User:Dream Focus
This user page was nominated for deletion, but the overwhelming majority of people, said to keep it. [1] Dream Focus 02:04, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
This user page was nominated for deletion again [2] but once again, its still here. Dream Focus 01:07, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
I see others have a user page that shows information about them. I'm not into that sort of thing.
Anyway, I made minor editing and posted discussions on various pages before, and decided to go ahead and register this name.
important
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_abuse Added an external link and posted on the discussion page.
Hoping someone with better writing skills than mine can fix that page up. It is too important not to.
recent stuff
Four squigglies turn into Dream Focus 04:24, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Got to remember that. Dream Focus 04:24, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Two squigglies turns into ~~ and one turns into ~
Trying to help clean up the FDA page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Food_and_Drug_Administration
Got to ignore all the heresy, and only make references with proof to backup their claims on how corrupt and idiotic the FDA is.
Arbitrators election
I just nominated myself for the wikipedia arbitrators. I think I can do a fairly good job at that.[3]
You have to keep it under 400 characters. Doh! I need to check the history of the article, to see how many characters I have on it. Just thought of that. I was wondering why they'd say that, and how anyone was suppose to know, since I doubt anyone sits there and counts every single letter.
This is my longer thing I was just spewing out from the top of my head, before deciding which bits to include. I submitted a smaller version of this of course.
I don't believe any one person should be able to decide if an article is deleted, or even a significant portion of itself deleted. Nor should this be decided by just whatever three random strangers are around at the time a third party moderator is called for. If dozens of people have contributed to an article over the years, and none of them had a problem with its size, then why should the opinion of a handful of people who don't care about the subject at all, be able to decide this? Most users will never bother to post their opinions unfortunately, and most people don't return to reread an article they liked, or mark it to watch, to keep track of what's going on. If there is ever a arbitration called for, to settle a dispute between editors, I'll make certain the "its too long, and I prefer short articles" excuse for editing is never considered valid. An article is judged by its context, not its length.
- The size of an article is never an excuse to erase information from it. If the information is valid to the article, it should remain. If it can be put on a side page, so be it. If not, leave it alone. I doubt most people mind scrolling down to read through a lengthy article, if they are interested in the subject.
- I don't know of this ever actually happening, but since so few people ever state their opinion before an article is deleted, it is possible that a group of friends from school, or a forum somewhere, could destroy someone's article, just for spite. Instead of just looking over the consensus of people who bothered to check the articles for deletion, and found something that thought themselves interested in reading about, I believe whoever goes to erase it should take the time to look it over.
- If a certain user has nominated that a hundred different articles be deleted in a single week, and has been voted down by others for the majority of them, I'll step in and say "hey, do some Googling if you don't think it they are notable, don't just flag everything for deletion because you've never heard of them, or haven't heard of the magazine in their reference section, and are too lazy too look it up and see if it is notable or not." I've only noticed one guy like that in the past, who seemed to nominate everything, including hit songs and songwriters that had their listings in the billboard charts. Yes, all articles should have a reference, however there is no reason to erase an article without spending three seconds Google for some yourself. Dream Focus (talk) 21:52, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
- It looks like I'm going to loose of course, but at least I'm not coming in dead last. As long as there are candidates out there people believe are worse off than me, then I'm happy. Got to keep your expectations low enough in this world, so you won't ever be too disappointed. Dream Focus (talk) 01:56, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Things the wikipedia needs
- We need an option to inform us if someone is trying to delete an article we like(in its entirety or just a significant percentage of it) without having to get constant notifications every time one thing or another is edited in it. Not something decided in this particular election, but just wanted to get that out there.
- There should be a list of which websites count as a notable third party reference, and which ones do not, someone deciding any which are suggested, and there a list of them, to thus avoid a lot of arguments about notability.
Dream Focus (talk) 21:52, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Notable guidelines not clear enough!
I asked for the opinions of others, but got no response here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(people)#Is_a_screenwriter_notable_if_his_movie_makes_70_million_dollars.3F
The debate was about an article for deletion, and whether someone met the notable guidelines, which I believe clearly they did under the rules. But a few others said otherwise, and thus it was deleted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Temple_Mathews That someone with a long career writing highly profitable/successful movies, could be considered not notable enough to have an article, I find ridiculous. That is why we need a clear set of rules, which will prevent this, since the deletion of an article is based on the opinions of two or three people who want it gone, more often than not. It should be based on set rules, not just the opinion of whoever is around that day. Dream Focus (talk) 10:37, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
- I totally agree with your statement. Thanks for voting on Article Alley cheers 34pin6 (talk) 18:16, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
The American spelling of something is always the best
If you go to licorice you will find it forward it to the liquorice, which Webster dictionary defines as a "chiefly British variant of licorice". Since there are more English speaking Americans than the total population of all other English speaking countries combined, then why not use the proper American spelling? Dream Focus (talk) 08:24, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
- Hi, there are replies on the article's talk page. - Pointillist (talk) 09:49, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
Because colour has a U in it, and England made the language. :) - NemFX (talk) 19:28, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
- It has no U in it in American. Color, flavor, valor, honor, etc. No unnecessary Us. Less letters in words give our office workers an advantage over you, since they have less letters to type, and thus get things done faster. And England did not make the language, it evolved from influences from many difference places, and is still evolving. England was once called Angland, it the land of the Angles. England made our nation as a colony, but look how much better things went when we threw their tea in the river, and did things our way instead? Dream Focus 21:51, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, but we gain it back with interest when we demonstrate our ability to use Imperial units AND metric units. However, your office workers spend an average of one hour a day converting "dollars and gallons" into "euros and litres" in order to do business with the most powerful economy on earth... according to your CIA that is the EU. I don't deny that without the Boston Tea Party, we would probably never have had Starbucks... we would be forced to endure the third world conditions of Costa... whipped cream is a costed extra. Seriously!
- Oh, by the way, Webster's dictionary (who the hell is Webster, by the way?!?!) is not the authority on the English language. Try the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) which is regarded by all (including US academics) as THE tome of the English language. It does not limit itself to one dialect, and includes not just English, but also the bastardised dialect that you write in because the English invented your country.
- Webster's dictionary is free to use, while Oxford requires a paid subscription. Also, I can't really take a dictionary seriously that has words like bootylicious in it. As for a lot of European countries getting together, and saying hey, all combined we're bigger than America economy wise, well, that's just plain stupid. In Japan and China got together, they being the second and third largest economies of the world, then maybe they'd be bigger too. What's the point? You are different nations. Agreeing to use the same currency, while most of the world still uses American dollars, doesn't really amount to anything. But thank you Mr. Biggleswade for stopping by. Dream Focus 06:13, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
- Oh, by the way, Webster's dictionary (who the hell is Webster, by the way?!?!) is not the authority on the English language. Try the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) which is regarded by all (including US academics) as THE tome of the English language. It does not limit itself to one dialect, and includes not just English, but also the bastardised dialect that you write in because the English invented your country.
- Yes, but we gain it back with interest when we demonstrate our ability to use Imperial units AND metric units. However, your office workers spend an average of one hour a day converting "dollars and gallons" into "euros and litres" in order to do business with the most powerful economy on earth... according to your CIA that is the EU. I don't deny that without the Boston Tea Party, we would probably never have had Starbucks... we would be forced to endure the third world conditions of Costa... whipped cream is a costed extra. Seriously!
- Hey, um, I prefer American spelling most of the time (for obscure reasons one will sometimes find me typing "armour"), but there are way more Indians than Americans. India being that really, really populous country whose official languages are Hindi and English. Just sayin'. โchaos5023 (talk) 14:28, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
Colored text in names
I see others doing it, so I'm going to try it now. Dream Focus
blue green yellow purple gray orange red pink
These are the only eight colors I can think up now. Numbers and the word blinking do nothing. Dream Focus (talk) 06:30, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Colors shows how to change the background color also, and that changing the text color can be done with numbers and apparently hexadecimal as well. Dream Focus (talk) 23:34, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia policy states it is not bound by rules, so don't be a jerk about it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NOTSTATUTE#Wikipedia_is_not_governed_by_statute Of course there should be some absolute rules, and if something comes up that warrants an exception to the rules, posted in the rule discussion area, and changes made. Dream Focus (talk) 11:44, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
When something is something is nominated for deletion, there should be the rules they are breaking automatically linked to.
Did you know there is a set of rules for porn stars? I happened upon that while looking at regular biographies, and found that if someone has appeared several times in Playboy, then they count as notable, that the argument I used for one model not to have the article about her deleted. I don't read Playboy, since I prefer nonthreatening cartoon girls to real women, but I don't believe in arbitrary deletions. I have nominated my first article for deletion, because it is obviously an ad, created by people who are connected to the game and admit it, and hasn't gotten reviewed anywhere other than places that review anything at all, or allow people to upload reviews about anything. I checked some of the people who were posting support of the article, and found many of them had never posted anywhere else at all before, or since, which I find rather suspicious. They are either the same person, work for that company, or are perhaps fans from their official forum. Anyway, the lack of any notable third party coverage was the reason I nominated it. Dream Focus (talk) 16:13, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia budget questions
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/9/9c/08-09budget.png I assume that when it says Technology, it means the servers. Do they keep buying new ones? What about the administration cost? That seems a lot. If volunteers do everything, why do you need a large staff? How many people are necessary just to keep the servers and wikipedia itself running? How much of that money is for the people that do the outreach programs.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/Questions/en "Cutting spending is straightforward: if necessary, the Executive Director would institute a non-essential spending freeze. Freezes can range from "soft" - e.g., putting a hold on consultants and other discretionary spending, scaling back on travel, and deferring new hires such as the Chief Program Officer, to "strict" - e.g., deferring tech purchases, canceling planned spending for outreach events, etc. We would see what's necessary."
- So, what if people want to donate to help the wikipedia, but don't care about your travel expenses, outreach nonsense(we travel to schools to tell them about the wikipedia, despite the fact that everyone already knows about it!), consultants, etc? And about this consultants nonsense. You should listen to the editors here, not someone else, who is probably someone's relative or friend they hire to tell you things you already know, or can look up on the Wikipedia to figure out. I want to know what these consultants get paid, and exactly, word for word, what brilliant advice they give you. Dream Focus (talk) 01:01, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_organization_chart.svg shows they have 19 employees. Now then, are all of their salaries included in the $1,619,000 administration section, or are some in the various other departments? $1,619,000 divided by 19 equals $85,000 per person. Of course, that is if everyone got paid the same, and I find that very unlikely to happen. So, who gets paid what with our donations, and why do they deserve that much money? Dream Focus (talk) 01:25, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Notability
I was discussing this over at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(fiction) and decided to put my point here for summary.
Consensus means a handful of people around at the time will decide everything, since the overwhelming majority of people will never get involved in any AFD discussion. Most articles nominated for deletion seem to be nominated and voted on by the same people, none of which were elected. If a different group were around that day, the consensus could shift the opposite way. You almost never have every single person agree on whether something should be deleted or allowed to remain, and they all have different reasons for trying to get rid of something, often based on their personal beliefs on what wikipedia should be, or their interpretation of the various incomplete and often changing policies. This is not a good way to have things done. We need a set of rules set down for things like this. Dream Focus (talk) 13:32, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
List of all legitimate media to determine notability
Shouldn't there be a list somewhere of exactly which media sources are considered to be legitimate for a reference for something? When the question of notability came up, this would make it a lot easier to determine, we able to simple search those specific sites. I suggest creating a list which people can add to and discuss for this purpose. This would be especially helpful in determining the notability of something not officially released in English yet, since many sources normally referenced for such things, do not review them until that happens. For example, I recently searched for a manga by its Japanese name, and the name of its author, on Google. I got plenty of results for it, but don't know how to narrow my search, since I don't know the names of any Japanese newspapers or other sources that might review manga, and be considered a valid reference, so I can't narrow my search down. Dream Focus (talk) 13:25, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia is a MMORPG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_an_MMORPG I found that amusing and quite well done. Dream Focus (talk) 03:17, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
Please stop the deletionist from destroying wikipedia!
The wikipedia articles of deletion have different categories they are sorted into. For instance, Anime and manga. If you find a category for something you are interested in, you can then help prevent articles you like, from being deleted on wikipedia. Remember, all deletion discussions come down to the opinions of whatever small number of people are around at the time to notice, and have the courage to speak up, so even one person could matter. You have the power to help save the wikipedia. The policies are a suggestion, simple guidelines, not absolute laws. And sometimes something won't get added even after years of people suggesting it, because of how wikipedia is set up, things just changing slowly it seems. So if you believe being on the bestsellers list, or being published regularly in a high selling magazine makes something notable, you have to vote Keep on those discussions, otherwise someone will delete it. Dream Focus (talk) 13:39, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting/Flat#Topical is where you can find all the various categories, and sign up for whichever ones you wish to patrol, or just look around at times if you decide you want to get involved. Be prepared to hear the same arguments every single time though.
Elitist Deletionist
Different types of deletionists exist, with different mentalities. This is my rant about those who seek to delete something simply because they consider it "junk" or "fancruft". It in no way is meant to stereotype everyone that the Wikipedia defines as a deletionist, but instead is a comment on things from years past, when in many AFDs I participated in, some people would argue to delete something not based on any actual policy or guidelines, but instead simply because they didn't like it.
- "Its not encyclopedic! I believe we should erase every single article that wouldn't impress all the snotty elitists. I want Wikipedia to be taken seriously by the snobs, instead of just being loved and used by millions of common folk. I ask myself, is this something the Harvard graduates working at a major big city newspaper would like? What about other members of high society? Its not in style unless the fashion magazines tell us it is, and you can't be seen wearing something that simply isn't something they personally consider tasteful at the moment. We should never try to think for ourselves, and form our own opinions, just do whatever the popular kids might want us to do."
- "It doesn't matter how many hundreds of thousands of blogs that Google says mention it, nor even if its on the bestseller's list, with comfirmable sales of over a million. No matter how successful and well loved you are, or popular with the common people, you aren't notable until someone in a major newspaper or magazine says you are! If you don't have at least one mention in one those sources, then you aren't notable, and we should delete you."
- "The article is too long. I don't care if the information is interesting or belongs in the article, I just don't like long articles. I never read any articles, just skim briefly over them, and I like them to be short and have as little useful or interesting information as possible. All that other stuff belongs over at the wikia, but I'll delete any links you make to it, because I don't want all the people that used to come here to read the information I'm deleting, to know where you moved it to, and go there instead. We want to keep people coming here, even though we hate the types of people they are, and only want to impress elitists like ourselves."
After a recent hurricane, there was a picture I came across of a car with a tree blown down atop it, its owner unable to move it. Because it wasn't suppose to be there at night, someone gave them a parking ticket, because that's what the rules said to do. If the rule follower had used common sense, they would've known that the rules had a purpose to them, and that this purpose was not met by giving a ticket to the person for something they couldn't help. Alas, some people are unable to or unwilling to do anything else but mindlessly follow rules.
I often find a lot of wikipedia editors acting this way. The rule for notability has a purpose, but it isn't to keep bestselling novels from having their own article, just because they haven't been reviewed by anyone. This is why it clearly states that the policies are just a guideline, not an absolute law, and to ignore the rules and use common sense. Dream Focus 19:39, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
A tool that keeps track of how many articles someone has nominated for deletion
http://toolserver.org/~sql/afd.php?user=Collectonian Since I posted a question in the canvasing topic, I had it on my watch list. I go there, and found someone mentioned this tool, and yes, it pointed to the same deletionist who has posted in my user page previously. Over three hundred articles nominated for deletion, most of them voted to be kept by others it seems. I found that interesting. Dream Focus (talk) 09:53, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
Gantz wiki, and other wikis at www.wikia.com
If you like detailed articles with a lot of useful/interesting content, and plenty of side articles for everything anyone could possibly want to read about, the www.wikia.com is the place to go. Owned by the wikipedia, but allows people more freedom to write, no limitations there. Its paid for by ad banners, which recently have gotten rather disturbing unfortunately. But ad blocking software was designed for that. I suggest Adblock Plus for Firefox. I originally allowed the ad banners to appear in my browser, thinking that was only fair, they needing to pay their bills. But now, seeing the constant and much too graphic penis enlargement pill ads, I'm thinking I need to just start blocking it again. Anyway, despite that, it is a wonderful place to be.
I added a lot of the information to the Gantz wiki http://gantz.wikia.com/wiki/Gantz_Wiki bringing back useful information after a large portion of relevant information was deleted on the wikipedia Gantz article, by someone who decided the article was too long, and refused to communicate about the content. I then expanded it greatly. I'm quite proud of my work there.
Officially I'm only the administrator of the Voltron Wiki, I creating that since no one had yet, and I wanted to preserve information deleted from that page which I found interesting to read. I had hoped some Voltron fan would take over, but alas, I failed to get anyone interested in doing that. I organized it and added things to it.
I found the Marvel wiki to be a wondrous thing, there a lot of interesting things to read, and no one ever complaining about an article's length, as long as it has relevant information in it. Dream Focus (talk) 14:52, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
Apparently the policy on linking to external wikis has changed!
I'm debating this injustice/insanity here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:External_links#Was_there_an_actual_vote_on_the_rules_of_external_wikis.2C_or_was_it_just_a_handful_of_people_around_at_the_time_stating_their_opinions.3F
Please join in. Dream Focus (talk) 15:57, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Notability problems
Just made another brilliant post of mine(joking, not that arrogant) on the wikipedia notability talk page. I'll post it here now:
- This sounds familiar. I started a previous debate on why the opinions of just two reviewers made something notable, while the reviews of a hundred thousand people on blogs and forums did not. If you are notable for being reviewed in a magazine that has 50 thousand subscribers, then why aren't you notable for being featured regularly in a magazine that has several times that many subscribers? Why is being published in Jump comics not make you notable, but being reviewed in a magazine of far lesser sales figures does? Horrible system really. I believe someone did mention how companies could do Google bombing, to get more search results with their products name. But they could just as easily buy ad space in any news source, and insure they get a good mention, that happening quite often. If something is published by a company that also owns newspapers and magazines, chances are, it will get mentioned. That's why confirmable sales figures are so important. Although honestly now, if more articles got created that might not be as notable as people think, it wouldn't harm anything. You wouldn't even notice it, unless you went looking for it. Better to include, then it is to delete. Dream Focus (talk) 23:58, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
Of interest to you, I think...
Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:Reevaluation
I very much support you and urge you to continue to fight the good fight re: WP:ANIME. 159.182.1.4 (talk) 14:38, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
Merge often means Delete, with nothing at all merged
Apparently as long as the author's page has the name of the series, and the year it came out at, then you don't have to merge anything at all. You just redirect there. So why call it a merge, when nothing is merged? Just call it a delete.
Here are three examples where the majority said Merge, and not a thing got merged, it deleted. Akane-chan Overdrive AFD Hate to Love you AFD Clow Cards AFD Dream Focus 19:03, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
- Two points. #1 You can merge things still and #2 a redirect is different than a merge. That said, I do dislike AfDs where merge is an outcome for the reasons you just described. I'll do the merge when I feel I can (and have time) but often the merge is really just a redirect and I don't feel I know the area well enough to fix it. Hobit (talk) 17:49, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
- Merge was attempted http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akane-chan_Overdrive and reverted, people speaking out against that on the talk page saying Merge was voted on. One editor agreed to tolerate a bit for now, stating elsewhere it didn't matter, it'd be reverted eventually, and then she herself reverted that little summary bit days later when less people were around to notice. As far as the Clow Cards is concerned, there is no possible way to merge any of that information over, nor was there any reason to bother it at all to begin with. This happens all the time, those just a few examples of it. Dream Focus 18:07, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Proposed for Deletion, is the same as Deletion only without the review
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:All_articles_proposed_for_deletion Horrible isn't it folks? If you want to erase something, without having a debate about it, you can just tag it for a speed delete. If no one is around to notice or care within a week's time, then it gets deleted automatically. Now admittedly, some of those articles are basically just one sentence, someone goofing around with a hoax, or violate the rules, but that's not the point. It should be categorizes and sorted appropriately, so those who look over such things can protest. Otherwise they can just sneak it past you, since you aren't going to visit every single article of the type you enjoy, repeatedly, at least once a week forever to check up on it. I was looking over it and found a band nominated for speed deletion, despite a quick Google search finding them listed on MTV and elsewhere, and having had their video played on MTV as well. I edited the Cake in a mug article, adding in two references to major third party news publications, and removed its speedy delete tag. Googling for it found it to be quite a popular type of cake, getting over 60 thousand hits for its name. Dream Focus 02:26, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
Administrators have the right to ignore AFD process
Administrators have the right to cut short an active discussion on the Articles for Deletion review short, simply because they decided it didn't meet the requirements for notability. I thought that was the reason for consensus, as opposed to the opinion of just one person? Oh well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Vellian_Crowler is the article in question. Another page which is basically the same thing, that is a page dedicated to a main character, is being discussed right now as well, the overwhelming majority of votes there keep thus far. Not sure how this page would've ended up, but still, every other debate lasts longer than that, before a decision is reached. Dream Focus 02:28, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Another deletionist admits to deleting less popular things first, then going for the big ones
As many of us already know, deletionist usually pick on targets that have few active editors around to defend them. That's why pages which are exactly the same, don't get bothered. One deletionist posted his tactic for taking out all the smaller stuff first, hoping to get rid of some editors, to be able to take out the bigger things later on. See it here. Over at the discussion for Albedo Xenosaga AFD a link was made to there, along with some interesting discussions. It all comes down to some people wishing the wikipedia to be more "encyclopedic", by deleting everything they can get away with. This includes articles no one would ever find their way to if they weren't looking for them, and which they have no reason to delete. Only hoaxes, spams, personal promotion, and things of that nature should ever be deleted. For everything else, just let it be. Dream Focus 02:36, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia's deletionists driving people away to the wikia instead
I just came across yet another all too common subject on the wikipedia. Why the removal? he asks. Why indeed. There is no limit of space, no one doubts the content in the article is valid, and don't use some fool rule about notability as an excuse to delete something you decided you wanted gone anyway. The deletionist wish to drive people away from the wikipedia, they now having to elsewhere to find the information. I wonder if the founder of wikipedia doesn't encourage this, since he makes no money at all from the wikipedia, but does profit from the ad banners over at the wikia, which he founded. If not, he really should. They formerly had a policy which stated that you should just move all the extra stuff to a wikia, and link to it, someone removing that now though. Just tell people outright, If you want to find detailed information on every single character, item, and concept, check the wikia instead. The wikipedia only has short pointless summaries allowed, which will contain almost nothing of value or interest to anyone. That'd be a good banner to put up top of all the fiction articles. Dream Focus 02:49, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Rescue squadron to the Rescue!
This user rescues articles for the Article Rescue Squadron. |
After deciding to join the Rescue Squadron, I decided to write the first thing that fell out of my head.
When reason fails, societies break apart, and civilization crumbles around them. We must strive to stop the insanity here and now, not just to put out the fires others keep starting, but to rebuild what they have destroyed, restoring what was lost to us, so that the wikipedia can once again be what it was meant to be. Wiki means "casual", it an encyclopedia where anyone can edit, and add to as they see fit, without fear of overjudgmental people picking apart every little thing they do, and trying to erase it if it isn't just perfect by their standards.
Thinking that'd be a good story. So here I go:
The great civilization that was
Wiki means casual. What a great name for a city. Back in the days, it was paradise, wanderers of all sorts passing through, and setting up shop. A few simple build codes were enacted, but mostly it was just left to the common sense and decency of these tolerant and enthusiastic people. And for a time, it was good. Then after the great city was built, there came a group who decided to take over, and change things to their liking.
"Under the new build codes, 99% of your houses are cruft! They have to be torn down!" they said. "If it isn't nice enough to impress the elitists, then I don't want to see it at all."
And some rushed to save their many structures, but the attacks kept coming, and even treasured old homes they once thought safe, went under attack time and again, until no one was around at the time to defend them. And these were lost to us.
And when they did manage to gather enough protest to preserve a home, it still was not enough to keep it for very long.
"Fine!" said some of the elitists. "We'll let you keep your homes, but we're still knocking down 90% of them, to make them look better. Its called compromising."
"What? That doesn't make sense!"
"It doesn't have to! The rules are the rules, we passing them to allow us to do what we want, and arguing until all others give up in frustration. Don't you know how to compromise?"
"You never walk down these streets anyway. You would've even notice they were there."
"If you can take the time to pave your streets in gold, and make everything beautiful to look at, then don't go complaining when we tear the mess down. Its all cruft anyway."
"There are some buildings exactly the same as these left alone though."
"That's because there are too many people around to stop us. Don't worry though. We'll get them eventually." Dream Focus 18:48, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
AFD says overwhelming Keep, but it gets deleted anyway
I'm not sure why some are bothered by the Keep consensus of the AFD. Apparently the outcome is only enforced if they agree with it. The process means nothing if it is not enforced.
If an article is deleted by consensus at AFD, and someone keeps trying to recreate it, they are stopped. But if an article is voted Keep by consensus at AFD, and someone tries to erase all the information there, then some find no problems with that at all. Dream Focus 02:17, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
- Well, it seems to have been closed rather quickly. So, if you want to delete an article, you can do so, no matter how many people say Keep on the AFD. A lot of people agreed with me, mostly by reverting the constant redirects, not that they stayed reverted for long. Dream Focus 16:33, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
- After much complaining, did get this page back again, although much reduced. They still had no right to try to destroy it, ignoring consensus, to begin with. Just thought I'd update that. Sometimes the good guys do win. Dream Focus 22:58, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
How editing an article should be done
- Don't delete something because it isn't perfect. If you think it needs a reference, then give it one of the citation needed tags. If you believe the reference or name of something in the article should be translated into English, then say so, but don't go erasing it outright. If you don't like how it is written, then discuss it on the talk page, or fix it yourself.
- If you believe the article is too long, then look for information that doesn't belong there, don't just erase a large chunk of it, without bothering to read it, and expect someone else to add back in anything valid you just happen to have wiped out.
- Remember that no article is ever uploaded 100% complete. It is built and improved upon over time by different editors.
- If you delete another editors work, then discuss it on the talk page. Explain the reason why. Most problems could be solved with proper communications.
- If you don't like a certain type of article, and don't believe they should exists at all, such as character pages, then don't go looking for them just to try to delete them, and when you fail to get consensus to do that, delete 90% of it anyway, calling it all fancruft. Fans enjoy reading the information you consider junk, and if you aren't a fan of the series, you wouldn't find your way to that article to begin with. Don't be a snobby elitists and seek to destroy what others enjoy reading, simply because you don't like it.
- You do not help the wikipedia by deleting things others may with to read. You help it by adding to, not taking from. The only exception is of course hoaxes, spam, and trolls.
- A redirect is the same thing is a delete. So is a merge, when nothing is actually merged, you knowing very well you couldn't fit even a tenth of that information on the other page. If you want something deleted, then vote delete, don't try to deceive others into voting for redirect or merge, thinking that is any different than deleting it outright. Note, sometimes you can merge things, but often times I don't see one sentence at all, as mentioned in examples previously by me.
Dream Focus 16:46, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
No matter how obvious it is to some people, if a notable person hasn't said it, some can not believe it is true
Someone posted a request for help on the Articles for Deletion list, and I went there, despite not caring about the subject matter(I like my girls animated, thank you very much). One editor posted a citations needed tag next to a statement that the girls are twins. I asked about this on the talk page, and he honestly isn't convinced they are identical twins, despite the fact they look identical. Another editor states he isn't convince otherwise, since there is no notable media sources that say it. I'm not joking either. Apparently he believes it could be a marketing scam.
My final reply:
- So looking at them, they both apparently identical, you aren't 100% convinced that they are in fact identical twins, and require proof in this case. That is honestly the stupidest things I have ever heard. When you hear rain outside, and someone looks out the window and says it is rain, and you turn and see rain falling also for yourself, do you believe it is raining and accept that, or do you have to wait and hear it from a weatherman to believe its real? "Maybe someone is just using a water hose or something, and playing thunderstorm noises with their MP3 player. Happens all the time in this industry. Don't ever think for yourself. If you can't get someone notable to tell you something, then you can't accept the slightest possibility that it is real." Dream Focus 00:21, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
I think that's a good example of the mind set. I see this a lot in life. People who can't decide if they like something or not, or should be wearing it, unless some notable media source tells them its in style.
There was a woman recently in the news who ordered chicken McNuggets at McDonalds, and after paying, was told they ran out. She asked for her money back, but was informed by the idiot sales person, that company policy was to not give refunds once an order was placed. She was unable to reason with this person, who could only mindlessly follow regulations, without any possibility of thinking for themselves.
Dream Focus 00:33, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
To save a song
If you want to save an article for a song, then this is how. Wikipedia rules state Songs that have been ranked on national or significant music charts, that have won significant awards or honors or that have been performed independently by several notable artists, bands or groups are probably notable.
There are sites that list what bands have had their songs covered by others. One of those is: http://www.covertrek.com/findArtist.html You can then search to see if those cover bands are notable.
If you want to find out how well something placed in the charts, then you can search www.billboard.com or just Google for the word "bestseller" to see how well it did. I don't think you can become a bestseller, or "hit single" without being high in the charts.
Not sure if there are any sites out there that have an easy search for all notable awards for things or not. If so, it'd be a good resource to use.
Hope this helps someone. Dream Focus 12:17, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
South Park episode pages threatened by deletionists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_South_Park_episodes#Episode_notability I think I made my case fairly well. If they didn't have as many fans around, it would've been deleted outright. I wonder if some of the deletionists want to delete them because they don't follow the rules, or do they simply not like that sort of article. Probably a mixture of both, or perhaps a misguided belief they are helping the wikipedia by erasing all the interesting things people read on it.
A question I asked there was:
- Since there is no way to meet the requirement for notability for most article pages, what should be done with those articles?
- Delete them all, because of the current rules.
- Keep them anyway, ignoring the rules.
- Go to where rules are at, and try to have them changed, so that episode lists, and trivia are allowed.
Dream Focus 05:30, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
- The only way to save the pages, is to change the rules of notability. So, I got that poll started here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Notability#Voting_time.___Any_television_series_that_has_at_least_a_million_viewers.2C_may_have_an_article_for_every_episode
Dream Focus 06:22, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
The stupidest tag in all of wikipedia
This article may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may only interest a specific audience. Please relocate any relevant information, and remove excessive trivia, praise, criticism, lists and collections of links. |
Well of course it would only interest a certain percentage of people! Every article out there does that. If you don't like history, you wouldn't be interested in the history articles, and if you don't like a show, you won't be interested in it at all. Sheesh. Fancruft is a good thing. Those who don't like it, aren't likely to find those articles anyway, you only finding them by seeking them out because you are interested in them. Dream Focus 12:02, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia's competition. Accuracy first, boredom second.
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Citizendium I was searching the Wikipedia to find out how to make something appear after you click the fold down thing, and I happened upon an article on one of the original founders of wikipedia, who left and created citizendium. Interesting. Got to prove your credentials before you can post. I think its just for science, history, and whatnot, no popular culture. Otherwise it'd be like, "I'm the number one fan of this series! I own all their merchandise, and can memorize every single line from all four seasons of the cartoon, and -". Dream Focus 21:51, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
- Not a lot on their site, and they don't want things to be written in a way that the average person can understand. Not really competition with the wikipedia anytime soon. Dream Focus 16:20, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
- Turns out he wasn't a founder, he was just a paid employee who was in charge of wikipedia's development at a crucial stage. He decided that no one else could've made it successful but him, he responsible, and someone else taking all the credit, and that no other editor in chief at the time would've made it successful. I think a lot of people contributed, and it was the input of the community that shaped how things developed, not just one guy. Dream Focus 16:33, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
Anyone know how to have a fold down list?
If anyone knows how to make it where you click something, and then something else appears, please let me know. I remember seeing it at places, but can't think where, or I'd just go there and look again. You hide the text, until someone clicks on a tag and makes it appear, thus allowing one to organize their stuff better. Dream Focus 16:20, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
- Use the {{Collapse top}} and {{Collapse bottom}} templates, but subst: them so that you can then edit all of the paramters directly (color, text in the box headers, etc). So:
{{subst:Collapse top}} Stuff to be inside the box, which can be added to afterwards {{subst:Collapse bottom}}
Add that one time, and save the page. Then go back and edit, and the templates will have been converted to the raw code used, so you then have full control over all of the parameters and text, and can add/change any of the content within the box itself. Hope this helps! ArakunemTalk 18:15, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
- Excellent! Works great. Thank you for your assistance. Dream Focus 18:19, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
What I consider horrible editing practices
- Try to delete it with prod delete, since its the least likely method to get noticed.
- If anyone notices, then try to delete it with a speedy delete.
- If that fails, then nominated it for AFD, and argue a few days to try to get people to see things your way, and delete it.
- If the consensus(opinions of the majority of people around at the time who decided to comment) is to keep, then go ahead and delete it anyway, but call it a merge. No information will actually be merged, it just a delete, but with the history preserved.
- If all else fails, wait until attention dies down, and try one of the above tactics later on to get rid of it.
Also, it helps to erase as much of the article is possible, to make it look short and unimportant, so less people will bother trying to save it at all.
Complain about how people won't "compromise" and let you delete at least something, so you can satisfy your win at all cost mentality. Dream Focus 19:02, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
Articles I find of interest
I moved all of this to its own page at User:Dream Focus/Articles I find of interest Dream Focus 00:59, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
Move all wikipedia articles over to wikia. Same thing, but fairer rules. Then everyone is happy.
Over on the [Rescue Squardons] page someone mentioned there is a wikia set up where you can preserve any wikipedia article that is being deleted. http://annex.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page is its location. I'm thinking if we could just copy every wikipedia article there is over to the wikia outright, then that'd make everyone happy. If you want to include everything interesting, go to the wikia. If you want short articles that far fewer, if anyone, will find interesting, stay at the wikipedia. The wikia doesn't need donations, its supported by ad banners. Please disable your ad blocking software, so they can make some money, and pay their bills. Dream Focus 18:21, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
It isn't a horse unless someone says it is, LOL!
An interesting discussion is going on over at the article page for the last episode of Battlestar Galatica. [4] Some people refuse to think for themselves, saying you have to have someone considered notable say it for it to be true, no matter how obvious it is. Reasoning with them seems to be failing. Asking on the wikipedia policy page about that, and consensus thus far seems to be we should change the policy, to be more clear, to avoid problems. Dream Focus 00:43, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
A standard response to the same sort of articles that keep coming up for deletion
- Keep for the following reasons:
- Enough information about the character to fill an article.
- If you aren't interested in the article, you aren't likely to ever find it, unless you are specifically looking for things to delete(a rather horrible hobby to have).
- There is no shortage of space on wikipedia, so no reason to delete something just because you don't like it. Some people will find the information interesting to read.
- The notability guidelines are suggestions, not policy. You don't have to follow them, and shouldn't just use them as an excuse to delete something you don't like, for whatever reason.
I'm thinking since the exact same types of articles keep getting nominated for deletion, might as well respond in the same way to the same tired old story. All arguments have all been said and done before, for this particular issue anyway. Dream Focus 19:57, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
A tool we need
Whenever an article goes up for AFD, its only fair to contact all the major contributors of it, so they are aware someone is trying to destroy something they put a significant amount of work into. Many of these articles have been around for years, and no editor is able to keep everything they worked on, on their watchlist, otherwise it'd be too flooded with things each day to find anything at all.
The history of an article already displays the information we need. Just need a program to count each time a name appears, as well as counts the amount of information added. Either of these things indicates a considerable amount of work has been done on it by the person, and thus they should be informed of this. There is already a tool that list how many the editors of an article, according to how many edits they made, however we really need one to check the amount, since some people make long edits, without needing to go back and change things constantly, doing that whole proofreading thing. Dream Focus 15:26, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
four hyphens equal a solid line
Did you know that four - makes a solid line?
Just saw someone put a line somewhere, used edit to find out how, and learned something new today about wikipedia. Dream Focus 15:50, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks. I just read this, and also think it is cool.Jonny Quick (talk) 16:04, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
Common sense beats bias and idiotic notability guidelines!
I mention on a policy discussion page, that you don't need to meet any notability requirements to have some articles kept, and mentioned a bestselling novel, Dragons_of_Summer_Flame as an example. A deletionist then went and nominated the article for deletion. The overwhelming response is Keep. I think some very interesting points were made there. Dream Focus 17:31, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
- A discussion is being had because of this on changing the Notability guidelines. I'm glad progress is being made. Dream Focus 02:50, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
- You would think 15 million copies of something sold would convince anyone that its notable, but alas, some disagree and want to delete the article anyway. Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Dragon_Quest_Retsuden:_Roto_no_Monshล Dream Focus 02:21, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
New search options would eliminate concerns entirely
Articles already have a rating based on how well written they are. Why not have a search option to allow people to search only for this, who are afraid they'll happen upon some low quality crap they don't want to see? How is this for options for the modified search feature?
- Rating on the Assessment scale
- Rating on the Importance of topic scale
- Some believe no article should exist without third party media references. I don't see why the opinions of a small number of people that review things in magazines, is more important than the millions of fans of a series, but whatever, to each their own. To prevent people from trying to delete articles based on this, we can just have it so that no one can access these articles, without clicking on the option saying you don't think it matters.
- Whether it has fancruft or not. By labeling the article is fancruff, instead of just deleting it, we can make everyone happy. No one will possibly be able to find it in a search, without specifically selecting that option.
And thus everyone is happy. Dream Focus 02:50, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
- Good idea, but you face two issues, one impossible to overcome: technical, and policy (insurmountable). You have to convince two groups to do what you want: the techs, and the community at large. I personally like you a lot, but I don't think you have the political capital and broad based community support needed to successfully push through such a project.
- I would float your idea on WP:VPT first, to see if there is the will to do what you want, it is technically possible, but they will ask is it practicle? That is the question editors will have that you have to answer.
- First, #3 needs to be cleaned up and more clearly explained. I am not sure what you are trying to say.
- Sorry to post on your user page, you can move this as you wish. Ikip (talk) 13:38, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
- Post wherever you want, this is a good place for it. I asked for feedback after all. Anyway, I reworded it a bit to try to make it more coherent. Technical issues aren't a problem. You simply search for a tag each article has. You can do this through Google right now. Click here to search for everything that has a fancruft tag on it. And you can filter your searches through Google to exclude any site that has that specific sentence in it. Simple. Dream Focus 21:20, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
- Its done. I posted it here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#New_search_engine_option.2C_so_everyone_is_happy.__The_tags_can_be_blocked_from_reviews. Dream Focus 21:34, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
Is Wikipedia entertainment above all else?
Posting over in the discussion at the Treecat AFD and I found myself asking just how many articles are actually useful information someone can make use of, and how many are just entertainment. There are thousands of articles for types of insects, most of them not helping you in any way, it just interesting to people who study bugs. Some insects are useful or harmful, of course, so its important to know, but most are just bugs, and unless you are interested in learning about the bugs of the world, including the long extinct ones, its just entertainment, nothing more. Same way with knowing about Roman emperors, battles that happened thousands of years ago, and whatnot. If you are interested in it, its entertainment, but isn't going to be used for anything. And that's just fine with me. Dream Focus 21:07, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
AfD comments
Per the WP:ANI discussion, it must be clear to you now that you must refrain from attacking other editors at AfD. We had this conversation before - here - and I thought that you understood the concept that you can state opinions about what other editors do - "I don't think deleting this article is a good idea" - but you can't turn that into a personal attack - "This user is trying to destroy Wikipedia". Per this comment at ANI, please take this as a formal warning that if you attack other editors at AfD, or breach WP:NPA in other venues again, it will result in a block. Please don't let me - or another administrator - have to do this, because you have plenty to offer Wikipedia, if only you'd channel it in the right direction (i.e. improving articles, not arguing about them). Black Kite 19:22, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
- I misworded something again? I don't recall ever stating anyone by name was trying to destroy wikipedia. In the recent AFD, I only responded to things directed at me. If they don't respond to my statements, I don't respond to theirs. Dream Focus 19:30, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
- Isn't accusing someone on canvasing, and other nonsense constantly, wrong though? Dream Focus 19:33, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
- Depends if they are canvassing. I don't think you were, personally - others may disagree. What I'm talking about is comments like "You aren't helping wikipedia in any possible way. You are just destroying parts of it." or "Wow. You make vastly more constructive contributions by deleting articles? That's not a contribution. You don't help the wikipedia by destroying parts of it." on that AfD. Also, arguing that notability guidelines are just guidelines and so can be ignored isn't helping you, either. Lack of notability is a reason for deletion (see Wikipedia:DEL#REASON, which is a policy), so you need to find reasons why a certain article does assert notability, not attack other people. Thanks, Black Kite 19:40, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
- Dream:
- Refactor >>> apologize profusely >> learn from your mistakes, by becoming more passive agressive, like other sucessful editors do on wikipedia. If you want to rant, email me and rant, but don't do it on wiki. I agree with all your comments, but these things are better left unsaid. Everytime you say something like you did in the AfD it only helps those editors who delete. It surely doesn't help you, it surely doesn't help your supporters who respect your work and tire of defending you over and over, it surely does not win an audience to save the article, it only helps those editors who delete. See my comments on the ANI.
- It is clear these editors want to silence you.
- Black Kite and all the other editors would have no ammunition against you if you simply refactored and apologized. I am growing weary, and I about ready to ignore these unfair attacks on you, because you refuse to listen to my repeated advice.
- Black Kite, I think your position on deletions is opposite of Dream, you are not an unbiased neutral third party, and that you have no authority to give Dream ultimatiums. The only bad comment in the AfD which Dream is being attack for is:
- "You aren't helping wikipedia in any possible way. You are just destroying parts of it"
- ...which does not rise to the leave of a personal attack, especially considering that admins such as User:JzG regularly tell editors to fuck off, with no penalties. The entire ANI was a bad faith attack. User:TheFarix made no effort to contact Dream first to resolve what he sees as a problem before launching the ANI.
- Black Kite, I would suggest unwatching Dreams user page and let neutral parties handle this dispute, because you are not a netural third party. Ikip (talk) 20:45, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
- Good points. I was thinking since they said they were helping wikipedia, I could respond to that claim by stating obviously they were not. And you can't claim to being more constructive, when you aren't constructing anything, but destructing them instead. But, whatever. My reason was the number of Google hits, it surely well spoken of in many places, and that not happening if it wasn't notable. Apparent notability is what I always speak of, I not just objecting to the deletion of any article. I think certain people just look for every excuse they have to go against me, and anyone else who gets in their way. Dream Focus 20:55, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
- The sad fact is, that disruptively deleting other editors contributions, ignoring WP:PRESERVE and WP:BEFORE is more disruptive than being blunt. Refactor out those comments in the AfD. Apologize in the AfD and the ANI.
- I would suggest you find a netural admin to police your edits, an admin who these editors can go to and bitch too. Did you get a mentor like I suggested? Maybe you can float the idea of a neutral admin in the ANI. Maybe the same admin who will oversee the A Nobody/Jack argument?
- I am not saying to lay down and play dead. You can argue what a bad faith ANI it was, and you can argue policy against your foes. But don't justify and try to explain away what others claim are "personal attacks", refactor and apologize, then they don't have this card in their deck to attack you with anymore.
- In the future, put these editors on the offensive, like A Nobody (badly) attempts to do. Don't argue your philosophy, show edit diffs and quote policy. This is the strongest argument by far. Ikip (talk) 21:12, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
- Ikip, given the number of times I have patiently tried to explain the issues to Dream Focus above (just look up the page, in a number of sections), I can't think how you can claim that I'm not neutral. Not many people would've taken the time to respond step by step to his potential RfA question, for example. I am trying to ensure that DF does not get himself blocked here, because (as I said above) he obviously has a lot to offer. However, I'll reiterate - if he starts attacking other people like he did at that AfD again, I will block him, it's as simple as that - just as I would any other editor, whatever their views on AfD are. It's up to DF to ensure he doesn't do that. Let's hope I don't have to post here again. Black Kite 21:13, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
- Black Kite, I respectively disagree that you are a neutral party. I do sincerely respect your patience in working with Dream. The way you have handled this is why you are a successful editor.
- Here is what will happen, editors will find a reason to get Dream blocked in an AFD.
- The comments in the AfD did not rise to a blockable offense. The editor who created the ANI did not consult Dream first, as per ANI: "Before posting a grievance about a user here, it is advised that you take it up with them on their user talk page."
- If you see a problem with Dream's edits on AFD in the future, please take it to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard, so another univolved netural admin can determine if it rises to the level of blocking. Ikip (talk) 21:23, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
- Ikip, given the number of times I have patiently tried to explain the issues to Dream Focus above (just look up the page, in a number of sections), I can't think how you can claim that I'm not neutral. Not many people would've taken the time to respond step by step to his potential RfA question, for example. I am trying to ensure that DF does not get himself blocked here, because (as I said above) he obviously has a lot to offer. However, I'll reiterate - if he starts attacking other people like he did at that AfD again, I will block him, it's as simple as that - just as I would any other editor, whatever their views on AfD are. It's up to DF to ensure he doesn't do that. Let's hope I don't have to post here again. Black Kite 21:13, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
- Good points. I was thinking since they said they were helping wikipedia, I could respond to that claim by stating obviously they were not. And you can't claim to being more constructive, when you aren't constructing anything, but destructing them instead. But, whatever. My reason was the number of Google hits, it surely well spoken of in many places, and that not happening if it wasn't notable. Apparent notability is what I always speak of, I not just objecting to the deletion of any article. I think certain people just look for every excuse they have to go against me, and anyone else who gets in their way. Dream Focus 20:55, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
- Depends if they are canvassing. I don't think you were, personally - others may disagree. What I'm talking about is comments like "You aren't helping wikipedia in any possible way. You are just destroying parts of it." or "Wow. You make vastly more constructive contributions by deleting articles? That's not a contribution. You don't help the wikipedia by destroying parts of it." on that AfD. Also, arguing that notability guidelines are just guidelines and so can be ignored isn't helping you, either. Lack of notability is a reason for deletion (see Wikipedia:DEL#REASON, which is a policy), so you need to find reasons why a certain article does assert notability, not attack other people. Thanks, Black Kite 19:40, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
- Isn't accusing someone on canvasing, and other nonsense constantly, wrong though? Dream Focus 19:33, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
About the recent nonsense
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Dream_Focus
- The same ridiculous accusations as always, without proof to back it up.
- Unrelated debate about something totally unrelated.
- Three deletionist who have all gone after me before, trying to gang up, and mislead people into believing I'm something that I'm not.
- Comments on out of context statements.
- Idle threats about banning me, in an attempt to intimidate me. Reminds of me of editors who post threats that someone is doing disruptive editing and will be banned, if they don't agree with them on something, even terrorizing new users without explaining what their problem is.
- People stating its alright for them to make the same arguments in every single AFD, but not for me to do the same. Plus other complaints about things I do, ignoring those there against me who often do the exact same thing.
And of course, some confusing discussion about policy.
- "You must follow the notability guidelines, no matter what!"
- "But we save articles all the time that don't meet any of the notability guidelines, such as bestselling novels."
- "Well, there are exceptions."
- "So I don't have to follow them all the time then? I can ignore them, making exceptions for things that are clearly notable."
- "No, you can't just ignore them and follow your own rules."
- "What? I ignore them all the time, and sometimes we get articles saved. There is no current rule that being a bestseller makes you notable, but whenever enough people with common sense show up to say Keep based on that, the article is saved. I've seen bestselling novels get deleted also, not enough around to protest their destruction."
- "It isn't about votes."
- "Articles that are identical, sometimes get deleted, and sometimes don't. It depends on who is there to vote at the time, most editors going with the majority."
That's basically how the argument keeps going. Not that it matters, since that isn't what we were suppose to be discussing anyway, they bringing up all sorts of nonsense. Dream Focus 18:19, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Please remove the paraphrasing of my remarks above, which clearly show you didn't read or understand them, and also the reference to them being "nonsense". Thanks. Black Kite 18:28, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Everything discussed there is irrelevant nonsense, wasn't referring to your bit specifically. And that is how I understand what you said. If you have a corrected version, to explain to me, so be it. But honestly now, is that not an accurate summary of the discussion? Dream Focus 18:51, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- OK. This is how it goes.
- We have notability guidelines. They are guidelines because they can't possibly cover every single one of the nearly 3,000,000 articles that we have. However, they are applicable to nearly all our articles.
- But you are making repeated comments on AfDs (I provided diffs) that we can just ignore the notability guidelines "because they're just guidelines". I explained that we can't, because per WP:DEL#REASON, failing notability is a reason to delete an article.
- I admitted that there will always be exceptions to any rule - of course there will. But you can't keep making this claim on random AfDs without explaining why that particular article should be exempt from notability.
- The novel that you keep mentioning as an exception wasn't even an exception, because as the AfD closure pointed out, being a best-selling NYT title is a claim of notability in itself, and thus it would be very unlikely that there would not be secondary sourcing (like [5] for example) even if at that time it was not present.
- To sum up, in general we don't delete articles because they fail Wikipedia policy, we delete them because it is unlikely that they could ever pass.
- I think it is that difference that you are not grasping. Some articles fail WP:GNG but can clearly be improved to pass it, whilst others will never pass it. Those articles in the latter category cannot be saved by claiming that "notability is only a guidelines, so we can ignore it". We can't.
- I think I've covered everything, feel free to ask if it's still unclear! Black Kite 19:13, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- OK. This is how it goes.
So, even though the guidelines don't accept sales figures as being a legitimate reason, you can still accept it because of the assumption that anything popular must have a review out there somewhere, even if no one can find it at the time. Does this cover every single bestselling novel there is? I'd find that unlikely.
And what of equally high sales of magazines and DVDs? Even if we can not find any reviews for it, can we just assume the same thing? Dream Focus 19:43, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Your reference is to a public library that has something a kid named "Jake" posted about a book he liked. That doesn't count as a legitimate reference. There are no references, therefore you have to admit the notability guidelines are idiotic, and should be ignored, until people agree to change them to make sense. Dream Focus 19:51, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- Sorry, wrong link - fixed it now. "Popular" does not equal "notable", although it makes it more probable that it is the case. But in the end, the notability guidelines are necessary to Wikipedia's functioning, and definitely not idiotic - in 99% of cases they work extremely well. Remember that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a collection of everything that has ever existed. If you want to change WP:N, as I said, start a discussion about it. Until then, you will fare badly if you suggest that notability should be ignored at AfD. Black Kite 20:57, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
- A passive mention in one sentence, saying it had an impressive 200,000 first run, doesn't really count as coverage. And I did try to discuss it before, over at the notability guideline pages, people split down the middle on whether to accept confirmable sales figures as proof of notability or not. Face it, there are no legitimate third party media review for that or many other bestselling novels, and by the rules the article should've been deleted, but fortunately wp:common sense and ignore all rules came into play here, and it was saved. Dream Focus 00:50, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Box Office results make it notable!
We decided at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Bleach:_Fade_to_Black,_I_Call_Your_Name that it didn't matter if it was an anime movie, it did well in Japanese theaters, and even without any coverage at all, it was clearly notable. Overwhelming Keep on that one too. Dream Focus 00:44, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
- LOL! As of today, the notability guidelines for films have been updated. I wonder if I had been the one to change it, if someone would've reverted it within a few seconds. Dream Focus 22:05, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Articles about the relations between two nations
My new standard response for such things is:
- Keep If you search in the native languages of those two nations, you could surely find news articles about the relationship between them. Is it realistic to assume there has been absolutely no news coverage about trade or diplomatic meetings for decades? If we knew the names of all the big newspapers in those two countries, and did a proper search, surely we'd find something.
I think that fits well to any situation. Isn't my case a perfectly logical assumptions? Some languages don't have automatic translator problems for them, and those things don't work well on many languages where the sentence structure is too different than our own. Dream Focus 01:36, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Sigh... what's the point of continuing?
"We decided that the proper interpretation of things is this, and we'll argue and revert nonstop until you give up and do it our way, so don't even bother." Don't you hate people like? I know I do.
- There is no possible way for people to watch every article they could be interested in, there just too many things appearing in their watchlist each day. So, articles they want to keep, and would vote(don't say it isn't a vote, because yes, actually it is) Keep, get nominated for deletion and are erased before they notice it. People with nothing better to do roam about constantly deleting everything they can get away with. Its a constant nonstop battle to save things, they not giving up until they get what they want. And its just a small number of people, who spend every waking moment on wikipedia, making insane numbers of edits, and delude themselves into thinking they are helping.
- I've decided its just too much work to try to reason with these people. They can't tell the difference between original research, and common sense, or when to ignore idiotic guidelines and use common sense to preserve something. Sometimes enough reasonable people are around to keep something, sometimes not. Its just random luck.
- I'm going to move on to other things, and stop bothering with wikipedia so much.
Dream Focus 05:00, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
- To clarify, I will spend less time on the wikipedia, and avoid as many AFD discussions. I never said I'd leave entirely, nor ever planned on it. Just not going to waste too much time trying to reason with the same people. Once I have determined they are beyond hope of rational thought, I'll give up, and just ignore them as best I can. Dream Focus 22:28, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
LOL! Result was Keep.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_one-time_characters_in_The_Simpsons_(6th_nomination) You can't delete anything from a popular series! The 6th nomination ended in KEEP, of course. Now we wait a few weeks for some fool to go after it again. If you got enough fans around, it is kept, and if not, it gets deleted. That is just how it works, as the evidence keeps proving time and again, despite what others may tell you. It all comes down to the votes/opinions of whoever is around at the time of the AFD to form a consensus/majority. Dream Focus 02:01, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Toolserver query
I want to search through all the AFD where the result was Keep, not no consensus or merge, and see how many of those articles are there, and weren't replaced with a merge/redirect when no one was looking. Either check through a suspected user's history, or a scan of every AFD on the wikipedia if possible.
I was told that I need toolserver query to do this. Anyone know anything about that? Dream Focus 11:33, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Changes to guidelines
- The overwhelming majority of people that use wikipedia, are not going to check every single guideline page there is to see if anything is changed.
- Changes done on guideline pages, always involve a very small number of people.
- We need to say that at least 100 people agree on something this major before it is changed, or better yet, have an announcement at the top of wikipedia, like they do now with that "future copyright terms" thing no one cares about or understands. Then you can get some actual participation.
- The rule of common sense says that if only 4 to 12 people decided to change something, which millions of wikipedia editors and readers will be affected by, without most people realizing what was going on, that it can not be taken seriously. Dream Focus 21:39, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Contacting everyone who ever participated in an article when someone is trying to delete it
I would assume anyone who ever did a reasonable amount of work on an article would want to be notified, but that currently isn't the case. There is no way possible to have every article you care about on your watchlist, since changes are constant on things, and there would be no way to sort through all of it. I suggest we contact everyone who ever participated on an article, whenever it is nominated for deletion. Or have an option so that editors can choose to receive notification if any article they have worked on or sign to their list of favorites, is nominated, or not. Let the people have the option to know what is going on. Dream Focus 22:26, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Canvasing nonsense
If you form a portal and have people discussing what they should do, and then a group from there going and all voting the same way, since if they didn't all think alike they'd not be in a group like that for long, then its perfectly acceptable. If you try to contact those who made significant contributions to an article, then some complain its canvasing. Does that seem fair? (update, read bit below. The rules support this, so ignore the complainers upset the AFD didn't go their way when more people knew about it) Dream Focus 22:26, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Question about the current rules about fictional characters
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ANotability_(fiction)&diff=282794101&oldid=282782136 Apparently a decision was made by a small number of people, on April 9th, which could affect a vast number of articles. Previously articles were saved if the fictional character was found in more than one source. But, as brought up in Malus_Darkblade recently, it seems it now says that the countless thousands of articles for any fictional character, should be deleted. Anyone feel like discussing that with me? Notice how few people decided this, against the protests of others? Should such a small number of people decide something so great? They didn't like the character articles, so changed it, so they now had an excuse to delete them outright. Of course I've been seeing character articles sent to AFD for months now, sometimes they being saved, and sometimes not.
The most important part that has been deleted is:
- Importance of the fictional work: To justify articles on individual elements, the fictional work from which they come must have produced significant artistic impact, cultural impact, or general popularity. This is shown when the work (not the element) exceeds the relevant notability guidelines.
- Role within the fictional work: The element must be an important element, and its importance must be verifiable. The importance of characters and episodes can be demonstrated through the use of primary or secondary sources, while the importance of other elements must be validated in independent secondary sources.
Dream Focus 09:48, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Canvasing rule allows you to contact those involved in an article
The WP:canvassing rules clearly state that you can contact those who made significant edits to an article, to tell them its up for deletion.
Neutrally worded notifications sent to a small number of editors are considered "friendly notices" if they are intended to improve rather than to influence a discussion (while keeping in mind excessive cross-posting below). For example, to editors who have substantively edited or discussed an article related to the discussion; or perhaps to a Wikipedian known for being an expert in a related field and has shown interest in participating in related discussions. A template such as {{Please see}} may help in leaving these notices.
Remember, it isn't possible for editors to have everything they ever worked on, on their watchlist, there just too much stuff to sort through each day. So they won't know that something they contributed heavily to, and surely want to preserve(by working on the article's issue, and joining in the AFD discussion), is being considered for deletion. You are allowed to contact them to join in the discussion. No AFD should ever be done in secret. Dream Focus 10:53, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
- Mentioned this over at the Rescue Squadron page, thinking this helps meet the goals, and an editor mentions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AFDHOWTO#How_to_list_pages_for_deletion already exist. Shows how to find the major contributors to inform them of the AFD. Dream Focus 12:06, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Another incredibly stupid wikipedia tag
Ironically, I spotted this on the article List of artists who have covered The Beatles above another tag to expand the incomplete list, thus making it even longer.
How exactly is it difficult to scroll down the list? Hopefully everyone knows that if the information is too far down on the page to read, you just have to click the scrollbar on the right of your browser, and move on down to see it. You can use Ctrl F to find things on most browser, or since things are in alphabetical order, just click on the link to what letter it starts with. I can't imagine anyone having trouble finding information. Trying to delete something simply because you don't like long articles, is something I unfortunately keep seeing. Would they object to the article if not for its size, if the list was shorter? The argument that an article is too long, and doesn't look nice to them, should automatically ban someone from all AFD in the future. Dream Focus 02:35, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
Character pages
I see nothing wrong with listing characters from any series.
- The wikipedia has no limits on server space.
- If you don't like an article, you won't be likely to ever find it to begin with.
- It will be something someone finds of interest, and thus a reason for them to come to the wikipedia to begin with.
- You can't possibly be helping the wikipedia in any possible way by destroying something others might want to read.
Unless a policy(not suggested guideline done by a small number of people which changes constantly) is created to handle character pages specifically, then its all left to consensus. If most people around at the time to vote, believe a character is a notable part of a series, then can keep their page. Sometimes character pages are saved, and sometimes not. Dream Focus 17:33, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
Why all episodes that have millions of vieweres should remain
- If millions of people found the episode notable enough to watch, and thus it is clearly notable enough to have a wikipedia article on.
- Any movie that has a significant number of viewers is notable(the guidelines changed after a discussion I was in not too long ago), and there is no reason why television shouldn't be held by the same common sense standard.
- The opinions of millions of viewers are far more valid to me, than that of any newspaper critic that decided to write or not write about it. Dream Focus 08:54, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
Just found this tag
incl | This user is an inclusionist. |
Should be something like: This user thinks for himself, and doesn't let others tell him if something is notable or not. I don't care if someone working for a magazine or newspaper didn't have time to review it, or never even reviews this type of media at all. No reasonable person would support such an idiotic guideline, and you can't expect me to take it seriously. Dream Focus 00:35, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Another decent article destroyed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Nagatach%C5%8D_Strawberry Despite the fact that the author flew to another nation and had a press conference when this popular series ended, it still wasn't determined notable enough for some, and deleted. Now if you go there, you find only a redirect to the author's page, which some of the same people had previously tried to delete, I managing to convince enough people in that AFD to save it. Dream Focus 05:01, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Question About AfD You Voted On
Hi. I voted 'Keep' for the article called 'contraception'. I saw that you did as well. I was wondering if you could help me to figure out what the results were. (I'm not familiar with how AfD's work.) The result was apparently 'no consensus', which I guess means that it wasn't deleted- but it doesn't show up either- it just redirects to 'Birth Control'. Where did it go? Can it be accessed and/or edited? - Also, can you tell me where to find directions on how to customize my signature too? Thanks :) OckRaz (talk) 10:02, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Contraception It should've been kept, but some decided to destroy it and replace it with a redirect instead. We discussed it on the talk page, bringing over the closing administrator even. Unless more people gather up and say the article should be there, than those who want it deleted/redirected(same thing, regardless of what they tell you) then it will remain as it is now, a redirect. Dream Focus 11:09, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
AFD isn't about votes, but valid arguments. Overturn it with vote stacking at Deletion review though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Estonia%E2%80%93Luxembourg_relations_(2nd_nomination)#Estonia.E2.80.93Luxembourg_relations The argument for Keep was sound. The closing administrator agreed, and closed the AFD is keep. The handful of people that wanted it deleted, then went to deletion review, and voted to overturn it, which happened. Instead of being relisted, and done again, it was turned into a totally useless disambigeous page, and after some reverted it back and forth to its original bit, it was locked in its worthless mode. People show up, take one look at its current state, and say "delete" committing on how pointless a disambigeous page is. No way to get comments on how it original was though. A sad day for wikipedia. Dream Focus 23:33, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
Funny April Fool's Joke on wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Earth_(2nd_nomination)
- The article for the planet Earth was up for deletion. All information came from the primary source, people living there, so it had to be deleted according to the notability guidelines. Dream Focus 13:34, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
Rescued
I have added a "rescued" tag to show where in AFD debates the rescue effort has begun, previously we have been adding a tag that shows when ARS was notified, but I don't think that is useful since nothing has changed at that point.See here for an example that contrasts the difference in placement. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 20:16, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
- Very nicely done. Helps the closing editor realize where the article became a separate entity from its previous version, massive changes done, and thus the arguments made after it far more relevant. Dream Focus 20:20, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
If administrator doesn't close things the way you want them, you can have one day discussion with a small number of others, and get them blocked from closing again
[6] What is there to say about this? Only one day was this discussion going on, most not having time to participate, if they had the means to know it existed. An administrator said the Keep arguments were better, the article having been improved, and closed as Keep. Certain people then went to the deletion review to try to have the article destroyed, and managed to get the closing editor to be blocked from closing anymore articles of this type. Sickening. Dream Focus 14:12, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
My suggested changes on the No original research policy page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:No_original_research I think I made my case fairly well. Dream Focus 02:24, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
Another article replaced by redirect, instead of going to AFD properly.
Apparently if you don't want to bother with an AFD which might turn out against your wishes, you can just replace an article you don't like with a redirect. [7] Sickening really. It was also called a "merge" but the discussion for the merge had ended with two against, one for, and another not commenting one way or the other. No one else participated. So you can't use the merge excuse, knowing very well at least 99% of the article will be not be merged. Consensus is suppose to be what determines whether wikipedia articles should exist or not, not the whim of one person. Dream Focus 19:22, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Re: glass transition
Nobody has been banned; one editor was blocked for a 3RR violation, and that block has now expired. The editor in question has also indicated she will be absent for brief period. I protected the last live version of the article, per the policy. This happened to be the preferred version of one editor, but another editor managed to slip in a revert as I was protecting. Sometimes it happens. I will not be reverting to a different version for several reasons. First, I see no consensus yet. Virtually all the talk page discussion has been between the two users in question, and clearly they couldn't agree. Second, even if I knew enough about the topic to make a determination about which version is "right," it's not up to the protecting admin to take sides. Calls have been posted on three different pages for editors to participate in the discussion. If discussion on the talk page shows that changes need to be made before the protection expires, I or any other admin can make them. Exploding Boy (talk) 02:43, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
- You took sides by protecting that version, the short cut up one. It makes no sense to simple choose whatever version is there at the time you got there, and lock it. The edit waring editor(blocked for that) kept putting in her version, in which 75% of the article was deleted, from 80k to 20k in size. Two other editors reverted her. You now locked it to her version, keeping anyone else from reverting it, thus she got what she wanted. And no matter how long the article is protected, as soon as it is lifted, I, or one of the other two that have reverted her before, will revert it again. She isn't going to be around to discuss it anyway, during the period in which it is protected. The point of blocking an article is to let two sides work things out. But the only person who wants it deleted, is gone now, with no possible chance of her participating in any discussion during the protected period. There is only one person that wants to mass delete things do to size not content concerns, and you have three people who have stated they want to revert her, so consensus is clearly established. Dream Focus 07:31, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
- I did not take sides. I have already explained to you why the current version is the one protected, and how that came about. I refer you to the protection policy, which states:
- "When protecting a page because of a content dispute, administrators normally protect the current version, except where the current version contains content that clearly violates content policies, such as vandalism, copyright violations, or defamation of living persons. Since protecting the most current version sometimes rewards edit warring by establishing a contentious revision, administrators may also revert to an old version of the page predating the edit war if such a clear point exists. Pages that are protected because of content disputes should not be edited except to make changes which are uncontroversial or for which there is clear consensus."
- There is no version which clearly predates the edit war here. This is not a clear case of single-editor warring either (had it been I would simply have blocked one editor): several users have expressed the opinion that Logger's editing is problematic across various articles. Paula's block has now expired, and she has not indicated she will be away for the entire protection period; if she is away for the entire protection period and is thus unavailable to contribute to whatever consensus is meantime reached, that's her problem; nobody needs to wait for her. Input from the wider community has been requested, and as yet there is no clear consensus on the article talk page. Finally, threatening to resume an edit war after the protection has been lifted isn't doing you any favours. There's no big hurry I can see here. Exploding Boy (talk) 07:46, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Glass_transition&limit=500&action=history I don't see many people involved in this. One person wants to mass delete something because of length, three people want to revert her. And that isn't an edit war, when one person disagrees with three others, in that case it usually considered a disruptive editor who is going against clear consensus. Dream Focus 09:00, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
Your opinions don't matter, but anyone who gets a book published does, no matter how crazy/stupid they are
Some points I'd like to make:
- Getting a book published is not that hard these days.
- You can have any wild crazy theories published, no matter how unbelievably stupid they sound to anyone who stops to think about them.
- Simply having your unbelievably stupid assumptions published in a book, should not make you instantly notable, and able to be quoted in any wikipedia article about a subject you even passively mentioned.
- Most conspiracy theories, be it space aliens, government killing their own citizens, or whatever, get plenty of books published about them. Whether they get included in an article or not, isn't based on any set rules, or even common sense, but instead the opinions of whoever is around at the time to argue.
I made a case on at Hardy Boy's article and talk page about this, but was told my opinions didn't matter, until I got published in a book [8]. And of course, even then, I'd still be quoted along side the lunatic and his conspiracy theory. I made valid arguments on how they wanted to market to a younger audience, so didn't bother with anything about girls in them, but no, if you have any teenage boys getting along together, and not trying to have sex with their girlfriends constantly, then surely they must be homosexual, even if they are just fictional characters written by various ghost writers by specific standards, which included everyone being heterosexual, not homosexual. Dream Focus 01:28, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
- This is very insightful and funny. Pmresource (talk) 04:06, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
What happens when you mass nominate articles for popular series
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Great_Jedi_Purge_(2_nomination) Its the third nomination for this article, this time around other articles combined in the deletion nomination. Everyone but the nominator says keep though.
The same nominator is also trying to delete articles for Battlestar Galactica, Dragonlance, Animal Farm, and Babylon 5, all at once. [9] If the many contributors of these articles weren't around for a week, they'd loose everything. The deletion process is just plain ridiculous, since it only takes a small number of people to destroy what so many others have worked at creating. And if something is saved, it'll just get renominated later on, sometimes by the same person. Dream Focus 12:55, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
Reopening AFD because you wanted it deleted
I'm not sure what exactly is going on here but apparently after an article is saved from deletion, you can ask for the AFD to be reopened, to argue further for its destruction. I posted my question if I could reopen those that closed as delete as well, for whatever reason, to add further arguements. Dream Focus 11:14, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
All policies and guidelines determined by small number of people who argue the longest
How to get a policy or guideline changed.
- 1. Go and change it to whatever you personally want it to say, in order to have an excuse to eliminate types of articles you don't like, and personally don't want to see on Wikipedia.
- 2. Keep adding it in constantly. Optional, you can argue with people on the talk page, but this isn't necessary.
- 3. If possible, gather up a few others who agree with you. Remember, all policies and guidelines are constantly being changed, and a quick look at the history section of those pages, shows its just a small number of people doing it.
- 4. If at first you don't succeed to get your way, relax. As long as you are more determined than others, they'll give up in frustration after a time, and you'll win by default. Just keep eating away in bits, whatever you can get away with, until you finally have your way.
- 5. Make sure to add it to your watchlist. Even if you fail, you can wait for others to add in the same thing, and then help revert any undos people have, getting your way in the end.
Remember folks, the vast majority of people who use Wikipedia will never have a say in this, there no common vote to determine how things should be. Wikipedia is not anywhere near what it started out to be, many long lived articles deleted by the rampaging deletionists. Dream Focus 00:48, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
The problem with how merges and directs are done
- There is no way possible people can have every article they have worked on and care about on their watchlist. It'd be impossible to navigate.
- There is no option to be contacted when something you do care about, is nominated for deletion, merge, or redirect(same end result, so all three are basically the same thing).
- These are some people who do not think any character pages should exist, and are constantly working to destroy them. These pages are usually deleted/merged/redirected by just a very small number of people, while those who have worked on the article, are unaware.
My solution is simple:
- If you wish to delete/merge/redirect an article, you should be required to tell all those who had notable contributions to the article, to get their input. Most people will not be checking articles constantly every time someone changes something or post on the talk page. It would be better if we could just have everyone click on option on whether to be contacted or not, and have the process totally automated, but alas, we do not have that. Dream Focus 01:57, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
Project pages have less hits than articles they destroy
They have a program you can use to see how many hits each month any page on Wikipedia has. [10] Small numbers of people go to various project pages, to help clean up Wikipedia, which means destroying anything they don't like, which is basically most types of pages that would be categorized in their project. Dream Focus 21:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Anime and Manga wikiproject gets from 134 to 239 each day. That's almost one view for each article they've helped improved Wikipedia by eliminating through deleting it outright, or simply putting a redirect in its place calling it a merge, even when nothing is actually merged at all. Of course many views may be from the page that list everything that is up for deletion, that the only thing I check regularly over there.
- It is interesting to see just how many people go to what articles. http://stats.grok.se/en/200907/ The search thing has 432,012,353 views it says, with Wikipedia's main page having 194,201,739 this year. The top 28 things listed have a million page views, while after that its beneath a million. Dream Focus 21:45, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Troublesome comments
Since it was brought up here [11], at the Administrators Noticebard Incidents, where I'm still trying to get a ruling on how an illegal merge was made, most people against it, and thus it done against consensus, I'd like to add credibility to my claim above, that in fact certain projects are used for canvasing votes gathering like minded people to vote a certain way. At the video game WikiProject, at [12], the following post was made:
โ | I've attracted an inclusionist to this set of articles, so if I could get some more comments stating that no current Ultima character needs an article, that would be appreciated. TTN (talk) 01:40, 7 August 2009 (UTC) | โ |
Please post on my talk page, if you want to talk about this. Do you believe my comments about the WikiProjects were justified or not? Please, speak your mind. Dream Focus 15:58, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
See all the articles tagged for Rescue at once
Ikip made a wonderful script you can find at [13]. I now have it bookmarked. Makes it easier to find responses to your comments in AFDs. Dream Focus 14:58, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
Example of problems with current system
Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Snak
- The nominator goes around nominating a lot of articles at once, of this type of software, not taking time to search for sources first to see if any are notable or not.
- Another editor shows up and claims to have searched for sources, but found none. Since it was so very easy to find some, I have trouble believing his words.
- And then we have a third type of deletionists, who decided that since it didn't have references in the article proving it was notable, that there was no reason to look for any, and it should just be deleted. Tragic really. I explained the situation.
- "The burden for the references wasn't around for many years of Wikipedia's history. No one went back and added references to prove notability to the hundreds of thousands of articles that didn't have them before."
Anyway, we really need to make certain people who just rampage around saying delete, without checking for resources, aren't allowed to keep participating in AFD, they just moving from one to the other posting delete often times. We should also not allow any article to be even considered for deletion that does not have at least a certain number of editors who say it should be. No time limit, just let them queue on up, and have at least five people agree it should be gone, and hopefully not just a gang from a WikiProject that make decisions on their own, and decide to rampage around destroying things as they see fit. If you have at least five people there who say delete, which most AFD do not, then it will be listed with the rest of the AFDs and then everyone can participate who things its worth the effort. That would eliminate most of the AFDs there are, saving time for those of us who actually want to help improve the Wikipedia, as opposed to mass destroying the majority of it without legitimate reason. Dream Focus 16:23, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Wikisource
Posted this over at my user page for Wikisource[, which is owned by the Wikipedia, allowing anything published before 1923 to be uploaded, along with plenty of other things. This includes full pornographic text! Trying to change the guidelines over there now. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/User:Dream_Focus
Donations a bit misleading
"Do you want to donate to something that adds to the educational qualify of life? Poor children can't get access to this any other way."
"They can afford a computer and internet access. That's way more expensive than a set of encyclopedia."
"Yes, but we're easier to find information through, and give far more information about worthy topics."
"What? I thought most of Wikipedia was just articles covering entertainment, comic book characters and popular cartoons."
"Yes, most articles are entertainment only. Among the educational ones, the sex articles are the most popular by far. We also preserve historical publications in Wikisource."
"Oh, that sounds nice."
"The most popular articles that people access are pornography. Would you like to make a donation to allow quick and free hosting for pornographic material? Think of all the poor children in oppressed countries that can't get access to this by any other means!"
Seriously. Seems like a reason for many nations to block access to Wikipedia or at least Wikisource entirely, some nations blocking access to any website that host porn in any form. Dream Focus (talk) 10:25, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
To educate and to entertain
The regular Wikipedia has:
- Things covering real life(notable people, events, locations, inventions, math, science, etc.)
- Things covering fictional entertainment media(comic book characters, anime, television episodes for a series, etc.)
Those who donate thinking they are helping with the educational part, having seen the pie chart stats showing that most people just access articles about anime, comic books, and sex articles. Don't remember where I saw the actual list at. http://stats.grok.se/ shows which articles got the most hits each month though. I don't see any summaries of year by year unfortunately.
Wikisource can be put into things that exist to educate people, and those that exist solely to entertain:
- Educational material(speeches of notable people, historic publications, textbooks out of copyright, etc)
- Entertainment, any out of copyright publications.
I have nothing against the entertainment aspects, as long as we don't use "free speech" as an excuse for anarchy. I'd like those who donate the Wikipedia to be able to decide whether they wish to support everything, or just certain things, what group of servers their money would go to buy and maintain. Have to put things on different machines for that purpose of course. Give them a list.
- Articles of of non-educational commercial products that come out, such as books(fiction), toys, video games, comic books, cartoons, movies, etc. so people can learn about this without having to see an ad banner to cover the cost.
- Articles of all educational things such as books(non-fiction), historical figures, noteworthy events, science, math, catalog of every species in existence, etc.
And those who support the entertainment things can decide whether or not this includes full text of pornographic stories on Wikisource. Dream Focus (talk) 10:45, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Yet another decent legitimate article destroyed by people whose I see as unreasonable
The article for Human suit was deleted [14]. Its a suit in which an alien wears, to pass as a human. Many popular movies mentioned, the official book for Men In Black II even calling it a human suit, as did various books and notable magazine and news references. Insanity really. It was mentioned in some Wikiproject or another, and everyone there rushed over to say delete, that's how these things go. Whenever you have a Wikiproject, it usually just has gangs of deletionists camping out there, convinced they are improving things by mass deleting articles. Wikiprojects always have a couple of editors that argue with everyone nonstop, and then hordes of people who just go in, and say delete, without looking for sources, reading the article, or thinking for themselves at all. Tragic really. Dream Focus 04:03, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Consensus can change
Whenever someone says "consensus can change", what they mean is, we couldn't get our way last time, but now there don't seem to be as many editors active here to notice and protest, so we're going to try it again. And if they don't get their way, they can always try again later on, and often do, never giving up until they get their way.
Normally you just get someone on a Wikiproject to spot a target, and others agree there, those things usually always attracting like minded people, and they all go together to back each other up, and vote the same way. "The four members of my Wikiproject have decided we hate all character pages, and want them all merged into one list. We will then take that list of characters and then chop it down to size, eliminating most of the content, because we also like our articles short and with as little information as possible that fans might actually want to read. Remember, Wikipedia isn't for the masses anymore. Its for the elitist, and if we don't like it, then it must be deleted. The AFD is just a formal ceremony, we always getting our way, and if we don't we'll just go to deletion review, and have the AFD closed the way we like. If necessary we'll just add a lot of tags, wait awhile, and then say hey, since no one bothers to take our tags seriously, that means no one is fixing the problems, so its alright to nominate it for deletion again!"
And of course whenever possible avoid all AFD together, and thus any chance someone might object to what you are doing, by just putting a redirect there and claiming it was "merged" even when not a single bit of information was copied over. You can also do speedy delete, or prod delete, allowing you to delete it with even fewer people noticing. And if it fails to be deleted by either of those two methods, then you can nominate it for AFD, and see how things go. Horrible system really. And lets not forget that the most dedicated deletionist help each other out by nominating hundreds of articles a month each, so there is no possible way to sort through the list and notice them all.
And to make it far less likely anyone will try to keep an article, they often go through and mass delete information from it, calling it trivia or fancruft, adding in their tags, and then after a time nominated it for deletion. This way anyone who passes by will look at the article, see there isn't much left, and claim it can easily just be merged with other things, or deleted outright. Dream Focus 11:04, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
An example of this happening in an AFD, is here [15] where an editor didn't get the results they wanted at the previous AFD, so decided to nominate the article again themselves months later, saying "consensus can change." My response to this was:
Consensus can change, means you didn't get the result you wanted, and are going to try again. You don't hope the people last time will show up again and change their minds, you instead hope that whatever random group appears in the AFD will this time agree with you. Don't delude yourself into thinking otherwise. Dream Focus 12:53, 5 February 2010 (UTC) Dream Focus 13:00, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
- I'm not sure that is a good arguement. My suggestion would be to contact all the editors of the previous AFD and get them back to see if consensus had actually changed or that the new AFD was getting consensus(or not) from a new group of editors. SunCreator (talk) 20:18, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
Restore all that was lost, in a new home
[16] Apparently there is a new script to mass copy everything, histories and all, with ease. Trying to see if that could be used to grab everything that was deleted, and put it on the Wikia, then let reasonable minded people sort through it. The only things that should ever be deleted, are hoaxes, spam, attack pages, and jibberish. Dream Focus 07:45, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Some are quite determined to delete
Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Human_disguise_(2nd_nomination) I just find that too amusing not to mention. Some are determined to destroy, what others are determined to save, refusing to give up until they get what they want. Dream Focus 02:08, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
United States of America
Why do we use the common name for a nation, instead of being more encyclopedic and forwarding this to the proper name United States of America? Google shows 18,600,000 results for "United Stages of America" and 58,000,000 results for "United States" "-United States of America"(Had it search for one, while eliminating all results that list the other). I find other nations are in articles named for what they are most commonly refered to by English speaking people. Mexico's official name is United Mexican States, and South Korea calls itself Republic of Korea. North Korea is surprisingly called Democratic People's Republic of Korea, despite the fact they are a communist dictatorship, not democratic at all since they don't choose their ruler. I think we should just drop the "United States" part, and officially rename our country "America", since we are called Americans after all. Dream Focus 00:23, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Another manga article saved without reliable sources
Common sense has prevailed! Since almost no one ever reviews manga, certain people use that as an excuse to nominate lots of them for deletion. They succeed more often than not, it all depending on whoever is around at the time to argue, and the opinions of the closing administrator. Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Salad_Days_(manga)This one was saved. So don't give up hope or let others bully you into not expressing your opinions. Dream Focus 17:03, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Deletionist can close an AFD hours after it starts, and delete without community input
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2009_November_25#Yu-Gi-Oh.21_The_Abridged_Series Sigh Another tragic day for Wikipedia and fair minded people everywhere. Dream Focus 01:49, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
- Notice how the 4th nomination for AFD [17] for the List of YouTube celebrities started out with some mindless delete votes. The nominator even asked someone to close it straight away as a snow delete, no sense wasting time letting others participate that might wish to keep it. [18]. But now, it seems the majority of people there to notice and think about it, have decided it should be kept. This is why articles must remain open for the full seven days, not closed simply because someone decided it wasn't notable. Dream Focus 01:22, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
Back from unintentional wiki-break
Late Christmas Eve night, a storm destroyed my router, and left me without internet for more than a week. All modems and routers being sold these days require an Ethernet port to work, and I don't recall mine ever having worked at all(they apparently break quite easily). So I had to order a converter to allow me to plug an Ethernet cable into a USB port, and all is well once again. The evening of January 4th, 2010, I was finally able to get back online again. That's 11 days without internet! Dream Focus 12:13, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Its all a popularity contest really
I'm glad there were enough people around to notice, and thus comment at the AFD for Characters and wildlife in Avatar. Articles like that are usually deleted without most people noticing, but when enough fair and reasonable minded show up to participate, you sometimes are able to save them. I'm sure months from now, some stubborn deletionist will start checking the page hits, and when the article isn't getting viewed as much, nominate it once again, stating that "consensus can change". That usually seems to be what happens. Dream Focus 12:13, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
- Interesting aspect about this article, was that a certain deletionist insisted there was consensus to eliminate the article with a redirect, trying to do that without giving time for people to comment. This was done on the talk page, and then in the AFD[19], the deletionist certain of their view that this article should not exist, and rather arrogant to anyone who didn't share her view. And yet, it was saved. Dream Focus 18:46, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Any disputed merge or redirect should go to the AFD immediately
If someone disagrees with a redirect/merge, both result in the loss of the article, it no longer there, then it should have to go to an AFD, without the edit warring back and forth, and nonstop arguing with people on the talk pages. If someone reverts your redirect even once, you should not be able to put it back there again. No ganging up on someone either. Once anyone reverts it, that's it, go to the AFD and handle things properly. No one should be able to instantly invalidate another editors opinions, and bully to get their way. Dream Focus 21:29, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
- You may like to checkout the background history on Alejandro (song) and variants (Alejandro (Lady Gaga song)/Alejandro (Lady Gaga Song)/Alejandro (Lady GaGa song)). This is an example of an article that got deleted and salted without article talk discussion or an AFD. The article(s) where created and redirect and recreated and redirected a number of times without any discussion. Even when it was obviously contensious from having four versions no discussion took place. An admin got well, how do I say it - encouraged - to salt the article effectively deleting it without any discussion and another variation of it. It was only cuz when I raised the issue and thankfully by the good judgement of an admin who backed down that some form of sanity returned. SunCreator (talk) 19:52, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Deletionist mentality forced upon the rest
Things some misguided editors seem to say at times:
- This is not a fansite! It doesn't matter if the content we are erasing is interesting to people, something someone might actually want to read, that isn't the point of the Wikipedia anymore. We want short boring articles that people will ignore. If they are interested in the topic, they can then go and find information elsewhere, such as one of the places that back up old Wikipedia articles before we pruned or deleted them.
- You shouldn't get emotional! Wikipedia is no longer suppose to be written by those who enjoy their work, and seeing the effort they put into it, but instead soulless machines that produce bland generic articles, that all look the same, and have only what is determined to be absolutely needed in them. Whenever possible, if something doesn't look like the article absolutely needs it, then destroy it without hesitation, emotion, or any thought at all!
- If you don't like it, then go somewhere else! It doesn't matter that nerds and fanboys like you made Wikipedia what it is, we've decided to come and take over and totally change things. Go rush off to Wikia instead, but we still want people to come visit us here on the Wikipedia, even though the articles we prune get far less hits since there isn't anything interesting to read anymore.
- It doesn't matter if a founding principle is to ignore all rules, and it clearly states Wikipedia is not a series of rules, and that the guideline pages are just suggestions to help people decide what should remain or not, not something that is actually a law. We have camped out on these pages, and altered them to be what we want, and even thought the overwhelming majority of Wikipedia editors never had a say in it at all, we will use them as excuses to mass destroy anything we do not like. And now that we have it written, if anyone tries to ever change it, enough of us will be around to object thus there being no possible chance of any consensus, thus they will remain forever!
- So, it seems we have failed in this AFD to delete the article. I'll say its fine, for now, but if the issues I raised, which no one apparently cared about since most everyone else said Keep, aren't fixed, I or a friend will just nominate it for deletion again, and keep trying every few months until we get it destroyed.
- Consensus change! Meaning different people around at the time to notice, will comment, and sometimes say something different, especially if you've had time to gather up allies on a Wikiproject page. By nominating vast numbers of articles for deletion each day, there is no way any of you troublesome inclusionists will notice everything, and no matter how many you manage to save at the moment, most will be deleted eventually anyway. We'll just keep trying until we get the group we want in the AFD, and a closing editor who believes in what we do. Dream Focus 12:51, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
Peter David does a good article on the deletionist problem
I uploaded a scan of the page with his permission at [20]. Email confirmation says he owns the right to the page, so that is perfectly acceptable. Its something of interest to see. Dream Focus 14:36, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
The unstoppable Michael Q Schmidt
Here is a list of 205 articles he took from crap status when someone sent them to the AFD and made into something wonderful. [21] Time and again you see him finding hordes of coverage when all others declared there was none, and bringing articles back from the brink of destruction. If he wasn't around, most of these might've been deleted. Many other articles are deleted each day, there not enough Michael Q Schmidt's around to save them all. Please join the Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron and you can help make a difference, or just look through the AFD list, or one of the Wikiproject deletion list, and see if you can find anything that might be worth saving. Sometimes all it takes is one person to ignore all the drive by delete spam, and click the Google news search up top. You can make a difference. Dream Focus 05:54, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
- At 316 now. Been a busy 11 months. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 07:18, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
Some people can't be reasoned with
[22] [23]I recall in the news awhile back how airport security had told a woman that the little plastic toy gun in a G.I. Joe toy she had purchased for her 7 year old, had to be seized, she not allowed to have it on the plane. Was there any chance someone would confuse the small toy for a real weapon, and thus the plane be hijacked? Had any 7 year olds run around with their toy army men and caused panic and mayhem aboard any planes? The women tried to reason with them, but to no avail.
A spokesman for security at LA airport said: "We have instructions to confiscate anything that looks like a weapon or a replica." Obviously the instruction was for anything that could be sincerely confused for a real weapon, not a tiny toy that comes with an action figure. Some people can not be reasoned with though, unable to use common sense and think for themselves, and will follow the rules exactly as stated. You see the same thing happening on Wikipedia all the time, and its just as frustating and ridiculous to those of us able to think for ourselves.
According to the human brain article, the frontal lobes are involved in executive functions such as self-control, planning, reasoning, and abstract thought. Yep. That sounds about right. Deficient in one area means deficiently in the others listed. Don't think for yourself, that's original research, and it doesn't matter how obvious it is to you, you must mindlessly follow your interpretation of the rules like the airport security guard did. Dream Focus 14:04, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
Notable toy characters
Whenever someone tries to delete or mass delete articles on toys, such as the recent attack on seven G.I. Joe characters at once [24], remember, all famous toys have coverage in books about famous toys for collectors. Just use Google book search as I did, to search for the name of the series, and then the name of the character. I had to add in the name of two characters to filter out the unrelated results. But I found two toy collectors books, listing all notable toys, listing those characters in it. Since Deletionists often don't like to think for themselves, its easier to get articles kept by finding third party references. Dream Focus 22:03, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Inclusionist and Deletionist, what's it all about
Inclusionist want a Wikipedia like we once had, where you can find detail articles about every fictional character, it interesting to read. If you don't like it, you aren't going to find it anyway, and it not hurting anyone, so no logical reason to bother it.
Deletionists want all of these articles removed, and those they can not erase, they shorten to eliminate anything someone might want to actually read, keeping it short, bland, and pointless. You have some people that go around to vast numbers of character articles, and replace them with a redirect, certain their will is right, and the opinions of others don't matter, even when the majority of people are against them, such as what happened with some of the Ultima articles. [25] They'll even gather up friends to try to vote the way they do. [26]
Others will just send things to AFD, and even if most of their nominations fail to get deleted, they'll still keep nominating a dozen more things each day. There is no way to save everything, or even notice that much traffic. No matter how much you save, far more will be eliminated, and its a constant struggle just to hang on to anything at all.
We need to just have one general vote, everyone participating, saying what should be allowed or not, and that'd be the end of it. Consensus means whoever is around at the time to notice and participate, and the opinions of the closing administrator. The guidelines are made to enforce the will of the deletionists, they ganging up and camping there, no decent number of people participating in those things, so no reasonable person could ever take them seriously. And many people have been driven away by the deletionists actions. These people are determined to do everything they can to destroy parts of Wikipedia they don't like, because they consider it fancruft. Some are even so bold as to say this. Its sickening really. Dream Focus 21:48, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
- Players of scrabble end up being inclusionists. Players of shoot-em-up video games, deletionists. Just a thought.--Epeefleche (talk) 20:56, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
- No, its mostly elitists who don't think anything is good enough for their standards, and their opinions matter but no one else's does. The work of dozens of editors is meaningless, if they can form consensus in a discussion somewhere few will notice, where three of them agree something should be changed. Dream Focus 21:07, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Example of common sense and consensus overriding notability guideline
This recent AFD [27] shows one person trying to convince everyone to delete something because of the notability guideline, and every single other editor there saying no, that was a guideline not policy, AFD was determined by consensus. And it was of course a snow keep. Dream Focus 00:15, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Sometimes species articles don't get notable coverage
- Unreasonable Deletionist: "This species isn't notable. No coverage in any media."
- Reasonable Inclusionist: "Its listed in books about that type of organism."
- Unreasonable Deletionist: "That isn't significant coverage. Its just briefly mentioned, there not much about it at all, so that doesn't count. Also, a lot of things written about the species are from the people who studied it, so that is just self published works of their own original research."
- Reasonable Inclusionist: "All species are notable and deserve coverage. This is an encyclopedia."
- Unreasonable Deletionist:"Notability is not inherited. You have to prove you are notable by getting mentioned on the news at least twice or being interesting and unique enough to get ample coverage in books not published by the researchers themselves or other people involved."
- Reasonable Inclusionist: Sigh. "Rescue Squadron away! Please help me reason with this person."
The Article Rescue Squadron, helping you deal with unreasonable people. Dream Focus 16:58, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
- Is this a cue for someone to post a dialogue with the characters of Reasonable Deletionist and Unreasonable Inclusionist? VernoWhitney (talk) 17:08, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
- If you want to do so on your own user page, go for it. I'd be interested to read it. Dream Focus 06:03, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
People who change their names
Apparently people can have their names changed now. When someone decides to do this, an automatic bot goes through everyone's talk page, and I assume any talk pages of articles they posted on as well, and changes it to their new name. It does not change their name in any AFDs they have participated in, nor the many administration discussions they were involved in. It seems like this could be misused by someone who wants to hide their past. They should make it so that if you search for someone's current name, to see what they've done in previous administration discussions and whatnot, it'll tell you what their old name was and search for that also, just to keep it fair. Dream Focus 08:52, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Censorship?
Right now I'm trying to reason with people on Jimbo Wales's talk page. I stated that all sexual images should have a category tag on them, which would allow censoring software people and sometimes countries choose to use, to easily pick up that material, and block it. So you can let your child look up information about dinosaurs or cartoon characters on the Wikipedia, read the educational material for all manner of things, without being able to look at anything you don't want them to see.
"Censorship!" they yell. "We have the right to expose your children to pornographic images anytime we like! They wouldn't find it if they weren't searching for it."
Well, yes, that is the problem. We don't want them finding it, even if they were looking for it. This would give parents the option of blocking it from their kids. It also prevents certain nations from blocking Wikipedia entirely to prevent certain images from being seen. Dream Focus 06:59, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
I would think it common sense, but alas, once again...
- [28]Fact: Having 15-20 million hits a month for a newsite, which is notable enough that many other major news sources quote from, apparently does not make you notable. You have to actually have someone specifically say "hey, that's site is notable, lets talk about it, instead of just quoting from them", otherwise it can not be allowed to exist. Sigh. You just can't reason with deletionists. Dream Focus 07:09, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
Wikia is now insanely popular!
http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Sarah_Manley/Spring_2010_Update
"According to Quantcast.com, over 33 million people around the globe now visit Wikia every month!"
"Since our last update, the Wikia community has grown to over 2 million registered users and more than 44,000 wikis have been created since December!"
Amazing isn't it folks? As the deletionists grow in power and destroy more articles, everyone is finding a new home for that fancruft in all its glory, and it just keeps on growing! When people search for something in Google, do they click on the link to Wikipedia, or to the Wikia now? Dream Focus 23:45, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
- Still Wikipedia. Unless they're after Dragon Age dialogue or a list of characters from Dragonball Z or how to find Eridian weapons in Borderlands. Which is pretty much how it should be; dedicated and separate sites for encyclopedic content and fancruft allows both encyclopedic content and fancruft to be adequately serviced by dedicated processes rather than being lumped awkwardly under a single system. - DustFormsWords (talk) 23:56, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
- I'm told there are now 115,000 Wikis total. And yeah, Wikia will get all the interesting stuff people actually want to read, while Wikipedia will be cut down to have brief bland token mentions of things, written in a way that no one finds interesting at all, and as few articles as possible. Dream Focus 00:53, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Its not encyclopedic even if it comes from a well respected encyclopedia? LOL!
- Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Lady is an interesting place this morning. Dream Focus 13:14, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
A good article explaining the problem with some unreasonable people
Confirmation bias Dream Focus 02:30, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
How is this not encyclopedic? I don't understand how some people think
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of battles by casualties Thankfully enough reasonable people were around to keep it, but there are two people who are determined to delete it. Strange world. Dream Focus 18:09, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
If one administrator closes something, another can then change it to delete
- Took the case to deletion review. [29] And apparently they ruled that it doesn't matter what an administrator closes an AFD as, any other administrator can come along a day later and change it to delete. If it was an article they liked, they would've protested, but all those who said this was fine didn't like the article anyway, that their reasoning. If they can change the rules to be what they want, they just ignore them entirely and do what they want anyway. Dream Focus 14:23, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Another typical day for the Rescue Squadron
- An editor commonly seen spamming "delete" on AFDs tagged for rescue, nominates an article for deletion, without bothering to do even the most basic Google news search for it(they have a button you can press at the top of the AFD and everything). (link removed, see below) Others originally said delete, not bothering to click the button and do a search themselves, but at least had the sense to scratch their votes out after references were found by others who spent the 5 seconds necessary to find them. That's why the Rescue Squadron exist folks. Preventing articles from being deleted by people too lazy to search for references themselves. Dream Focus 21:58, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
- While this is commonly something I see happening, the user in question has posted on my talk page that he just forgot to search Google news archive that day. I was discussing something I see all the time, not really going after just this one person. Their comments seen regularly in the AFDs do seem to be the same argument repeatedly though, and I have the freedom to say it looks like spamming to me. See active talk page discussion for more pointless Wikipedia drama. Dream Focus 02:32, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
- I have removed the link removed since it points to one editor. This sort of thing happens all the time though, I originally complaining about someone else in a previous User Page post on 21:52, 22 November 2008(see above). Dream Focus 17:24, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
The subject is notable, so no mass deleting content with that excuse
- Currently there is a guideline stating that you only have to prove the subject of the article is notable, not every single thing in it. Some are trying to push through an exception to list articles, so they can eliminate something they don't like. [30] Please participate in the discussion. Dream Focus 04:02, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
A horrible bit that keeps getting placed in policy and guideline pages
I see this added at times, it perhaps even sticking in some places since the only people that watch all of the pages are the ones most determined to change them to get what they want. "If there are no third-party reliable sources writing about a topic, then Wikipedia should not have an article on it." I just undid an edit that included this on the What Wikipedia is not page. [31] Horrible that all changes are done by very small numbers of people, and that these pages are constantly being edited and changed without most people realizing what's going on. As I said before, no changes should be done without a general vote, to gain proper consensus of all Wikipedia editors, or a decision made by the Wikimedia foundation, since they are the ones in charge of this. Dream Focus 21:53, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
Reasons not to try and destroy an article its first day out
No article ever starts off in its current condition. It takes time for it to grow. Many people unfortunately go around to new articles, and even if they are actively being worked on, try to delete them. A current example of this is Tiger vs lion. It may sound a bit ridiculous to those who only glance at an article's title and nothing more, but if you Google for the term you find over a million hits, which would indicate there might be something to it. One editor came in, and found ample historical mention of this, totally turning the article around. Just shows what can be done by those dedicated to improving articles, instead of trying to rampage around looking for things to destroy all the time. Which is why Inclusionist are good, and Deletionist are bad. ;) Dream Focus 20:59, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
First batch says delete, then wiser people arrive and overwhelmingly say keep
- Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List of Medical Eponyms Discouraged Because of Nazi Associations is a classic tale. Notice the first arrivals all say delete, for one ridiculous reason or another. Then after the Rescue Squadron gets involved, a wave of rational minded people arrive on the scene to keep it. Note it had references when it was nominated for deletion[32] One of those references even had a link which I clicked on, convincing me straight away, that this was something covered in various reliable sources. So it isn't a fringe theory, it has sources, of course its encyclopedic and the statement that it isn't makes no sense at all, and the list subject is valid so the current size of it wasn't relevant at all. Relatively new article, with room for expansion, someone doubling the number of things listed, and the sources alone indicate there are far more things that could be added(had anyone bothered to check the sources before trying to delete it). Dream Focus 03:22, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
Never flee from injustice, intolerance, or insanity. Reason must prevail.
- Found that on the talk page of an article I helped save a year ago. Tried to reason with some deletionists [33] but that never works. Fortunately enough reasonable minded people showed up in the AFD to prevent the senseless deletion of that article. Dream Focus 09:06, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
Not liking an article is not a reason to destroy it
- Lately I've been to various AFDs which have the same reoccuring theme. An article's subject gets ample coverage in the news as well as in books and sometimes in Google scholar results even. Clearly its notable enough to have an article on Wikipedia. But someone who doesn't like it, for one reason or another, tires to destroy it by total deletion, or "merge" which means taking a token amount to another article, and just deleting most of the information. Wikipedia exists for a total sum of human knowledge, not just what some people personally prefer. Dream Focus 17:02, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
Imperfect is the law
I have nominated an essay titled "Delete the junk" for deletion since it encourages people to ignore the policy of WP:IMPERFECT and delete things instead of trying to improve upon them. [34] Dream Focus 05:01, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
- It also violates the policies of WP:IMPERFECT, WP:IMPROVE, WP:ESSAYS, WP:NOT#ESSAY, and WP:BEFORE. It is important to remember that policies are laws that must be followed, while essays have no bearings whatsoever. If you see someone dismissing a policy and mentioning an essay in an AFD, please correct them on this. Dream Focus 11:50, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
- And it ended in keep, because the deletionists have taken over Wikipedia. Oh how I missed the good old days. So many articles that were around for years, since the start of Wikipedia even, constantly being wiped out by the Wikipedia's new intolerant masters. Plus the guy running things makes money through their destruction, since then people have to go to Wikia where the stuff is transferred too, and it he makes money from ad banners there. Dream Focus 13:19, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement
Linking to the where to find it, instead of filling up my userpage with it. [35] List and labels everytype of response people can give when arguing with someone. Dream Focus 13:59, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
Looking for science on Wikipedia? Sorry, only popular culture items here.
- Surprisingly List of families (biology) was deleted at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_families. Since this is a category that every single biologist in the world does use to classify things, and there are a very large number of articles on Wikipedia listing families, I would think having an easy to sort through list of all these families would be a valid list article. But, alas, a couple more people showed up to say delete than showed up to say keep, and it was lost this day. Dream Focus 13:22, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Racist categories or categories by race. Same thing
- "List of African Americans" between quotes on Wikipedia search finds 281 articles.[36] 281
- "List of Jewish" between quotes on Wikipedia search, shows 431 results.[37]
- "List of white" shows results, but the only two related to people are List of Africans of European ancestry and List of white nationalist organizations.[38]
- "List of Arabs" shows 426.[39]
Listing people by nation gives thousands of results in some cases.
Sometimes, as is happening again right now, people nominate these articles based on the race or religious category. As idiotic is it is to any reasonable minded person to group people in such a way, the news media and various books do mention this, and there even mainstream accepted awards ceremonies for people based on race. That's why I always say keep. Dream Focus 15:27, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
Articles for notable child rape cases
- I'd make an article for this[40], but I'm sure some deletionists would nominate it for deletion straight away whining that they were only notable for one event, and Wikipedia is not news. And with the current infestation of people with that mindset everywhere, it'd get deleted. Dream Focus 22:09, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
- I made a wikia that will allow this and other cases. http://rape.wikia.com/wiki/Rape_Wiki Over the next few days, I hope to have a lot of work done there. Dream Focus 23:40, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
- I'll only mention this in passing, because what you do off-wiki is your business... but... oh sweet Jeebers, that is such a terrible idea. The issues with "notable rape cases" go far beyond our BLP1E policy. Creating a wiki on these has the potential to create additional distress for victims, interfere in rehabilitation of offenders, attract all manner of creepy types who will edit in all manner of defamatory and offensive ways (causing further distress for victims), interfere with the cause of justice (in the case of ongoing matters or matters subject to appeal) and it's really hard to see what possible public interest, however trivial, is served by the thing existing. Journalists get training in how to report these things safely, and even then the articles are the most bland, detail-less things, and they don't have the additional problem of people on the street being able to come in and edit the article after they're finished. Please reconsider whether this is a good idea. - DustFormsWords (talk) 00:24, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
- I'm only mentioning the cases in which the victims came forward and agreed to use their names. In this case, they even let their images be used, and they have video of them giving interviews about their horrible ordeal. And it will be about every aspect of this horrible crime, including education, prevention, understanding, etc. Not just listing notable cases. I would never do anything to cause distress to the victim. I'll add that to top of the case listings to make sure no one adds anything where the victim did not give permission for their name and story to be used. [41] Dream Focus 01:13, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
- I'll only mention this in passing, because what you do off-wiki is your business... but... oh sweet Jeebers, that is such a terrible idea. The issues with "notable rape cases" go far beyond our BLP1E policy. Creating a wiki on these has the potential to create additional distress for victims, interfere in rehabilitation of offenders, attract all manner of creepy types who will edit in all manner of defamatory and offensive ways (causing further distress for victims), interfere with the cause of justice (in the case of ongoing matters or matters subject to appeal) and it's really hard to see what possible public interest, however trivial, is served by the thing existing. Journalists get training in how to report these things safely, and even then the articles are the most bland, detail-less things, and they don't have the additional problem of people on the street being able to come in and edit the article after they're finished. Please reconsider whether this is a good idea. - DustFormsWords (talk) 00:24, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
- "interfere in rehabilitation of offenders"? In America, those animals have their pictures and information about them and their crimes listed on government sex offender's list published online. And vandalism isn't a problem, since I plan on watching it, like I do the other wikis I run. Dream Focus 01:17, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
- -shrug- I don't agree with any of the above in the slightest, but I've got no business getting into an argument about your off-wiki activities so I'll simply sincerely wish you the best of luck in producing a useful site that doesn't encounter problems. If you want to talk about it further feel free to visit my talk page. - DustFormsWords (talk) 01:26, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
- "interfere in rehabilitation of offenders"? In America, those animals have their pictures and information about them and their crimes listed on government sex offender's list published online. And vandalism isn't a problem, since I plan on watching it, like I do the other wikis I run. Dream Focus 01:17, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
Fictional History of Spider-Man. Another great article deleted, after constant attempts to do so
I didn't even realize it as AFD again. Just saw on my watchlist it was gone. Remember, if you can't destroy something through merge, trimming, and speedy delete, just keep sending it to AFD every few months until the random bunch of people that notice and show up to comment see things your way. Its 4th nomination [42] ended in delete. Oh well. Can't have anything interesting and informative left on Wikipedia these days. We're not catering to people who actually read and enjoy articles, but instead... not sure who the Wikipedia is suppose to be for these days. Serious educational facilities and experts will never take it seriously, and 99% of everyone who actually comes here just reads things that interest them about popular culture in articles that are constantly getting deleted or "trimmed" of anything useful to read making them bland and pointless. Check the list of the most viewed Wikipedia article to confirm that. And the Marvel Comics Wikia is run by people who refuse to allow things to be imported over from Wikipedia, even if there is nothing but a blank space there where something could easily go. So articles like this have no place to put them in order to save them. A sad time indeed. Dream Focus 01:46, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
Secret page
Administrators have access to a page no one else can see at Special:UnwatchedPages. Many deletionists in the past have said they nominated articles that have the fewest people watching or recently working on them, since less people around to notice and argue. How many of these unwatched pages end up being nominated, and by the same few administrators? With so many AFDs going through each day, its hard to keep track. Dream Focus 14:00, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
Heroic reasonable editors against the negative hordes
Note: the following is a bit of humor. Just in case you didn't notice.
Once there was a great library which welcomed all, and was well loved by the common people. They'd go there to learn all sorts of things that interest them, anything and everything not only allowed but actually encouraged! They'd add to it the full sum of their knowledge, and were happy as can be.
Then one dark day the misguided editors stormed in, wearing the black robes of the inquisition, determined to destroy anything they did not like, and silence any who dared question their will.
"That's too long," one said ripping pages out of a book and destroying them without ever reading it.
"Its not well written," said another, and destroyed a book themselves.
"I've never heard of it, so it can't be important," said yet another who went to destroy things.
- "If you would do a simplest of search in the news, you'd find-"
But the deletionists would not listen, and only scoff. "Well, you should've referenced the proper sources to begin with," and continued to chose one book after another for destruction without ever looking for such things themselves.
"I don't like that sort of thing at all," said another and begin gathering up books to burn. If enough people were around to notice and protests, they'd sometimes manage to save some from this mindless destruction, but the destroyers would just keep finding new ones to toss on, and when they felt no one was about to notice take the ones that had been saved, and attempt to destroy them once more. They'd repeat this until they got their way.
"This isn't the sort of thing that us highbrows would like," said one. "People like us can't take this sort of thing seriously with all this garbage about."
- And they ganged up on any who did protest, dismissing them as fanboys and troublemakers do their best to silence them.
"What are you doing? You just eliminated the entire book!"
- "Bah. The only thing of importance is what important people said about the book, not the content of the book itself. Its much better this way. Nice and short with as little information as possible."
"What about those who want to read the actual article, and not just skim over it in a glance?"
- "We're helping!" the fool insisted, refusing to even consider the error of their ways, blocking out all attempts to reason with them with much bitterness.
The children of this town had many interesting pets they kept, a great variety to be had and shown to all. But this was not to the liking of the deletionists. The children cried as the black robed terrors road over and trampled their animals, killing all but a small few that just barely managed to escape. Then they gathered up their corpses, merged them altogether, and said tauntingly "see? We didn't destroy them? We just merged them together. Sure, most of their meat is gone, but you can still see their faces. Not that anyone would ever want to look upon them now!"
"See? We didn't destroy all those books, we just merged them together to one book. You should compromise."
- "This one book has nothing but a list of titles of the old ones. You destroyed 99.9% of everything!"
"It was all cruff anyway."
- "And how do you determine that?"
"If I don't like it, its cruff, garbage to be eliminated. Obviously that's the best method."
- "That doesn't make any sense!" the Inclusionists said.
"I'm helping!" the fool insisted, and went about seeing what other destruction they could wrought.
"Every day I help the library by destroying as many books I don't like. That way, should anyone ever come in and randomly pick a book off the shelf, they'll be far more likely to get one I find acceptable."
- "Does anyone ever actually do that? Surely they look around and only find things they search for."
"Pef. Doesn't matter. A library that allows anything, will fill with things the common folk like, but the snotty elitist like me don't, and we certainly can't have that."
Originally the people were able to band together and drive away those that would seek to bring only destruction and misery. Then one day an organized cabal of deletionists did appear, and begin writing up guidelines, to give them excuse to eliminate things they didn't like. Fortunately not a single person took these things seriously, and utterly ignored them. But alas, as time went by, things began to change, and in each battle more and more people began quoting these deletionist guidelines and using that as an excuse to destroy ever more articles.
And any guidelines that were written to preserve things that they didn't like, they'd eliminate entirely.
And many great battles were waged time and again, the results varying each time, even if the fight was over the exact same thing, based on who bothered to show up and participate at the time.
"If the book sold millions of copies, isn't it notable enough to be here?"
- "Those are just big numbers. They don't mean a thing. If it isn't well thought of by the few people that bother to review books, then its not notable to us elitist snobs, and therefore can not be tolerated."
And to this day, the constant struggle against mindless destruction continues. Dream Focus 04:05, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
- This should be made into a separate page that I can link to like I can with WP:IAD. I really like it! Suggested Title: The Great Library. Maybe fit in a sentence like "it was a magical library where the shelves could hold any number of books without running out of room." Guy Macon (talk) 16:13, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
- No, then someone would nominate it for deletion, repeatedly, until finally the random people that showed up to comment said things their way, and they got rid of it. Dream Focus 23:28, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
- This should be made into a separate page that I can link to like I can with WP:IAD. I really like it! Suggested Title: The Great Library. Maybe fit in a sentence like "it was a magical library where the shelves could hold any number of books without running out of room." Guy Macon (talk) 16:13, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
A polite way to handle new user's mistakes
- A new user creates an article, which gets nominated for deletion right away, with people in the AFD saying to "nuke" it, and other bits of rudeness. As I often do in such cases, I commented on the talk page of the new user to explain things in a polite and proper manner User_talk:Azizagdam#Hello.21_Welcome_to_Wikipedia._Comments_about_your_new_article._Simple_mistake.2C_no_big_deal Dream Focus 15:17, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
Help eliminate new articles made by mistake
- There is a proposal to stop new editors from making any articles at all. I have a better solution I posted at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Proposal_to_require_autoconfirmed_status_in_order_to_create_articles#View_from_User:Dream_Focus to simply make certain they know to have references in them, and check for refs being used before allowing a new article to be created. Most people who make articles that don't meet the current Wikipedia standards do so by accident, not deliberately trying to sneak something by. This eliminates those problems. Please sign in if you agree with this proposal. Dream Focus 02:48, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
Internet problems
I went more than 24 hours without being able to get online! As horrifying as that sounds, there have been times where for even longer periods of time, the internet has been denied to me! I'm certain if I was ever gone an entire week the Wikipedia would stop functioning altogether, and the internet itself would simple far apart plunging the entire world into utter chaos. Dream Focus 15:21, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
- Went several days without internet access. Now I have it for a few minutes at a time, then have to reset the computer to make it work again. So if I don't respond to something on my talk page right away, you know why. Dream Focus 11:38, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
An article I created is featured on the main page of the Wikipedia
Titanomyrma is now on the front page. Dream Focus 19:50, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
May take a break from Wikipedia do to constant internet access problems
My new modem AT&T sent me worked yesterday for less than half an hour, and I couldn't get the internet working again until just now. Not sure how long it'll last. Been having problems staying online for any length of time for awhile now. Dream Focus 22:58, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
- Hit F2 while restarting computer, edited BIOS to "Enable" two Nvidia LAN settings that were set to "disable", and ethernet works fine now. So I'm back. Dream Focus 01:38, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
Gold record for three thousand albums sold, makes you notable! Bestselling novels are not!
- Something funny I came across a few months back. [43] An album can be notable simply because it sold three thousand copies! But a bestselling novel isn't no matter how many copies it sells. This comes up at Wikipedia talk:Notability (people) from time to time. Dream Focus 22:23, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
Secondary guidelines now meaningless
That has been a bit of insanity in recent AFDs that the secondary guidelines mean nothing, and that only the GNG matter. Even those in deletion review seem to support this. Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2011_July_19#Ellen_Kennedy Massive article destruction seems imminent. Be very afraid. Dream Focus 00:23, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
- There is now a discussion on this at the notability talk page. [44] Everyone thus far is against it. Good. Hope for Wikipedia yet. Also, a few minutes ago when I logged in, and lasting for a bit, every single page on the Wikipedia loaded up in a different manner, before someone reset whatever test they were doing. Strange. Dream Focus 20:54, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia articles copied all over the internet, without proofreading
If you Google for "negopentisations" [45] you will find 178 results. Until a few weeks ago when I saw and fixed it, this was in the article Opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. I changed it to "negotiations" fixing what was either vandalism or a very horrid spelling error.[46] I checked first to make certain that wasn't some word I had never heard before, and found all these sites had duplicated that Wikipedia article. Dream Focus 15:00, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
Wikipolitics
- Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2011_September_13 List of African American women was deleted by "consensus" of people giving invalid reasons to delete a list. Deletion review had some reasonable people agreeing with me, and alas, some arguing that the closing administrator did nothing wrong by simply looking at the numbers. Dream Focus 22:26, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Making a billion dollar game doesn't make you notable.
Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Akira_Nishitani closed as delete. He co-designed Street Fighter II. "In 1993, sales of Street Fighter II exceeded $1.5 billion in revenue[3] and the Super NES port was Capcom's best-selling consumer game of all time." When two guys get together and make a game that makes over a billion dollars in a year, I assume that makes them both notable. But no. That and the other hit games he has worked on, doesn't count towards notability at all. Meanwhile if someone called up some obscure magazine and asked to be interviewed, and needing some filler they did so, he'd get an article even without a single hit game at all. Wikipedia works in strange and tragic ways. Dream Focus 23:52, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
- Happened again at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Kevin_Martens. Co-creator of a game that sold 30 million copies, doesn't matter, many reliable sources interviewing a guy about his work, but not writing articles about his personal life, political views, or whatnot, so that article is gone. Dream Focus 12:37, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
The most wicked tool in all of Wikipedia
- Twinkle is the root of all evil. It allows people to easily tag something for speed deletion, prod for deletion, or nominated it for deletion, as well as add in any of the many useless maintenance tags with incredible ease. Used by people who go around mass tagging things without a second thought. Dream Focus 10:21, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
- I share your concerns with easy deletion tags, but I use Twinkle all the time for tags suggesting improvements in articles that I do not have the time or knowledge to do myself. At over 58,000 edits, I do contribute a great deal, as I have time and knowledge to do so. --DThomsen8 (talk) 17:50, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Common sense
Common sense means agreeing with anyone who thinks the way you do, while dismissing everyone else's viewpoint as ridiculous. Something that I came up with while discussing the Santa Ana winds. [47] Dream Focus 01:58, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Article Rescue Squadron destroyed!
The deletionist have finally had their way. The Article Rescue Squadron has had its template destroyed. We were forever an inconvenient to them, as they tried to reshape the Wikipedia to how they felt it should be, by mass destroying everything they personally didn't like decided shouldn't be in Wikipedia. I don't believe they are all bad of course, I just question the direction they have decided to take. It matters not though. No matter how many articles we saved, another hundred or so are destroyed each day.[48] No telling how many of them were valid articles, and just needed someone with an open mind, and the will to actually look for sources before deciding to so casually destroy what others had labored to create. Dream Focus 07:27, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Apparently its alright to insult someone's work
- Asking people to use the word "stuff" instead of "crap" apparently isn't well received. [49] They can insult someone's work, calling it "crap" with the WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS link instead of using the far more civil one WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. But if someone were to call these actions of these rude editors "crap", for crapping on other editors' work, and making them feel crappy, those supporting the right to call articles crap would be complaining about someone calling something they did crap. Bah, whatever. A rather crappy situation. Dream Focus 00:41, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
Far less time to spend on Wikipedia
Been busy with something lately and now I think it'll occupy most of my time. So if you post somewhere and I don't respond the same day, probably because I'm busy elsewhere. Dream Focus 15:27, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
How to make it so when someone edits a page they get a message and a picture
If you add /Editnotice behind the address in your address bar, for any page at all, and add the necessary code to it, then whenever someone edits that page, they will see that message. You can do it to my talk page to see how to do everything. Dream Focus 13:14, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
Website that gets 180 million page views per month isn't notable enough for Wikipedia article
The AFD for Justin Bieber on Twitter ended with "delete". I would think any website that got 180 million views a month would be notable, it getting coverage for this even. But whatever. Its at deletion review now. [50] Dream Focus 01:28, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
If enough people visit an article to notice its at AFD, more likely it'll be kept
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michelle Jenneke has a few trying to delete, and a far larger number saying to keep. It has been viewed 172,984 times so far in less than 12 days. Other perfectly valid articles that have far fewer people notice them and comment, get deleted all the time. Dream Focus 09:34, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
How many Wikipedians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Wikipedia:How many Wikipedians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? So very true. Dream Focus 00:08, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
Success story
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lunar Magic (3rd nomination) is a good example of an article being rescued. It had been deleted twice before, and everyone showing up thus far said it should be deleted again. Google news search doesn't show everything. Different Wikiprojects thus have custom searches that look through every website they determined was a reliable source for their wikiproject. Using that I was able to look through things, and eventually find enough coverage to prove the article's subject was notable, two people who were against the article before now saying to keep it. Look at the state of the article before and after. It really has been improved. Remember, when you see "This debate has been included in the list of video game-related deletion discussions", or other tags, check the RS link to search for reliable sources for that particular type of article. Dream Focus 13:44, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia can give you seizures. But its alright, there is a vague disclaimer somewhere almost no one ever reads, so we're not responsible if your children get hurt
Seriously folks. Wikipedia:Files_for_deletion/2013_August_4#File:Denno.ogg Nothing more I can say about that. Dream Focus 18:02, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
Double standard
Someone who votes DELETE in an AFD that ended in KEEP, can renominate the same article for deletion later on, or get someone else to do it for them, then show up and try to delete it time and again. Meanwhile someone who voted KEEP in an AFD that ended in DELETE, can not just recreate the article and start the discussion over again. If you want to recreate an article you have to show something has changed since the last deletion discussion to warrant it. But if you want to delete an article that previously survived one or more AFDs, you don't have to show anything has changed, you can just keep on having the same exact discussion time and time again. Dream Focus 14:02, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
GA nonsense
Wikipedia:Good_article_statistics says out of 4,413,000 Wikipedia articles only 19,045 have GA rating! So for those few who are into this pointless rating system, remember, over 99% of Wikipedia articles don't have that, so most people won't ever notice it at all. Dream Focus 17:59, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
- To clarify, a lack of a GA status does not mean anything at all. It is not an excuse to eliminate an article. Also, you shouldn't just delete entire sections of an article because you want to bring it up to GA status and its easier to just eliminate content instead of rewriting it proper. Dream Focus 21:23, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
How to save an article even when others are all against it
Talk:Sega_Genesis/Archive_22#Menacer_merge shows how I had to argue with just about everyone, to make my case. I found some references and kept the game list from being removed, and did some work on the article, but most of it was done by Czar once he was convinced it was worth his time, he bringing it to the status of a featured article and got featured on the Wikipedia main page in the Did you know section. Notice that Czar was originally the nominator for the merge, but 23 days after the discussion began, he changed his mind, sources being found. Another editor argued constantly with me nonstop during this time period, before finally just giving up and leaving the discussion. Some are just too eager to destroy things without reason. Don't be discouraged by one obsessed person who are determined to have their way. You see cases of that all over the place. Dream Focus 18:40, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
Not around as much
Been spending increase amounts of time editing the Wikia, and other things. For years not one day went by I didn't do some edits on Wikipedia, and now I can go a whole week without doing anything here at all. Post on my talk page if you really need to, not here on my user page of course. Sometimes people get confused. The golden age of the Wikipedia is long since gone, and no way to get it back. So many great articles deleted or just gutted of any interesting "fancruft", to make them as sterile and boring as possible so no one wants to read them anymore. Still some good stuff to be found, but not nearly as much as there was when I first started. Dream Focus 00:09, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
How it should be done
Seed-counting machine was nominated for deletion, and marked for help at the Rescue Squadron by Andrew. I, Lightburst, and 7&6=thirteen went and helped him work on it. The article's nominator, Platonk, also did some work on it. Discussions in the AFD happened on how to make improvements, no one just showing up to spam delete because of its condition at the time. The nominator then withdrew the nomination praising the "wonderful effort and a great result" of the work done on the article in the past 24 hours. I wish I had a list of how many times we've done things like this, but alas, never thought to make one. For years now this has happened. Dream Focus 20:02, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Signpost interview
Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-03-05/WikiProject_report. I had forgotten about this. I was once interviews on Wikipedia about the Article Rescue Squadron. Dream Focus 00:22, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
Sometimes people just need to see others smiling happily around them to be happy. Or freak out because its just their head! An evil clown made people smile, then took their heads and dyed them yellow. Dream Focus 18:35, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
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๐ is actually a redirect to a truck article. You can also put ๐ in an edit summary, I just saw someone else did that. Dream Focus 20:25, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
People linking to guidelines and an essay without actually reading what they say
Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Kelly_Metzger is a fine example of people linking to guidelines and even an essay, without actually reading any of them, making invalid reasons to try to delete an article. Dream Focus 12:16, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
Self made billionaire not notable
You can start your own company, named after yourself, and become a billionaire, but you still are not notable enough to have a Wikipededia article. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Greg Flynn (businessman) Accomplishments don't matter, only coverage. Someone far less successful can talk to the news media, giving them content to toss out, or can buy advertisements in a newspaper, and get coverage. Dream Focus 11:18, 16 May 2024 (UTC)