Block ( talk) 01:51, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I'll place the ones of the 34 already listed, here, and try to figure out which two are missing:

Now we gotta compare that with User:Wadewitz to see which two are missing.

— Cirt ( talk) 01:49, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

The missing ones seem to be

• List of works by Joseph Priestley
• The Lucy poems

List of works by JP is a featured list, not FA. Not sure why The Lucy poems doesn't show up, but I'll look into it. -- Rick Block ( talk) 01:51, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

She's missing The Lucy poems from her list, not the other way around. Which means there are two more not in WBFAN. They are:

• Timeline of Jane Austen
• Timeline of Mary Wollstonecraft

These are also featured lists, not FAs. So, she has 34 FAs, and 3 FLs. At WP:WBFLN the FLs are attributed to Awadewit, not Wadewitz (if you want to change this, you can edit the by-year nomination lists, e.g. WP:FL2008). -- Rick Block ( talk) 02:04, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

I've changed to Wadewitz for WP:FL2007 and WP:FL2008, I think that's all the adjustments to make? Except maybe an edit-protected request to add The Lucy poems to her userpage list. — Cirt ( talk) 03:38, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

I'll make the change to her user page. It's clearly one that she simply overlooked. -- Rick Block ( talk)

Agreed, and thank you! After you do that, I could remove User_talk:Wadewitz#Edit_protected_request. — Cirt ( talk) 04:02, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Probably cleaner just to leave it there as a request that was responded to. -- Rick Block ( talk)

Sounds good, thank you for all your kind help and advice, — Cirt ( talk) 12:14, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

dutiful bots and personal advice
Thank you for keeping "the place running" by your bots who serve daily. and for helping editors, for example the author and photographer of the gem to connect to his past achievements, - in other words: you are an awesome Wikipedian! - to quote you: "see what kind of mood you're in"?

-- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 08:14, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Two years ago, you were the 162nd recipient of my Pumpkin Sky Prize, repeated in br'erly style, -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 08:23, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

There is a draft of a significant re-write of Monty Hall here. I'd appreciate your comments especially as regards WP:NPOV and with an eye to referencing or removing what content remains. SPACKlick ( talk) 14:28, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I understand you've been burned by this article before and so understand if you'd rather step back but I really am keen to start getting this article back to FA status and it needed heavy pruning and then fixing line by line. I'm not even half done with working on this suggestion before I try and win people over at the page. SPACKlick ( talk) 14:42, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm happy to help get this article back to FA status, but I won't be driving it (and it will take a considerable amount of effort). Regarding your draft it would be helpful to see a diff relative to the current state of the article. To do this you could replace your draft with the current article contents and then undo this change. The "undo" diff will then show changes relative to the current version. Based on a quick read it comes across (to me) as fairly NPOV. The referencing is a mess, but work on this should probably wait until you're done pruning (anything you prune doesn't need to be referenced). -- Rick Block ( talk) 16:28, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

OK, i've made that diff now for ease of comparison. Although it's a little convoluted because of everything that's been moved around. I'm fuly aware there's a lot of effort both in the re-writing and the winning minds of editors involved in getting this article back to FA but I'm willing to give it a good go. SPACKlick ( talk) 10:21, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Template:Footer Olympic Champions 4x100 m Men/small has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. SFB 11:31, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Template:Footer Olympic Champions 4x400 m Men/script has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. SFB 11:34, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Rick:

I changed my name a bit ago from "Albacore" to "Seattle". I'm wondering if you can combine the two for Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured list nominations, for attribution reasons, and change the one article under "Albacore" at Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations to my current name; if you could, that would be great. Thanks. Seattle ( talk) 01:30, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I've changed the entries in the various by-year lists (like Wikipedia:Featured articles promoted in 2013). The bot should update WP:WBFAN and WP:WBFLN tomorrow. -- Rick Block ( talk) 06:10, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi there,

About a month ago, 59th Academy Awards, which I nominated, was promoted as a featured list. However, I am missing a star over at List of Wikipedians by featured list nominations. How can this be fixed.

-- Birdienest81 ( talk) 07:00, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

This edit will fix it (the next time the bot runs). I'll look into why the bot is occasionally missing entries in the promotion logs. -- Rick Block ( talk) 14:57, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

1 and 2 - an intermittent problem that you may not have seen, so I thought I'd let you know about it. Cheers, Bencherlite ^Talk 11:45, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

A case ( Monty Hall problem) in which you were involved has been modified by motion which changed the wording of the discretionary sanctions section to clarify that the scope applies to pages, not just articles. For the arbitration committee -- S Philbrick (Talk) 21:48, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

This edit in June was really screwed up. Nergaal ( talk) 13:24, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

I think it's the same problem Bencherlite pointed out above. I'm looking into it. -- Rick Block ( talk) 14:02, 29 October 2014 (UTC)