User talk:Debresser/Archive 2

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Canvassing

You appear to be canvassing to gain support at an AfD discussion; see these diffs: Denimadept, Dream Focus, Ww, and Piotrus. This is a Bad Idea and not what the ARS is supposed to be for. pablo_hablo. 10:12, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that this is considered problematic. I was basically informing them because they had participated in other related discussions, but not yet in this one. Debresser (talk) 10:15, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

It is problematic, it's actually quite a big deal. If you selectively inform people about a discussion and ask for their support, it can be seen as an attempt to skew the discussion in your favour. (This is because it is an attempt to skew the discussion in your favour). pablo_hablo. 10:22, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

And what is the problem with that? Isn't that what election campains are about, for example? Debresser (talk) 10:26, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Apologies — my mistaken use of the word "vote" above may have confused you. I have changed it. Yes it is exactly what happens in election campaigns, which are adversarial and end in some kine of a ballot. However AfD is not a ballot. Have you read the links to the relevant policy on canvassing above? pablo_hablo. 10:35, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Please read WP:CANVASS. Community consensus has long been that "campaigning" for outcomes on this website is disruptive to the goals of building an encyclopedia. If it were allowed, editors would need to spend big swaths of their volunteer time campaigning for all kinds and sundry support, user pages would be awash in wikispam and the project would very likely grind to a halt. Please don't do this anymore. Gwen Gale (talk) 10:32, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks for pointing this out to me. Debresser (talk) 10:44, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I've read it now. So what I did is called "Votestacking". Well, as I said before, I wrote only to four editors, and they should have been in the discussion anyway but were - appearently - not yet aware of it. Next time I'll keep the wording neutral. Thanks again. Debresser (talk) 10:48, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

• Please note that even if you keep the wording neutral, if you are only alerting editors that you think will support your position (that's the "Partisan" part of the diagram on the WP:CANVASS page) then that's still not allowed. Thanks, Black Kite 10:51, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed. I'd inform them because they have shown an interest in the Honorverse articles and we've worked together improving them. That might mean they would be predisposed in a certain direction, but that is already not of my choice. Debresser (talk) 10:55, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Neutral wording is not enough, the worry is that editors friendly to a given PoV will be selectively canvassed, whereby their take on a discussion can be more or less foreseen whether or not they got there through a neutrally worded message. If you want to get the word out on a discussion, post a neutral note about it on a project page which has to do with the topic (these are often listed in a box at the top of the article's talk page). Gwen Gale (talk) 10:59, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

This is in contradiction with Wikipedia:CANVASS#Friendly_notices, which says clearly that I am allowed to send a few neutral message to interested editors. Debresser (talk) 11:02, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

It does not say that. You can send a limited number of notes to a "nonpartisan" audience. It is unlikely that any list of editors gleaned from the edit history of an article will be "nonpartisan," even if one mistakenly thinks in good faith that they are. Also note that the end of that section suggests what I suggested, post to a project page. Gwen Gale (talk) 11:08, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

"Neutrally worded notifications sent to a small number of editors ... for example, to editors who have substantively edited or discussed an article related to the discussion". Which is precisely what I am talking about. Debresser (talk) 11:22, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Only ...if they are intended to improve rather than to influence a discussion... If other editors still think you've sent the notes to influence the discussion, there will be worries. Either way, the audience must be "nonpartisan" and editors may disagree with your take on that, too. Gwen Gale (talk) 11:31, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Obviously. Thank you for agreeing with me. Debresser (talk) 11:33, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't think I agreed with you. If other editors think you're trying to influence a discussion in any way by sending notes to more than one user, you'll very likely be warned again. You can't assert your way through WP:CANVASS but rather, how you deal with it must be ok through a consensus of other editors. All the best, Gwen Gale (talk) 11:41, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

You've said that before and I've agreed with you. So we agree. Debresser (talk) 11:43, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd just point out that it also says that you should leave a note at the AfD noting who you have contacted. Black Kite 11:10, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes. I'll make sure of that too. Thanks. Debresser (talk) 11:22, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Here's a handy summary of the relevant points: Hello. It appears that you have been canvassing—leaving messages on others' talk pages to notify them of an ongoing community decision, debate, or vote. While friendly notices are allowed, they should be limited and nonpartisan in distribution and should reflect a neutral point of view. Please do not post notices which are indiscriminately cross-posted, which espouse a certain point of view or side of a debate, or which are selectively sent only to those who are believed to hold the same opinion as you. Remember to respect Wikipedia's principle of consensus-building by allowing decisions to reflect the prevailing opinion among the community at large. pablo_hablo. 11:52, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I think this has been discussed in great deal above so I, frankly speaking, take a little offense at posting this user warning. This was not nice of you. Debresser (talk) 11:59, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

If it causes you any offence you are free to remove it. If I had known it existed when I first spotted that you were canvassing I would probably have used it then. pablo_hablo. 12:17, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

That's ok. It's just that yesterday I received a warning and a block just because somebody was taking himself far too serious and an admin appearently also didn't have a sense of humor, and now this discussion in overly detail with involvement of that same admin. Makes me feel as though people are picking on me. Probably unjustified, but still. Be well. Debresser (talk) 12:29, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I can assure you that I am not "picking on you" - you weren't even on my radar until this morning, but some of the pages you canvassed were (due to previous interaction - every page I edit is automatically watchlisted until I manually clear it out). Automatic watchlisting probably also explains the two administrators who also gave you advice here. pablo_hablo. 12:41, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I added all the sources....

It is not sourced information. This is one of the main reasons why I am revamping the article adding together the small sections to other larger sections and getting the correct information regarding the settlers.

What you fail to realize is I have no vested interest in removing sources (which I worked tirelessly to add). I created and edited the article and put in virtually all the information there is in there now.

Why editors like you question the validity of editing an article (Which as I have repeated has information that does not correspond to the sources (I would know as I got all my information from the Black Loyalist CDC site) I will never understand. The article is remaining the same; only this time the correct sources and information will be made available to the general public...

--Wikiaddict6989 (talk) 00:34, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Edits

I am wholly fine with you doing so.

As long as the correct information is available to the general public regarding the NS Settlers, I am wholly fine with your action.

--Wikiaddict6989 (talk) 00:41, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

What ya doing in my box?

Hi Debresser

I noticed you made a change to User:SimonTrew/Industrial_Revolution.

This was very much a "sandbox" change and I thought it was encouraged to do that in user space instead of in main space. I don't mind the change of itself (removing a protection template, which I hadn't even noticed was there), but it would help if you could clarify for me why you changed it when I thought one of the points of having user space was that other editors generally didn't touch stuff you were working on. It's been copied back into mainspace now anyway so I am just keeping it for a couple of days in case there are any queries/complaints from other editors, but it puzzles me why you did this-- and makes me a little scared that if I then use the same technique on other articles (which I thought was encouraged) then they will get trampled while under construction.

So if you can clarify, thanks very much.

Best wishes SimonTrew (talk) 15:06, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

You're right a 100% about user namespace and that usually anything there will not be touched by other users. There are a few exeptions (like sandering e.g.), but generally this is the rule of conduct.

The page we are taling about showed up in Category:Wikipedia pages with incorrect protection templates which is one of the 9 maintenance categories I work on amost every day. Since it is actually an error category, I usually take the liberty to fix anything that shows up there, even userpages. And usually people are happy about it. One user once restored it and asked me to wait a little because he was about to move his template (I think it was) to general template namespace. So that's why. Hope I've answered your question, and hope you feel fine with it. Respectfully, Debresser (talk) 20:41, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

RE: Removed reference

Thanks. Always nice to see a friendly person. ChrisDHDR 18:09, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. We strive to please. Debresser (talk) 20:42, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

humor

Seems a shame to have this at the bottom. The helicopter caption is really funny. I'm now wondering if you're an observant hasidic atheist. kwami (talk) 08:30, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

:) Debresser (talk) 08:32, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Roberto Pinotti

Thanks for adding the reflist, I knew it was needed but something distracted me. Dougweller (talk) 20:34, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

We strive to please. Debresser (talk) 20:42, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:BRD

Per WP:BRD, please address the comments I left on the Honorverse template talk page. Edit summaries != discussion. --EEMIV (talk) 21:00, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I did. Just that it took me a minute to write. :) Sorry about that. :)) Debresser (talk) 21:02, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, come on. Don't slap me with guidelines. What about WP:GF? :)) Debresser (talk) 21:04, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

BRD... Isn't that Bundesrepublik Deutschland? Debresser (talk) 21:11, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Rolled-back

Cheers for sorting out the rolled back edits. I think that giving the little "will not appear in article" banner is an excellent idea. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 01:07, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Please do something useful

Limpopo River in Mozambique

• List of rivers of Mozambique

Jack Merridew 11:09, 20 April 2009 (UTC),
for the Work Assignments Committee

Nice work. But where you're mistaken, I'll still correct you. Debresser (talk) 13:01, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

You probably don't know me; or want to ;) Jack Merridew 13:51, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't. But judging by your edits, you're a nice guy. A little stuborn, perhaps. Debresser (talk) 13:59, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Coney Island waterboarding thrill ride

I did not add those empty references. It was Geo Swan (talk · contribs) who added them. [1] --Ixfd64 (talk) 11:55, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Don't sweat about it. Happy editing! :) --Ixfd64 (talk) 12:07, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I apologised to Ixfd64 and warned Geo Swan (talk · contribs) instead. Debresser (talk) 12:08, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

User:EEMIV and the Honorverse

Debresser: What in the world is going on with this WWMIV person? I have a real life to attend to, doen't he/she? I'd like to spend a lot of time on the Honorverse in general, and entries like the Alermandi (sp?) and the Victor M. person, but I just can't. Isn't _THEIR_ behavior legitimately classified as VANDALISM??? Oy. I don't know just what to do.

BTW, Baen says that Victor's co-author (name escapes me now) is probably busy writing, so who knows when he will respond regarding the Victor entry. I don't care if it gets deleted or not, it can always be re-created when the time comes. (Do you know if it is automatically archived, or do we need do do that?) As it stands, changing the Victor link to the disambiguation page may be suffficent for the short term.

It is all saved anyway, so can be restored later, when any new information comes up. Debresser (talk) 18:32, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

BTW, my earlier comment may have been partially in jest, but now that I think about it, I think it's legitimate... JUST HOW DO WE GET THESE PEOPLE TAGGED AS BEING VANDALS???

With present policies and guidelines that will be a little difficult. I personally am against WP:Fiction and might do some work in the near future to lobby for changing this guideline to include "inherited notability", but that's another story. Debresser (talk) 18:32, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

LP-mn (talk) 17:18, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you very much for fixing my mistake, I will do my best in the future to make sure it won't happen again.--Skater (talk) 01:49, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. Debresser (talk) 08:46, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Citations in templates

Hi. Thanks for repairing the {{GNF_Protein_box}} templates that included citations by appending "<noinclude>{{Templaterefsection}}</noinclude>". The "cite error" message that appeared in the display of the template was irritating and I didn't know how to fix it. I will remember to add this fix if I add additional citations to templates in the future. Again, thanks for your help. Cheers. Boghog2 (talk) 08:24, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

My pleasure. It is something I and others have worked upon, and I am just implementing it. Debresser (talk) 10:14, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Looking for reference

{{adminhelp}} I'm looking for a reference called "allmusicguide" which was probably once part of CNote Tha Lyracist, a deleted article. Could you please give me the full reference? Debresser (talk) 21:20, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Template:CNote Tha Lyracist referred to such a reference using <ref name="allmusicguide"/>, however no reference was defined with that name. The only external links provided in any version of that article were to the artist's myspace page. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 21:35, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Debresser (talk) 21:36, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Your fortunate deletion of that template made my question superfluous. Nevertheless, I think there was a fair chance of finding the ref in the article (not the template). Debresser (talk) 21:39, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Category clearing

Thanks for clearing the category at Category:Wikipedia pages with incorrect protection templates; I've been doing it piecemeal for a while and I greatly appreciate the work you did clearing it. (To get a sense of my appreciation: I typed this message entirely from my iPod Touch :) ) {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 04:25, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Daniella Rush

Just a note that IMDB biographies and realnameof.com are not reliable sources. Under WP:BLP, there is a presumption of privacy and pornographic actors use stage names intentionally to conceal their identities. The person who wishes to add the material bears the burden of evidence of proving that it complies with wikipedia policy. I have no intention of promoting the disclosure of names that the subject wishes to keep hidden. Morbidthoughts (talk) 14:32, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

As you can read here, part of the IMDB database is reliable. In this case though, this information is available in many places. You may change to a better ref if you please. Debresser (talk) 14:36, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Simply because gossip is repeated on the internet (over unreliable sources) does not make it verifiable. This information is contentious and was accordingly removed. If you find better sources like say a newspaper or a trade journal, be my guest and put it back in. Otherwise, just leave it out. Morbidthoughts (talk) 14:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

1. What is contentious about it?
2. Wikipedia:Citing IMDb doesn't say anything about the Biographies on ImDb.
3. I just love those selfrighteous types who make removes without making an effort themselves. Debresser (talk) 14:46, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Knock it off with the personal attack. The issue of porn star real names is contentious because there has been multiple debates about the propriety of their disclosure. [2][3] Morbidthoughts (talk) 15:04, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I will "knock off" the personal attack, but that doesn't negate my point: that I told you that you are welcome to find better sources.

I can't find the first link, which seems to be archived somewhere. But the discussion in the second link shows clear consensus that we may show the real name of porn stars if it is available (in fair amount, probably) on other sources on the web. This is the case here, so no problem. Debresser (talk) 15:09, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

No, the other sources have to be reliable also! Consult with the BLP noticeboard to get outside opinions on this. As for the reliability of IMDB biographies (which are based on user contributions), see [4]. Morbidthoughts (talk) 15:15, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

You should move your post on the noticeboard to the bottom of the page if you want more users to notice it; like the instruction says. Morbidthoughts (talk) 16:08, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

BTW, why isn't realnameof.com reliable? May I point out that there are many degrees in reliable according to Wikipedia guidelines. We should be carefull removing sourced information. Debresser (talk) 15:12, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

It relies on user contributions and we have no idea what their verification mechanism is. It does not have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Wikipedia policy demands that poorly sourced contentious information is removed immediately from biographies. The person who adds or re-adds the material has the burden of proof on this matter. You haven't provided it. Morbidthoughts (talk) 15:26, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Please stop adding poorly referenced controversial biographical content to articles or any other Wikipedia page, as you did at Daniella Rush. Content of this nature could be regarded as defamatory and is in violation of Wikipedia policy. If you continue, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. Morbidthoughts (talk) 15:28, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Since I explained in the edit summary of my second and last edit to Daniella Rush that I added sources to support the information I returned, Morbidthoughts should have assumed good faith. Therefore giving me a third level warning - assuming bad faith as stated in Wikipedia:User warnings - after only two edits from my side, both made in good faith earns him the warning for not assuming good faith (first level) that I'm about to dump on his talk page. Debresser (talk) 18:11, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The poor sourcing of a controversial biography assertion deserved a warning and followed the 2nd level warning which was telling you to knock it off with the personal attack. 1st level warnings are reserved for newbies. Not all warnings have to be in template format. If I give you another deserved warning within this short duration, it will be a 4th level warning. Morbidthoughts (talk) 19:48, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree and stick to my opinion that two good faith edits are not enough reason to issue a third level warning. Debresser (talk) 23:16, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Warnings are not just to deter edits made in bad faith. They are also appropriate to deter edits that are made in ignorance of policy. It is ironic that you warned me on not assuming good faith when you did not consider that I followed the policies on biographies of living people and verification. Morbidthoughts (talk) 00:00, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid your are mistaken. Not about the fact that "warnings are not just to deter edits made in bad faith", which is correct. But the specific warning you decided to use here was a level 3 warning, and it says very clearly on Wikipedia:User warnings "Level 3 – Assumes bad faith; cease and desist". Using a level 3 warning (=assuming bad faith) in this case was overdoing things and - frankly - a little insulting, in view of my standard of edits on Wikipedia in general. Debresser (talk) 00:08, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Re: Template loop

"Could you perhaps tell me why the line

{{Wdefcon|prefix=User:Flyingidiot/alert/}}

results in a template loop, but the line

{{User:Flyingidiot/alert/Wdefcon}}

doesn't? Debresser (talk) 22:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I guess because Wdefcon is a template, so after recognising the template it seeks for a "prefix" parameter in the template and doesn't find it. Debresser (talk) 13:38, 12 April 2009 (UTC)"

Ah, sorry it took so long to respond.

Neither of then seem to template loop, but the second line is to be used to add extra options.

This unsigned comment was left here by Flyingidiot 19:49, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I replied on your talk page. Debresser (talk) 10:22, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Ah, now I see the loop. Thank you for taking an interest in my templates. --( fi ) 20:13, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Protection templates

שלום עליכם! Just one little נקודה I wanted to mention. In the edit summary you made in this edit, לע״ד, it would have been more accurate to say "removed EXPIRED protection template" since that article's protection just expired. Saying "incorrect" implies that it shouldn't have been there in the first place. See you around! shirulashem (talk) 16:30, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

After it expired, it shouldn't be there. So at the moment I find it, it is incorrect. Although I do get your point. I use the same expression for expired as well as "really" incorrect protection templates. If only to make my life easier. Debresser (talk) 17:14, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi

I keep getting a message that I am biased in my writing on the above subject. What I have written on the Abdallahi page is only fact and I have taken out the defamatory words and sentence structure that were previously in the article. Since the Wikipedia person doesn't tell me what it is that I am writing that is problematic, it is difficult if not impossible to correct my verbiage. Since I am speaking with the Abdallahi family directly, it is difficult to imagine how a magazine or news article are more correct than direct information. However, is there a way to find out what it is that the reviewer is unhappy with?Thunder2009 (talk) 03:07, 27 April 2009 (UTC) Thunder2009 (talk) 01:54, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

FYI: see my post at User talk:Thunder2009#Discussing on talk pages and reliable sources in response to Thunder2009's queries. LadyofShalott 02:13, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

See article's talk page. Debresser (talk) 10:54, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I need your opinion on the reliability of a source

I am trying to edit an article

The source I am providing is a book published

by: Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha`at Islam Lahore Inc. U.S.A.

They claim that The Azhar university a reputable university has reviewed and accepted their book

http://www.muslim.org/books/azhar-cert.htm

Can I use this claim to support the reliability of the book Muhammad the Prophet according to wikipedia standards

Please tell me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gnosisquest (talk • contribs) 16:15, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I would say that this is an assertion of the book's reliability as a source about its subject, yes. I am familiar with the custom of religious institutions of repute issuing endorsements to books in order to make their reading acceptable to the adherents of their faith, so yes.

As to the matter of the discussion about the age of Aisha (nice name) at the time of her marriage, now that is a delicate matter.

Wikipedia guidelines say that "In general, articles should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and will generally not include tiny-minority views at all." In view of this it is my opinion that more sources are needed before inclusion of the disputed opinion becomes advisable. These sources might be academic, or non-academic sources that testify to a relatively wide acceptance of this opinion amongst scholars or laymen.

Sincerely, Debresser (talk) 20:13, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot!!--Gnosisquest (talk) 18:05, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

British Empire

Thank you for correcting my error. Regards. Justin talk 22:06, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. Debresser (talk) 22:16, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Move back

{{adminhelp}}

I moved Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi to Mohamed Abdallahi. During the ensuing discussion on the talk page it was proven conclusively that this was a mistake. I tried to move it back just now, but couldn't. Could you please do this for me. Debresser (talk) 14:38, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Done. kwami (talk) 14:44, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. What was the problem? Debresser (talk) 15:10, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I think it was just that a bot corrected a double redirect, so that there was an edit history that would be lost if you moved the article back. I think you can revert your moves so long as no edits have been made at the old title in the meantime. kwami (talk) 15:24, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

{{adminhelp}} This is really embarrassing. I made a mistake when writing the above request. I wanted the article to be moved back to Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi without the "Mohamed". Could you please do that? Debresser (talk) 15:39, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

 Done  Chzz  ►  16:22, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Infobox Russian city

Hi, Debresser! I realize you self-reverted, but what was the original concern here? I see no template loop (but then, I am not yet fully awake :)) Could you clarify? Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 13:35, April 30, 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I did, and I saw the loops, too. Trying to figure out what the heck went wrong there right now. If you have any ideas, please shoot ;)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:58, April 30, 2009 (UTC)

Nope, that's definitely not it. These names are basically just different variations of how the infobox parameter would most likely be entered. There could be any number of them.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:07, April 30, 2009 (UTC)

See User_talk:Ezhiki#Template_loops for the end of the story. Debresser (talk) 16:21, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Recursion and humor

Regarding your (perhaps humorless, but nevertheless welcome) comment at my chat, two things. The recursion does not actually thrash the wiki shell call stack; it does one iteration and stops (at lesat, it did at the time I made it). Second, it's not so much humor as a graphical representation of recursion, at once a working example of self-reference. If it cost computation time thrashing the call stack I'd be the first to nuke it. That said, i've been inactive. If the parser changes and it becomes a technical problem then by all means nuke it. Thanks, Pete St.John (talk) 19:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I've read somewhere that the reason it does only one iteration is precisely to prevent a crash.

Between us, I've seen quite a lot of people making these tiny experiments. In order to keep Category:Template loop warnings clean, I usually - as you say - "nuke" them. As a matter of fact, once you've seen how it works, there's no need to keep these loops, now is there?

Today we had a template loop, transculed on many articles, so suddenly I found 70 pages here. You know what the fix was? This. Debresser (talk) 19:38, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Hatnote dates

Hello,

Sorry about the mistake I've been making on hatnote dates. I was under the impression that we were supposed to date them based on how long the articles had been unreferenced. Thanks for correcting me and for correcting the dates. —BMRR (talk) 18:54, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

My pleasure. Debresser (talk) 18:56, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Serena Williams

Hello. As a significant contributor to this article during its recent drive towards WP:FAC, I'm just posting a quick reminder to say, firstly, great work and, secondly, please continue with the great work. We're pretty close to a nomination and further help, particularly with citations on playing style, may just help clinch it. All the best. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:19, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I didn't edit this article at all... I might have edited an article about here in a portal, and even that was a technical edit. So let's forget about this. Debresser (talk) 20:46, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Message?

I can't find the "New message" that was suppposed to be here for me. Opbeith (talk) 20:50, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I responded on his talk page. That message was a month ago. Debresser (talk) 20:57, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Apologies - I thought it was a new message - ie telling me I had a message here - that had just appeared at the bottom of my User page. Opbeith ([[User talk:Opbeith (talk) 21:01, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

5 April and 5 May. Fooled me for a moment too. Debresser (talk) 21:02, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Protection template

[5] - I was wondering why the template had stopped working. What happened, it get deleted or something? John Sloan @ 18:59, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, i've just noticed my page was no longer protected! How did you spot that? John Sloan @ 19:10, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia pages with incorrect protection templates. One of my daily "to fix" categories. Debresser (talk) 20:06, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I had no idea that category even existed! I guess you learn something new everyday :D - Cheers John Sloan @ 20:17, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the fix

Thanks for the fix here. I thought I had checked that the link worked but apparently I had not. Cheers. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 21:36, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. Debresser (talk) 21:39, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Charles J. O'Byrne

Good job on restoration of the article. Bearian (talk) 21:57, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

As I wrote in the talk page there: if some information needs to be removed, that has to be done carefully, without ruining the article. Debresser (talk) 22:02, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Protection Templates #2

How do you put a protection template on an article? I know a couple of articles that are subject to constant vandalism

Thanks, I Seek To Help & Repair! (talk) 20:07, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Post it here. Debresser (talk) 20:15, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank You

I Seek To Help & Repair! (talk) 20:21, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Battle of Latrun: It's not vandalism to translate and improve an article, even if it's not perfect

So where's the vandalism then in Battles of Latrun? You can see mine are good faith edits and so are ceedee's, who asked me to start fixing it up. Between us we are making this article good. Where's the vandalism? We have spent many hours together over this, in good faith , he wanted an French/English translator and I wanted him to do the fix-up. We are working as "twins" (jumelles); He will fix my French and I his English. We are not quite there yet, but it is 10 times better than it was two days ago. So why do you call it vandalism? That's not right. SimonTrew (talk) 00:18, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, my dear. I said I did three things, of which removing vandalism was only one. And that vandalism was removing the text "ted tge" from the top of the page, which was added long before you started woring on this article. So that wasn't meant for you at all. Debresser (talk) 00:28, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

No worries old bean I couldn't make head or tail of it. It will be GA in a bit, just you watch. SimonTrew (talk) 01:20, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I was gonna remove the translate template but have a few more bits to do before I think that appropriate. Have started doing cleanup too. SimonTrew (talk) 01:21, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

The best of luck! Debresser (talk) 01:22, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Accessdate parameter

Hi, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dispenser/Reflinks can you add the problem there also... --Typ932 ^T·C 06:23, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Already did that. :) Debresser (talk) 10:57, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

And he added a fix (if I understand him correctly). Debresser (talk) 10:59, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Template:pokeconvert

sorry about not responding sooner, your msg somehow flew under the radar. you wrote asking why i didn't implement a method to check for possible infinite loops. this was a case of writiing the minimal amount of code for the desired effect. to allow both name -> name and name -> number conversions (and their counterparts) without having to write duplicate information, i have the default result in the switch statement call the alternate subtemplate. i could write code in the beginning of each subtemplate that verifies the second paramter is valid through a series of conditional statements, but in a pragmatic sense, i don't see how four checks in the template are more efficient than the one perfomed at the wikimedia level. if infinite loops were a potential problem, i would of course write the code to avoid them, but wikipedia provides a time-saving way to prevent them. -- ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 15:09, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

after some cursory perusing of your talk page, it would seem that you are mostly interested in maintaining Category:Template loop warnings, and so you do not appreciate my intentional creation of a recursive loop for demonstrative purposes. as a compromise, how about i just change the usage instructions so it does not actually make a bad call? -- ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 15:17, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

While reading the first part of your post, I admit, I wasn't very happy with the direction your thoughts were leading. While reading the second part, I started smiling broadly.

You are right, that my first and foremost concern here is the template loop(s). But as a matter of fact, I usually take a genuine interest in whatever I deal with, and building in an appropriate error message will be an asset to your template. If that is too much trouble, then of course I'll be happy with the compromise you proposed. Debresser (talk) 16:00, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Confused?

A Consultation prior to the Aerial Voyage to Weilburgh, 1836 A painting by John Hollins The people can be identified using a cursor.

I think one of us has confused the other. Template:1836 balloonists‎ doesn't need a reflist, because it always appears in other articles. Like this John Hollins (artist) .... your comment seems odd on the template. I guess I need to put a not included reflist into the code to avoid it coming up as an error again. Are you a template code expert? Victuallers (talk) 08:12, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I understand what you're saying. Please, have a look at Help:Cite_errors#Templates and the template documentation page.

As you can see, the references get included, but the list as such not. It is in the template page mainly for convenience. And believe me that having it there has proven very usefull. We now have it in all templates that use a reference, over 800. Debresser (talk) 11:16, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Brilliant.... and Ive just clicked that what you did is exactly what I wanted.... thx! What I also included on the template was a longer explanation of why the ref was there. Victuallers (talk) 11:22, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

My pleasure. I'm not an expert, but I do a lot of wikignoming and anything I can't handle there's a few expert admins that do excellent work. Debresser (talk) 11:26, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

A learning question regarding your recent edit in Cite mskb

Hi, Debresser I'm calling in to ask you about your recent edit in Cite mskb in the spirit of learning. Yes, I saw the change log but I still can't understand correctly. You see, it's my first template and I'm pretty new in this.

Please tell me: What did you exactly do? Why did you do? How did you even find out about this experimental userpage? Am I unknowingly harming anybody or anything in Wikipedia? (Personally, I don't think so but...?)

Please respond. Thank you in advance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by FleetCommand (talk • contribs) 19:01, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

The text {{pp-template}} is added by an admin if and when it is deemed necessary to prevent all non-admins from editing that template. It is completely redundant to add it at any other time, and doing so triggers an error message. I do daily maintenance in that error message category, and that's how I found your page. Debresser (talk) 19:33, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Not my issue

I don't know anything about these deprecated accessdate formats. I was simply copying relevant text from STS-125. You can take your problem up with its author. RandomCritic (talk) 22:41, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok. thanks for referring me to the source. Debresser (talk) 22:45, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

With regards to accessdates fields, there are many programs and scripts out there that format references, including one built in to the edit toolbar. "Depreciated" does not mean "not allowed", it simply means that the template has been upgraded, but they display in references the same way. This is an issue that should be brought up with all the various programmers of the ref formatting tools, but it surely isn't any kind of major issue. Ariel♥Gold 07:59, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Obviously it is not a major issue. And I of course didn't mean to say that it is not allowed. But the use of "accessdaymonth"/"accssmonthday" is being systematically eliminated (see Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters). No mention of these parameters is made in Template:Cite web, and it has been indicated on talk pages that support for it will be discontinued.

More on a personal note, since I am one of those who is working on the practical side of all of this (while in no way being involved in the programming of the templates or the policies behind them), I can tell you that articles connected with NASA are taking a disproportionate amount of the time I invest in this work, due to the sheer amount of references in them, the consistency these parameters are being used by the editors of these articles, and the habit of putting the accessyear in front of the month/day. Debresser (talk) 11:15, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

If the tool you are using is Reflinks, please see here that I've contacted him and from his reply I understand he eliminated these parameters, so you could update your version of that tool. If you are using another tool, please let me know which, so that I could use its developer. Debresser (talk) 11:19, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not using Reflinks (that is not a generator, it is a converter, not the same thing.) I personally use WikiCite, a stand alone program, or the edit toolbar button. (I visited the WikiCite author's talk page, and the talk page of the program, but it appears he's left Wikipedia.) That being said, I can start using the field in my own citations, but there are hundreds thousands of other editors that work on NASA articles, and they all use different methods of citing sources, so to try to get 100% consistency in one parameter, or to worry about changing old, existing citations seems... well, not an efficient use of time, I would think. ;) (The field still displays exactly as the updated one does. If the software behind Wikipedia changed so that those fields no longer displayed at all, then I could understand going through old articles to change them.) I'm happy to change how I format my own references from now on, however. Cheers, Ariel♥Gold 12:54, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. In my experience only 1-2 editors a day use the old parameters, and I leave them just such a message as you received. As soon as I'll finish reworking the existing articles in Category:Cite web templates using unusual accessdate parameters we'll see what to do further. You might have noticed that there are only 1300+ articles there, out of the >1m on Wikipedia. That's a very low number, relatively speaking. Debresser (talk) 14:21, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Templates

Sorry about mistagging the templates.

Is it generally a good idea to use both "include only" and "noinclude" formatting, rather than just one or the other? kwami (talk) 01:04, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Noinclude is absolutely necessary for all parts of the template (or any page not in article namespace, like files) that you don't want included upon transclusion. Includeonly may be used if you don't want the template page to show what the template does, which might be good in some cases, but is not necessary or even advisable generally. Debresser (talk) 01:20, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I ask because templates like {{IPA-ko}} didn't transclude the usage notes even without the noinclude tags. Maybe it carried its categories or something? kwami (talk) 01:45, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

This is because of the <onlyinclude>...</onlyinclude> tags. See Wikipedia:Includeonly#Noinclude.2C_includeonly.2C_and_onlyinclude. These are fairly rare (as noted in that Wikipedia page as wel), and I didn't pay attention to this when adding the <noinclude>...</noinclude> tags. Debresser (talk) 01:56, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject User Rehab

Would you be interested in joining this project? We need more editors who share a burden for rescuing promising editors who have gotten into serious trouble because of behavioral issues. IF (a fundamental condition!) they are interested in reforming and adapting to our standards of conduct, and are also willing to abide by our policies and guidelines, rather than constantly subverting them, we can offer to help them return to Wikipedia as constructive editors. Right now many if not most users who have been banned are still active here, but they are here as socks or anonymous IPs who may or may not be constructive. We should offer them a proper way to return. If you think this is a good idea, please join us. I Seek To Help & Repair! (talk) 05:18, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I have so many projects of my own that I don't have enough time to work on. Can't take on any other. Sorry. Debresser (talk) 18:43, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Template:Future

Please note that the template you wanted in this edit was actually {{Future}}. --Pascal⁶⁶⁶ 09:00, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. It's good to have you around. Debresser (talk) 14:32, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

User Box

I've noticed your user page is flooded with user boxes, here's one you might like... Wikipedia:Wikiproject User Fun/Icon



I Seek To Help & Repair! (talk) 23:24, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Debresser (talk) 23:30, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Monthly maintenance categories

(This used to be part of User:Debresser/My work on Wikipedia#Monthly maintenance categories.)

Please be careful to not create these maintenance pages in articlespace. DS (talk) 02:43, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Please explain. Or perhaps let me put it a little more simple: did I do it right or wrong? Debresser (talk) 11:35, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Most of what you did -- creating maintenance categories -- was right. However, you also created an article called "Articles lacking sources from May 2009"; this was clearly an oops on your part and I have deleted that page. Understand now? DS (talk) 11:44, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

So that's why. I though I created nine pages, and found only eight. Yes, that must have been a mistake when pasting. You created the category, I hope? Debresser (talk) 11:50, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

You didn't. So I did. Debresser (talk) 11:53, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Linnea Sinclair

(This used to be part of User:Debresser/My work on Wikipedia#Linnea Sinclair.)

You're obviously a big fan of hers. Please keep in mind our rules about impartiality and a neutral point of view. Anything that reeks of the fansite is likely to be killed quickly. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:02, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I am not a big fan of hers, so don't worry. I did like the stories I read so far. Debresser (talk) 15:56, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

A friend of mine sells buttons at science fiction conventions that say, "Oh, no! Not another learning experience!" --Orange Mike | Talk 16:23, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

{{helpme}}How could I delete my userpages? Debresser (talk) 18:55, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

You can tag them with {{db-userreq}} and an admin will delete them in a short while. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 19:02, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Debresser (talk) 19:04, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I've done that and changed the references to them in this subsection to the real pages. Debresser (talk) 19:11, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

David Weber / Honorverse

(This used to be part of User:Debresser/My work on Wikipedia#David Weber / Honorverse.)

David Weber

Sorry, no time to start a new project. I took a quick look and realized the Weber article was one I'd glanced over before. I agree this business of copying stuff from Wikipedia is a pain. There's also a bunch of web sites out there that try to trap the Google spider or to appear "authoritative" or "official" on some subject or another where I'll recognize the site they stole their data from. Ideally people would be encouraged and allowed to write and maintain their own Wikipedia bio as it's extremely likely there not a single iota of information out there that's not directly from the person him or herself. That's also why I believe most of the people, companies, practices, etc. that have articles are not genuinely "notable" as they never attracted outside attention, research, and thus notability. Most of the data about someone/something is from the person.

BTW - something I have been doing recently is whenever I read a book or anthology I look at the introductions and such to see if they can be mined for things to go in articles. For example, I added this based on an editor's intro. The source is usually the person him/herself but at least it's likely something you won't see on all the web sites, especially for pre-web books. --Marc Kupper|talk 00:29, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Don't worry. I just meant the usual: fixing mistakes, advice. I'll gather information tomorrow, and put it up the day after. Shouldn't be that hard, especially since there is already an article to start with.

Good and logical idea, about those introductions. I guess that's the same information as the short bios they have on publishers' sites. Debresser (talk) 01:03, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi - I was just passing through and saw your comment here. A neat trick when searching for reference material to add to an article is to add the term "-wikipedia" to your search term; e.g. /"david weber" -wikipedia/ (omit the slashes). That means your results will include only pages that contain the term "david weber" and not the term "wikipedia", which at least excludes those sites that admit to ripping off WP :) Gonzonoir (talk) 17:41, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Reorganization of the Honorverse

D, Thanks fo ryour note.

We are here enjoined to write brilliant prose, all the while avoiding typos and misspellings (hard in English with its deranged spelling conventions) and following all of WP's multitude of rules and guidelines. And to be civil and yet accept merciless revision of our brilliant prose. Not, I think, something any of us can really achieve. But worth the effort for some.

In the case of the edits to Honorverse articles, I have indeed revised your intro to some sections. Note that boilerplate repetition, in each section, of phrases is mostly less than brilliant. My changes have tried to provide a bit of an increased glint. As for the phrase changes, they are mostly to remove slightly odd English or to improve the cadence here and there. On occasion, I have taken the liberty to add (or change) material which does not correspond with the books/stories. I have also removed or revised speculation on one or two occasions.

You will likely find that quality work, even if it seesm at first blush to be contrary to one or more of those guidelines or rules is welcomed by most editors. Those who don't simply oblige the rest of us to take another pass.

I hope that eases your mind about the edits I've found myself doing for the past few hours. ww (talk) 05:08, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

You did great work, as I wrote you on your talk page as well. You will notice that apart from typos and one small thing I didn't touch you edits. But the first sentences of all articles and sections that are targets of redirects should unequivocally make clear what the article/section is about. That's why I use that repetitive phrase about the "Honorverse" and include the word "fictional". It's always good prose that has to pay the price in an encyclopedia. Debresser (talk) 12:35, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I take your point about redirects not being confusing, but balk at leaden phrasing. Ah well, we'll get something all will like sometime.

On another point, I note that Ukrainian Supermen redirects to a section in another article entitled Sol or something like that. I think this is not viable for two reasons. First, the group in question was not, according to Weber here and there, particularly tied to Ukranians and so is something of an ethnic slur. The baldies just happened to be Ukrainian genengineers and fanatics, but most Ukranians weren't such. Second, we ought not to have such a link (ie, a redirection to a very sparse section of another article). I've been editing here nearly forever it seems, but have resolutely avoided learning much about the mechanics behind the curtains, so I am reduced to asking those who do understand the backstage stuff to turn up the lights and raise/lower the curtains. Can you find a way to remedy this unfortunate redirect/link? Thnx. ww (talk) 15:57, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps it shouldn't have been created. But once it's here there isn't any better place to have it redirect to, bad as it is. Debresser (talk) 00:13, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

In a recent edit summary (at Treecat) you revert some edits I made, asserting that 1) we have discussed this and 2) that it's standard in something like 100 articles and a fait accompli.

As to 1), we have not discussed it to consensus, even between ourselves. When I noticed your edits (including that one) in several articles, I changed a few, and left you a message (above) noting that 'boilerplate' <> 'brilliant prose'. I did not agree, nr do I now. We can come up with a better way to address the issue if it needs to be addressed. As to 2), it is not WP practice (at least en.WP) to let difficulty of redress preclude correction. Perhaps there should be a larger discussion on these points to reach consensus as among more than you and I?

Finally, some of the stories are not military SF (The Stray, A Beautiful Friendship, the story about Helen Zilwicki escaping from Scrags on Old Earth, ...) and at least one of the HH novels is only barely so, being mostly a study of conflict in a conservative society (Flag in Exile, I think -- anyway it's the one in which her shuttle is almost shot down and Burdette is killed in the duel). Another Honorverse novel is also not very military, either, Crown of Slaves. For that matter, Service of the Sword can be seen as not primarily military, rather mostly about frontier conditions in the presence of a corrupt frontier administration. On that reading, the discovery of the Lynx Terminus is merely the macguffin necessary to the plot, and it's mostly a policing story with a large criminal organization or two thrown in for spice. The military science fiction label is, to some extent, inapt though obviously tempting. ww (talk) 23:56, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I really don't think that because of two short stories in the Honorverse anthologies (of which one was written by Linda Evans) we shouldn't use the word "military science fiction" for the whole of the Honorverse works. Debresser (talk) 00:13, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

You do have a point as to some of the main Honorverse novels carrying less of a military character. But then again, that didn't stop Rob H. Bedford from saying "David Weber is one of the giants of modern Military Science Fiction having created the popular and best selling character/series Honor Harrington" in a Official sffworld.com Book Review. So you see I'm in good company, and having a source is very important in Wikipedia. Debresser (talk) 00:27, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I just now noticed that whoever made up the Template:HonorverseBook also categorized them as MSF. Debresser (talk) 11:05, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I've actually looked at your edit contributions re the honorvese and am somewhat shocked at the volume (or maybe it's blinding typing speed). For which effort you are to be congratulated. However, our disagreement about blanket boilerplating of all honorverse articles, and the inappositeness of that Ukrainian Supermen link is not trumped by volume or speed of edit. Consensus is required, if only as an artifact of the ruthless revision warning given all editors. And, as between us, we've not reached any such consensus.

Your reply to my point about Urkanian supermen as a page in the Honorverse category and its inadequate link destination illustrates some of this. That "bad as it is, it should stay" is simply dismissive of another editor's concern. As that's all I've heard from you, I went ahead and changed the link destination leaving a pointer to Supermen (not a good one, and one I hope someone -- you?) can improve to get around the problem I noted. Perhaps you can take a look? And, since you understand more of the scaffolding behind the scenes than I, adjust the Honorverse template page list to delete the reference to a Ukranian Superman article?

On another issue,you reverted at Treecat. There are two problems. First, the missing citations tag had been there for a long time, no one had done much about it (certainly not I as I think such tags in articles about fiction are inherently categorically wrong) and no none had deleted the so noxiously offending article. Nor discussed the vital issue(s) involved on the talk page. Hence, i have come to regard them as simply gratuitous surplusage. Mere tag bombing, simple Wiki-cruft, and not privileged over more considered perspectives. And of course the boilerplate issue remains. ww (talk) 19:41, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

It's nice to see you back, and I saw you did a lot of nice little things with a few articles in the Honorverse. Thank you for complementing me on by work for the Honorverse.

As far as the Ukrainian Supermen are concerned. I understand you have a problem with the term "Ukrainian Supermen" as it would imply that all Ukrainians of that time were changed into some type of supermen. First of all, this is just as true as saying that "American women" implies that all women are American. So I actually think that there is nothing wrong with that term. So for me this was no case of "Keep it, bad as it is".

I was quoting you, or at least the sense of your comment.

Apart from that I think I removed that connotation when I placed Ukrainian in front of the internal link (like this: Ukrainian Supermen). Do you agree with me? Or did I perhaps misunderstand you?

The problem is not as your analogy would suggest. It's more parallel to 'American ice-axe murderers'. Unless the 'American' is necessary, it invites invidious extension to all Americans or at least confusion as to meaning. The genengineers were, according to one of the stories, Ukrainian racist fanatics. Their subjects were also Ukrainian I suspect, as they are described as 'Slavic' looking, though that's sloppy and troublesome usage as well as there are a variety of Salvic faces, not merely one type. According to Godwin's law I must now introduce the Hitlerian reduction of the appearance of all Jews to the ugly stereotype used in Nazi propaganda posters. Consider it to have been done by reference. That's why I think the phrase 'Ukranian supermen', however it's broken up and sort of linked, is unfortunate. We should perhaps say something more explicit like "the supermen bred by a bunch of lunatic renegade Ukrainian genengineers". According to the latest (Storm of Shadows as available on line), a very similar theme is likely to dominate the next few novels and stories as Mesa is being revved up as the future baddies. Surely obvious in the last Honor novel, but much more explicit now. Best to avoid unfortunate phrases now, rather than keep them for lack fo something better. 'Better', in this case, being easy to arrange.

The missing page is linked, I think, in one of the Honoverse summary pages. A look at my contribs list of late will turn it up quite promptly. Probably List of regions or something. Anywhere it's where the old link pointed, about which i quibbled in a prior note. I'll have a go at it before I sign off, if my somewhat porous memory manages to retain.... something or other... ww (talk) 00:10, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

There is no reference to "Ukrainian Supermen" in the Honorverse template, see Template:Honorverse. There does exist a redirect from Ukrainian Supermen to List of regions of space in the Honorverse.

As to your changes in the templates of Treecat. This is their common usage and this is what they were designed for. It seems to me that you have been caught up in some in-world - out-world loop, so to speak. Because in the framework of describing fictional work that description needs to be referenced. If you get my point. One other Wikipedian (actually a renomated admin) also expressed his concern about that edit of yours to me, although that didn'tget to me until after I reverted it.

Common usage is not adequate justification for WP content. Consensus is. It was that consensus, albeit a silent one, which led me to regard those tags as Wiki-cruft and to remove them as I noted (in the edit summary?) from the article. I'm innocent of a treecat template, and certainly didn't edit one. The 'loop' ref escapes me, as does the 'mnomated admin' -- do you mean renomimated? In either case, I don't see the relevance. I'm been an admin for a long time, but as I promised in my acceptance note, I've not been a policing sort, remaining concentrated on content and article quality. But it matters not, as I see it. ww (talk) 00:10, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

The "boilerplate issue" remains, but as far as I am concerned it is obvious that doing so is in the interest of the encyclopedical character of these articles, so unless you'd start a discussion about it and consensus would clearly be otherwise, I will try to maintain the status quo in this aspect.

Agree as to boilerplate. Disagree as to status quo as a reason to keep or discard. There is no status quo, given the ruthless editing by others mandate. Resort to such an argument is thus feckless. Consensus amongst interested (as shown by activity) editors is the test, and it varies as I've found to my distress on several occasions. We're stuck with that arrangement, I think, and will just have to cope as best we can. The assorted attempts ot police the Wild West by setting up WP wide policies are becoming more trouble than they are worth as is shown by those editors who have become tag bombers without much thought. Especially the citation needed police. Some cops should just stroll down the street looking neither right nor left as they've no sense of the malleability of acceptable human behavior. One might consider the positions of some political parties in this light....

I don't think it accurate to labele the entire Honorverse as military sf, though a good deal of it certainly is. We need a better rubric; since deleting it on writing quality grounds is unsatisfactory to you (an active and interested editor). My objection to the boilerplate is that it's bad writing and decreases WP quality, regardless of accuracy. You will not that severl of my recent Honorverse edits were of the better English phrasing type, not content changes. ww (talk) 00:10, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Debresser (talk) 20:12, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

• Yes, I meant renominated.
• The common usage of templates reflects consensus. I'd say this is per definition.
• It has been argued (that may have been you) that some books in the Honorverse series don't have much MSF. Nevertheless, I argued, the two arguments for calling the series as a whole MSF:
  1. There are third party sources that have said so
  2. The absolute majority of the Honorverse series is
• I would like to hear if you have any proposals for a boilerplate that should include all the information of the present one, but sound better in English. I am not a native English speaker, so I understand I might use akward English.
• I really can not see your sensitivity concerning "Ukrainian Supermen" (or "Ameriacan ice-axe murderers" for that matter). Frankly speaking I do not think you or I have a choice in the matter, because the term is used in the Honorverse books. Just like we can't call "treecats" "treedogs" just because we dislike cats and adore dogs, likewise we can not make up any other term for "Ukrainian Supermen" that would sound any better or any worse.

Debresser (talk) 00:39, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

We do have a choice as to how we phrase things and are not corenred by Weber and others fictional constructions, even in describing those creations. This business has been a peculiar one. Like obscenity (in a famous frustrated phrase by US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart), I know an unfortunate phrase when I see one. Making the reason for the unfortunateness explicit is sometimes harder, as in this case. The US Supremes had much trouble doing so in the case of legally defining obscenity, so I'm not alone in my troubles. I'm not, in the following, departing from the canonical use of the term in the various stories and novels.

On the question of templates being by definition consensual, I think you've missed a point or two. The invention of the template mechanism was intended, if I recall correctly, to simply save time and effort. it was welcomed on the basis, or so my impression of reactions at the time was. The content of templates is not sacred nor to be accorded any more protection than any other WP content. So a resort to "the template says it this way" does not settle any difference of opinion. :As for WP:policy <pick one or many>, the situation is similar. They are not Holy Writ and can and have been changed. Some are inherently unworkable for one reason or another, some are perfectly fine save for an awkward codicil here or there, and others are so fundamental that they are not likely to be changed in any of our lifetimes. The demand for citations in the case of article covering the background of fictional universes is one which is logically silly. There is no authoritative reference to cite save the author's output, and that is subject or whim and reversal at any time. And discussion of some items cannot ever be except in terms of the fictional universe and has little or no other than trivial relation to the real world of (WP hopes) citable authoritative sources. That neither of the tags I deleted had been responded to in all the time since they were left by some passing tag bomber suggests that the interested editors didn't give a damn, thus converting their status from an ostensible cry for WP reliability support to mere Wiki-cruft. I leave aside Post-Modernist style constructions of relevance or non-relevance of this or that as inherently without content. WP, its policies, and nearly all of its conventions are not handed down from on High. They are not, almost always, not even enforced by the internal logic of some software somewhere. They are the result of pushing and pulling amongst those who chose to be involved and are subject to review at any time. It is not adequate response to point ot a policy or someone else's opinion as authoritative. WP is not an exercise in Scholasticism. Editors are however, constrained to work within the overarching obligations of civility, good faith, consensus, and ruthless editing of their stuff by others. Comment on anything here? ww (talk) 18:40, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you here. But I don't see any reason in all of this to agree with what you tried to do to those templates in Treecat. I still hold that they were being used in the way intended, and understood by all Wikipedians. Debresser (talk) 21:11, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

The chief issue about the genengineers in question is that they were True Believing racist fanatics who caused much trouble and death by plowing ahead and doing what they saw as the "right thing" to the exclusion of all other considerations. We have in this world had some extended experience with those of similar True Belief (many terrorists fit this description, and chattel slavery, particularly that based on skin pigmentation, certainly did), and there is a considerable historical record of such things. That the fanatics in the present case were Ukrainian racists is mere accident unless one is prepared to argue that their is something special about Ukranians which leads to this sort of action. Such arguments vere into Hitlerian territory. So absent such arguments, it's misplaced emphasis to have an article on Ukrainian supermen -- the actual supermen didn't have any choice about it as they were the engineered victims and could have been Chinese (save for their creators racist fantasies). To note as a matter of 'historical' fact, that the Final War was started as the result of the machinations of a bunch of Ukrainian racist fanatics who happened to be genengineers is fair enough, I think, but not in an article title which strips out just about all of that information, leaving only unfortunate apparent implications about Ukranians.

So, having brought some of the 'obvious' into view, I again argue that no article with the title Ukrainian Supermen should be present on WP -- at least not as a result of covering a fictional universe.

My earlier suggestion of using more words to make clear the underlying ground, and so avoiding quite plausible misinferences, would work.

Reactions? ww (talk) 17:39, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

So, having brought some of the 'obvious' into view, I again argue that no article with the title Ukrainian Supermen should be present on WP -- at least not as a result of covering a fictional universe. Your implicit thought that it might be an artifact of fluent English writing is, I think, not quite on point. Though not having close acquaintance with other languages' conventions, I don't think I'm really competent to comment. The avoidance of boilerplate is good English writing, though that it not the convention in some other languages in which exact repetition is thought well of. To anticipate your question, I will say that I've spent a moment or two trying to identify an example, and to remember where I ran across this bit of oddity, but can't come up with either. One of David Crystal's works is probably a good guess to the second, though. My earlier suggestion of using more words to make clear the underlying ground, and so avoiding quite plausible misinferences, would work. Reactions? ww (talk) 18:40, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, add more information. But I don't understand: we don't have an article "Ukrainian Superman", just a redirect. Debresser (talk) 21:11, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I have a small question about your last edits to List of Honorverse characters.

I understand how one can have a personal and an official relationship with somebody (like Cachat and Thandi), but how can one be someones personal and official friend (like Rafael Cardones to Honor Harrington)? Debresser (talk) 00:55, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

As I read the novels, Cardones is an official associate (having been an immediate subordinate on several occasions), but also a personal friend, something not true of, for instance, Gregory PaXton, also a former direct subordinate. The same was true of KcKeon, which acounts for the sharp and extended reaction to his death, both by Honor and in the number of pages devoted to describing it. Cachat, on the other hand, has an official relationship (in essence hunting for evidence of Mesan involvement in the Torch assassinations, with Honor's support; he is reporting to her through the ex-countess of the Tor, after all)), but no personal relationship they having met once under somewhat unusual circumstances.

Did I actually claim a personal relationship of any kind between Honor and Thandi? Shouldn't have, if so. ww (talk) 17:39, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Not between Thandi and Honor. I didn't understand why you call Cardones an "official friend" of HH. The words "official" and "friend" don't seem to fit together naturally. Debresser (talk) 21:11, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Honorverse template

I noticed you changed the Honorverse template. I have two questions.

1. I didn't understand what was wrong with the way it looked before. I understand it's something technical? It seemed to work fine though.
2. The way it was before it looked nice: colorfull, two nice collumns. Could you make it look like an orderly table again?

Debresser (talk) 12:43, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

It can still be colorful, it's just that the way you did it is not appropriate for use with navbar templates. If you wanted a book template, you should have made a second separate one, or made it with the same format as the old one, or integrated it INTO the old one. The old template was collapsable, your change isn't. That defeats the purpose of having a collapsable template. There are many non-collapsable templates, the Honorverse template is not one of them. Plus you've not formatted your table correctly, since it wasn't centered. (unless you meant to do that, in which case, it stylistically looks odd to not be centered)

The fix-up I did was quick and dirty, really, it should be one template, and not two functioning as one, or there should be two separate templates.

• {{Honorverse}}
• {{Honorverse books}}

Your table is also quite large. From my experiences on Wikipedia, it probably would have been zapped by some other editor for excessive size even if I didn't change it. Footer templates are supposed to be small. (even though some of them are huge... those seem to draw complaints because they are huge)

76.66.196.229 (talk) 13:40, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I see your point about collapsability. And about being too large as well. I have no problem with the new form you gave it. Just that it didn't look as nice as the second part of the template.

I do not see any problem in having a template made up of two parts, especially since the division in this case comes naturally. Debresser (talk) 13:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

What do you say about the way it looks now? Debresser (talk) 14:10, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

It looks ok. I've removed the hanging dots, and removed the extra lines (when making templates, where you start lines and place include , includeonly , noinclude tags can make extra empty lines appear for no reason). There should be no blank line at the end of a template, so I've also removed that. 76.66.196.229 (talk) 14:15, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for removing the dots (that was indeed an oversight of me) and the blank line at the end.

Changing the position of the tags does not make a difference, as in Wikipedia a new line is not a new paragraph unless there is a blank line in front of it, but the way I had it before makes the table more easily overseeable when editing it. Not important enough to make another edit though :) Debresser (talk) 14:24, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

It does have an impact if you have multiple nav templates. I've frequently corrected extra blank lines because of misplaced tags. The blank lines appear because they are transcluded. 76.66.196.229 (talk) 06:52, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I meant the whitelines I just added, before the template, so that it shouldn't come too close to the previous text. Have a look now if you like it. Debresser (talk) 11:03, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

It's leaving blank lines right now. Template talk:Honorverse/testcases 76.66.196.229 (talk) 11:14, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I just corrected the extra blank lines before the template issue. (same way I did before, removing the lines between "noinclude" and the start of the template. 76.66.196.229 (talk) 11:17, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I just had a look at Honorverse... Perhaps there should be a whiteline before and after the first part of the template? To make the overall layout look better. What do you say? Debresser (talk) 14:34, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with anon. We should either have two templates, or one bigger one, but standardized. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:22, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

In that case I would be in favor of two templates. Although I would automatically put both of them in every article connected to the Honorverse. But my opinion remains that having two navboxes in one template is no problem. Debresser (talk) 19:29, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

An Honorverse books template could be used on its own on author pages, instead of both templates, which probably should be there. 76.66.196.229 (talk) 06:52, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

But David Weber has written more books than just the Honorverse series. So that wouldn't work, I think. Debresser (talk) 09:46, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

That would work because you can have multiple nav templates. If they are collapsed, then they don't take up much space. Many authors have a book series nav template on their pages. Aside from Weber, there's also Eric Flint, etc. 76.66.196.229 (talk) 11:10, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

You might want to build template:Honoverse/doc and place the description there, along with {{Documentation}} 76.66.196.229 (talk) 11:20, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Why did you put that "see also" in the template? Perhaps you didn't notice it's allready there at the end of the second part of the template? Debresser (talk) 12:48, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Now that you mention it, yes I missed it. Though it seems more appropriate on the top half, since it's a real world product, and the article deals with the real world product, and not the in-universe fictional simulator used in the novels from when Honor was commandant. So... which is the more appropriate section? 76.66.196.229 (talk) 12:55, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, it is not appropriate for both sections. The first since it's not a book, and the second as you said (see also the talk page of the template). I'd say the second part is the more appropriate. I don't have any real arguments, but I definately dodn't like the "See also" variant. Debresser (talk) 13:12, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

The article itself covers the Jaynes... books. Well, remove it if you want. If the template is split in two, then I think it should be reinserted at that time. 76.66.196.229 (talk) 13:15, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

What happened to the list of books at the 'List of Honorverse Characters' page?

I figured you might know... What happened to the list of books at the 'List of Honorverse Characters' page? LP-mn (talk) 22:54, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I know. It's now part of the Honorverse template. As all templates, you'll find it at the bottom of the article. For most articles that is where it was anyway, but in this case that's a bit of a move. Debresser (talk) 23:08, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I answered a question of yours here. Debresser (talk) 23:16, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Uh, Noooooo. It's _NOT_ at the bottom of the page. LP-mn (talk) 23:51, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

If you're referring to what I think you're referring to, that table is useless for the needs of the LoHC. The list uses abbreviation for the various books that are not reflected in the table that I _THINK_ you're referring to. LP-mn (talk) 23:54, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

One more thing, is there an "anchor" or some other sort of html-like / wiki-code that I can use to link to the template? You moved it, but you didn't bother to repair _ALL_ the NUMEROUS links to the table.

BTW, is there some sort of an editor that can be used to so some sort of a mass edit that is now needed? LP-mn (talk) 00:04, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure I understand your question. The table was not a template before and therefore there were no links to it. It appeared in 9 pages and all are changed now simply through the template. That was the whole idea of the template. If I misunderstood you, please ask again. Debresser (talk) 00:08, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Since your last message, I've been busy too. Take a look a the LoHC page, you'll see a "===References===" link just before the template. While I've got your attention, please look a the sub-TOC's before the letters 'A' & 'B'. I've just tweaked it from the 'B' to the 'A' appearance. Do you think the new sub-TOC looks good? If yes, then I'll eventually spread it to the other letters. LP-mn (talk) 00:38, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Well... I do not want to sound critical, but...

The sub-TOCs seem redundant to me. There's the TOC on top and everybody knows where to look for it. The list is pretty dense with letters allready without another 26 TOCs.

The "Reference" in front of the template is really out of place IMHO. It is just the Honorverse template. Anybody wants to use it as a reference, go ahead. Debresser (talk) 00:50, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

As for the Sub-TOC's fair enough. I'll delete the four examples that exist so far.

I disagree regarding the "===References===" anchor point. It's needed for people to find the abreviations. LP-mn (talk) 02:38, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

You have a point. But I do not like the solution. Debresser (talk) 03:00, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps, instead of "References" call it "Honorverse template"? Debresser (talk) 03:03, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

That was really not serious, that section "NOT reference". Apart from that, it was just redundant, because just above it there is the TOC with a link to the references. Debresser (talk) 07:35, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Future history

I think future history is not for all sci-fi, only for a part of them that tries to tell fictional history of the future. Thus history of Honorverse or Honorverse timeline would fit, but treecats wouldn't. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:28, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I understand. My idea was not to add all Honorverse articles individually, but to make the Honorverse category as a whole a subcategory of the category future history. That would obviously include all individual articles as well, but as part of the overall work. In such a way I think that could be fitting. Is this how you understood my idea as well? Debresser (talk) 20:40, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but per my rationale above I don't think that Category:Honorverse should be a subcategory of the future history category.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 20:45, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Coup: lack of time, and honestly, I am very hesistant to edit fiction-related articles on Wikipedia anymore. I prefer on Wikipedia to contribute to non-fiction articles that I know will be safe and respected, and to for my fiction work, I contribute (occasionally) to other wikis. Perhaps we could reach out to honorverse wiki folks and get them to help in connecting our two wikis with proper links and templates and such? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:24, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

If you don't mind, I'd like to take care of that merge then. I know absolutely nothing about how the work of different wikis might be coordinated. Perhaps you could refer me to some documentation on that subject? Debresser (talk) 21:27, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Please do. I am not sure if we have documentation on that subject. What I consider is good here means ensuring that redirects point to the right section, that that section will have a link to Honorvesrse wiki, that content is synchronized between two wikis and message left on the other wiki asking those editors to take interest in synchronizing content with Wikipedia.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:52, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Did the merge. Debresser (talk) 20:24, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Coup de vitesse

When I added it, it was a misformed redirect (look at your last version) and the shortpages monitor was not picking it up as a redirect, you can take or remove it. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 00:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

My user page

(This used to be part of User:Debresser/My work on Wikipedia#My user page.)

Could somebody please help me to put the banners one below the other, in stead of in a row? Debresser (talk) 17:53, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

For that you need to go read Help:Userbox. It'll teach you a couple different ways to organise them. Cheers. //roux   17:56, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

{{helpme}} The previous advice tought me how to group banners. But still the groups of banners are not one below the other. And the same thing in the humor-section, where I want the text above the pictures, not next to them. So the question remains the same: how do I force one item of the layout to stay below the previous one even if there is enough place on the sides? Debresser (talk) 18:22, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

You can use <*br style"clear:both"> to clear (remove the asterisk). :) — neuro^(talk) 18:26, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

{{helpme}} That doesn't do anything... Please, how to force items one below the other? See above for explanation of my problem. And that good advice seems hard to get by. Debresser (talk) 18:34, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

If you're sure it works, go ahead and put it on my userpage. really, I'll be gratefull. Debresser (talk) 18:35, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• You can try asking Roux, he seems to know everything. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)} 18:53, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

The Languages of Pao

(This used to be part of User:Debresser/My work on Wikipedia#The Languages of Pao.)

Another good SF book covering the subject is Babel 17 by Delany, which you might want to check out.

Thanks for clearing up the sentence i left at military SF - the whole thing certainly seems to be moving in the right direction, and its always good to get new active editors on SF articles!Yobmod (talk) 18:03, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I noticed the Babel 17. It's in the same reference I mentioned before. Thanks. Debresser (talk) 18:07, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Naomi King

I added a reference to a Miami Herald article - which apparently the article was previously a copyvio of... I rewrote the wikipedia article to deal with that. Anyway, if you agree that it's now properly referenced, please remove the reference needed templates.--Larrybob (talk) 17:15, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok. Well done. But there exists a Category:LGBT activists. That is not the same as Category:LGBT ordained or vowed people of faith.

Another question. The source says she was a "restaurateur". Is that somebody who is in the restaurant business, or somebody who restaurates old works of arts, like paintings etc.? Debresser (talk) 17:24, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

And also: In one place the article says she's c. 1970 born, in another 1972. Debresser (talk) 17:29, 12 May 2009 (UTC) Ok, one source says 1970 and the other (claiming she was 37 in a 2007 article) confirms this. I fixed that. Debresser (talk) 17:39, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Good point about "restaurateur" - I'd been trying to rephrase to avoid the copyvio which had been there before, but I think what I meant was "restauranteur," which is still pretty pretentious. The article had said 1972 before but it seemed like the article and the other source indicate 1970.--Larrybob (talk) 16:33, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

• FYI: I added another source for her sexuality and her partnership, her own page at her church [6]. - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here @} 20:00, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks good now. Thanks. Debresser (talk) 20:13, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Message from Pusheter Yid

Howdy. I'm pretty sure that this message from Pusheter Yid (talk · contribs) was meant for you, but accidentally put on my talk page - so I've cutpasted it over here. Cheers,  Chzz  ►  16:00, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Dear Debresser, Thank you for your comments, and advice.

I am very new to writing articles to wikipedia and happy to make my contribution. Actually this article Yochanan Sofer is my first and still learning the strings. I noticed your edit, but it seemed to a me a mistake. There were five parts of my article removed (!): 1) Erlau Dynasty Today 2) Sefarim – Books 3) Opinion & Politics 4) Family 5) Lineage to the Chassam Sofer . (I also dont know why the family tree I built was displayed at the end).

Please re-assess your edit, because I think this information is quite important. Or advise WHY this was edited out so we can find a way to return this info.

I think we have enough info to open two pages. One called Yochanan Sofer and one called Erlau Dynasty (or Erlau Hasidim).

Please let me know your thoughts. Pusheter Yid (talk) 15:31, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I'll continue the discussion on (Pusheter Yid's talk page) Debresser (talk) 16:19, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Note

Hello, Debresser. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.

I've already replied to his truthless accusations, and proposed to reprimand him for doing so. Debresser (talk) 11:50, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

The discussion was closed with acquiting me of the accusation. Of course! The guy didn't even appologise afterwards. Debresser (talk) 01:11, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Lets be bold

I don't think the discussion on Category talk:Homophobia is going anywhere. What do you think of starting a new category and shifting some of the more appropriate articles out of the Category:Homophobia? - Schrandit (talk) 16:13, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

See Category_talk:Homophobia#Proposals.3F for my latest thoughts on the subject. Debresser (talk) 19:25, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

The category has 77 pages, of which 31 are articles about people. I've checked all these. In four cases I have removed the Category:Homophobia:

• Bernardino of Siena – article mentions only sodomy, which is not the same as homosexuality
• Christine Boutin – not encouraging homosexuality is not the same as homophobia
• Carl Værnet – his personal opinion about homosexuals is not a focus of this article and is not even clearly stated, per Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Opinion_about_a_question_or_issue this category should not be included (*)
• Mary Whitehouse – no basis for category homophobia in article

4 out of 31 would seem to indicate an overly eagerness to apply this category. Debresser (talk) 01:35, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

(*) Apart from the technical reason that this article is already in Category:Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust of which Category:Homophobia is a (grand-)parent directory. I non-obvious cases (like Fred Phelps and Shirley Phelps-Roper) that is no forcing reason to remove the parent directory, but in an obvious case as this one it is, see Wikipedia:Categorisation#Duplicate_categorization_rule. Debresser (talk) 02:34, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

From Category talk:Homophobia

Hi, Debresser. I admit to being a little confused about what precisely you meant by "do your homework". In the first case, if you meant that I failed to conduct an exhaustive search through several long threads on what has become an unmanageably long page for an earlier remark in which you specified exactly what legal problems you meant, I plead guilty and offer my apologies. I was referring to your two most recent remarks, which certainly were vague on that point.

That is indeed what I meant. Debresser (talk) 11:00, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

In the second case, I'm not sure that anyone (even Jimbo Wales) really knows "how Wikipedia works"; it has become so huge and so complex that no one can possibly keep track of it all. I do have a rudimentary knowledge, however, of many of Wikipedia's basic structures and functions, and I actually feel reasonably informed about the nature of Wikipedia policies. The way I see it, if a situation crops up that renders a policy inadequate, the proper solution is to work on changing the policy, not to bend an article or category to what one thinks the policy will end up being. If you don't agree, I can respect that, and if there's still something I'm missing—some homework you think I need to do—I'd be glad to know what it is.

Both activities, polishing policy in general as well as specific articles and categories, fall within the scope of every editor's work on Wikipedia. It is not a matter of bending wither, but of tuning all of them together. If you get my point. Debresser (talk) 11:00, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Curiously, the point that helped persuade you to stop worrying about legal consequences—homophobe vs. homophobia—was made repeatedly, way higher on the page, the first time over a year ago. Maybe the dog ate your homework, too?

You're right. It appearently took some time working with the subject matter for it to sink in. Please note that I still feel more than a little unhappy with the existence of widely diverging definitions allowing for different classification of individuals. Debresser (talk) 11:00, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Peace,
Rivertorch (talk) 06:09, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Likewise, Debresser (talk) 11:00, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Shalom, from me too. Mish (talk) 15:36, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi Mish. You're Jewish? Debresser (talk) 15:46, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not Jewish. Mish (talk) 18:44, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Template:Ongoing weather TfD

I've replied to your comment at the TfD here, and would very much appreciate a reply. :) --Conti|✉ 18:02, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Just in case you missed it, you got another reply. --Conti|✉ 22:23, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Tom Freeman - Lebron James

I don't know what it is you THINK you did, but it ended up with the Lebron James copy under Tom Freeman's article. WTF? Mark Sublette (talk) 01:42, 20 May 2009 (UTC)Mark SubletteMark Sublette (talk) 01:42, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

As you can see form these consecutive diffs some user vanadalised the article like this. I noticed that the article was in an error category at Category:Wikipedia pages with incorrect protection templates and removed the template here. You noticed the vandalism and restored the page here. Anything else I can help with? Debresser (talk) 12:02, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay - I apologize - looking at the editing sequence, I misinterpreted the changed content to be your doing. My bad. I'm sorry. Please accept my regrets... Mark Sublette (talk) 18:58, 20 May 2009 (UTC)Mark SubletteMark Sublette (talk) 18:58, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

That's okay. Debresser (talk) 19:02, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Template month

Are the |accessyear= |accessmonth= | parameters still being used as they still show up on Template:Cite encyclopedia along with the |accessdate= parameter? Is this what you are referring to?SriMesh | talk 02:25, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I found it! accessmonthday = It is on the Template:Infobox Weather, but I don't know how to change that template with such fancy syntax, should I put it on the requests page, or can you do the changes?SriMesh | talk 03:34, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

It was this edit. in the reference named "ref name= WeatherOffice". I fixed it. Thanks for pointing me to the source. Debresser (talk) 12:15, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Gerry Stoker

You just reinserted a copyvio in the article. I'll undo it again and fix the reflist, okay? Yintaɳ  12:24, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I was faster. :) Debresser (talk) 12:27, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Only because I was polite and asked first :) Yintaɳ  12:29, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Very polite of you. And you fixed the refs also. :) Debresser (talk)

Article creation

Hey, I just saw where you are creating a number of articles along the lines of Wikipedia articles needing factual verification from November 2007. I just wanted to ask if they should be taking the form "Category:Wikipedia articles needing factual verification from November 2007" instead. Thanks! TNXMan 13:23, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

My point above XD Spitfire^Tally-ho! 13:25, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I'll fix it. Thanks. Debresser (talk) 13:26, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Be aware that you cannot move pages into the category name space, you'll have to cut and paste. I've already done up till June 2007 Spitfire^Tally-ho! 13:27, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Cool. Let me know if you need a hand! TNXMan 13:28, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I {{db-g6}}-ed all mistakes. Debresser (talk)

They are all done now. Anybody know why Category:Wikipedia articles needing factual verification from December 2008 is standing out of alphabetical order on Category:Wikipedia articles needing factual verification? Debresser (talk) 13:43, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

that :). All the best Spitfire^Tally-ho! 13:48, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

No problem Spitfire^Tally-ho! 13:53, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

favicon

I made this one http://www.fourpoint.co.uk/favicon.ico . Rich Farmbrough, 15:15 22 May 2009 (UTC).

I added it to my collection (almost 4000 now). Thanks. Debresser (talk) 18:03, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Sandbox edit

Whoops. I had simply C&P'ed an entire article, which I plan to edit extensively, into my sandbox, and absent-mindedly included that article's protection template. Thanks for fixing my error. - SoSaysChappy (talk) 16:28, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

No problem. This happens all the time. Debresser (talk) 18:00, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Linguistic relativity trivia section

I have adressed your concern at talk:sapir-whorf hypothesis, Im sorry fr not adressing it before, I must have missed your comment because you commented above the inserted trivia section instead of below.·Maunus·ƛ· 19:30, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Lots of success with the article! Debresser (talk) 00:44, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Alright

Lets stop with the edit warring ok? These templates should not be on the page, if there is no AfD discussion. Why are you replacing them? Also, you might have missed my responses on my talk page. Syn 14:11, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I replied there. Debresser (talk) 15:50, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Aisha

Same old same old. As you can see from the recent edit history Gnosisquest is trying new and improved ways to edit war his material into the article, and there have been some back-and-forth reversions from various parties. On the up side I created a new section on Aisha's age which I hope will mollify some of the evangelists and critics. Please keep an eye on it, as one of the supporters of unprotecting the page.--Cúchullain ^t/c 16:04, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Duly noted. I appreciate your desire to see this handled in the most productive way. I do think that WP:OWN is a bit of a strong accusation for what's happening here. In my defense, I think "historians" would have been okay. However, "Early Muslims historians" (sic) is not. Gnosis has shown a consistant disregard for proper editing, I don't see that challenging him constitutes a claim of ownership over the article. Similarly, on the tags, please see WP:NPOVD: "The editor who adds the tag must address the issues on the talk page, pointing to specific issues that are actionable within the content policies, namely Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons." Itaqallah's edit summary making the hand-waving statement that the wording "seems a bit slanted" doesn't name any specific problems that can be fixed, and so it's not helpful in improving the article. --Cúchullain ^t/c 17:47, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

1. You are right, of course. I've been watching this page for a long time - through some pretty unconstructive and underhanded edits (like this masterpiece of SYNTH or this anti-Muslim tag-team). As such it's sometimes hard to take a step back and put some perspective on it.

2. The "lopsided" tag is a POV tag. Regardless the same concept of actually discussing what the problem is is reiterated across Wikipedia, such as at Wikipedia:Tagging pages for problems and Template:NPOV. The advice is good: how can others be expected to fix a problem if you don't even say what the problem is?

3. Again, you are totally right. No article was ever served by cantankerous editing.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:54, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Reply Ayesha

Thanks.I would like to tell you what my view is. According to wikipedia newespaper citations can not be used to edit articles regarding history and I agree.I am using the newspaper article not to edit history but under the section Scholarly view.(P.S Opinion of scholars are considered of extreme importance in Islam.) Regarding Maria al Qibtah http://qa.sunnipath.com/issue_view.asp?HD=7&ID=4579&CATE=1 There is a difference in opinion whether she married the Prophet or not and only the negative opinion is being highlighted in the section Story of the honey (For more info on Shaykh Abdurrahman please see http://www.whitethreadpress.com/authors/shaykh_abdurrahman.htm ) So either both opinions should be mentioned or the disputed opinion should be removed. Please respond if you are not busy and thanks once again.--Gnosisquest (talk) 22:40, 26 May 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gnosisquest (talk • contribs)

Actually I decided a few hours ago this part of the sentence had better be removed. I forgot about it and you reminded me. Done. Debresser (talk) 23:11, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot!!--Gnosisquest (talk) 13:07, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Judaism

Thanks for the link to the MOS. I wasn't aware of that. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 16:40, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. Debresser (talk) 16:43, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Hello! U purged the wrong thing!

Hey debresser. Why did u purge the Afro-Asian Games infobox. Its coming all wrong now. Plz remove your purge, or else the article will look REALLY silly!

Ankitbhatt (talk) 09:18, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

That wasn't me. Answered on his talk page. Debresser (talk) 18:04, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

re: Broken reference

i messed up, i was looking for a quote template and forget to add the ref. from sports illustrated: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/2002/playoffs/news/2002/06/05/nets_sider_ap/ --Twlighter (talk) 16:14, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Barbara Jordan

Thanks for reworking the paragraph on Jordan's sexuality. It reads very well now and I'm quite satisfied. Mvblair (talk) 18:55, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy to hear that. We strive to please. Debresser (talk) 18:57, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Mary Rundle (British naval officer)

Thanks for the ehads up, I missed that. Jezhotwells (talk) 20:43, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Junior Eurovision Dance Contest

What happened about that deadlink was: the original author was adapting an article about the Junior Eurovision Song Contest and, among other changes, altered "European Broadcasting Union" to "European Independence (sic) Broadcasting Union" and altered the link from "EBU" to "EIBU" so that it became a deadlink. Another author has "corrected" the link back to "EBU" so that it's no longer dead, but it's still about the Song contest, not Dance, so it's no help to the hoax. Complicated! Regards, JohnCD (talk) 19:19, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

That's correct. Debresser (talk) 19:22, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi

I don't mean to bother, but could you please provide me some perspective on Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts#User:Wikifan12345?--69.217.67.104 (talk) 20:09, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Could you try to provide me with a few pointers about how to maybe advance the conversation on the article? It feels stonewalled. I understand if you don't have time to be too specific.--69.217.67.104 (talk) 21:06, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather not. That would mean seriously finding out what went on between you. Which is not only time-consuming, but also largely unpleasant. Especially since I have posted there myself just a few days ago, which I do not want to turn into a habit. I hope you understand my feelings in this. Wishing you in general a pleasant time on Wikipedia, Debresser (talk) 21:22, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Progress box

Just spent a long time chasing down the reason I couldn't get the number of dated subcategories right in {{Tl|Progress box. The answer is that a future month already exists! Doh! Rich Farmbrough, 21:44, 31 May 2009 (UTC).

I saw a September somewhere. Deleted though. Debresser (talk) 21:49, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

These were the June ones... ~~

Summaries

Sure I just discussed this with someone. You could propose such a feature at WP:AWB but at the moment it is not possible in general. Also I prefer to cast edit summaries in terms of what was done - a positive light:

For example compare the following:

1. Formatted date punctuation to follow MoS
2. Formatted date punctuation
3. Removed comma from date
4. Do not insert commas in dates

The first three state what was done, the last one is likely to make people think "who is this SmackBot and why is he telling me what to do?"

Now I would actually prefer number 2. Reference to the MoS puts peoples backs up, and sometimes they rush off and change it. Being a little general, as compared to 3, shows that SB is not just picking on the comma, and removes the focus from "but I like the comma there!" and if people are puzzled they will usually find the MoS themselves.

You would be surprised at the number of complaints I had in the early days due to minor inaccuracies in SB's edit summaries. That is one reason I generally append "or gen fixes".

Rich Farmbrough, 12:22, 1 June 2009 (UTC).

Edit summary.

The edit summary you provided you MUST provide a title when using the Cite web template is rather rude. First of all you should assume that I forgot (Which was the case) or accidentally removed it when cleaning up. Having MUST in capitals is rude and the way the edit summary was worded was bad faith and you could have worded better or even gone to my talk page explaining that the title was missing. Bidgee (talk) 12:01, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

As you can see here, this is the same message I use at least 10 times a day for the last few months now. So nothing personal here. Actually, you are the first one to complain. I hope you understand I can't possibly have a look who was the editor making the specific edit responsible for the error message. So no hard feelings, I hope. Accusing me of assuming bad faith was a little premature, perhaps. I always assume good faith or even no clue.

The capitalised "MUST" was a response to the large amount of edits with this type of error, which shows that people either don't read the instructions on {{Cite web}} or don't understand them. So I spelled it out. :) I'll make up something a little less offensive. So thank you for pointing that out to me. Debresser (talk) 12:16, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

remove from all talk pages

Out of interest, is there any good reason for this edit? If so, should I remove the other use of Tlx on the page, or replace it with Tl? --RexxS (talk) 00:03, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

That was a quick reaction. The reason has nothing to do with "tlx" or "tl". We're sorting out hundreds of templates and walked into {{Locate me}} and {{Coord missing}}. The first is only for talk pages, and the latter only for articles. So I cleaned all transclusions on talk pages (5-6 in all), to get a clearer picture of template use. I hope that is ok with you. Debresser (talk) 00:11, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah thanks. I can see why the actual {coord missing} template shouldn't be on talk pages, so the cleanup makes sense. When referring to a particular template in discussion, I guess I have the habit of using the {Tl|templatename} or {Tlx|templatename|parameter} templates as a courtesy to others (in case they want to see the documentation of the template I'm talking about). But it's no big deal, and I'll bear in mind that you're working on template use in future, so I'll be a bit more circumspect. Keep up the good work! --RexxS (talk) 01:31, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Drug categorization: consensus sought

Should the 2nd, 3rd and 4th levels of the Category:Drugs by target organ system mirror the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification System exactly, or be consolidated when possible?

Please read the more thorough description of this issue at WT:PHARM:CAT and post your comments there. You're comments would be much appreciated! Thanks ---kilbad (talk) 00:30, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I have to politely refuse. I am very busy with my wikignoming and other projects here. Good luck! Debresser (talk) 00:34, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Template loop

Thanks, I'll remember that. It was just done quickly because this didn't seem to work but his original seemed to be the right one. I usually test templates in my sandbox and then call them from another subpage because it's usually a long painful process. Also, if I use the template sandbox eventually I will erase the line the bot needs and everthing gets reset. Cheers. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 17:22, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Re:Protection template on Bosnian language

Say what? When did I add a protection template to the article?? --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 22:31, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

That was my mistake. I apologised on his talk page. Debresser (talk) 22:37, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Datefix on Sea Shepherd

Thanks for that edit. I didn’t notice my typo. Did you just happen by, or do you use some kind of tool or category check to find such things? — NRen2k5^(TALK), 00:09, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I have been working lately on templates that use a dated category. If anything goes wrong, I can have anything from ten to a few thousand articles in Category:Articles with invalid date parameter in template. So I kept a close eye on it and investigated any and all article there. Which is how a saw Sea Shepherd and fixed it. I do this regularly. Debresser (talk) 00:16, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Missing reflist

Smackbot used to fix those. i think it's an AWB general fix now. I'll check. Rich Farmbrough, 22:27, 30 May 2009 (UTC).

OK I ran the fixesfor that. However some seem broken... in the cat but they have {reflist|2} or something. Rich Farmbrough, 00:05, 31 May 2009 (UTC).

Yes I can run this most days, it used to run on a report produced by User:SQL, there was a backlog of many thousands of articles. I think about 30k. He did another run to tidy up a few months later. Now the cat existds I can run against that. Rich Farmbrough, 00:18, 31 May 2009 (UTC).

Already done. I stray out of article space rarely with automated edits. Rich Farmbrough, 00:24, 31 May 2009 (UTC).

AWB Edit

There is a rule that states that lifetime should come after the categories. I don't like it myself but thats the rules. Moving lifetime down is an edit built into AWB as a general fix. If you click on the lifetime template and read the docs it talks about it. I hope this helps.--Kumioko (talk) 18:14, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Your welcome.--Kumioko (talk) 18:26, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I also mentioned it on the Discussion page for the AWB application.--Kumioko (talk) 23:35, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

The reason is to but the relatively low importance cats it generates at the end. If you think of it as part cat and part metadata it makes sense. Rich Farmbrough, 21:51 27 May 2009 (UTC).

Can you help identify these favicons?

On your home page, favicon 6 "The letter S" is from http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/, favicon 31 "Something in between a flower and an exploding sun. Perhaps a newspaper." is http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki - the software that supports Wikipedia. I don't know about favicon 23 but it definitely has "something to do with computers" - I think it's copied from an IDE toolbar button in MS Visual C++ sometime after version 2.0 and before Visual Studio 98. Good luck with the rest - Pointillist (talk) 22:27, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! Wish there were more people like you. I updated the page now, of course. Debresser (talk) 22:39, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure other people would like to help if they knew you were asking: it makes rather an intruiging puzzle. - Pointillist (talk) 22:55, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Do you have any advise where I could advertise that I'm looking for help? Debresser (talk) 23:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd start by changing the title of this section, and putting a message at the top of your user page inviting readers to come here. In fact, I will do both those things now and you can revert them if you like. All the best - Pointillist (talk) 08:41, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Hello Debresser, favicon #1 (the "star"/"cow") is actually two cow heads, and is almost certainly from Tucows (tucows.com; I can't tell for sure, since their favicon isn't showing for me). In addition, #19 (a "hand") looks to me more like light rays e.g. from a just-off-camera sun in the lower left-hand corner, and #23 ("something to do with computers") looks pretty close to the standard shape for Windows Registry-related icons (so it's probably from the website of some Registry tool (possibly Registry Cleaner XP, a known "scareware"/badware program)). --Dinoguy1000 (talk · contribs) as 66.116.12.126 (talk) 04:23, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes! That was Tucows. And I changed the text with favicons 19 and 23 according to you correct observations. Thanks a lot! Debresser (talk) 06:07, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

No problem, happy to help on stuff like this once in a while. =) Do you plan on making a gallery of the favicons you *do* know the origins of (even though 4600+ is a *lot* of favicons to do that for)? I'm interested in looking through them. 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 17:47, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Not really. If I were a programmer, and could write a neat small loop to show them all, then perhaps. Debresser (talk) 18:22, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

If you feel like learning XML and XSLT (or at least learning how to use an XML editor), it would be easy enough to set up a database file containing all the metadata (image URLs, descriptions, etc.) that would then be automatically displayed with formatting via the XSLT file. 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 18:43, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd love to, one day. Debresser (talk) 18:50, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

{{NRHP in Tennessee by county}}

Thanks for fixing the reference bit; I had wondered whether it were good to be without a reflist, but I didn't know how to do otherwise than I did. Nyttend (talk) 13:27, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. This is a template made especially for showing references in templates. It is the same as {{Reflist}}, but will not get copied onto pages where the template is used, avoiding all kinds of trouble. I may say I am one of those who came up with this idea. Debresser (talk) 22:22, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

thank you

thanks for tuning Template:United States uniformed services comparative ranks. it is a work in progess, fine untill yesterday, then i got overly ambitious with updates and left it a mess. my mistake to leave it on the armed forces article in its broken state. i noticed the reference problem before. the fix is to use references/ (not { {reflist} }) above the { {reflist} } in the templates at the end of the article. at times, i am amazed by the people i have met on wikipedia. it will take me hours to check out your user page and all those interesting tidbits.--diremarc (talk) 03:27, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Lots of success! Debresser (talk) 11:47, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

{{Templaterefsection}}

whoops. you gave me the above template but i did not understand how to use it. so, i reinvented the wheel and did the same thing for my comparative rank templates. each template uses ^superscript for notes and no < ref > tags and then links to template:comparative rank references, where all the refs are listed without use of < ref / > tags or {{reflist}} or anything else that might interfere with the main article. oh well, at least doing superfluous work improves my wiki skills. --ciao - diremarc (talk) 18:22, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

You're foing good work. Look forward to seeing to more. Debresser (talk) 18:02, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Re; You must provide a title when using the Cite web template ...

Re The Sage Gateshead - I see, sorry, and thanks for sorting me out! I will try to get it right next time. Cheers DisillusionedBitterAndKnackered (talk) 13:33, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. Debresser (talk) 13:37, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Revenge of the Fallen MPAA-Rating

The info is there on the official website: you need to scroll down to the bottom of the page and the rating info will eventually come. I've seen it myself. Or, you can also go to Mpaa.org, search "Transformers" and you'll see the mpaa-rating and its reason. But I'm not making stuff up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Crboyer (talk • contribs) 23:19, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

You are right, and I have removed the {{Failed verification}} tag, with an edit summary acknowledging my fault. Debresser (talk) 23:32, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Scholars opinion

Hello!! I would like to know if I can use this http://www.arabnews.com/?page=5&section=0&article=98423&d=13&m=7&y=2007 to source Adil Salahis 'opinion' as a scholar that Aisha was much older than the traditionally accepted view in this article (talk page link provided) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Aisha#Opinion_of_Scholar,I am sorry to bother you once again and would be more than glad if you respond. --Gnosisquest (talk) 12:39, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

If find it hard to say anything. The source is withheld, so that is troublesome. Debresser (talk) 14:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. I did not get what you meant by the source being withheld.I would be grateful if you tell me that,Thanks.--Gnosisquest (talk) 12:15, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

The article doesn't mention the name of the "authority" consulted, but says "(Name and address withheld)" instead. That is not good. Debresser (talk) 12:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks !! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gnosisquest (talk • contribs) 14:56, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

How about this http://www.arabnews.com/?page=5&section=0&article=118438&d=23&m=1&y=2009 sorry to bother you once again and would be more than glad if you respond The problem is that someone is undoing my edits but if you respond on the talkpage or edit the article the edits will remain there. The scholar is 'Adil Salahi'. --Gnosisquest (talk) 02:33, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Probably yes, but why am I getting the impression these articles show up a little too conveniently? Debresser (talk) 02:44, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I already knew about them but forgot to save those links.There is a search feature in Arabnews

http://www.arabnews.com/search/

http://www.arabnews.com/search/search.asp?searchterm=aishah&sort=desc

Using the keywords as Ayesha or Aishah adjusting the range of dates and changing the section to Islam led to these results.I have been trying to get articles supporting this view for quite some time and was able to find it again in a few days notice.I am no editor of arab news nor am I Adil Salahi.I came across one of those articles first in January 2009 while reading arab news.There is a section on Islam published in it every Monday and Friday.So I hope I can use this.--Gnosisquest (talk) 01:17, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Your "vandalism"

Please do not add nonsense to Wikipedia. It is considered vandalism. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Thank you.

Accusing me of "nonsense" and of "vandalism" are serious words. I disagree with you and have my arguments. Don't be uncivil, please. Debresser (talk) 14:08, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I think both of you could do with reading WP:AGF and WP:DR, that's all I'm going to say, just stay civil, I have no opinion besides that, all the best Spitfire^Tally-ho! 14:10, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Debresser (talk) 14:13, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Not a problem, thank you for listening to me :) Spitfire^Tally-ho! 14:14, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Regarding your edit summary: "remove tampering with text of my proposal (some people don't understand when you ask them nicely not to do something))". I didn't see your message explaining your objection until after my edit. Please WP:AGF as you have expressed considerable interest in my following your "lead" in being a civil Wikipedian. In addition, the "nice" thing to do would have been to move my comment down to where you think appropriate. Not to summarily delete it. --C S (talk) 22:54, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok. So you din't see my kind request. But you did see I removed it, and the reason I indicated there. So why do you insist? I, frankly, am quite shocked. Debresser (talk) 22:56, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I did mention in the previous edit summary "removed comment from my proposal. Please make your comment in the discussion area". Debresser (talk) 23:00, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I thought my "added comment" was sufficient reasoning! I had no idea that your norms would take it as shocking or something diabolical on my part. I have explained my reasoning further on the talk page containing the proposal. In any case, I will copy over that summary which I think is much better, below the proposal, as you request. I have also amended the section heading here as a good faith gesture to show I am not seriously accusing you. --C S (talk) 23:19, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Your speediness

hi, thanks again. how do you so quickly discover my mistakes? i am serious. am i in some of your many areas of interest or is there something else. i am sorry you had to correct my works in progress. i get tired, log off (leaving some mess), come back and find your wikignome footprints have stamped out my mess. i solved the {{reflist}} problem. i am generating two templates: the first template contains the material of interest simply marked with ^supscript and the second template is attached at the bottom, default collapsed state, headed "reference" and lists the footnotes mechinically without using < ref > tags. shalom.--diremarc (talk) 00:54, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

We strive to please. :) There are a few error categories which I check at least once a day. See User:Debresser/My work on Wikipedia. Debresser (talk) 01:10, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

My speediness :)

heh, funny, isn't it? Its just that you kept on popping up on my watchlist, which I refresh about every ten minutes when I'm online, all the best Spitfire^Tally-ho! 07:30, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Your edit

Thanks for your correction. I wanted to further customize the userbox template and I took its source from Template:Userboxtop. I just made the customizations I needed and I didn't look at other things included in the source code. Sorry for the possible complications caused. Anonimu (talk) 20:09, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

No problem. You're welcome. Debresser (talk) 20:14, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Activism cats

Thanks for your note, I've replied at the respective talk pages.   Will Beback  talk  00:17, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for adressing these issues at last. Debresser (talk) 00:19, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

No, no. Thank you for having tracked these problems and followed through. Wikipedia is a long term project. Sooner or later, we'll get it right.   Will Beback  talk  10:24, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

user:T'Shael/Icons

Hi. I noticed you blanked my user page icon page with the reason "incorrect protection template". I'm curious as to why, if you don't mind my asking. Thanks, -T'Shael, Lord of the Vulcans 20:01, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Because as you can see from the edit diff all it contained was a protection template that was incorrect in that the page wasn't protected. The page automatically showed up in Category:Wikipedia pages with incorrect protection templates, where I found it and fixed it. Does this answer your question? Debresser (talk) 20:12, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I think so. The reason it was on there is that my user page is protected and the only way that I can edit it is by editing the templates that are on it. I had no intention of trying to claim that user:T'Shael/Icons was protected. Thanks. -T'Shael, Lord of the Vulcans 20:15, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Try using <includeonly>...</includeonly> tags. Debresser (talk) 20:18, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah, yes, I asked xeno to fix it for me (which he has, doing what you mentioned). You'll have to forgive me as occasionally wiki-formatting gets the best of me. Thanks for your understanding, T'Shael, Lord of the Vulcans 20:20, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your category involvement

I wanted to wish you a hearty shalom aleichem from this side of the Atlantic and thank you for your increased involvement at CfD. The results of too many CfDs, especially those reviewed at DRV such as for Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2009_June_9#Category:Fictional_Jews, have shown that consensus at CfD is far too often not reflective of the consensus of the community as a whole. More involvement from editors such as yourself who do not devote their primary efforts to categories and who have shown a willingness to keep or delete categories on a balanced and considered basis can only help improve CfD and help address the longstanding problems there. Alansohn (talk) 15:01, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Your warm words of welcome mean a lot to me. Thank you. Debresser (talk) 16:06, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing my broken ref on the mother teresa page

I left a <ref> unclosed on the Mother Teresa page.
Apologies.
Thanks for fixing it.
Pnelnik (talk) 22:13, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

My pleasure. Debresser (talk) 22:16, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Yochanan Sofer

Hi, I notice you've worked a bit on this page. There is a discrepancy in the family history — Rabbi Shimon Sofer, the Michtav Sofer, was the brother of the Ksav Sofer, not his son.[7] Does this affect the Erlau history? Yoninah (talk) 20:16, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Watch this page

User:SmackBot/References Log Rich Farmbrough, 18:53, 22 June 2009 (UTC).

Thanks. This will help me a lot. Debresser (talk) 15:18, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of DreamHost

An article that you have been involved in editing, DreamHost, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/DreamHost_(2nd_nomination). Thank you.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Judas278 (talk) 17:31, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Natasha Wescoat

An article that you have been involved in editing, Natasha Wescoat, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Natasha Wescoat. Thank you.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Flowanda | Talk 20:46, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Your personal comment in the discussion

My comment was based on my perception of your comment about my reasoning. I understand that you and William Allen Simpson have been having some rather heated discussions. In fact you and I have had a few also. Personally I think you are too willing to keep raising these issues. They serve no purpose to further the discussions and tend to simply frustrate others. The effect of this on discussions is that often this causes the closer to skim or skip large sections of bantering that don't affect the discussion itself. This makes closings harder and also makes it easier to miss salient points. Your points would be better served, as would William Allen Simpson's, if you keep these discussions and finger pointing on the talk pages. While I know that you have been on the opposition for discussions I have closed, I have also acknowledged in some where your points where actually the best in the support of that position. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:45, 28 June 2009 (UTC) 'I have noticed you are an intelligent, carefull editor', thanks. Albeit one who makes a lot of errors. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:00, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Hello

With regards to this, my entire userspace, and every page that navbar is transcluded on, is semi protected, indefinitely. I added the lock icon so I don't have to whack a protected icon on every subpage (and I have a lot of them). Best, Steve Crossin ^{The clock is ticking....} 20:34, 30 June 2009 (UTC)