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1751—April 2008 May 1, 2008—May 23, 2009 May 23, 2009—January 5, 2010

Excellent ...

rag mana - Excuse my delayed response — never heard of "rag mana" before (have now LoL will learn today). I don't yet know if you win or not, but that was an excellent rhetorical move. Bravo. -- Proofreader77 20:24, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the compliment, but unfortunately I only make 2-3 excellent rhetorical moves per calendar year (that's if I'm lucky!), and I'm a bit disappointed to have used one so quickly in 2010. I was hoping to save all of them for my upcoming appearance on the soon-to-be-a-disastrous-failure reality television show Americas's Got Excellent (Rhetorical) Moves. Shit...I think I just wasted another one. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 00:37, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

ROFL! (yep, you sure did!!! That's three asterisks.) ... Still haven't had time to figure out if you won yet ... But I'll figure it out eventually.  :-) Proofreader77 02:13, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

• Related aside: Practice for reality show? :-) Proofreader77 02:36, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

... fear ore prod 77

..fear ore prod ...

Tell me about ore? (infinite possibilities LoL) Proofreader77 21:06, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

CfD nomination of Category:Films about suburbia

I have nominated Category:Films about suburbia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at the discussion page. Thank you. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:50, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Ping

Ikip 03:25, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Help needed

Hello. Would you be so kind as to revisit an article you had been involved in the past? We are having some problems and going back in the history I see these are some old problems that were solved before. There is one editor who you worked out some agreement about the use of some references that is a point of contention again. I think if you can review the situation, you would be best able to help sort out the conflict we are having with this one editor. The article in question is Mao The Unknown Story. Thank you.76.14.42.191 (talk) 08:54, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Who is "we"? Currently it's you and me. John Smith's (talk) 13:11, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

User:Ihaveteeth.

Please block this user, his IP and his sockpuppet account. He is trying to get more views for his stupid YouTube video. Eagles 24/7 (C) 01:46, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

The sock was already blocked for a week by another admin and I won't mess with that for now, but I have blocked Ihaveteeth. indefinitely. The IP does not appear to be doing anything right now so let's just leave that alone, but if it crops up again just report it to WP:AIV. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 03:38, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Alright, thanks. I would have brought it to WP:SPI but the user was editing too quickly and I could not take the time to start up an investigation. Thanks again, Eagles 24/7 (C) 03:41, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Pssst

Seems like a good DYK candidate. Grsz 04:27, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I thought about that, though I once nominated a "current events" article for DYK and was told it would be better for "in the news." I've already nominated one Haitian-related article for DYK, but I might see if the editor who significantly expanded National Palace (Haiti) would be interested in nominating it. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 17:18, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Haiti Palace Destruction

Per your concern re OR: the photographs I have examined have been posted on the news blogs of The New York Times (which I cited originally). Further photographs were posted today on the New York Times, showing the damage from a different angle. I also have looked at Reuters images as well as well Agence-France Press images. No OR has been done, ie seeking out unofficial images not posted on official news sites. By comparing these approximately 12 photographs, it is clear that the three rear wings of the palace still appear, in some sections, to contain uncollapsed sections of second floor. Therefore it seems best to err on the side of caution, ie stating that some sections of the second floor have been fully collapsed, not that ALL the second floor has collapsed.Kitchawan (talk) 18:09, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

The two Times references you removed showed clear photographs of the damage to the National Palace. Since it a blog and the individual sections of that blog cannot be cited clearly, one must go to the blog and scroll down to the located the time entry about that damage and the photographs of that damage.Kitchawan (talk) 18:15, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I might have missed something, but a search of the blog entries did not reveal any text about the palace. Daily blog entries on the NYT do have specific links, so you should be able to direct me right to the appropriate link that discusses the palace if I indeed missed it.

As to the photos, there might just be a policy misunderstanding here. My concern is with original research, and what you are doing in terms of the photos is indeed that. Namely, we cannot simply look at a photograph, draw a conclusion about it, and then put that conclusion in an article. This is a textbook case of original research and is not appropriate, particularly when drawing extremely specific conclusions. Misplaced Pages is a tertiary source, so we do not do our own primary research (as an historian or journalist might) and then publish the results. For the most part we only report what secondary sources say. What we need in order to describe the damage of the palace is some secondary source—a newspaper or magazine account for example—that details the way in which the building was damaged. This might not exist right now, in which case we will just have to wait. What we absolutely cannot do is say "you can tell what's going on from these photos, just look at them" and then put that in the text. This is a pretty firm rule. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 19:04, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Is this not however an obvious visual statement, ie the White House is painted white? News organization photographs make it clear as to the damage inflicted. Perhaps it would be best to delete any and all specific mention of the damage that has occurred in favor of a simple "seriously damaged" and let the posted photograph tell the rest.Kitchawan (talk) 19:13, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not nearly as obvious as "the White House is painted white." The phrasing I removed was "with its attic story and most of its second floor fully collapsing into the first," which is not I think something that can automatically be inferred from the photograph. I fully agree that simply saying "seriously damaged" (adding "partially collapsed" is probably okay too, as I'm certain the word "collapsed" has been used in news reports) and letting readers look at the photo is the way to go for now. Eventually we'll have exact information explaining precisely what happened to the palace and what will be done about it, it's just that we might have to wait. It's obvious from the article text and the photo that the building is in dire straights, but we can't provide the full info at this point. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 19:19, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Syrians

FYI, I left a message for you on my talk page re use of term Syrians. The immigrants then actually were "Syrians" in the sense of citizenship. Lebanon was then part of the French Mandate of Syria and the people born there were Syrian by nationality. Should the sentence you added to Cincinnatus Leconte be adjusted slightly to reflect this or have it merely footnoted? Syrian wasn't just a general Haitian term for people from the Middle East; it is what those people had on their passports as their country of origin. I have seen the passports and visas of Lebanese friends' grandparents and great-grandparents and their passports call them Syrian. And they never went anywhere near Haiti. This use of the word Syrian was also explained to me i an interview I had with Najeeb Halaby, the father of Queen Noor of Jordan; his family was the same, Lebanese Christian by culture and geography but Syrian by nationality, thanks to the French Mandate of Syria.Kitchawan (talk) 20:28, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I was just going off what the article by Plummer said, which is the main source for the entire bit about Syrians. She said "most of them were not true Syrians, but Lebanese Christians...Haitians and others commonly called them Syrians, however, and made no distinction among people of Middle Easter origin." I don't see a reason to not believe Plummer (she is well regarded as a historian) but I should probably shorten that a bit and leave out the part about Syrian being a general word for Middle Easterners. The imperial policies in the Middle East (or anywhere else) do not necessarily define one's background—i.e. just because the French say you are "Syrian" and put that on your passport does not mean that you don't identify as a Lebanese Christian. I think we should stick with what Plummer says since she is the main source on this, and since if we do not say that readers will assume they were "from Syria" which is simply not correct. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:25, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Is Plummer the sole authority on this? Just wondering if he can be challenged in any way by anyone else, say Edward Said's work on the subject. Also According to New York Times reports of the day, the Syrian community took their grievances to the American consulate and threw themselves, as a community, under its protection.Kitchawan (talk) 21:47, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Also I guess all I'm trying to point out, re Syrians, is that whatever country they immigrated to, they would have been commonly described as Syrians for their country of origin. I'm just hopeful that would be made perfectly clear, either in a footnote or in actual text.Kitchawan (talk) 21:52, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Plummer is definitely not the sole authority (it's Brenda and therefore a "she"), but it's the source we have right now. I'm not sure what Said has to do with this, I doubt he wrote much of anything about Middle Easterners in Haiti. You might want to look at the recent edit I made and see if it works for you. Basically I just said they were called "Syrians" but were actually Lebanese Christians without explaining why—I think the why is too much info for a bio article on a Haitian president, but would be it great for the article Middle Easterners in Haiti or something similar. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 22:01, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

New York Times citations removed/National Palace Haiti

"a low straggling house" whose rooms were "pretty and decorated à la française" ...two of the 19th-century NYTimes citations you removed are the sources for the quotations cited here ... now the quotations don't have references. Would you please put them back?Kitchawan (talk) 20:33, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you're confusing references here. The source removal I did happened in this edit, which were two recent NYT sources about the earthquake. I'm pretty certain I did not remove any 19th century NYT articles, and indeed what you are looking for seems to be there in footnotes 11 and 12. Let me know if I'm missing something. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:11, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I just added the two back; one from 1900, once from much earlier. all set!Kitchawan (talk) 21:46, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

They were probably just lost in the shuffle. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:47, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages Day NYC

You are invited to celebrate Misplaced Pages Day and the 9th anniversary (!) of the founding of the site at Misplaced Pages Day NYC on Sunday January 24, 2010 at New York University; sign up for Misplaced Pages Day NYC here. Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends!
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 00:32, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

WP:NODRAMA/2

Just a quick reminder that the Second Great Misplaced Pages Dramaout has begun. Please log any work you do at Misplaced Pages:The Great Misplaced Pages Dramaout/2nd/Log. Good luck! --Jayron32 01:41, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Community de-Adminship - finalization poll for the CDA proposal

After tolling up the votes in the revision proposals, it emerged that 5.4 had the most support, but elements of that support remained unclear, and various comments throughout the polls needed consideration.

A finalisation poll (intended, if possible, to be one last poll before finalising the CDA proposal) has been run to;

• gather opinion on the 'consensus margin' (what percentages, if any, have the most support) and

• ascertain whether there is support for a 'two-phase' poll at the eventual RfC (not far off now), where CDA will finally be put to the community. Matt Lewis (talk) 01:03, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Your PROD Proposal at ANI

Hi Bigtimepeace. In your proposal you say, “unreferenced BLPs cannot be removed until the article is adequately referenced.” The way that reads, it suggests that merely moving an article from a state of {{Unreferenced BLP}} to a state of {{Refimprove BLP}} would not be sufficient since, by definition, an article with {{Refimprove BLP}} is not adequately referenced.

Later, you use the word properly, which again suggests that the article must be better than {{Refimprove BLP}}.

With either wording, that would require all BLPs with either {{Unreferenced BLP}} or {{Refimprove BLP}} to be PRODed and deleted in one week. Is that your intention? Thanks for any clarification you can give! — SpikeToronto 08:15, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

My intention would be for only unreferenced BLPs to be deleted, though the definition of "unreferenced" would sometimes be up for debate. For example if there are two terrible references added to "save" a prodded article, that may still count for some as "unreferenced." On the ANI thread User:Sandstein suggested the the following language be added: "in the event of any disagreement about whether an article is adequately referenced, it shall be referred to AfD." I think that makes sense. What this change would let us do is delete a ton of unreferenced BLPs where no one is willing or able to provide sources and where there's really no dispute about that. If there's a question about whether something "makes the grade" in terms of sourcing I think going to AfD is the right way to go. I don't think articles that have the "refimprove" tag should be included in this proposal and language I tried adding to the policy page (which was reverted) did express that. Hope that answers your question, I'll be going offline soon but can followup tomorrow if need be. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:32, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

You have clarified it, thank you. As I said, I think a bulk way of dealing with unsourced BLPs is a grand idea, especially when there are 50,000+ of them, but not if it sweeps up under-sourced BLPs in the net, and not if it is done outside of policy. I also think that Sandstein’s corollary — go to AfD if there is doubt — really fleshes out your proposal. Thanks again! — SpikeToronto 08:48, 20 January 2010 (UTC)