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Phil Janes deletion

Hi, I see that article on Phil Janes was deleted by you, I also found a note that it was apparently a vanity article. It wasn't. It was about the author: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Galaxy-Game-Phil-Janes/dp/1857981502 Please consider for un-deletion Dreamcatcher23 12:48, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

As the article was deleted using our simple proposed deletion process, I have undeleted it at your request. The current article is a bit weak, but for a SF author published by Victor Gollancz Ltd I guess it must be possible to cite at least some reviews of his books. Please try to expand the article. Happy editing, Kusma (talk) 16:04, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much. Will continue to expand the article using what information is available, thought it better to have something than nothing though!! Dreamcatcher23 18:25, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Image:S22trailershot.jpg

Aren't these images supposed to have 48 hours to meet compliance standards? I don't think 2 is 48. I didn't immediately list these as GFDL because I didn't fully explain GFDL to the image owner when he gave permission to use the image and I thought I should. In fact I was working on adding the fair use rational when this image was deleted. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Aspenocean (talk • contribs) 07:03, 5 May 2007 (UTC).

Wikipedia does not accept "fair use" of images where a free alternative could be created, see the Non-free content criteria. As Wikipedia has many reusers and we want it to be legal to print our articles or to make a DVD version, we can't accept "for Wikipedia only" images. The image you uploaded had the message Permission from license selector; please ensure that the image complies with our regulations before you upload it again. Thank you, Kusma (talk) 07:36, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Didn't really address the question, and I am used to getting stock answers. When I find a free alternative I'll put it up. I'll just have to realize that some of "our" regulations are "our" regulations and some are not. Thanks anyway. Aspenocean 09:49, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

May 2007 edition of the WikiProject Germany newsletter

The Germany WikiProject Newsletter Issue I - May 2007
From the editor This is the first issue of WikiProject Germany's newsletter. The newsletter is intended to help all members of the project to keep up with new developments and coordinate new collaborative efforts.	Other areas where you can help Assessment requests: Some open Requests for assessment need to be answered. To see new assessment requests as they come in, you can watchlist the assessment page. More task forces and subprojects: As this WikiProject covers a very large topic area, it is helpful to add more task forces that focus on specific aspects of Germany. Currently, we have a Mainz task force, a Munich subproject and some joint task forces with other WikiProjects. Any project member is invited to start a new task force. Suggestions for possible topics: Transportation in Germany German politics (the political system of Germany and the biographies of its politicians) German Democratic Republic Be creative! If you have an idea, just suggest it on the project talk page (don't forget to watchlist it). Categorization: Uncategorized Germany stubs need to be categorized
Project news Criteria for B-Class status: The assessment criteria for B-Class have been changed. {{WikiProject Germany}} template now has 5 switches, B-Class-1 through B-Class-5 that correspond to 5 easily checked criteria that an article should meet to be assessed as B-Class. The advantage of this system is that now there is a clear boundary between Start-Class and B-Class articles. Authors of articles that were assessed as Start-Class now get more direct feedback what they should improve to attain a B-Class rating. All of our B-Class, Start-Class and Stub-Class articles now need to be checked whether they meet any of the B-Class criteria. This is a major effort, and we need your help! If you want to help, but don't know how, please post at the project talkpage. Cities and municipalities task force A task force dedicated to creating and improving articles on all German cities and municipalities has been started and is looking for help.

This newsletter was delivered by Kusma using AWB to all members of WikiProject Germany. If you do not want to receive this newsletter in the future, please leave a note at the talk page of the Outreach department so we can come up with a better spamlist solution. Thank you, Kusma 11:59, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

please help

Hi! I've found you in the recent changes page. It was quite hard to find an active admin. I want to post a wiki-criticism at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), for a "debate starter", but it is continously deleted by user:One Night In Hackney, if I'm right. You're an admin, please take action! --91.120.98.165 11:34, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

What you post there is not criticism, but a rant. Probably One Night In Hackney deletes it because it contains a blogger link, which looks like you are spamming for your blog. Anyway, I don't see how your contribution would lead to healthy discussion of the problems you see. Can you try to post it without a blogger link and in more concise form? Kusma (talk) 11:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

It's just a link to a pic, wich is not in my blog, I've just found it. Funny pic indeed. I've just complaining about how seriously these policies are taken... --91.120.98.165 11:48, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes the policies are ignored (people can edit the wiki without reading them, after all), sometimes they're used wrongly. Nevertheless, a lot of articles are quite good and useful. If you have ideas how to better implement our policies, please post them. We all know that an encyclopedia that anyone can edit is theoretically impossible, but we still try. Kusma (talk) 12:00, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps some history would be helpful here. First reverted by someone else days ago, then I reverted it. This editor was spamming all over the place. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 12:14, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, the link does not go to a blog, but to a Wikipedia-critical image. Reverting the contributions as non-productive ranting on a page that is meant for productive policy discussion is fine, but the edit summary "rv spam - take your blog elsewhere please" does not quite indicate that. Kusma (talk) 12:18, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I never click dubious external links, I just saw the http://bp0.blogger.com/ prefix and knew there would be little of merit, and also the edit summary of "Wikipedia knows all the answers, but most of them are wrong" which was the same one that was being used days ago. All I've seen from this editor is various rants posted in more than one place, and I was only following the example of another editor, possibly misguided though it may have been. One Night In Hackney₃₀₃ 12:24, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

You see? Another policy misused, again, this time by One Night in Hackney, so it is an absolutely adequate and on-the-top question. I've rewritten and reposted, though. --91.120.98.165 12:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Theodor Heuss Bridge

I realised the bridge referred to in List of largest cable-stayed bridges had nothing to do with the one depicted in //en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theodor_Heuss_Bridge&oldid=123577809. Noting that there was a German interlanguage link I found about the various bridges with this name one after the other by searching de: and structurae.

Thus I know nothing about these bridges originally and most of my contributions to this page are shamelessly lifted from de wiki (& translated through [1]). Though my edit summaries might serve the purpose of linking to the history of the translated text, it would be great if there is a template to say "This article or a previous version is based on an article in the German Wikipedia."

Hence it doesn't matter who splits the page, except that for fulfilling the GFDL requirements of maintaining the history of the text, the edit summary for creating new pages should link to the original page.

I didn't split the page yet since I didn't know if any of the bridges are non-notable for the English Wikipedia (AFAICT German Wikipedia might have different notability norms) and whether any of them should be the "primary topic" (i.e. located under the current title). However, I tried to keep the description of each bridge separate so as to be "split-friendly" and "removal-friendly". -- Paddu 20:12, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I think they're notable enough; and even if they end up merged, they should be merged to a list of Rhine bridges or a list of bridges in that particular city, not a list of bridges named for Theodor Heuss. Kusma (talk) 10:59, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Germany/Members

You added the original userbox to the article WikiProject Germany/Members. When I tried to use this box on my user page, it did not work. So I created a second userbox. Now You made the original box working again. If You want to do so, feel free to remove mine. There is no need for two boxes. Thw1309 23:10, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

If they look different enough, it might be fine. (Like you could have one with the flag and one with a map or the coat of arms). I don't really care, use and edit them as you like. Kusma (talk) 11:00, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

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User:Certified.Gangsta

Hello, I just wanted to call your attention to Certified.Gangsta, who is in violation of the recent decision of the ArbCom Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Certified.Gangsta-Ideogram. Certified.Gangsta (talk · contribs) has been placed on a revert parole by the Arbitration Committee. The final decision in his case is here: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Certified.Gangsta-Ideogram#Certified.Gangsta_placed_on_revert_parole.

Here are the diffs:

Political status of Taiwan: [2][3]

Republic of China: [4] [5]

List of Chinese Americans: [6] [7]

He reverted the Political status of Taiwan article: [8] [9], and made no use of talk page, which is a violation of his parole. Also, he was recently blocked for violation of his revert parole[10]. Could you please enforce this violations of parole. Thanks very much. LionheartX 19:53, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I was offline, and Sean William did this already. If you need administrative assistance in such matters in the future, it is probably easiest to use Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement (and if that page is slow, drop a note at WP:ANI). Kusma (talk) 11:02, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Katholische Academische Verbindung Lovania Leuven‎

You are an eperianced User of Wikipedia. Perhaps you could help me with a problem. I added a infobox to the page Katholische Akademische Verbindung Lovania Leuven. Now, the infobox was removed User: Stijn Calle wrote: "Sorry, I appreciate the effort, but these info boxes are very ugly and totally unnecessary for an encyclopedic entry" I do not have a problem concerning this single infobox, if he does not want it on "his" article that´s ok, but I would like to know the politics of wikipedia on infoboxes. Is there any general problem with infoboxes. Then I will stop producing them. For me an infobox is a wonderfull possibility of fast basic information in case of a long article. Thank you for your help. I appreciate your work on project Germany. Thw1309 15:59, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

There is no general consensus on infoboxes. For certain classes of articles (cities, countries, albums, US Presidents) we always use infoboxes. Those standard infoboxes are usually templates that are called with parameters, not handmade tables like the one you added to the fraternity entry. For other classes of articles, standard infoboxes exist but are not generally used ({{Infobox Biography}} and its derivatives are the classic examples: some people love it, others hate it; I belong to those people who don't like reducing a person's life to an infobox). In general it is best to try to have infoboxes as generic as possible, and not to interfere with anti-infobox editors too much unless you have a solid WikiProject or other large consensus that the page belongs to a class of pages that should have an infobox. Incidentally, fraternities should probably use one of the organization-related templates like {{Infobox Organization}} if they use an infobox at all. Hope this unclear answer didn't confuse you further, Kusma (talk) 16:09, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

IRC cloak request

I am Kusma on freenode and I would like the cloak wikipedia/Kusma. Thanks. --Kusma (talk) 19:38, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Aid for Africa

Thanks for deleting the attack page. Do you think it's worth blocking the user Aid for Africa (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) as well? Orpheus 07:11, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

It's probably pointless. His last edit was a year and a half ago; if he comes back and hasn't changed, we can block him. If he comes back and has changed, good for him. If he doesn't come back, there's no point in blocking anyway. Kusma (talk) 07:13, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the username display

I thought the wiki username was not case sensitive. Do you think there is an issue in Sreejith.kumar being Sreejith.Kumar also? Afterall, wiki allows a change there, right? Please enlighten me... Sreejith Kumar 09:57, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

The username is case sensitive except for the first character. If you would prefer the username "Sreejith.Kumar", please file a request at Wikipedia:Changing username and you'll most probably get the capitalization fixed by a bureaucrat. Happy editing, Kusma (talk) 09:59, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! Sreejith Kumar 10:02, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah!

Thanks for catching Levinson! My mistake marking that for deletion along with the others. shoeofdeath 06:22, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

No problem -- thanks to you for working on this! Kusma (talk) 06:24, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

He's still going! I can't believe it! He seems to be coming back about every month or so now. We have been making a considerable amount of progress lately and he has obviously taken notice - usually he will just revert around 15 or so edits and then leave, lately it has been much more. We also found a few more sockpuppets (see suspected) that he hasn't used in awhile and when you have time you might want to block them just to be safe. Anyway we (me and User:Sgeureka, currently) are almost done going through the surname pages and will soon be moving on to the other pages he created. I still do not think he knows what is going on. shoeofdeath 07:55, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I saw MizziSzabo him this morning and have reverted / deleted most of his edits (will do the rest now). I think it is a good idea to watch Special:Recentchangeslinked/Wikipedia:SU and also some of the Recentchangeslinked's for SU's user sandbox subpages to find any future socks. I'll have a look at any non-blocked user in the sock category. Thank you for your help, Kusma (talk) 08:52, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Stratford high (connecticut)

Ive been on wikipedia for about a year now, i may have not created an account untill about a month ago or so, but ive been here. Since ive been on i have never saw an article on Stratford High. What i wrote was not an attack on the school. I had typed The post prior and showed it to several hundred of my friends who attend there. They have agreed that

A.) it is humorous...

B.) It is a fairly accurate representation on the teachers, No names were mentiond either...

C.) There had been a racial Gang issue that had been recently diminished...

D.) Its is a poor budgeted school, the students and staff would agree to it. Thus why Some teachers could care less there....

E.) I had a brother who graduated in 1992, and i quote "The place is like a prison in a way. There is no security, the security that is there does not care. There are drug deals between every period, and I had to fight everyday in school. The list goes on, im glad i got out of there." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by R3dsand (talk • contribs) 15:42, 11 May 2007 (UTC).

Humorous articles about your high school have no place in an encyclopedia. If you want to write about your high school, please write a verifiable article using reliable sources and make sure it conforms to our neutrality standards. Kusma (talk) 15:46, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

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Article on Lauterbach

As a resident and a long-term member of the community council of Lauterbach I would like to know what referencing I have to give. I intend to expand the articles on our neighbouring municipalities retrieving information from the mayors and their assistants. How do I handle this in the referencing section? Where do I find additional information on the structure of such articles. Thank you. Hans555 _talk--10:54, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Semi-protection of GM food declined

You wrote [11] "This is a case for stable versions". What does stable versions mean?

You also wrote "these are pretty standard amounts of vandalism"

well this might be a standard rate of vandalism on pages that are requested for protection. But it is not the same rate of vandalism on a random page eg Precautionary principle[12]. This page has had 3 or 4 IP address edits in the last 50 - none vandalism. One vandalism event a day is extremely high vandalism if you measure it relative to a page like Precautionary Principle. On

I decided to an analysis on a truly random page - I hit the random article button and the first page was Tetrahedron. I looked at its edit history over the last 50 edits [13] Looking only at the IP address edits I find the following.

9 IP vandalism events and 8 productive edits from IP addresses. So on this random page 47% of the IP address edits are productive.

Details of the analysis on Tetrahedron

[14] - vandalism 16:01, 14 May 2007

[15] - vandalism 18:13, 22 April 2007

[16] - vandalism 06:38, 6 April 2007

[17] - vandalism 02:46, 4 April 2007

[18] - vandalism 3 edits ending 02:37, 4 April 2007

[19] - vandalism 14:39, 7 March 2007. Particularly pernicious bit of vandalism actually - changing one number in mathematical formula.

[20] - vandalsim but then undone by the same user so I don't count this in either productive or vandalsim list.

[21] - vandalism 00:49, 30 January 2007

Productive edits

[22] - productive 07:31, 15 May 2007

[23] - productive 10:58, 30 April 2007

[24] - productive 18:13, 31 March 2007

[25] - productive 00:47, 28 March 2007

[26] - probably good faith 10:10, 8 March 2007

[27] - productive 20:40, 24 February 2007

[28] - produtive 01:09, 23 January 2007

So on two random pages we have 100% and 47% of the IP address edits being productive. Whereas on Genetically_modified_food the fraction of productive IP edits is 6%. ( See here for analysis)

Another page that was up for semi-protection (not by me) but declined [29] was 1992. Looking at this diff that covers the last 50 edits one can see that there is a max of 6 productive edits - every other change to this page has been reverted as vandalism. Looking in further detail on this page there are 26 IP address edits in the last 50 and 4 ([30], [31],[32],[33]) of them are productive. IE only 15% of the edits by IP addresses on this page are productive.

But still policy was "decline because not enough vandalism activity" [34]

Another page I requested for semi-protection was Genetically modified organism and protection was initially denied [35] because of insufficient activity.

However, analysis of the history showed that on of the 38 edits between 11 May and 2 may 2007, 21 IP address edits are vandalism. 4 IP edits are productive edits - but are only reverting other vandalism. There are 13 edits from registered users and all are to revert vandalism. So 84% of IP edits are vandalism - 16% productive . 0% of the edits from registered users are vandalism and over a period of 9 days absolutely nothing productive happened on this page.(See here for analysis)

I see a problem here. If you only look at pages that come up for request for protection then you get false idea about what is high levels of vandalism and what is low.

I also fail to see why the rate of vandalism is determined on a per unit time basis. It should be determined on a per unit edit basis. It does not matter if 10 vandalism edits arrive on a page in one day or over 10 days, if, in both cases, they are mixed in with 2 (say) productive edits. It is just as much work to find the vandalism and undo the edits.

I have had requests for protection of Genetically modified organism originally declined and then granted with a similar sort of vandalism pattern. I really think that we need some sort of objective criteria for deciding if a page deserves semi-protection or not because enforcement at the momement seems quite arbritrary.

I am not the only editor who feels this way - see TK421 comments here [36]

BTW I am not picking on you in particular in this matter Kusma. I just need to get this down somewhere. Other Admins are denying semi-protection requests under the same conditions so I am not suggesting you are doing anything out of the ordinary. I am just suggesting that I think it would be a good idea to codify what constitutes "significant" levels of vandalism from IP addresses. And I would suggest that it should be a figure calculated by counting the number of IP edits done in the last 50 edits and calculating a fraction of productive IP edits from this. Then applying an arbitrary number - say 30% - If the % of productive IP edits is 30% or greater then you do not semi-protect the page. If the % of productive IP edits is under 30% you do semi-protect it.

I just saw this section on the Protection_policy talk page so I will carry on this discussion there.

Ttguy 12:05, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

"Stable versions" is a software feature that has been promised for the last couple of years that would only let "reviewed" edits appear live to most viewers (that would make usual vandalism invisible to casual readers). There have been several different proposals how to implement it, but I don't know if any are atcively being worked on right now. About your suggestion to semiprotect many more pages: I don't like semiprotecting too many articles because semiprotection encourages people to create throwaway accounts, which makes their edits harder to track. It is much easier to long-term block vandals who choose to identify by their IP address than those who hide behind a username. Plus, there is the ideological reason not to discriminate against non-logged in editors unless we have to (and of course it is a foundation level policy to allow editing without registration). I don't know whether we can increase consistency between admins in how we respond to protection / unprotection requests. There has to be a large grey area of admin discretion, as you can't quantify how bad vandalism is and how many IP edits on a page are in good faith in any simple way. Unlike with IP blocks, I can't think of a good escalation procedure for semiprotection either, and infinite semiprotection is nothing that should be done widely. Hope that helps, Kusma (talk) 12:28, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I am starting to see some of the other issues with this whole thing. It seems to me that "stable versions" would also be a move away from the anyone can edit credo. More a "any once can edit if I like it" credo.

It is a total minefield because of cource you have the dynamic IP address problem. I had a case where we had a constant vandal but in order to stop him we would have to have blocked nearly every IP address in Switzerland. So we went the semi-protection route. So I guess this has biased me against the IP blocking method. Your point that it is easier to block vandals under IP addresses only holds if they have static IPs. If you have to have a user name to edit then you can block each throw away user name as it gets used for vandalism. Rather than blocking thousands of IP addresses to stop a vandal you make them get a user name and then block this user. Then it just becomes a matter of who gives up first. And because there is one vandal to hundreds of admin people handing out the blocks the vandal looses interest before the admins give up. This is at least my theory on this.

Ttguy 09:07, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I take your point that it is hard to easily tell a good faith from a bad faith edit without a lot of work. The sort of analysis I did above was very time consuming and I must say I am suprized by the workload that gets put throught the RPP page. So I can understand how one might be reluctant to use a protection criterion that required such a complex analysis done for each page. However, I wonder if some of the bots that are about might help in this sort of thing. Vandalproof is something I hear about but I have no idea what it does or how it works. I can imagine that a tool could be devloped to ease the pain of the sort of analysis I did above - that is if one does not already exist.

Ttguy 09:18, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Right, the issue is difficult and we don't really have a solution yet. Static IPs and non-static IPs need to be considered separately, and there are all sorts of other messes to worry about. Anyway, semiprotection isn't a magic bullet (if we had a magic bullet against vandalism, that would be great). Kusma (talk) 09:38, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

(I wrote this while you were writing the above reply so this is not a response to your reply)

You know I have just noticed that, on the couple of GM related pages that did get semi-protection, we now have no vandalism for the 2 days since protection. I think this argues against your idea that semi-protection encourages throw-away accounts. Because if it did then, on a recently semi-protected page, we would expect to see vandalism coming in from newly created accounts with user names. But we don't. There must be some psychological factor coming into play that means vandals don't bother with accounts or that once you have an account you are less likely to vandalise.

Ttguy 10:03, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Semi-protection of few pages doesn't encourage throwaway accounts very much (but see George W. Bush for a counterexample). Semiprotection of all pages that are vandalized twice or more per week or where most IP edits are vandalism probably would. If we don't apply semiprotection sparingly, it will stop working. Kusma (talk) 10:20, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

This to me sounds like the idea that I am not going to take anti-biotics when I am sick with a bacterial infection because it may cause anti-biotic resistance. I find this a strange attitude. You are now saying you are happy to live with obscenities on pages and countless fruitless edits just because semi-protection would "probably" cause throw-away accounts. Wiki-pedia is getting very sick with a vandalism illness and we need to try something different. If it is only a guess that increased semi-protection would head us in a bad dirrection then I think it is worth trying because we have a problem here. You were saying before that semi-protection is not a magic bullet for vandalism because it encorages throwaway accounts. But now you are saying that it would "probably" do so. I would argue it is worth trying because vandalism is starting to make wikipedia into literally a joke.

Even if increased semi-protection did increase throwaway accounts these are easier to deal with than dynamic IP addresses. Ttguy 05:21, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Aschaffenburg

For the record, I entirely agree that flag icons are overused. Also, you wouldn't believe the heated disputes they cause. Kanaye 14:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

My RfA

Thank you for participating in my RFA, which passed with 53-1-0. I will put myself into the various tasks of a administrator immediately, and if I make any mistakes, feel free to shout at me or smack me in my head. Aquarius • talk 17:15, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia's Storage space

External storage space is free for Wikimedia. We have many terabytes of apache hard drive space that we have no other use for. -- Tim Starling from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Reduce_size_of_the_database --Khunter 07:28, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I know that; so what? Kusma (talk) 07:30, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Khunter is spamming talk pages of those he considers to be "deletionists" with that link. --Stormie 03:24, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

violating MFD policy

Nominating a Wikipedia policy or guideline page, or one of the deletion discussion areas (or their sub-pages), for deletion will probably be considered disruptive, and the ensuing discussions closed early. This is not a forum for modifying or revoking policy.

I'm sort of worn out explaining. This discussion can't stay open.

At any rate, you are now violating MFD policy. Please self-revert. --Kim Bruning 12:17, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Spoiler warnings violate content policies. Holding an MFD on a guideline violates process, but content is more important than process. Kusma (talk) 12:23, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

The policy is there for a reason, and the reason is that it screws with a lot of things, including potentially content. :-/ --Kim Bruning 12:43, 16 May 2007 (UTC) and I'm getting really tired by now, I've already been explaining this all day, so apologies if you're not getting as good an explanation as the last dudes. I'm worn out, suitably punished for violating policy and not closing the MfD... and I just want this to eeeeennnnndd.... ^^;;;;;

FWIW, I tried to start a discussion section that doesn't start with a bolded vote. Kusma (talk) 13:11, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

:-) That's thoughtful! --Kim Bruning 00:01, 17 May 2007 (UTC) And thank you for putting up with my cranky, worn out, evil twin self, too ^^;;

Spoiler warnings

Kusma, I'm not really that thrilled about "spoiler warnings" either, but could you at least provide a rationale other than "unencyclopedic" when you modify a standard feature of hundreds of pages? It actually creates a lot of confusion and disruption when you remove those warnings without any sort of explanation. Although it might be obvious to you why a "spoiler warning" is unencyclopedic, it's not obvious to everyone. --JayHenry 13:34, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I usually removed only those spoiler templates in sections that were clearly marked as containing a plot summary (so a warning that information about the plot follows is insulting the reader's intelligence) and on reasonably old pages. Encyclopedias do not carry spoiler warnings, and to see them used in articles about works that have been published long ago makes my eyes bleed. You might also be interested in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Policies/Wikipedia:Spoiler warning, a current discussion of these topics. Kusma (talk) 13:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... that's an interesting debate at Rfc. Thanks for the explanation. --JayHenry 14:20, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Read WP:NOT, especially WP:NOT#PAPER, WP:NOT#SOAP and WP:NOT#BATTLEGROUND. Your mass change while the discussion is running is not helping. Keep calm and wait what for results. --87.189.89.215

I am not doing a mass change, I am only removing some obviously bad and redundant uses of the template. Please also read Wikipedia:Content disclaimer. Kusma (talk) 14:53, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

You changed several dozen pages. Wait until the storm is over, then let's find the spoiler warnings that should be removed. --87.189.89.215

So you agree that some spoiler templates should be removed? In what cases? Kusma (talk) 15:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't have personally checked every use of the template; given the way Wikipedia works, I'm sure some of them are misplaced. However, now is not the time to fix them by the dozen. Wait until this is over, use /Talk and fix anything that is amiss, but wait. --87.189.89.215

Well, I think I agree with both of you a bit. I'd prefer to see the spoiler tags go, but I'm not sure if it is appropriate to remove them in bulk while the discussion is continuing. Also, I'd debate that it's "obvious" that they should be removed. Obvious to you, perhaps, but not obvious to the editors who have been watching these pages, sometimes for years, and never saw fit to remove them. --JayHenry 17:36, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

You really, really, really should not me making these level of changes to articles, when the jury is still out - you have a view, it is a view. Many happen to disagree. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 15:12, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

As most of my removals stand, consensus seems to be behind limiting {{spoiler}} to rather few situations, and against using it in sections that can be expected to contain spoilers by anyone reading the section title. Kusma (talk) 15:16, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Regardless, please wait before removing spoiler templates - you've made hundreds of AWB edits in this way, and it's highly disruptive while the RfC is still going on. It might even, under some people's definitions, constitute mass vandalism in a sense similar to "abuse of tags" and further with your use (or misuse) of AWB someone might accuse you in this way of almost being a "vandalbot" if applied as such. I understand that you mean well, but you're putting yourself at risk for a block from someone on this one. There is no consensus to do anything yet, so you shouldn't start now, even if your idea is ultimately upheld. To be painfully clear, I'm warning you to stop the removals immediately, until the RfC is over. Nihiltres^(t.c.s) 22:04, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

There is consensus that spoiler warnings are overused. I am not enforcing my own opinion (which is that spoiler warnings should never be used), but check every edit and only remove really bad uses of spoiler warnings (I keep about half of those I go through). Don't forget to also block David Gerard, JzG and Tony Sidaway and a couple of other people. Oh, and please explain to me what you mean by "until the RfC is over": as RfCs have no closing procedure, this can well be "forever". Kusma (talk) 05:29, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

For example, many superhero comics articles don't carry spoiler warnings for "classic" plots, but reserve warnings for the most recent storylines. I have left these articles alone. Anyway, I won't do any spoiler removals today; perhaps it really is time to close the RfC and declare the current draft at Wikipedia:Spoiler (which allows spoiler warnings in reasonable cases) the new guideline: it looks like a decent compromise. Kusma (talk) 07:22, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, I see that the debate has produced a reasonable compromise. I'm sorry if I came on somewhat strong, but seeing hundreds (used 500-view on the contribs page) of removals of the templates seemed somewhat inappropriate while the debate was underway (as it seemed to be at the time), and other editors above expressed their concerns as well. I didn't plan on trying to block anyone - you were and are acting in good faith - and the change is simple to reverse if necessary. What I meant by "RfC over" was essentially that the guideline was reasonably accepted - it seems to have been now, so feel free to remove where appropriate. This debate has had a lot of strong feelings, so please accept my sincere apology for my initial indignance - I overreacted. Nihiltres^(t.c.s) 12:49, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Not a problem at all. Happy editing, Kusma (talk) 12:51, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Spoiler mistake

Hey. In one of your edits, you removed the top spoiler tag, but missed the end spoiler tag. This might have been because the article was using {{spoilerend}}. You might want to add this to your AWB regex. --- RockMFR 17:09, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! Unfortunately there's no easy way to find all the endspoiler templates; I hope I have all of them now. Kusma (talk) 17:18, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Re: Welcome

Thanks for your welcome to Project Germany! I've been working through the log of Unassessed Germany Articles, having assessed all of the ones from letters A, B, C and D. Regards, WilliamH 20:34, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! If you have any interesting observations regarding our rating process (especially the B-Class criteria), please post on the project talk page WT:GER. Kusma (talk) 10:54, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

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Kohl (onomastics)

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Kohl (onomastics), by Sgeureka (talk · contribs), another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Kohl (onomastics) fits the criteria for speedy deletion for the following reason:

Housekeeping - cleanup per WP:SU

To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Kohl (onomastics), please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. --Android Mouse Bot 2 09:57, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Another edit war

Hi Kusma. Sorry to bother you again, but you might like to know that there are some petty edit wars going on at the Berlin and Frankfurt articles. - 52 Pickup 11:24, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppets that may not be sockpuppets

Hi. I think you know who I am by now. This morning, I found User:Lamerkhav, whose contributions showed a remarkable match with User:SU's edit behaviour (including his main interest of Jewish people, not leaving any edit summaries and adding red-linked people to many SU surname pages). Therefore, I marked him as suspected sockpuppet of SU, like I've done with at least one other user with similar editing behaviour. In the past half an hour, I've been checking all of his edits to possibly revert any damage, but it seems he is more interested in Russian Jews, and he also mainly added Russian interwiki links. He also left some obviously good edits, not to mention that his first two edits were from before SU got banned. Therefore, I now doubt that he really is SU's sock. I'd like to revert the sockpuppet notice now as an AGF act, but there is no earlier edit that I could revert to as I created his user page with that notice. Could you please take this matter into your hands? I can't do more than write up an apology to User:Lamerkhav (if, as it seems, he really is not SU). – sgeureka ^t•c 14:25, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I deleted the page. I agree that he is probably not SU: although the editing interests overlap, their style seems different. Kusma (talk) 15:44, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much. – sgeureka ^t•c 16:05, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Kusma: I have been looking through some sockpuppet creations and have marked several for G5, hopefully they will get deleted. Do categories qualify for G5 as well? If so, please delete Category:Cultural historians, it is totally useless and almost empty anyway. shoeofdeath 00:27, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Basically yes. However, the category is not empty and seems to have been used by others, so I don't feel qualified to decide whether it's a truly bad idea. Perhaps you should nominate it for deletion. Kusma (talk) 10:38, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Alright, well, I am not going to bother with that, categories are unimportant anyway. I have been told I am going "dangerously out of control" with my SU deletions/prodding but really I feel a huge number of his articles need be deleted (I am slowly realizing this is not going to happen). Does it matter if someone thinks the article is notable if it falls under G5? I wouldn't think so - it should still be speedy deleted, right? If so, please delete Julius Epstein (pianist) and Melchior Schildt, the rest were deleted already. I believe you have deleted similar things in the past. Thanks. shoeofdeath 17:43, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

These pages have been edited by sufficiently many other authors and are old enough now that deleting them isn't useful. The point of G5 is in my opinion to tell banned editors that they are really unwelcome, and that works better with fresh pages than with old pages. Kusma (talk) 19:37, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Schilling (onomastics)

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Schilling (onomastics), by Sgeureka (talk · contribs), another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Schilling (onomastics) fits the criteria for speedy deletion for the following reason:

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To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Schilling (onomastics), please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. --Android Mouse Bot 2 20:14, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Muffin Top

You were on the muffin top article at the same time I was and when I went to remove the vandalism you did, you had already done it and it didn't appear in the page edit area. Just thought it was a funny coincidence. Chrisbrl88 10:11, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Please do not remove spoiler tags from articles

This causes a lot of unneeded work for a lot of editors. Please stop doing this. Spoiler tags are absolutely an integral part of any article where a fictional work's entire storyline, including the ending and other details which should not be revealed to readers who are not familiar with the material (I.E., what Charles Foster Kane's dying word, "rosebud", means). Thank you. (Ibaranoff24 12:28, 23 May 2007 (UTC))

I only remove them in sections that have section titles called "Plot" or similar that tell the reader to expect plot or ending details. See WP:SPOIL and WP:NDT. Also, people who don't want to know about Citizen Kane should avoid reading an encyclopedia article about Citizen Kane, just as people who don't want to see a penis should avoid the article penis. Kusma (talk) 12:31, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

This is not an excuse. Not everyone who reads an encyclopedia article will have already seen a film and may not expect to come across details which may ruin their viewing experience. (Ibaranoff24 12:36, 23 May 2007 (UTC))

It is indeed not an excuse, but a serious argument. A section called "Plot" will carry information about the plot; if a reader does not want to know about the plot, they should not read that section. Do you think CliffsNotes should include a warning that information about the topic is contained inside? Kusma (talk) 12:41, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

You're insane, right? That's the only explanation I have for your behavior. (Ibaranoff24 13:06, 23 May 2007 (UTC))

• Entire synopsis must be wrapped with spoiler tags. No exceptions. (Ibaranoff24 12:34, 23 May 2007 (UTC))

  That view does not have consensus, see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Policies/Wikipedia:Spoiler warning. Kusma (talk) 12:35, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

(Copied from Dr. Strangelove talkpage)

Not everyone can be expected to have already seen and known the details of "classic" works. Sometimes, when I read an article on a film, it is for a film that I am interested in but have never seen, and I want to know the details behind the film's production. If a person who has never seen Dr. Strangelove comes across this page without having seen the film, he'll be compromising the viewing experience. I am frequently annoyed when documentaries discussing certain films/stories/etc. reveal the ending of films that I have not seen. (Ibaranoff24 13:28, 23 May 2007 (UTC))

Josette Sheeran

Dear Kusma,

Thank you for your message. I am sorry my attempt to redirect the Josette Sheeran page was considered vandalism. I am new to wikis and it was completely un-intentional! Anyways, I wanted to change the page name to Josette Sheeran because she is no longer with her husband (Mr. Shiner) and it is only right to name her own page after her, don't you think? Also, I believe the article reference (see below) which calls her a "moonie" should be removed because the term moonie is a very controversial one which should not be used to REFERENCE a bio page on Ms. Sheeran, who is, furthermore, no longer affiliated with that church.

discussed article: "UN to appoint former Moonie as head of World Food Programme"

Thanks

Web.articles 15:04, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

The removing of "spoiler" tages using AWB

Dear Kusma, why are you systematically removing spoiler tags. I noticed that you did so on The King of the Golden River, and I notice that it was done on The Black Arrow. Don't you think that the reader should be warned about giving away the ending of a book that they may wish to read without revealing the ending. Is this a new policy on Wikipedia. If not, I may reinsert the "spoiler warnings."--Drboisclair 16:09, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

According to the spoiler guidelines (WP:SPOIL), spoiler warnings are not to be used on fairy tales, classic works, and in sections clearly marked "Plot" or similar. In the examples you gave, the warning that information about the plot will follow was in a section called "Plot summary", so it was clearly unnecessary. There is an RFC about spoiler warnings where it was endorsed by the community that fairytales and classic works should not have spoiler warnings (else we'll get them in the Iliad or the Bible), so in your examples, including a spoiler warning violates two of the rules about the tags. Kusma (talk) 16:18, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Well then, it is only a matter in the The Black Arrow article to change the header to simply "plot." There is a synopsis at the beginning that another editor removed spoilers from, but it is my opinion that the "plot summary" is the "plot"; hence, if I change the header, then I can return the spoiler warning. Right? I think that the reader should be warned by the plot being given.--Drboisclair 16:23, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

After further reflection on what you have posted that it is not to be added to classic works. I guess that I should leave them off The Black Arrow. I did, however, change the header to simply "plot", because that is what it is. A "synopsis" is a "plot summary."--Drboisclair 16:26, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, sounds good. Kusma (talk) 16:29, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Could you provide the link to the RfC on the question of spoilers if you have the time?--Drboisclair 16:31, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

It's here: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Policies/Wikipedia:Spoiler warning (a very long discussion, parts of which have already been arhived). Kusma (talk) 16:32, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for you kind assistance in making these articles better and for supplying the link. Cheers!--Drboisclair 16:35, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Henry Keogh

Hi Kusma, Could you please protect the Henry Keogh page as well as the St Ignatius College page until the dispute is settled.

Thanks, 203.122.236.1 15:43, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I protected Henry Keogh; I think I have protected the college page, too, or is there another one? Kusma (talk) 19:38, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

No, that's the only one. Thanks. 203.122.236.1 12:07, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

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My RfA

Hi. I don't intend to spam talk pages with thank yous but since you nominated me the first time around, you'll be the exception to that rule! Thanks a lot for your support. Pascal.Tesson 13:12, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

RE: Josette Sheeran

Hi Kusma,

Did you see my message, concerning Josette Sheeran? if you could please respond either here or on my talk page I would really appreciate it. Thanks and look forward to your comments!

Web.articles 06:57, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

History of the principle of inquisition in german criminal law

Please could You control the rating of the article History of the principle of inquisition in german criminal law. This article of 8,514 bytes was rated as a stub by User:WilliamH. Asked, why he did so, he answered: "Regarding this article, I gave it stub status because while the content is fair, the article fails to meet the manual of style in certain places." Perhaps this is no good article but I do not think, that an article of such length might be a stub, especially, if the content is ok. Thanks for Your work. Thw1309 10:08, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I rerated it Start-Class. Start-Class articles can have poor grammar, no structure, and a short length. "A stub is an article containing only a few sentences of text which is too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of a subject, but not so short as to provide no useful information." (from WP:STUB). Kusma (talk) 10:43, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Kusma, I also reconsidered my evaluation of the article in question and was going to reassess it as Start class, but you beat me to it! :P None the less I have still cleared up the little spelling and capitalisation errors that were in it. If there is anything else you wish to discuss with me, I welcome your messages. Regards, WilliamH 11:07, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Josette Sheeran Shiner → Josette Sheeran

This was listed on the RM page as Josette Sheeran Shiner → Josette Shiner, but this seemed obviously not what you wanted based on the talk page and the comment on the RM page. Since it seemed obvious to me I fixed it, but if I screwed it up and you meant Shiner, I apologise. --Cheers, Komdori 15:20, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for fixing my stupid mistake! Kusma (talk) 15:23, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Luxoft deletion

Hi,

I see you've deleted the article about Luxoft under WP:PROD. I haven't been there for a couple of months, but the last time I looked it was a fairly encyclopedic and worthy article (if a bit short). If there was no specific grievance with it, I'd like to ask that it should be undeleted.

Thanks, RomikQ 13:25, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

It is sorely in need of references that are independent from the company's website, but I have undeleted it on your request. Kusma (talk) 13:30, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

A Vandal...

I saw that you put a last warning on User Talk:142.227.202.149's page. He has struck again, just thought I'd let you know.--Jennica 15:34, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Blocked, thanks. When I'm not online, you can use WP:AIV for reports of vandals that need to be blocked. Kusma (talk) 15:37, 31 May 2007 (UTC)