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Please read before posting!

I don't always post a full rationale for everything I do, since doing this would take an inordinate amount of time. I do always have one, though, and will be happy to tell you why I did anything if you ask.

PLEASE READ HERE FIRST before asking deletion-related questions.

Please feel free to post suggestions/comments/flames/whatever.

If you haven't posted a comment already, please put it under a new section at the bottom of the page using markup:

==Section header==
Your comment ~~~~

or click here.

If you have, please post it under the section you started. Responses will be made on your talk page unless you request otherwise.

This page will be archived regularly, generally by an automated process, but that doesn't mean I consider the discussion closed if you have more to say. If your old comments are archived please start a new section on this page for further comment. Please remember to sign your comments using ~~~~.

If I contacted you on your talk page, I'll keep it on watch. Please feel free to reply either there or on this page, whichever's easier for you.

Please refrain from personal attacks. Personal attacks made against me made on this page will be left on it, but this in no way indicates that I approve of them or will not report them if they are severe or continuous. Personal attacks against other editors will be removed or reverted.

Help

Hello Seraphim. I'm User:AlexCovarrubias. I have sent you an e-mail requesting your help. Please check your inbox or go to my talk page. Alex. (I told a friend to paste this msg in your usertalk because I'm blocked).

Digital rights management

Is Misplaced Pages:Cleanup Taskforce/Digital rights management closed? It's listed in the list of closed tasks, but the template on the talk page still reads notice instead of closed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by RJFJR (talk • contribs) 20:15, 8 April 2007 (UTC).

Sorry, looks like I misread it. RJFJR 21:02, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi - thanks for the DRM work. Do you have an opinion on the discussion on the DRM talk page regarding the linking of "Rights" (as in the R in DRM) to legal system rights as opposed to computer file permissions ("rights")? I and apparently at least one other user on the talk page think that it clearly referring to computer access rights. I can see how it could be interpreted either way though, which is why I unlinked rather than relinked. Also the linking to "restrictions" IMHO isn't particularly informative & clutters the text. Both got reverted & nobody has commented except myself & the reverter. Ripe 04:15, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Person Needing a Time-Out

This anon user seems to be having some difficulty working with others (1, 2 and is often uncivil (1). The user has a short but unhappy history within the WP community. Usually, one can find at least one or two positive edits that a user has made. Unfortunately (and surprisingly), this user has none. What might we be able to offer the editing community in the way of protection from this user? - Arcayne () 13:30, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Edits from a blocked user.

I noticed you blocked User:Emeraldher for 3RR. That same user is now editing under his/her IP. I have place a suspected sock notice on the IP's talk page and have been reverting all his/her edits. Would a block extension be a good idea? Purgatory Fubar or Snafu 19:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a blocked user, and I'm not a sock. I'm not Emeralher. Do you get it? Ask anyone.

Jack Fruit

Todd,

 I read your opinion on Jack Fruit and the inclusion of the quote from Babur. Could you please elaborate on how it meets the wiki NPOV requirements? Here is an extract from the Misplaced Pages NPOV policy.

Misplaced Pages is devoted to stating facts in the sense as described above. Where we might want to state an opinion, we convert that opinion into a fact by attributing the opinion to someone. So, rather than asserting, "The Beatles were the greatest band," we can say, "Most Americans believe that the Beatles were the greatest band," which is a fact verifiable by survey results, or "The Beatles had many songs that made the Billboard Hot 100," which is also fact. In the first instance we assert an opinion; in the second and third instances we "convert" that opinion into fact by attributing it to someone. It is important to note this formulation is substantially different from the "some people believe..." formulation popular in political debates. The reference requires an identifiable and objectively quantifiable population or, better still, a name (with the clear implication that the named individual should be a recognized authority).

Babur was a notable figure in Indian history. However, he has nothing to do with Jack Fruit, which is indigenous to India. In addition, I am very sure that this is not a majority opinion at all. I am a little surprised that someone from Bangladesh wants to put such a quote about their own national fruit but of course that is his/her choice.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks!

wiki policy

Thank you for your third party involvement.

In the example of PSI World and several other organizations.. Smee or her counter parts wrote the articles, in order to link them to LGAT in web searches (and thus discredit them). Another example of this is Klemmer & Associates as well as Mind Dynamics. Once she is forced to remove her anti-cult rhetoric and labeling, (in the example of K&A) she tagged the article as an advertisement.

I am new to wiki and I was told that I needed to spend more time watching the process before I attempt to have pages removed.

While an argument could be made that 'LGAT' should be on wiki, it is clearly a pejorative term and Smee's edits demonstrate that she is using it as such, to discredit and label organizations.

Historically, when she is forced to permit (or remove) things which are counter to her views, she re-writes the page or section.. (see List of Large Group Awareness Training organizations as an example.) After you posted your view, she flagged the page as 'undergoing major re-write' without discussing it in talk first. There was no need for a 'major' rewrite. All that was necessary was to remove the references which were invalid, based on unreliable source material. However, she wants those groups included, so now, presumably, she will rewrite the page so they can be included.

From the reading I have done, since my encounters with her, she is involved in many such disputes and edit wars.

Is this how wiki is supposed to be? Is there any simple process to stop such behavior?

What will stop her from simply writing another article on PSI if this one gets deleted? Lsi john 21:47, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your replies. I don't know if you review or see updates on my page, so I am putting this here.

Smee has now claimed to be 'back' from a break and promises to 'add' and 'remove' things from the LGAT article. Much work on both sides has gone into this article and it would be a shame for her to simply re-write entire sections (again). Is there any wiki policy or rules which prevent an editor from re-writing entire articles or sections, which have been a group effort and for which a group discussion of many editors is in place? Without seeing the final product, I will not predict the outcome, however I would like to know what the options are, as historically she re-writes (or reverts) things which don't suit her adjenda. Lsi john 22:18, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

So, basically, my experience so far is.. whoever has the most free time and strongest desire will prevail. If you (whomever) do not like what someone edits, you re-write an entire section and remove the work they did. If someone catches you violating the rules and makes you remove references, you re-write it to something else and make them complain about that. And, if you persist long enough, eventually they will go away to real-life, and you can have the article you want. And if someone happens to complain about the 'collection' of your work, you cry foul and say 'its not about you its about the work' and thus divert the focus from you and your mission.

Mind Dynamics has no more business as an article than does PSI World and now that its threatened, Smee found one reference which mentions it.. and that justifies an article on it? Bah. Wiki is being used to discredit legitimate organizations and the rules are being used to protect those people writing the articles. The only people truly using the term are anti-cult activist and since no specific definition exists, and since the apa has no definition for it, LGAT can be used any way the anti-cult movement wants to use it. They are the ones publishing articles using the term and since no 'reputable published source' has said xyz company is 'not' an LGAT, nobody can refute claims that xyz IS an LGAT. It can not be claimed that 'no single accepted definition exists' because no reputable source has made that claim, yet it is still a fact, none-the-less. 22:58, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

When something looks like rotten fish, smells like rotten fish and tastes like rotten fish, I do not need to find a scholar to write a book to proclaim his pov that its a rotten fish.

I'm sorry but this gives me a very poor view of wiki and its reliability on anything but milk-toast subjects and issues.

Lsi john 22:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Seraphimblade: If you have a moment, please take a look at the history on List of Large Group Awareness Training organizations. You were kind enough to give a third party opinion that a reference was unreliable and should not be used. Smee ignored your decision, completed her other edits and left the reference in place. I removed the reference, and as no other references were in place for numerous entries, I removed the entries. Smee has 'reverted' the enteries back onto the list (without the reference) and marked them 'reference needed.' Please review this history as smee has routinely done this with unreferenced names on this list. Other authors have deleted her 'unreferenced' material on this same page and she continues to revert it back onto the list. In my opinion, this is a clear sample of how she ignores rules she doesn't like. Unreferenced is unreferenced and has no business on this list. She can put them back later if she finds valid references. Invalid information, even for 5 minutes, makes wiki an unreliable source of information. Marking someone else's edit as 'unreferenced' is one thing, marking your own is absurd.Lsi john 01:59, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Seraphimblade: I am unfamilar with the mediation process and am ill-prepared to fully document all the liberties that Smee has taken. This entire situaion is frustrating and confusing and I am far too green to take a case to court and expect to prevail. The situation is not restricted to one article and I am not the only one who has had these issues with Smee. I am more than willing to comply with any ruling. I am almost equally willing, at this point, to simply walk away. She knows far too many rules and can keep me spinning around chasing my tail for days and accomplishing nothing. I have a real life and though I find the imbalanced articles and her tactics extremely distasteful, I've had about all I can take of it. It simply isn't worth my time to challenge every edit only to find I have to start over again. If the arbitration does not require me to spend hours upon end collecting documentation for her actions, and if the arbitration process will prevent future abuses, then by all means I accept your offer to open the case on my behalf. Lsi john 02:14, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I do not know if it is relevant, but this, from her talk page, also gives an example of her stance on the issue: She views LGAT as a 'phenomenon', not a simple descriptive term.

**I also hope that you can see that I have lately been adding material from very reputable sources, such as secondary source books, and scholarly academic journal articles, as well as psychology textbooks, that describe the LGAT phenomenon. Smee 02:14, 10 April 2007 (UTC).

Lsi john 02:20, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Jack fruit

Sure! Yes, viewpoint-type material must be attributed. In this case, we've got an emperor talking about fruit. Is that some kind of botanical expert? Of course not. But it's a bit lighthearted (especially given just how bad he seems to hate them), and sometimes we can use that-it's an interesting and striking quote, and it's made clear that it's not a majority opinion, just Babur's. Seraphimblade Talk to me 21:47, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Well then sir, based on the two points you agreed to (neither majority opinion nor the opinion of an expert), you are agreeing that it violates the NPOV rule and hence does not belong in Misplaced Pages if contested. I am contesting it because I find it offensive. I am sure many more people would find it to be so, if we took a survey. In addition, if someone is interested in including Babur's views on jack fruit, they should include it in Babur's page - not the page of jack fruit. Just imagine someone, from say Helsinki, who has neither heard of Babur nor Jack Fruit reads the article. Would they get a good impression of jack fruit? Should Misplaced Pages be responsible for biasing them for/against the fruit or should it present objective opinions (neutral points of view)?

Your view point is interesting. Nevertheless, as I mentioned, the comment is not light hearted at all and I will explain why. Jack fruit holds a very special place in South Indian culture. There is also some cultural sensitivity involved in comparing this fruit with intestines and such. India is predominantly a vegetarian nation and any such comparisons would be very difficult to take lightly. Put all this together and you will start getting the picture. Think of a scenario in which some portion of the US is taken over by a middle eastern emperor and the emperor starts comparing the consistency of an apple pie to that of bird shit. Would you take the comment lightly, especially if it shows up front and center on the Misplaced Pages page for Apple Pie, 500 years into the future? The question to ask is, is the comment really giving any additional information about the fruit? Wouldnt it be better to put pictures and leave it up to the users to judge? None of the other fruit pages have such comments in their pages. Why should this one have it? In addition, please substitute 'jack fruit' with 'national fruit of Bangladesh' and read the sentence again. Does it sound derogatory or not? Let me know what you think Sentryman101 23:09, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

WP:AIV Removal

Hi! I see you removed User:Sdfghjkp, and you said take it to RFCN. However, WP:U states random usernames aren't allowed. You don't think this username is random? --TeckWiz Contribs_@(Lets go Yankees!) 01:24, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh. I should look down at my keyboard more. I still take it to RFCN. --TeckWiz Contribs_@(Lets go Yankees!) 01:28, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Signpost updated for April 9th, 2007.

Weekly Delivery

Special note to spamlist users: Apologies for the formatting issues in previous issues. This only recently became a problem due to a change in HTML Tidy; however, I am to blame on this issue. Sorry, and all messages from this one forward should be fine (I hope!) -Ral315

You are receiving this message because you have signed up for the Signpost spamlist. If you wish to stop receiving these messages, simply remove your name from the list. Ralbot 08:23, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Jack Fruit

Kindly do not misrepresent me. (And if, for example, George Washington had at some point compared apple pie to bird shit, I'd think that probably could go in the article.) Most articles include notable criticisms of the article's subject, and those criticisms are not censored, even if they may offend someone. So long as they're properly attributed to the critic rather than presented as factual, that is not problematic. Of course, there's also plenty in the article about the good points of jack fruit. We exclude neither, so long as it's attributable. That is not a violation of NPOV. Indeed, it is a violation of it to suppress such information due to it being "offensive". Seraphimblade Talk to me 01:10, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I see. What if Saddam Hussian had that opinion (George Washington:America - not the same as Babur:India - so the analogy is not accurate) and is written so in his biography/autobiography? Do you think it would do justice to use it in the Misplaced Pages page for apple pie? Sentryman101 08:33, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely. Remember, we mirror sources, we never "correct" them. If Saddam Hussein hated apple pie so bad that someone writing his biography saw fit to write a whole diatribe he'd launched against the stuff, that's attributable and verifiable. Like I said, we have no problem including notable criticism of something, whether or not someone may find it offensive. Even if I would find some criticism of apple pie offensive, so long as it's attributed and verified, it can certainly go in the article. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:09, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I see. Would this be applicable even if the opinion is "irrelevant", in the sense that it adds no further information to a user trying to get information about a topic? While I understand the "attributability" clause, I still do not understand how non-majority opinions of single, non-expert sources conform to the NPOV clause. Please elaborate when you get a chance. (You can ignore the offensive aspect of the argument. I understand that it is not relevant to the attributability clause). Thanks. Sentryman101 21:33, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Copyright in school song

Hi, noticed your comment on the last edit of Saint Joseph's Preparatory School regarding the copyright of the school fight song. That song was written circa 1940 and likely published without notice anyway. After looking around, I see many other school pages include lists of songs and lyrics. In some cases the songs have whole articles devoted to them. I was just curious whether your decision to remove it was due more to the possible copyright violation or because there was really some reason to avoid content such as that. Thanks. Ar-wiki 13:07, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

List of pubs

As someone who has contributed to the talk page discussion on List of publications in philosophy and/or that article's previous deletion debate, I thought you might be interested in participating in its new nomination for deletion which can be found here. Thanks. - KSchutte 17:30, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

A proposal for stopping a long standing edit war.

See Talk:adolescent sexuality for information on the proposal. It would create a branch off article containing solely views on the subject and hopefully get rid of the POV currently in the articles which are supposed to say what adolescent sexuality is. Not is it good or bad. In my opinion I say let the POV wars take place in an article ABOUT POV. not elsewhere. Tell us what you think at the above link. Nateland 02:20, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Advice

Thank you for your advice on that issue, however, there is already a third opinion. The war seems to be between three people: Myself, Zythe, and DrBat, And yet still no valid reasons have been posted by either of those two. The only explanations given by those two have been "He refers to himself as gay", "Gay is the politically correct statement" and "You're the only one who wants your version". (Also, one edit by Silvestris, who's reason I'm not sure about. See my talk) I've posted multiple reasons, yet they continue to repeat one of the three statements above and revert it, starting the whole process over again.

I'm honestly stuck here. Any ideas? DSMeatte 03:30, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

For you for being bold to start Editors Assitance

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		I Aeon award you Seraphimblade the da Vinci Barnstar for being bold in starting a new project aimed at helping Wikipedian's in need. Love the direction you and the others are taking. Æon Give Back Our Membership! 04:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

improvement in sockpuppet notification

RE: User: Enorton. An issue was whether or not the user was notified in a sockpuppet complaint made by someone else. Notifications get placed on the user page. Not every user checks these. It's better to be placed on the user's talk page because that's the page where the "new message" warning directs. Shouldn't we modify the SSP complaint instructions to reflect this proposed notification change? (Disclaimer: I have no stake in the outcome of that case, whether or not Enorton is determined to be a sockpuppeteer.)VK35 21:19, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick reply. A random check of 2 complaints show that the warning is on the user page, not the user's talk page. If this is happening a lot, then a lot of people are being denied reasonable notification and a chance to respond. In many cases, the SSP is obviously misbehaving but in a few cases, the complainer is being a busy body (and that's when an opportunity to respond to complaints is very important).VK35 21:26, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Voting Irregularities

Can I get your opinion on this matter? I had noticed a lotof folk weighing in who had never been tot he article before, and I thought, we should screen them out. I am in unfamiliar territory, and could use a bit of guidance. Arcayne () 00:48, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Never done mediation. I am not sure how to proceed with that sorta thing. Arcayne () 04:48, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Your general not coolitude

Is this the best you can do? You banned Kinghy permanently for much less than what I did. You suck at life (and Misplaced Pages).