User talk:VernoWhitney/Archive 12

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

Archive 5

←

Archive 10

/Archive_11#Replaceable_fair_use_File:Photo_of_Brian_R._Bishop.png

So why, after saying that the response I had give was OK, did you go ahead and remove the image anyway? And without telling me? -- Evertype·✆ 17:23, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I said the template looked fine (which is to say, your response would be easily seen by the reviewing admin), not that the image would actually be kept. Do please also note that I'm not the one who deleted it, should that make a difference to you.

Now to address why it actually was deleted despite your arguments: When there is a reasonable expectation that a free photo can be taken of a person which would serve the same encyclopedic purpose--even if it would require more effort than searching for an existing one which has been published on the internet somewhere--we simply can't use a non-free one. That's what it comes down to, and the fact that you can't do it personally, and that "[h]e's not the most technically savvy fellow" doesn't mean that someone else (not you, and not him) couldn't do it. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:41, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

That crappy photograph could have been replaced had we had another photograph. But we don't. So now, because of ridiculous deletionism about a photo published in some minor samizdat conlang publication, we have no photo of Brian at all. Would you like to go and visit Brian and photograph him? EVERY LIVING PERSON could potentially be photographed. Wikipedia does not have an army of photographers going out there doing it, now do they? You (plural, the copyright mavens) took no interest in the arguments about the lousy quality of the samizdat conlang publication either. All hail Wikipedia deletionists. Or, "thanks for nothing". -- Evertype·✆ 10:12, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

You are correct - almost every living person can potentially be photographed. As I told you previously, it is in fact a Wikimedia Foundation resolution that we "may not allow material where we can reasonably expect someone to upload a freely licensed file for the same purpose, such as is the case for almost all portraits of living notable individuals". Wikipedia does not have an army of photographers out doing that because it is apparently not of interest to Wikipedians -- we are all volunteers after all, and spend our time improving Wikipedia however we wish. Now if all you are going to do is continue to rant and complain that the rule put in place by the Foundation is actually being enforced, please leave it off my page. Cheers. VernoWhitney (talk) 18:30, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Greetings

Hi, have often seen your name in some of the same articles I've edited. I would like to get to know you, since you appear to be more experienced in much of what I strive to do. The Admin. and friend who used to strive to help me just retired from the WP here. My focus is on the biographies of musicians in the Wikipedias. Within that context, I'm drawn mostly to rock and roll, jazz fusion, blues, funk and pop. When I began editing, I found an abysmal lack of articles without photos, so I spend about 50% of my "wiki time" searching for photos and on this end, attempting to edit articles that lack infoboxes and/or photos that lack any references and put in time fixing them. That means finding photos, educating the photographers about the two Creative Commons licenses we accept, uploading them to Commons and doing some cleanup on those articles. I quit counting how many some time ago, but it was upwards of 2,000 photos, I think. There's a link to see which ones from my userpage above the tiny gallery of favorites there. I am hoping you will help me out with occasional questions? Thanks for your time on this! --Leahtwosaints (talk) 08:55, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I am certainly available to help with occasional questions, although my time has been limited recently, and I can't predict when that may change in the future. Most of my work is with copyright work, both text and images. I've been focusing on handling non-free images recently, which has led into my tracking down some PD or freely-licensed images. Feel free to drop me a line here any time! VernoWhitney (talk) 18:34, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

The mess that keeps on giving

Hi VernoWhitney. I've had the joy of stumbling across some copy/pasted sections of prose from 2004 Olympics articles from our old friend Darius Dhlomo. All of the ones I've checked appear to have been missed out from the infamous mass blanking episode, but they are listed on the near endless and now abandoned clean up pages. I noticed you drew up these lists initially.

I was wondering would it be possible to produce a refinement to search out passages of copied prose (which was the main issue anyway)? For example, would it be feasible to get a list of all his edits over 500b that don't contain the phrases "wikitable", "|-", or "*" (for lists)? I know that technically this would be more difficult and time-consuming than the brute "search via byte count" method, but it would pretty much nail down the last vestiges of this grand plagiarism. I've been improving my own programming but frankly I don't even know where to start with building code for something like this. Any ideas? SFB 18:04, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't recall the discussions just at the moment, but judging from the blanking bot's user page it only targeted those pages created by DD, not all of the ones they edited.

Filtering out which edits are likely clean is something I looked into a while ago for a socking CCI-subject, but I never finished it. Once you get a string or strings of which content was actually added, the regular expressions to find templates/tables/lists aren't that hard.

The hard part is turning a diff into that usable string in the first place because it has to handle rearranging paragraphs and things other than simple additions of single isolated blocks of text. As I recall you have to start with fetching the full wikitext of both versions (before the edit and after the edit) of an article from the API, then figure out what you need for your own diff (unless you want to try parsing HTML output of a browser diff instead). I could be missing something, but then it's been over a year since I've even glanced at my notes for that code.

It's something that would be great to have for narrowing down CCI's, but it's not something I'm going to have time to work on again any time soon. VernoWhitney (talk) 18:43, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Now that your question has got me thinking, though, I may see what I can come up with... VernoWhitney (talk) 19:02, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Two side notes on this. First, I know that User:Amalthea has been working on trimming down trivial diffs in CCIs; tables would count, so if there's a way to get those scripted out, it could likely knock out a good deal. Granted, what would be left would likely be 90% copyvios, but it's something nonetheless. Second, would there be interest in getting a drive going on his CCI? Great progress was made, but it's stalled with about 6,500 left. Yes, it's the second most, but it's a far cry from 23,000. Wizardman 01:23, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, if we're speaking generally and not DD-specific, then there are going to be some false negatives if tables and lists re excluded across the board (compare the copyrighted list Time's All-TIME 100 Movies versus the verified PD list AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies), but as I said above that part is just applying regular expressions, so should be fairly easy to toggle a 'include/exclude tables' parameter.

Getting back to the CCI at hand, however, I find myself rather short of onwiki time at the moment, so I think I'll stick to looking at the code I have and see if I can actually get something working to appropriately parse a diff and see if I can contribute in that way. Besides that, I've always preferred working on the smaller CCIs before the larger ones, but that's just a personal preference. VernoWhitney (talk) 02:07, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

2 FFDs you nominated are subject to discussion

Hi VernoWhitney, there is a thread on my talkpage about two FFD nominations you made. If you could drop by your comments, that would be great. Thanks, -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 23:33, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Khesapeake

Hi, last time when I've written to you, I've said: "Hi, you never said WHEN exactly you'll be ready to clarify the problem of my posts, WHEN you'll post those translations without hidding them from the public. Which makes me think that it shall happen after one year from now on. Time in which the people who know me shall consider - just because of your hidding of the texs (under your suspicion of someone else's copyright trespassed) - that maybe I'm not really the translator. I spent already talking to you here hours and hours. I'm no longer ready to do this in the future. Well, I've done some changes in those texts because I had had three different versions and it was created there a hotch-potch with them. Sometimes twas lost only a comma. Now I'm not sure if these changes of mine transformed the works into some others. If you still want to keep this publishing, you can allow only me to do changes to the texts, even if now I consider those translations final and without the need of some other changes [in the versions on Internet, maybe only a few of them, minor, in a future paper-publishing]. So, let's recapitulate: 1.If you still want to keep these posts, would you allow only me to do changes?, albeit I'm sure now that I'll not change them anymore (not because I consider them perfectly translated, but because any work has an end, as well as my working on these texts, any start has an end). 2.If you are not able not to allow someone else but me to change anything within the texts (to block them), then it's much better to DELETE ALL THESE POSTS, as I said, these are only some translations and were posted from some reasons, they are not so much important to me in themselves;"

and you put this mesage before your message, as if if was said before. No way, it was said afterwards! And I demand to answer to me!! Furthermore, I've posted an external link to the articke of Wikipedia "Luceafarul" and "Miorita" which conducted to my posts; you deleted these external links. If you really have somethig expressly against my translations, you can just keep for you on Wikisource all those bad and deplorable translations (or the links to them) of people who do not know what's really a translation in general. Do something! I've begged you something. Do! Either, or... Either you revert the hiding of my translations once and for all, or you delete them all. Khesapeake. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Khesapeake (talk • contribs) 17:38, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I first explained the problem and linked to the process for verifying that you are the copyright holder and are releasing the translations under a usable license here. You presumably saw that message even if you didn't read it since you later commented on my page from that IP address a short while later. And no, there is absolutely no way that a translation here on Wikipedia could be blocked so others couldn't edit it.

Now if you can't or won't confirm that you are releasing the translations under a usable license or are unable to live with the reality that others can edit your work here, then by all means feel free to point out any of your translations or links that I've missed and I'll finish removing them all. As far as Wikisource goes, I'm leaving the cleanup there to the admins there -- my primary focus is here on Wikipedia. VernoWhitney (talk) 18:57, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

File:HVK Pic for Infobox.jpg

Could you help at User talk:Aarganesh#File permission problem with File:HVK Pic for Infobox.jpg 4? There is apparently something which has been sent to OTRS, but the file has been tagged with {{OTRS received}} multiple times and deleted multiple times. Considering that the file only has got {{OTRS received}} tags and that it hasn't been restored by an OTRS member, I would assume that no permission mail has been sufficient, but it's hard to tell without access to OTRS. I see that you have participated in a different discussion about the same image further up on the page and that you are an OTRS member, so maybe you could tell what to do. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:05, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Okay, it looks like there is an email (Ticket:2013031410007491) which just hasn't been handled yet due to our usual backlog. I'm running off to work right now so I'm not going to get into handling it just at the moment, but it tentatively looks good. If you could bump my talk page later today so I don't forget I'll try to take care of it one way or another. VernoWhitney (talk) 16:01, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Could you check this? --Stefan2 (talk) 13:14, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Invitation to join the Darius Dhlomo Drive

Hello. You are invited to join Darius Dhlomo Drive, a project which aims to cleanup and resolve one of the oldest copyright investigations on the sire. We hope that you will join and help to clean what's left of the copyright violations. You are getting this invitation because you have helped out previously, and I am inviting you back to hopefully wrap this up. Wizardman 01:35, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Merge discussion for Velocette MAC (WD)

An article that you have been involved in editing, Velocette MAC (WD) , has been proposed for a merge with another article. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Sincerely, SamBlob (talk) 08:32, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for April 27

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that you've added some links pointing to disambiguation pages. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

Gene therapy for osteoarthritis (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added links pointing to Cells, Polymorphisms, Vectors, Inhibitors, Inflammatory and Trauma

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 11:25, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Thrikodithanam Temple

Hi VernoWhitney, I just noticed that on 19 March 2013, a post from you resulted in the deletion of a page (by Sphilbrick), I had created in 2002 for the "Thrikodithanam Mahavishnu Temple". The reason given is that text portions on this page were taken from www.thrikodithanam.org . It so happens that I am the owner, author and website administrator for www.thrikodithanam.org . Now, how can I convince Wiki that there has been absolutely no copyright infringement here? Pls let me know. Cheers, Dinakar

My apologies for not answering you sooner--I have not been on Wikipedia regularly recently. I did not make a post to that article although my bot, User:VWBot, may have automatically listed it for review. If you still need an answer to your question, then you need to follow the directions at WP:Donating copyrighted materials. VernoWhitney (talk) 22:35, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

wah wah kya bat hain

namskar sir'

sir main aap ke show wah wah kya baat hai mai hissa lena chahti hu ' to krapya kar mujhe bataiye ki ye kese smbhav hoga ?? aap ki aati krpa hogi.... main aap ke jbaw ka intjar krungi ''

aap ki shubhchintk

                     pt.ra1.22.192.49 (talk) 10:37, 20 June 2013 (UTC)j kumari upadhyay .

Um... could you please say that again in English? VernoWhitney (talk) 22:17, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

VWBot double-adding?

See this edit. VWBot added Ezekiel Worthen even though it was already listed on the page. Pburka (talk) 02:01, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

That seems to be a bug caused by some server lag. VWBot looked and correctly found that Ezekiel Worthen was linked to by Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2013 July 2, but then for its next query the server told it that the July 2nd page wasn't embedded in any page (it should be--and is currently--in Wikipedia:Copyright problems/NewListings). Tweaking that check so it just knows if it's backlink is one of the last 7 days that is automatically part of NewListings should be easy enough for me to do. I'll try to get that tested and update the code this weekend. VernoWhitney (talk) 21:30, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I truly appreciate the work of bot authors on Wikipedia. Pburka (talk) 21:55, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I got sidetracked and it took me longer than I expected to get around to this, but this bug should now be fixed. Please let me know if you happen to notice it again. VernoWhitney (talk) 15:15, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Your article submission Jean-Pierre Dorléac

Hello VernoWhitney. It has been over six months since you last edited your article submission, entitled Jean-Pierre Dorléac.

The page will shortly be deleted. If you plan on editing the page to address the issues raised when it was declined and resubmit it, simply edit the submission and remove the {{db-afc}} or {{db-g13}} code. Please note, however, that Articles for Creation is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace.

If your submission has already been deleted by the time you get there, and you want to retrieve it, copy this code: {{subst:Refund/G13|Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Jean-Pierre Dorléac}}, paste it in the edit box at this link, click "Save", and an administrator will in most cases undelete the submission.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Hasteur (talk) 22:12, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free media (File:39cluesbook7.jpg)

Thanks for uploading File:39cluesbook7.jpg. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'file' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Werieth (talk) 15:07, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Fixed - An IP vandalised The Viper's Nest article to which this image was included. As a result of that vandalism, it made the image file appear to be orphaned. I have removed the orphan tag from the file itself and warned the IP for vandalism. Wesley Mᴥuse 15:26, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:32, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Adult needed

Hi. The page Daniel Squadron has a share of unproductive edit warring going on (I'm not involved, but have noticed it), and could probably use a sysop to take a look and figure out the best way to address it. Since you have handled a prior matter on the page, I thought I would reach out to you; I reached out first to another sysop, but then realized he is not now active. Thanks.--Epeefleche (talk) 16:38, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not particularly active myself at this point, but I'll certainly take a look (probably tomorrow) and see how I can help. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:19, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Your bot needs a kick

No edits for about 3 weeks. I don't mind maintaining the copyright pages, but it'd be great if the copypastes, incomplete nominations and other stuff were listed. Thanks. MER-C 13:18, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Books and Bytes: The Wikipedia Library Newsletter

Books and Bytes

Volume 1, Issue 1, October 2013

by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs)

Greetings Wikipedia Library members! Welcome to the inaugural edition of Books and Bytes, TWL’s monthly newsletter. We're sending you the first edition of this opt-in newsletter, because you signed up, or applied for a free research account: HighBeam, Credo, Questia, JSTOR, or Cochrane. To receive future updates of Books and Bytes, please add your name to the subscriber's list. There's lots of news this month for the Wikipedia Library, including new accounts, upcoming events, and new ways to get involved...

New positions: Sign up to be a Wikipedia Visiting Scholar, or a Volunteer Wikipedia Librarian

Wikipedia Loves Libraries: Off to a roaring start this fall in the United States: 29 events are planned or have been hosted.

New subscription donations: Cochrane round 2; HighBeam round 8; Questia round 4... Can we partner with NY Times and Lexis-Nexis??

New ideas: OCLC innovations in the works; VisualEditor Reference Dialog Workshop; a photo contest idea emerges

News from the library world: Wikipedian joins the National Archives full time; the Getty Museum releases 4,500 images; CERN goes CC-BY

Announcing WikiProject Open: WikiProject Open kicked off in October, with several brainstorming and co-working sessions

New ways to get involved: Visiting scholar requirements; subject guides; room for library expansion and exploration

Read the full newsletter

Thanks for reading! All future newsletters will be opt-in only. Have an item for the next issue? Leave a note for the editor on the Suggestions page. --The Interior 20:31, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Question

Hi. Can you offer your opinion on this question I've posed? I could really use your thoughts on the matter. Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 15:31, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Library Survey

As a subscriber to one of The Wikipedia Library's programs, we'd like to hear your thoughts about future donations and project activities in this brief survey. Thanks and cheers, Ocaasi^{t | c} 15:07, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

4. Inform the administrator who deleted the page by adding the following on their user talk page:

Deletion review for Ayaz Samoo

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Ayaz Samoo. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. UBS talk 10:23, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Can you copyvio check Marguerite Young?

An editor who introduced copyvio into this article and which you removed before (User talk:Joellyn520#November 2012) has just introduced a chunk of unsourced material into the article again. Choor monster (talk) 21:22, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I took a look in Google and in the source for the previously-included copyvio and didn't find any matches. Some of it certainly sounds overly promotional and ought to be rewritten (e.g. "... Young's brilliant survey of the utopian communities and, most of all, to include her masterful historical portraits of major figures encountered by Debs ...") but that and sourcing are the only issues jumping out at me right now. VernoWhitney (talk) 23:10, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

OK, thanks very much. I couldn't find anything, but I remembered you had more. User is a SPA, by the way, finally coming back. Choor monster (talk) 23:17, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Yngling class insigna

Hi,

I saw your changes on some pages on the Yngling sailboat. There was a discussion some time ago about the class ingsigna of the Dragons (Commons:Deletion requests/File:Dragon (keelboat) insignia.svg. Since the result was kept! i have reverted your changes.NED33 (talk) 08:39, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Since the DR at commons was about a different image, it's not immediately applicable to this case. In any case, if the Yngling image really is PD or otherwise free then the image page needs to be updated appropriately reflecting that status, and it could then also be moved to commons to serve a broader audience as well as being placed on Category pages and anywhere else. I'd recommend opening a discussion at WP:MCQ or WP:NFCR to talk with others about the appropriate licensing to tag the image with--it might be the same as the Dragon class, but I'd want to look into it further. In the meantime I've reverted the changes again since it is still classified as non-free (and ought to stay that way until there's some more evidence that it should be free) and the categories would be clogging up the database reports covering the use of non-free images. VernoWhitney (talk) 13:54, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Re:Non-free images on your userpage

Ok, no problems.--GeorgeMilan (Talk) 19:43, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Deleted photographs

I work as a photographer and I've had some of my work published online. Is there anyway I can upload it here as well or is it going to get deleted if you find it on google as well? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cutkiller (talk • contribs) 18:07, 20 February 2014 (UTC)‎

We have a process laid out at Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials which walks you through what all is involved with donating previously published materials; the section near the bottom entitled "Granting us permission to copy material already online" has the step-by-step instructions. In short, though, we need an email so we can verify your identity, since we have no way of doing that on-wiki. Feel free to let me know if you have any questions about this process. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:31, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

help?

which image would be an appropriate substitution for the one removed from my project? BT14 (talk) 06:00, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I assume you're talking about File:California High Speed Rail.svg? I'm not familiar with that topic specifically, so let me look into it and get back to you. VernoWhitney (talk) 22:20, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

I appreciate it. It took me awhile to finally be this close to finishing and it would be a hollow victory if the images i planned on using can't all be included. BT14 (talk) 03:37, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

gratitude

Ran across this situation, User_talk:1_mamba, when searching for something unrelated (the date unicode combining-ogonek support appeared in browsers... the things search engines decide are "relevant" will never cease to amaze me). Was curious about the odd userpage, and peeked at the history. Although I never figured out the mystery, I did note that you handled the situation very cleanly and nicely. Not sure whether 1_mamba ever returned to appreciate that or not, but figured I would let you know that I appreciated it. Thanks for improving wikipedia, see you around. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 23:21, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Please Help

Dear VernoWhitney,
I hope you can help me with my problem. I've created the following content: "POLYMETHYLSILOXANE POLYHYDRATE". Moreover, I'm the author of the content that was placed under the following link: http://www.enteromedical.hu/sites/default/files/SG_2013_Ed1_EN_Office.pdf. This content had been placed without my permission. After that the controllers have threatened to delete my content: [POLYMETHYLSILOXANE POLYHYDRATE]. How can I prove that I'm the author of both the contents? I've asked to delete my content from the Hungarian site, and they have agreed (we can even prove that they have agreed to delete it). Nevertheless, one of your controllers thinks that it is we who violates the rules.
Thanks in advance, Olviastar Olviastar (talk) 12:17, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi! You can provide evidence that you are the author/copyright holder of the content by following the steps listed at Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials. Basically it lets us establish (via email) that the text is being freely licensed for others to use (here on Wikipedia and elsewhere). Now following the steps listed there will clear up the copyright aspect; Peridon (talk · contribs) indicated that the text "is not written in a neutral encyclopaedic way" and that's an entirely separate consideration. If it is indeed promotional and/or otherwise unencyclopedic (I haven't read through the deleted article to evaluate it for myself), then it could very well be easier to write it from scratch as an encyclopedia article, rather than copying part of a sales pamphlet. Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns about this. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:38, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I've tried to explain that the publication of the material by the site that is alleged to be in violation of Olviastar's copyright triggered the deletion. As Olviastar is claiming copyright, the material should still remain deleted. I've also tried to explain that if they license the text (and pictures), that anyone anywhere can copy it - which is not what they seem to want to judge by their reaction to seeing it on one other site. This doesn't seem to be understood. Peridon (talk) 19:48, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I got that impression. Firmly establishing their standing as the copyright holder and their understanding of the consequences of the freely licensing the content is up to OTRS, should they choose to pursue that avenue. Rewriting (when done properly) does make things so much simpler from a copyright perspective. VernoWhitney (talk) 02:09, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

VWBot

Hi, Verno. :) VWBot seems to have stopped functioning about 6 months ago. This having been 6 months ago, you may be fully aware and there may have already been discussions that I've missed. :D While I will admit that not having pages flagged for {{close paraphrasing}} and {{copy paste}} has helped the backlog at WP:CP go away, and I have cheerfully pretended to myself that all those articles have ceased to exist, we really need some of its functions, especially managing page listing at WP:CP.

Is there anything that can be done about this?

I'm thinking I may need to talk about different processes for working {{close paraphrasing}} articles, as those are major time consumers. Perhaps if those are not addressed after a week, they should be escalated to {{copyvio}} or something.

If nothing can be done, please let me know, and I'll see about finding a replacement bot for some of its tasks. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 10:53, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

There haven't been any discussions about it (that I'm aware of, at least). It just died when I had to change some of my computer systems around and I never got it set up again. I seem to recall there being an issue with it double-listing some articles as well (related to the lengthy backlog, perhaps?), and off the top of my head I can't recall if I ever tracked down and fixed that bug. I'll look into my notes and see if I can get it dusted off and running again soon. I'm afraid I'm not going to make any promises as to exactly when that will be, though, since non-wiki life keeps me pretty busy these days. VernoWhitney (talk) 14:19, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Understood, and thank you. :) Obviously it's not urgent since the bot hasn't been functioning for half a year, but please do let me know if it looks like too mammoth a task. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:17, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Request for comment

Hello there, a proposal regarding pre-adminship review has been raised at Village pump by Anna Frodesiak. Your comments here is very much appreciated. Many thanks. Jim Carter through MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:47, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Gary Stockdale

I am a Los Angeles-based TV and film composer, and performing songwriter. Someone created a page for me some time ago and I just saw that it had been deleted by you. Why is this? I never received any notice there was a problem with it.

Has the work that was done on the page been deleted? Who do I speak to about this? I don't quite understand.

Thank you, Gary Stockdale

23.242.255.128 (talk) 00:35, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Note: Replying via email as requested via email. VernoWhitney (talk) 13:16, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Request for mediation rejected

The request for formal mediation concerning Gary Stockdale Wikipedia page, to which you were listed as a party, has been declined. To read an explanation by the Mediation Committee for the rejection of this request, see the mediation request page, which will be deleted by an administrator after a reasonable time. Please direct questions relating to this request to the Chairman of the Committee, or to the mailing list. For more information on forms of dispute resolution, other than formal mediation, that are available, see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution.

For the Mediation Committee, User:Sunray (talk) 16:53, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
(Delivered by MediationBot, on behalf of the Mediation Committee.)

Always nice to see you around :)

What it says. Happy to see you in my watchlist. Hope all is well with you! --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:59, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm trying to start carving some time for Wikipedia back out of my work and family life. We'll just have to see how it goes. ^_^ VernoWhitney (talk) 13:06, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Re: Babylon 5

Which assertion(s) were you challenging with that tag somebody just removed? It's unclear from the tag placement. --Orange Mike | Talk 23:31, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

The dissolving of PTEN and the WB/UPN merger dates. The origin of The CW has references in its article which I bet could be used, but PTEN doesn't seem to have anything so it could use a citation for the B5 article as well as its own. VernoWhitney (talk) 12:40, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

New Reference deleted in "Further Reading" section on "Feng Shui" article

Hi Verno Whitney, I just received your email dated 14:25 17th Jun 2015 regarding a new item added by myself was deleted by you.

This is referred to the "Further Reading" section on "Feng Shui" article. My new item was a reference:

Mak, Michael & So, Albert. Scientific Feng Shui for the Built Environment: Theories and Applications, Enhanced New Edition. City University of Hong Kong, 2015.

This book is an academic discourses in this area. It is a serious endeavour to document and interpret some scientific aspects contained in Feng Shui tradition. I sincerely believe the reference to this book is suitable to be added to the "Further Reading" section of the "Feng Shui" article.

I look forward to your kind consideration and approval.

Regards

Dr Michael Mak Username: Drmmak Email: MichMak@gmail.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drmmak (talk • contribs) 22:45, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

First off, I was not the editor who removed your addition, that was Mean as custard (talk · contribs). However, I left you that message because in general you should not be including references to (what appears to be) your own work on Wikipedia. I understand that it is a serious academic work, but as are an involved party with the book you are hardly an unbiased party. I recommend that you start a new section on the Talk:Feng Shui and suggest that the book be added to the Further Reading section. At that point you can let others review it and determine whether it really is suitable for inclusion in the article without being influenced by any personal preconceptions about the work. VernoWhitney (talk) 13:19, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Mafia Capitale

There are hundreds of reliable and authoritative sources. Every day there are new investigations of the Italian judiciary and further details. Even the Pope Francis speaks of this investigation of Mafia Capital. I have no more time to devote to this article. I have to continue my historical research on Catholic church of the XVIII century. Manox81 (talk) 18:17, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

So far the known reliable sources only seem to be clearly referring to an investigation, not a specific organization. If you can point out a single clearly reliable source which explicitly defines the Mafia Capitale as a unified organization it would go a long way towards keeping the article from being deleted. Regardless of how that goes, though, happy editing! VernoWhitney (talk) 22:43, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Not correct edit.

Hi VernoWhitney, you recently edited my correct entry on the Dyson Sphere. Your edit comment was not correct, just as it is not correct to built a house, or believe it is possible to handcuff god. If you can't understand that then I can't help you. Actually, to be honest, I can't help you. Wikipedia is a place for information to be put that points to the truth without actually being true. Your edit pointed the arrow in the opposite direction away from god. I wouldn't be surprised if you are now dead, for if you are not you certainly are dying. Please do not respond. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jondeanmack (talk • contribs) 22:44, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

If you're not interested in a response you probably shouldn't post on my talk page... Anyways, happy editing! VernoWhitney (talk) 03:44, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Copyvio Advice

VernoWhitney, what is the copyright situation for a letter/note? My understanding: current interpretations of copyright law gives more protection to unpublished than published works. In this wiki example, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jonestown&diff=667138664&oldid=666613789 , it seems the entire section "Notes from the deceased" is problematic (good reading though) Advice please --Lucas559 (talk) 01:37, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

In the United States: For any written work created on or after January 1, 1978 which has neither been published nor registered with the Copyright Office (both of which could only be done by the copyright holder or their heirs--not the FBI--then it's going to be copyrighted for 70 years after the author's death. As far as I can tell that's the situation here, which means that quote is subject to our non-free content rules which it certainly fails being far too long and not serving a unique and irreplaceable encyclopedic purpose. Copyright terms get pretty messy, so if you have any further questions on that matter feel free to ask. VernoWhitney (talk) 11:39, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Status of VWBot/manual

Hello, Verno. I wanted to check Blue-winged pitta for possible copyvio, but when I went to VWBot/manual I noticed it hadn't been active for a while. Can you direct me to a bot like VWBot/manual if VWBot/manual isn't being maintained? Thanks! 108.56.199.37 (talk) 17:59, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Please disregard, VW. I found Earwig's Copyvio Detector at wmflabs.org and it met my needs. 108.56.199.37 (talk) 19:19, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Restore nopCommerce page

Hello,

About 4 years ago you restored nopCommerce article on wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NopCommerce). Originally it was written as a promo text (long-long time ago), that's why it was deleted some day, we fixed it (rewritten the text), and then you restored it. Thanks a lot! And since that moment nopCommerce became very popular solution with more than 3,000,000 downloads. Our software is used by Volvo, Reebok, Mercedes online stores (http://www.nopcommerce.com/showcaseliveshops.aspx). As you can see on Alexa rank site it's really very popular today - http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/nopcommerce.com (in top 26,000 sites worldwide). Furthermore, our community already have pages for nopCommerce for the following languages in Wikipedia - English, Italian, Russian, Ukrainian, Spanish, French, German, Japanese. Vietnamese, Bangla (http://www.nopcommerce.com/boards/t/17949/please-help-us-to-translate-our-wikipedia-article-into-your-language.aspx).

But other Wikipedia user (Ohnoitsjamie) decided to delete it several days ago since 4 years after it has been restored. I've tried to talk to him but without luck (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Ohnoitsjamie#Deleted_NopCommerce_article).

Is it possible if you again have a look at this article and restore it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrey.maz (talk • contribs) 17:18, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:15, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Reminder: Please sign new Wikimedia confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information by 31 December

This is a message from the Wikimedia Foundation. Translations are available.

I wanted to follow-up on an message I sent you in September regarding the need for you to sign a confidentiality agreement by 31 December 2015 in order to maintain your access from Wikimedia to nonpublic information, and specifically to the OTRS system.

As you may know, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees approved a new "Access to nonpublic information policy" on 25 April 2014 after a community consultation. The former policy has remained in place until the new policy could be implemented. That implementation work is now being done, and we are transitioning to the new policy.

An important part of that transition is helping volunteers like you sign the required confidentiality agreement. All Wikimedia volunteers with access to nonpublic information are required to sign this new agreement, and we have prepared some documentation to help you do so.

The Wikimedia Foundation is requiring that anyone with access to nonpublic information sign the new confidentiality agreement by 31 December 2015 to retain their access. You are receiving this message because you have access to nonpublic information by way of the OTRS system and are required to sign the confidentiality agreement under the new policy. If you do not sign the new confidentiality agreement by 31 December 2015, you will lose your OTRS access.

Signing the confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information is conducted and tracked using Legalpad on Phabricator. We have prepared a guide on Meta-Wiki to help you create your Phabricator account and sign the new agreement: Confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information/How to sign

If you have any questions or experience any problems while signing the new agreement, please visit this talk page or email me (gvarnumwikimedia.org). Again, please sign this confidentiality agreement by 31 December 2015 to retain your access to nonpublic information. If you do not wish to retain this access, please let me know and we will forward your request to the appropriate individuals.

If you wish to stop receiving these notices, you may remove yourself from this list. Please note that doing so will not prevent you from losing OTRS rights and access after the 31 December 2015 deadline.

Thank you,
Gregory Varnum (User:GVarnum-WMF), Wikimedia Foundation

Posted by the MediaWiki message delivery, 06:23, 22 December 2015 (UTC) • Please help translate to other languages. • Help

URGENT: Please sign new Wikimedia confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information by 31 December

This is a message from the Wikimedia Foundation. Translations are available.