Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 03:18, 22 December 2005

When replying to comments here, I used to both answer here and copy both the original query and my response to the originator's talk page, applying italics to show where the text was a copy instead of an original. This resulted in a nice, pretty, unfragmented talk page. It was also more trouble than it was worth.

Thus, I'm going to now just reply here if you ask here. If you prefer me to move the entire conversation to your talk page, so that you get the "new messages" box when I reply, please say so. If I ask something of you on your talk page, I'll watch it so I see any replies there.

Text from www.wga.hu

I asked permission to www.wga.hu to use their text, so no copyright violations. I'm new here so sometimes I forgot to specify it. Thanks. Attilios

Despite this fact, Attilios has changed the page despite the copyright statement you placed on there stating that changes should not be made. HowardBerry 17:36, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Hello Cryptic. What's the policy on use of material from www.wga.hu. I've noticed that numerous verbatim articles and images are being submitted from this site. They state their policy as follows:

The Web Gallery of Art is copyrighted as a database. Images and documents downloaded from this database can only be used for educational and personal purposes. Distribution of the images in any form is prohibited without the authorization of their legal owner.]

Does Misplaced Pages have blanket approval for using this material? Also, www.wga.hu provides extensive references for their content, which they themselves may or may not have permission to use. See sources ]. At the very least, shouldn't Misplaced Pages's use of this content be clearly acknowledged on article talk pages. --JJay 19:08, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

We don't have blanket approval (at least, not to my knowledge). I sent a standard confirmation of permission email to the contact address on the website mentioning only the text of the articles Madonna with Sts John the Baptist and Donatus (Verrocchio), Saint Madeleine (Caravaggio), The Baptism of Christ (Verrocchio), and Narcissus (Caravaggio), and received a reply confirming permission to use these under the GFDL. (The images themselves in these articles are in the public domain.) If someone is claiming that he has blanket approval to use all material on their site under the GFDL, this needs to be confirmed again.

For those four articles (which are the only ones I've looked at), the article talk pages do acknowledge the web site - see {{confirmation}} and its talk page.

If you're referring to http://www.wga.hu/sources.html (which is what the "sources" link on all of wga.hu's pages go to), it's a list of references that they consulted to create the text on their pages. Their sources don't have a copyright interest in the text wga created and granted to us, anymore than the sources listed in the ==References== sections of our articles do. (Of course, if they copied the material from elsewhere, their permission grant is meaningless and we can't use the material. There's no reason to think that, though; when googling for the text in the articles, I did find it on a few other sites, but it looked very much to me that wga was the original source.) —Cryptic (talk) 19:43, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your speedy response. I've reviewed the new pages submitted by Attilios so far this month. The following are all copyvios from www.wga.hu without any reference on the article talk pages:

1. Madonna of Loreto (Raphael)
2. Madonna and Child (Raphael)
3. The Incredulity of Saint Thomas (Caravaggio)
4. Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt (Caravaggio)
5. Portrait of Pietro Bembo (Raphael)
6. Neptune and Triton (Bernini)
7. Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius
8. Michelangelo's Crucifix
9. Battle of the Centaurs
10. Michelangelo's Bacchus
11. Woman in Blue Reading a Letter
12. A Woman Holding a Balance
13. A Girl Asleep (Vermeer)
14. The Little Street (Vermeer)
15. Adoration of the Shepherds (Caravaggio)
16. David with the Head of Goliath (Caravaggio)
17. Judith Beheading Holofernes (Caravaggio)
18. Girl reading a Letter at an Open Window
19. Tobias and the Angel (Verrocchio)
20. The Denial of Saint Peter (Caravaggio)
21. The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (Caravaggio))
22. Madonna of the Rosary (Caravaggio)
23. Portrait of Leo X (Raphael)
24. Portrait of a Man with a Medal of Cosimo the Elder
25. Calumny of Apelles (Botticelli)
26. St. George and the Dragon (Raphael)
27. Christ Falling on the Way to Calvary (Raphael)
28. Madonna of the Book (Botticelli)
29. The Marriage of the Virgin (Raphael)
30. Marriage of the Virgin (Perugino)
31. Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints (Raphael)
32. Sistine Madonna (Raphael)
33. Canigiani Holy Family (Raphael)
34. St. Sebastian (Raphael)
35. Madonna of the Pomegranate (Botticelli)
36. Saint Jerome, Borghese (Caravaggio)
37. Portrait of a Young Man of London (Botticelli)
38. Saint Catherine (Caravaggio)
39. Last Miracle and the Death of St. Zenobius (Botticelli)
40. The Story of Lucretia (Botticelli)
41. Baptism of St. Zenobius (Botticelli)
42. Venus and Mars (Botticelli)
43. Pallas and the Centaur
44. Deposition (Raphael)
45. Saint John the Baptist (Caravaggio)
46. The Myth of Prometheus (Piero di Cosimo)
47. Tempi Madonna (Raphael)
48. Medusa (Caravaggio)
49. The Seven Works of Mercy (Caravaggio)
50. Portrait of Balthasar Castiglione (Raphael)
51. Portrait of a Young Woman of Frankfurt (Botticelli)
52. Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci (Piero di Cosimo)
53. Portrait of Giuliano de' Medici of Berlin (Botticelli)
54. Holy Trinity (Botticelli)
55. St. Sebastian (Botticelli)
56. Madonna and Child with an Angel (Botticelli)
57. Primavera (Botticelli)
58. The Ecstasy of St. Cecilia (Raphael)
59. Portrait of Pope Julius II (Raphael)
60. The Madonna and Child (Masaccio)
61. Portrait of Tommaso Inghirami (Raphael)
62. St. Michael (Raphael)
63. Young Man with an Apple (Raphael)

There are probably many more if I look at edits from Attilios in October or earlier. Unless www.wga.hu has released their database under GFDL, I think we need to state clearly where we are getting our material (particularly as none of the articles have links or sources). Could you let me know how to proceed? I don't really want to tag all this as copyvios, but I will without a clear direction on policy. --JJay 01:26, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Hm. The exact wording I got back (from a Dr. Emil Kren) was "Hereby I confirm that permission was granted to use some pages of the Web Gallery of Art in Misplaced Pages". Sixty-seven (or more!) pages does seem excessive for "some". The logical thing to do would be to email wga.hu, explain the situation, and ask them about it, especially since their usual license isn't compatible with the GFDL. If they again confirm permission, either for the pages you listed or their site as a whole, forward a copy of the reply to "permissions at wikimedia dot org".

You're certainly right about the lack of acknowledgement being a problem. The source of this material should be clearly stated in the edit summary as it's added and on the talk page, both to satisfy the GFDL and to lessen the chance that someone else stumbles on the pages, checks google, and tags them as copyvios. —Cryptic (talk) 15:13, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that some does not mean all. As per your instructions, I will write to Mr. Kren requesting permission for use of the 63 articles identified to date, while also pointing out that this is a partial list and that many more articles have/will be submitted, potentially encompassing all www.wga.hu content. I will reiterate that his acceptance must constitute a release compatible with GFDL. I will also request clarification regarding the images (the quality of the scans makes me feel that they may not be public domain, and www.wga.hu specifically states that they are not the legal owner). --JJay 18:11, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations

You're an admin! Take a look at the free advice, if you're so moved, and keep up the good work. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 03:00, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations! Canderson7 04:01, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes! And a very nice vote it was. :-) --hydnjo talk 15:28, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Nice one - Keep up the good work. Budgiekiller 16:00, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Recreation of previously-deleted article...

I noticed that you deleted Cherryrain earlier today after I speedy tagged it. Just a quick note to let you know that User:Cherryrain has re-created this page again, this time at CherryRain. This user has also made a personal attack against me on my talk page. As an admin, I wondered if you were aware of any specific policies for dealing with users who constantly recreate articles that have been deleted per AFD? By my reckoning, this is the third time that 'Cherryrain' or possible sockpuppets thereof have recreated this page - the original CrystalCherry article is now protected from recreation because of this. Thanks very much for your help. :) --Kurt Shaped Box 17:54, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

There's a couple schools of thought. Protecting the article with a {{deletedpage}} template usually works best when there are multiple people (actual people, not just different addresses or user names) re-creating it. If it's just one person, as seems to be the case here, I think it's better to let her re-create at the same article title, then tag and speedy it. This minimizes the chance that she'll log on from a different IP or username, re-create the article elsewhere, and not get noticed. She'll get bored eventually. —Cryptic (talk) 19:00, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the advice and backup. It's much appreciated. I'll continue to keep an eye on things, just in case it all kicks off again. --Kurt Shaped Box 21:31, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm being harrassed

can you please end this. I do not want to be contacted by Kurt anymore — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cherryrain (talk • contribs) 19:36, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Stop re-creating the article, and he won't have any reason to. I assure you that neither he nor I have any interest in it, other than to enforce the very clear consensus in favor of deleting it. —Cryptic (talk) 19:44, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

The Kinks

Sorry, but I will do it. I comletely realise that there is a copyvio in it, but I assure you that this is completely different article and the amount of copyvio is largely dismissive. The article passed through a period of change and I think that to delete the whole bunch of fan and people information is rash and utterly stipud. Nevertheless, I offer you to change the article back and start removing the problematic parts of it, where you consider that the copyvio is obvious. I mean - the article in Allmusic is much smaller than this and less detailed than this one. If you still consider it unappropriate, I will take my and other's guys work, will rewrite the reminiscent and problematic parts and will put it back. Actually, I will put it back either this or other way. It's better for me to work on it, while it's here. I mean I can put back the same article, but otherwise there will be no problematic or copyvio parts in it. But, it will be easy if you do not bitch about it and let me work more on it.

Thank you for attention: Painbearer 22:52, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Copyvio resolutions

Hi Cryptic, in regards to the The Kinks copyvio;

• Is this amount of infringement worth worrying about?

  yes, for example the first paragraph under Bouncing back to the charts (1977-1984) (in Painbearer's version) is still mostly a copy. I didn't look very hard, and didn't even start to look for derivative work.

• if so, how would you suggest dealing with this user? I don't care if he ends up hating me, but I'd rather not have to deal with this every day for weeks on end.

  The first thing to do is make sure that he understands that copyrights extend to derivative work. I usually quote from copyright; authors are automatically entitled to all exclusive rights to the work and any derivative works unless and until the author explicitly disclaims them, or until the copyright expires. Explain to him that if the present text started out copied, and even if every sentence has since been re-written, it's still a derivative work and therefore a copyright violation. This is why we revert to the pre-copyvio version (per WP:CP) or delete the copied text entirely (per Misplaced Pages:Copyrights). Since the copied text has been in the article since January it's impossible to determine what is derivative work and what is not, so the article needs to be reverted. Reassure him that he can present the same facts, in his own words, but the writing can't start out as copied text.

If he needs to be blocked and you're skittish (worried about conflict of interest or whatever) ask me or or ask at WP:AN--Duk 04:20, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

PS - I left him a note. --Duk 04:22, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Ok

I'm continuing with redaction of any material you stripped down. The problematic parts as I speak are being rewritten. You are stubborn bastard and a nosey parker, and I hate you very much, because of that.

Fuck off: Painbearer 14:55, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

No worries

1) I misunderstood the speedy deletion policy I cited earlier...
2) I had backed up the external links for easy viewing on my utility site, Jeffersonbanana.com
3) Just as easy to go ahead and write the damn article... even if it does make me late for work.

Ieopo 19:45, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

{{Unsigned2Tz}}

You wrote (on the template's talk page): This can be merged into {{Unsigned2}} without breaking its current functionality using the shiny new template default parameter feature - just replace the {{{3}}} with {{{3|}}}. —Cryptic (talk) 16:38, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I was not aware of this default feature, and do not knwo how it works -- where is it documented, plesae? I will merge the two if I can see how to do so. DES 16:53, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

It was announced here, and is documented at m:Help:Template#Parameters. Short version: add a |defaultvalue inside the {{{parameter}}}, and if no parameter is supplied, it inserts the supplied default when the template is invoked. —Cryptic (talk) 17:02, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

yyrt

Thanks, I've restored it. It was just since it was blank, and it's title was yyrt, it looked like someone had just created an article with random letters and then left it blank. Thanks for brigning that to my attention. -- PRueda29 01:23, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

My sig

Thank you. No, it wasn't deliberate: I was trying to fix it in the wake of the Tidy HTML disaster, and looks like I mangled it in new and interesting ways. I didn't even realize there WAS a Calton page. It's (hopefully) fixed now, but I guess it means I have to track down and correct the Bad Sigs. --Calton | Talk 03:34, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Re:Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/Halibutt

Should we hold one error against two years of good contributions? I don't ask you to change your vote, but do you think that Halibutt is not fit for adminship *ever*? What if it he would be renominated in half a year, for example, and no other objection surfaced? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 06:39, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong in advertising the vote. As Balcer pointed out on the RfA page, not many people watch this page and so I notified many users whom I thought would be interested, and I did not limit myself to 'friends' or 'Poles'. Besides, I have never asked people to vote 'support only', I have only told them that there is a vote, sometimes adding an additional note about certain comments that they may find interesting. I see nothing wrong with my note on the Polish admins page - our small Polish Wiki community should certainly benefit from seeing how things are properly done on international scale, and we may get some interesting information from Halibutt's activity on that wiki. Ii is not the only vote that got advertised (I get such adverts from time to time, and I see others users get them) and this particular vote has also been advertised by other users (including opponents). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 19:04, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

P.S. In case you consider this message a spam, just let me know and I shall remove it. Halibutt 05:58, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Re : Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Expertise Ireland

Hi Cryptic,

My bad, apologies for that. I've fixed the closing side, not too sure what you meant about the copyvio (but deleted two revisions), let me know if there's anything more that needs fixing.

- Best regards, Mailer Diablo 17:50, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Research in ireland

Hi, Thanks for that. I'd assumed the few sentences remaining were fair use but I'll change them sometime tomorrow. Dlyons493 Talk 18:48, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Misjudged

...is clearly a copyright violation, and one of the most blatant I've seen, so it should have been listed at WP:CP instead of WP:AFD. I've gone ahead and done so for this article. —Cryptic (talk) 16:01, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. ςפקιДИτς ]] 02:10, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for supporting me for adminship. The RfA passed today. I look forward to working with you to make Misplaced Pages a better place. --Nlu 05:41, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Crystalcherry

Crystalcherry has been recreated, I believe it lacks notability as per the previous AfD. I got involved in this when User:Cherryrain went "Opps", twice on Avril Lavigne and then requested my assistance after I reverted. I suspect this user has been biten/slighted by the AfD, and is not acting entirely in good faith. Cherryrain mentioned User:Drini's agreement for a rewrite; I'm not optimistic that will be sufficient to satisfy all users involved in this issue. (suggest replies/discussion should be directed to Talk:Crystalcherry) (CC'd to multiple users) - RoyBoy 05:59, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for your redirect cleanup for the AfD batch I made Ian 13 11:17, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Eugenio Lopez III

You recently deleted this page under CSD A3. It had been originally tagged as G1, then corrected to A1. I don't understand how content which mirrors the article title qualifies as vandalism. Could you please explain your rationale? --WAvegetarian 13:52, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

A3 is "Any article whose contents consist only of an external link, "See also" section, book reference, category tag, template tag, interwiki link, or rephrasing of the title." You're thinking G3. —Cryptic (talk) 18:22, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Oops. Not enough sleep. Sorry about that. --WAvegetarian 19:54, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Archival bot

Is the bot running as of yet, or should I manually archive the pumps for a little while longer? Steve block talk 09:52, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

WP:BOTS mandates a one-week waiting time between the proposal on its talk page and running, so the earliest I could start would be around 20:00 today. My intention is to start it in about 24 hours, as that's the time of day I run it to find orphaned afds. —Cryptic (talk) 14:45, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I see the bot archived, which is brilliant, but it didn't clear out older messages from the archives. Was that expected? Steve block talk 20:23, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it was. As written, it can only move or remove sections whose latest timestamp is a given number of days in the past; thus, during read-only tests on the archives, it removed many sections that had been on the archive pages for less than 7 days, even though the individual sections were more than 14 days old. The feature's currently set so that it won't remove anything from the archive pages during the month of November, so they'll need to be maintained by hand for the next week. (I'd meant to do so after it finished running, but got distracted in real life; I'll go do it now.) —Cryptic (talk) 20:37, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Cushty! Ta for doing this. Steve block talk 20:51, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Modern Language merge

I've posted a response to your post on my talk page. Please review. Thank you! Thaagenson 16:17, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Excellence

That's total carelessness on my part; it won't happen again. Cheers. PJM 19:37, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

The 'Bot

Hello Cryptic, thanks for getting your bot to archive! Two quick questions/comments: first, when it updates the navbox, is it supposed to move the blue links to the left and add red links to uncreated archives, as was done previously before the 'bot started archiving? I really don't mind either way (having all blue links to archives or having both blue and red links to archives), but I thought I'd point this out. Second, just a friendly reminder to update the bot's page to describe the archiving activities. Thanks a lot for your help! Flcelloguy (A note?) 18:02, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, the navbox links are intentional; I'd assumed having the redlinks present was an aid to human archivers. (I'd be happy to go to 3 blue and 1 red, or back to 2 and 2, if there are other reasons I'm not aware of.) I was going to update the user page tonight, when I have enough uninterrupted time in a row to add pseudocode like I have for its afd duties, but I've added a note to it for now. —Cryptic (talk) 18:14, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply! Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:44, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Vargo Article

Hi. Are you sure that the re-created Joseph Vargo article was 'substantially identical' to the previous attempt? I didn't see the original copy, but I know Blooferlady sought advice on changes from the admin who first deleted it (User: Cleared as filed) before putting it back up. --CBD _C 02:13, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sure. Rewording, wikification, and expansion don't make the Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Joseph Vargo any less applicable. —Cryptic (talk) 02:21, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

The weather in London

I've speedied this again. If you search through its whatlinkshere, you'll see that it's been used as the canonical example of a redlink continuously since 2001. (It was, coincidentally, removed from Misplaced Pages:How to edit a page yesterday, but only because that content's covered in Help:Editing now.) As its talk page states, better to just speedy the editing experiments that show up there; if it's protected deleted, it breaks the tutorials. —Cryptic (talk) 06:31, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah, so that's an open tutorial? And here was I thinking it was a vandal target.  :) Thanks for letting me know. Any others I should be aware of? - Lucky 6.9 06:32, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

It's the only one in the main article space that I know of. —Cryptic (talk) 06:34, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Cool. Now I know. You da best...thanks again! - Lucky 6.9 06:35, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

ANI archival

I just spotted Crypticbot running this. Way cool! Thanks for the work on this! Radiant_>|< 16:03, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Antwerp International School Article History Deletion.

What i have been trying to do is to delete the article but it keeps getting reverted. i was the one that created the article and it had some slander towards some people in my school in it, there has been trouble due to this article and i want to take it off,, even though that the current article isnt bad i want to make sure that the whole history is deleted so that nobody else can read the past posts, mostly because it has been abused and bad things have been written on there. so what i am asking is if it is possible to take off the history of the Antwerp International School article. and perhaps even the whole section of the Article. so that nothing is left on there concerning the Antwerp International School. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.82.133.127 (talk • contribs) 14:15, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• I have done a delete and selective restore. -- RHaworth 10:20, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Church of Reality

You have removed the Church of Reality discussion. I guess when the votes don't go in your favor you stop voting?--Marcperkel 18:30, 28 November 2005 (UTC) Moved from Cryptic's user page to here by --GraemeL 19:33, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

(I see Rossami and Splash have already tried to explain this above , though I'm willing to try it again.)

Misplaced Pages does not vote. Not on deletion review, not on articles for deletion, nowhere. We make decisions through consensus among Misplaced Pages editors. I hadn't commented on the review, nor on the AFD; I haven't even looked at the article, and have no interest either way on whether it should be on Misplaced Pages. What I did see was an overwhelming consensus among established Misplaced Pages editors that the article should be or remain deleted, a horde of meatpuppets vandalizing User talk:Fastfission at your instigation, the closure of the review by Splash (one of the most neutral and experienced editors I know), and your reposting of it, headed by a demand not to remove it again. (And putting that demand in large, red, all-capitalized letters besides.) —Cryptic (talk) 19:56, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

ΠΑΣΠ

If it is a copyvio, you can still Speedy delete it under CSD:A8, since it was created only 5 hours ago. Owen× ☎ 04:35, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

No, I cannot. Please read the rest of A8. This is from the website from (as far as I can tell) a student club at the University of Macedonia, and doesn't look at all like a commercial content provider. —Cryptic (talk) 04:39, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

True enough; I should be more careful in applying A8. The AfD seems to have reached the same conclusion, but at least it gave more people a chance to review it. Owen× ☎ 13:47, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Relisting AfDs

When you relist an afd for more discussion, please remove it from the older page; otherwise, someone else is likely to close it very quickly after you relist it. —Cryptic (talk) 04:41, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the note on my page. I am, in fact, guilty of closing an old AfD earlier today that had been relisted. However, I'm not sure how to go about deleting the old listing. Just edit the AfD page and remove the article listing? Thanks. → Ξxtreme Unction {ł_blah} 04:47, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Yep. Be sure to mention that's what you're doing in your edit summary, though (like "relisting 4 on today's page"), so folks don't think they just disappeared. Alternately, you could comment out the discussion like Jerzy did here. —Cryptic (talk) 04:54, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

...and as long as I've got your ear, I just noticed your close of Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Better Off Dead (Soundtrack). The final step of an article merger isn't deletion; it's redirecting; the GFDL requires that we keep track of the authors of any text we use, and we usually do that by preserving the history in a redirect (though not always from the article namespace). In this case, the only text that's currently surviving in Better Off Dead is the producer's name, so it wouldn't be necessary here; but if you're going to close this as a merge instead of a delete, you still need to redirect the article. —Cryptic (talk) 05:03, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks again. I also notice you adding {{subst:ab}} to a couple articles where I missed it, so thanks also for that. I'm getting off to a shaky start, but I aim to improve. → Ξxtreme Unction {ł_blah} 05:14, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Peter Hollas

You might be able to help with this. Something odd happened when I listed Peter Hollasfor deletion on 19 November 2005. The formatting magic wouldn't work on that day's AfD page, and failed to put in the header, so that the article sort of disappeared into the melee. Perhaps due to this it attracted no vites even though it's an obvious hoax. Should I relist it? Otherwise it looks as though nothing will ever happen. Flapdragon 15:51, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

The problem was that you didn't include the header. There is no automatic "formatting magic"; it has to be done by manually. I've done so and listed it on today's afd page. —Cryptic (talk) 15:56, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

And how would I do that? The instructions are (AFAIK) to add a line like {{subst:afd3 | pg=PageName}}; neither that nor inserting a new line like line above ({{Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/PageName}}) worked, though it always has in the past. Try as I might I couldn't see how to edit the "source" that produces this effect. Many thanks for your help with this. Flapdragon 16:06, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

It's not step 3 that you missed, but step 2. If you're adding it by hand (instead of the idiotic m:instruction creepy afd2 template), it's a normal level-3 header with a link to the article, like ===Peter Hollas===. —Cryptic (talk) 16:11, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I realize that I'm butting in out of the blue, but the template works well if copied from the "Maintainence only" section at the bottom of the AFD notice on the article. After you ctrl/cmd-C (copy) the tag, just click on the red link and insert your nom text after text=. Do it by hand if you want, but the template speeds things up considerably. Also, since you aren't required, or even expected, to use it, it can't be instruction creep.

WAvegetarian (email) 16:50, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm absolutely certain I didn't miss stage 2 (as the page history shows). The page created by that has been in my watchlist ever since. It's just when I got to stage 3 things went odd. Believe me, I tried hard to add the header manually but with no success. I've been through this procedure many times with no problem. So I think we must be at cross-purposes -- I'm still mystified as to what happened here. Never mind, it's sorted out now, so thanks again. Flapdragon 17:27, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

A question

As I am ever desirous of learning from my mistakes, and as you have expressed concerns over my AfD closures, I would like to ask your opinion of the following:

The articles Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Don Aoki and Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Patrick Quirk are slated to be closed. There are only two votes per AfD discussion, but both votes are, essentially, merge/redirect. I have merged the info at Don Aoki and Patrick Quirk (minus a lot of vanity blather in the latter case) into Keynote Systems as suggested by the AfD discussions. Is it kosher for me to now close out the two AfD discussions (assuming they're not already closed by someone else by the time you read this)? Or should I just mention in the discussions that I've merged the articles, and let someone else do the closing? → Ξxtreme Unction {ł_blah} 19:02, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

RfA thanks

I would like to thank you for your support of my recent successful RfA. If you have any further comments or feedback for me, my door's open - don't hesistate to drop a note on my talk page. Happy editing! Enochlau 11:23, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Reply

I have replied to your message on my talk page. Feel free to delete this message once you've read it. Gflores 04:44, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Converting album infoboxes using your bot

I just wanted to stop by and say hi and also say thanks for scripting / programming (or whatever you clever people do) your bot to convert album infoboxes; it can be a very tedious task, and this is an enormous help! So: hello, and thank you so very much :) --Qirex 11:31, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Just curious...

why you did this? My opinion is that archiving to subpages duplicates data, and disk space is cheap but not free, but I'm always happy to hear other opinions. - brenneman 23:35, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Three reasons: actual archives are easier to link to; unlike links to history, they get indexed by Google, making it easier to find vaguely-remembered discussions; and looking at real pages taxes the server a lot less than looking at an old version, especially if there are many intervening revisions. —Cryptic (talk) 05:52, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

That was terribly informative! I have to admit, perhaps twenty minutes after placing the message here, I had to link to an archived discussion for the first time and felt an immediate twinge of "oh, maybe". The second one had never occured to me, and is perfectly sensible. I'll take your word on the last, but now have a follow-up question: is there ever than a time when it's better to do it my way? A low-turnover page in mainspace without controversial discussion? I'm trying to save a little face here, throw me a bone! ^_^
brenneman 06:00, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Webcomics

Maybe you know already, but you should know that this arbitration case was accepted, and one "diff" by you has been presented as evidence. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:52, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Lamestream marked for deletion

What would be the best way to keep this word from being deleted? The bot your using has marked "lamestream" for deletion. —preceding unsigned comment by 216.37.39.103 (talk • contribs) 20:04, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment on the deletion discussion. (And to be clear, it was Nova77 who marked the article for deletion; my bot only began the actual discussion because he neglected to.) —Cryptic (talk) 20:09, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Well can you undo his deletion because he gave no reasoning for his actions. With no reasoning I can't fix the problem... ;)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Deeceevoice

Thanks for adding the diffs! — Matt Crypto 20:50, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Another question

I was wondering if you might perhaps take a look at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Daniel Hirst. I feel that what I've done there was justified based on past closures of similar articles. Indeed, I closed another article similarly a week or two ago without anyone complaining. However, I can't find any guideline pages which discuss when an article might be justifiably userfied, so I feel that I may be exceeding my authority. Any thoughts you may have on the matter would be appreciated. → Ξxtreme Unction {ł_blah} 15:20, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Not something that I would have tried. A userfication is still a deletion from the main namespace. Userfying it to User:DanielHirst might have been appropriate if you'd found it on NP patrol; it's a much more dubious call if it's already gone to AFD and there weren't calls to userfy it. Putting it on a user subpage is also iffy; in effect, you're saying that it's an article under active development that's not yet ready for the main namespace, not a user page accidentally created as an article (which is the usual reason for userfying).

As to when to userfy: we usually userfy articles (to a user page, not a subpage) when it would otherwise be deleted from the main namespace, it's clearly an autobiography, and the user has made unrelated contributions to Misplaced Pages. (Merely registering a user name doesn't justify having a user page, since Misplaced Pages is not a free web host.) Userfying to a subpage should only be done by request or specific recommendations on an afd, perhaps when there isn't the overwhelming majority required for outright deletion, but suggestions that the article cannot remain in the main namespace as-is. I don't think that was the case here.

That said, I wouldn't worry about reversing yourself unless someone complains. Consensus isn't what everyone wants, or even what a majority wants; it's something that everyone consents to abide by. —Cryptic (talk) 15:48, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. My reasoning for userfying the pages into subpages stems from the principle of "Do the least harm": I assumed (perhaps erroneously) that the users themselves might want something else to be the visible face of their userspace, and if not, well, they were free to move the page themselves. I feared that putting the article on their primary user page might leave them with the erroneous impression that they were not free to delete the article entirely if they so chose, or that they were not to move it to a subpage if they so chose, etc. No judgement of article worthiness was meant to be implied.

There is an astonishing paucity of information regarding the proper procedures for userfying a page in circumstances like these. I did a search on "Userfy", "Userfied," and "Userfication" within the Misplaced Pages name space prior to userfying the page, and did not turn up any useful pages which illuminated the situation. Thanks again for your response. It was edifying as always. → Ξxtreme Unction {ł_blah} 16:16, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

BDAbramson's RFA

Thank you, Cryptic, for your laconic support in my RfA - I'll do my best as an admin to make the reality of Misplaced Pages rise to the level of the dream. BDAbramson T 02:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Village Pump archiving

Hi Cryptic, I was directed to you as being the guy who runs the bot that archives the village pumps. I was wondering if you could take a look at Wikipedia_talk:Village_pump_(policy)#Save_the_archives.21 and add your thoughts on the feasibility/value of this proposal. Thanks a lot. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:51, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you so much for fixing up Misplaced Pages:Counter Vandalism Unit/members (shown on Misplaced Pages:Counter_Vandalism_Unit) I was just wondering if it was possible to make the a at the start appear like the rest of the letters for sections. --Adam1213 Talk + 08:27, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Your vote on my RFA

My RFA vote draws to a close here in just a couple of hours. I am hoping you will permit me the opportunity to possibly sway your vote in a different direction, if not to "Support", then at least to "Neutral".

I believe that you are concerned with my lack of experience because said lack of experience will lead to mistakes and possible errors in judgement. Assuming this belief is true, I feel it cogent to point out that I will inevitably make mistakes whether my RFA succeeds today, or whether another two months go by before it succeeds, or whether a year goes by before it succeeds. This is partly because I am human, and thus fallible, and partly due to the fact that passing an RFA confers upon someone a whole new suite of tasks and responsibilities. And while discussing the theory of these tasks and responsibilities prior to being granted them will ameliorate some of those mistakes, they will not eliminate them. Indeed, I have seen mistakes made by Admins where AfD discussions have been closed as "delete" but the pages haven't actually been deleted, or where AfD discussions have been relisted but haven't been removed from the old AfD page, or some other, similar error.

What I would like to suggest to you is that the important question is not "Will Extreme Unction make mistakes if granted Admin access?" but rather "How will Extreme Unction deal with the mistakes he will inevitably make if granted Admin access?" And that the answer to this latter question is "Maturely, and gracefully."

The following links are my responses to having various mistakes pointed out to me. I believe that they demonstrate a consistent pattern of level-headed responses to being notified of a mistake.

I concede that a "no consensus" close made by me was made in error, and alter my closure comments.
The existence of Misplaced Pages:Barnstar and award proposals is pointed out to me after I mistakenly put a self-created award up on Misplaced Pages:Barnstars on Misplaced Pages without previous discussion. I shame-facedly admit here that I'd missed the existence of Misplaced Pages:Barnstar and award proposals entirely, and that I would be putting the award up for discussion and vote forthwith, which I did immediately.

In addition to these instances, there have also been the interactions between you and I, where I have also (hopefully) displayed a clear, level head when responding to your comments.

The long and short of it is: I am not generally given over to having my ego involved when I make a mistake. I don't petulantly stamp my feet and deny that I've made an error to salve my bruised vanity, and I don't dig in my feet and refuse to make the correction. Errors and mistakes are inevitable. People screw up. The proper way to deal with that is to accept it, correct any errors you've made, and move on. And that's what I do. Which has the advantage that I learn from my mistakes a lot faster than people who refuse to admit error.

My apologies for the length of this message, but I wanted to make a good case on the first go. I hope that you will find these comments compelling. If not, I understand and respect your decision.

Thanks for your time.
→ Ξxtreme Unction {ł_blah} 13:21, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

My RFA

My RFA was successful, and squeaked by with a final tally of 46/13/2. I would like to express my appreciation for your participation in my RFA, even though you voted oppose. I consider your stated reasons for opposing the vote to be thoughtful and well-spoken. My goal now is to conduct myself in such a manner that you will never regret the success of my RFA. → Ξxtreme Unction {ł_blah} 11:42, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Deletion

Thanks for the reminders regarding deletion! Enochlau 21:54, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Re: sighelp

thank you! Plough | talk to me 07:33, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Some questions about deleting a redirect

On November 21, I put the following in Misplaced Pages:Redirects for deletion:

Dan Green comic → Dan Green (artist) — New article created with a name inconsistent with Misplaced Pages naming conventions. Moved new article to Dan Green (artist). Only two edits to the page are the initial page creation and my subsequent move of the page. → Ξxtreme Unction {ł_blah} 14:27, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

There it has languished lo these past few weeks.

I would like to delete this redirect myself now that I have the ability, but I'm not sure if policy permits me to do so. And, more generally, RFD is one of the places I planned on helping with if I became an admin, so it would be good to know what the procedures are.

1) Is it considered kosher to delete redirects which have names in considerable variance with standard wikipedia naming schemes, assuming they have trivial edit histories?

2) More generally, what is the proper procedure for RFD? I see a lot of backlog on that page, and some seem to draw votes while others do not. Is the standard procedure to simply keep the ones that don't draw any votes? Or is it up to the individual discretion of whichever admin feels like clearing out the backlog?

3) Any special procedures I should be aware of, over and above what is mentioned on the RFD page itself?

Thanks for your time.
→ Ξxtreme Unction {ł_blah} 12:48, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

1. There are two circumstances where it's kosher to delete redirects: they qualify for speedy deletion (which this one doesn't), or it's been listed on WP:RFD for seven days with either a consensus or no objection to deletion (which this one has). On the other hand, it's usually a good idea not to delete things you've nominated for deletion unless they're clearcut enough to be speedies; the instructions for WP:AFD and WP:IFD both specifically warn against it.
2. Redirects on WP:RFD (and also images on WP:IFD) are deletable once they've been listed for seven days with either a consensus or no objections for deletion. There's no need for people to vote on everything that's listed.
3. Jnc took care of WP:RFD for so long and so well that no one else is really sure what to do now that he's left. It might be a good idea to look through his contributions to get an idea how to handle things. From what I noticed in passing:
   • A redirect that is deleted should first be orphaned by checking its Whatlinkshere (e.g., if there were any pages or double redirects that linked to Dan Green comic in your example, you'd change those to point at Dan Green (artist)), and any talk page associated directly with the redirect (e.g. Talk:Dan Green comic) should be speedied as a G8;
   • A redirect that's retargeted or otherwise kept should have the comments from WP:RFD pasted into its talk page (like so);
   • Redirects that are listed for deletion solely so that another page can be moved there should not be deleted via WP:RFD, but instead moved to Misplaced Pages:Requested moves as soon as they're noticed.
   • Redirects that have history that was merged into their target article should never be deleted outright; if the title's objectionable, the history should either be moved over another redirect that doesn't have a history, or be archived in the Talk namespace. Example: Someone makes an article called Dubya is a dolt, detailing some faux pas or other of his; and someone else merges it into George W. Bush, and then a third party lists the redirect for deletion (since it's an abusive title). Since the text was used in the target article, deleting the history would violate the GFDL, so it should be moved to either George Walker Bush (which has no history) or Talk:George W. Bush/merged, and then the new redirect which you created at Dubya is a dolt, which now has no history, should be deleted. Adding a {{merged}} to Talk:George W. Bush might be a good idea as well, especially if you haven't left the history in a redirect in the main namespace. (A subset of these, where the histories don't overlap chronologically - usually as a result of a cut-and-paste move - should instead be solved with a history merge. This is a somewhat scary process, though, and not one that I've done myself.)
   • Redirects that used to contain a nontrivial article that hasn't been merged anywhere should instead be sent to WP:AFD, or have the redirect reverted outright. Occasionally someone will find an article they dislike and redirect it to something only vaguely related because an afd would be "too much trouble" or they think it wouldn't succeed. Later, someone else (or once in a great while, the same person!) will list the redirect at WP:RFD. Backdoor deletions like this aren't ok, and should be dealt with at afd where they'll get more eyes.

Hope this is helpful. —Cryptic (talk) 14:08, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

It was, as always. I've saved these comments in a user subpage for future reference. Thanks muchly. → Ξxtreme Unction {ł_blah} 12:47, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, after ruminating on, then sleeping on, then further ruminating on the above, I have a question:

How does one tell if a redirect has a history that's been merged into the target article?
→ Ξxtreme Unction {ł_blah} 12:48, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

At a guess (since I haven't worked RFD before), most merges will happen around the same time that the article is redirected, so poke around in the target article's history around that time and see if stuff similar to the redirect's immediate history was added. —Cryptic (talk) 13:50, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

My removal of comments by Nandesuka from the webcomics workshop

I'm not surprised that you're a little puzzled by my removals. The workshop only exists for one purpose: to enable editors to make the arbitrators' job easier by performing some of the clerical work involved.

The first section I removed reads, in full:

1. I was going to contact some other editors to have them take a look at this section, but then I realized I might be pilloried and criticized for trying to involve potentially interested parties in the discussion - obviously, anyone I contacted might be considered my "mate", and I'd be accused of "packing the debate." So I decided not to. I hope that's OK with everyone. Nandesuka 06:10, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
2. No, I really do need to think about this. I want to make sure I avoid even the appearance of impropriety, and if there's now a consensus that talking to other editors on their talk page is improper and dangerous, maybe I better avoid doing so. I mean, I hadn't heard of any such consensus, but certainly you've implied it in a number of your points. So, I'll avoid using the wiki entirely for this. Perhaps I'll just mention it on IRC — normally, I believe that it's better if people use the wiki, instead of out of band methods, but if avoiding the wiki is the best way to avoid being accused of "packing the debate", well, one can't make an omelet without breaking eggs, right? Nandesuka 12:25, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
3. I believe that your characterization of an editor alerting other editors of a topic of interest to them as deserving of censure, your apparently fabricated characterization of those editors as "mates" (where did that come from? I'm Aaron's mate to the exact same extent that I am your mate), and the fact that you apparently can't restrain yourself from admittedly subdued personal attacks on this very page ("not known for their evenhanded approach to article inclusion"? Huh?) contravenes your claim that you "don't have a problem with people talking about interesting stuff on web pages." You are suggesting that a Misplaced Pages editor should not talk, in public, with other editors. That is one of the more outlandish things I've ever heard, and I hope you will abandon this very, very strange line of argument. What "suggests an attempt to pack a debate" is certainly not Aaron talking to other editors in public. What "suggests an attempt to pack a debate" is User:Tony Sidaway, and I'd appreciate it if you would stop. Nandesuka 04:00, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Nandesuka's comments are just sniping at me, or trolling, and belong, if anywhere, on my user talk page. I also engaged in some sniping which I have also removed, for the same reason: it clutters up the workshop page without illuminating the principle under discussion, which was taken from the arbitration committee's own precedents and reads as follows:

In determination of specialized areas of policy, discussion on the talk page of the relevant project page plays a central role. It is important that sufficient interest be generated in the discussion to formulate a valid consensus.

It's quite unexceptionable and was summarised by me in the following comment:

I think we have fostered a notion that we can make policy just by getting our chums together and having a straw poll. While that may often get a quick result, it doesn't make a consensus.

The second removal was unfortunate:

1. I think, based on Snowspinner's comment, we can rewrite this finding of fact. Here, let me try: "Aaron Brenneman and Dragonfiend are consciously involved in an overt campaign to take steps that they believe will improve Misplaced Pages. They must be stopped." Hmmmm. No. it somehow lacks punch. And it would, as Geogre and Sjakkalle point out, put nearly every conscientious editor who keeps a list of things they could be improved at risk of arbitration for the crime of Conspiracy To Edit. Nandesuka 05:43, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

   And I'd like to remind Tony that civility is always a good idea, all the time. Nandesuka 05:57, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

2. The implication of the wording of this proposed finding-of-fact is that the actions described are a bad thing. If the ArbCom decides that this finding-of-fact is necessary, I would suggest it be reworded to avoid such an implication. -- SCZenz 08:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

In removing yet more sniping by Nandesuka--including in this case a quite serious presumption of bad faith--I also removed a useful comment by SCZenz. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:43, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Re: Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Mythics

How does 2 delete, 0 keep result in "no consensus"? —Cryptic (talk) 03:49, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

After being nominated, the deletion debate attracted only one vote in five days on the list. Of course, 100% is above the rough threshold of 2/3, but when the sample size is two, that is hardly a significant enough sample to be deemed a consensus. Of course, I have no problem with it being nominated again, even this soon after closure, so feel free to do that. I just don't think that the opinion of two editors alone is enough to generate a consensus for deletion. --bainer (talk) 07:51, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Another request (Needs infobox conversion)

You've done a fantastic job on converting the infoboxes listed Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Albums/Needs infobox conversion. However, a user has pointed out that there are quite a few more that need to be changed, about 2000. See here. When you have time, there are a bunch that need to be converted. Alternatively if that's too time-consuming, you can hand down the human-assisted bot to one of us in the Wikiproject to work on this task. Whatever you please. If you don't feel up to it, don't worry about it, we'll take care of it. :) Gflores 16:40, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Image galleries

You recently commented at Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Proposal_to_modify_WP:NOT_an_image_gallery. In a related development, another, in my mind, valuable Image gallery is up for deletion (AfD). Please comment as you see fit. Dsmdgold 15:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

DRV

The reason I think they're making a political point is User:David Gerard#Undeletion. Allowing a list of names to appear on DRV will only allow fighting over it. -Splash 15:54, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

PROPHIX

I have worked dilligently with wavegetarian to fix the problems with the PROPHIX article, we now believe it is suitable for Misplaced Pages. Please review it and let me know whether your deem it appropriate for Misplaced Pages. PROPHIX Wiki —preceding unsigned comment by Jpuopolo (talk • contribs) 18:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Since it's not a full dump from their web page (as was the version I nominated for deletion), I have no objections. I trust you've also informed the others who voted for its deletion there? —Cryptic (talk) 18:41, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I have not, I am unsure how to do so as I am new to Misplaced Pages, could you please advise how the deletion notice can be removed and who are the other individuals that need to be contacted?

Regards

There is no deletion notice to remove; the discussion I linked above was for an old version of the article, which was deleted at the end of November. The other two users who commented on the discussion were DanielCD (talk) and Pete.Hurd (talk). Contacting them isn't strictly necessary, as you imply above, but would be courteous. —Cryptic (talk) 05:08, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

My vandal LOL

Thanks for the block. I love seeing my name in summary lines...usually not good, but hey that was an exception. :) Thanks.

So..........

as another newly minted admin, how would I have gone about that (removal of the address verion of the file)? If its on the guide to deletion and I just don't remember, just point me there. :) --Syrthiss 20:09, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Delete the article, click on the "View or restore n deleted edits" link, click the checkboxes next to the revisions you want to stay, and click Restore. —Cryptic (talk) 20:13, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Thats what I figured it was, but wasn't willing to put it to the test. --Syrthiss 20:15, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Interesting. That orphaned afd of mine for J. Erick Sinkhorn was either clobbered by a later edit or someone removed it. I even had the log on watch to try and avoid that. --Syrthiss 16:02, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I just edit-conflicted with you on User talk:Esinkhorn. The edit where he removed it from the log happened all of a minute after you warned him the first time. —Cryptic (talk) 16:13, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Cryptic. :) --Syrthiss 16:31, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

deeceevoice arbitration

As a party to her RfC, you might be interested to know a request for arbitration has been filed towards deeceevoice Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration#Deeceevoice.

-Justforasecond 18:25, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

xd and Category:Pages for deletion

sorry about that. thanks for making the template changes, will note on the rest of xd + discussion and won't happen again. ∴ here…♠ 19:53, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Archivals

I wonder if you could be so kind as to help write something to archive the reference desk, and automatically add a date label every 24 hours to the page? If you think it is something feasible with relatively little effort, please let me know! As the primary archiver for the past few months, I am looking for something that will run every 24 hours - basically remove the last set of questions from a particular date (determined from a date header), and archive them into the appropriate subcategories. The page is heavily trafficed, and it would help if archivals were done more often to keep the page length lower. Let me know what you think! --HappyCamper 15:41, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I can't add the date headers; I'm not usually at my computer around midnight UTC time, and there isn't an easy way to automatically schedule tasks in my environment (cygwin). I won't be able to split unanswered questions out into Misplaced Pages:Reference Desk archive unanswered, either. Archiving sections based on the date in their enclosing level-1 header can be done, but I'm not likely to have enough time strung together in a row to program it until the new year. —Cryptic (talk) 15:49, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

You brought up a good point - I did not realise that a bot had to operate with a computer - I thought these were placed on some server which operates 24 hours a day! There is no splitting of questions into answered and unanswered categories right now - there are just too many questions to deal with; the entire block of questions is archived, and I have done this for the past few months hoping it would simplify any potential implementation of a bot. Well, I'm really grateful for your quick response. I might follow up with you on how to set up a bot on cygwin - I have that too. I have not had the time to sit down and really go through the documentation on how to interface with Misplaced Pages. Maybe I'll make it my New Year's resolution to get a bot running! All the best, HappyCamper 16:23, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Optimizing spoiler.js

I've written what I believe to be a somewhat more efficient version of your spoiler.js script for my monobook.js (starting from the line var hide_spoilers_initially = true;). The main difference is that I use getElementsByTagName('div') to grab a list of potential spoiler tags rather than recursing through the entire DOM tree. I also use addOnloadHook() from wikibits.js rather than rolling my own, which conveniently avoids executing the code in non-DOM browsers. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:24, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I avoided getElementsByTagName for fear of cutting off the branch I was standing on - I vaguely recall wreaking all sorts of havoc when moving around tags while looping through them. I'll take your word for it, though; I learned JavaScript entirely through the google/cut/paste/trial/error method. —Cryptic (talk) 20:33, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Note that bodyContent is specific to monobook and derived skins. Classic, Nostalgia, and Cologneblue use content, for example. —Cryptic (talk) 20:45, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, then better use that one. I just looked at the source and chose the innermost named div around the content. It shouldn't make much difference either way — in fact we could probably just as well just use document.getElementsByTagName('div').

As for moving tags around while looping over them, I don't think that should be a problem. It could be a problem if we were, say, deleting some of them, or making assumptions about parent-child relationships that might break, but this script isn't doing anything like that.

Incidentally, I made one more change to the code: it now ignores the hide_spoilers_initially flag on talk pages and outside the main namespace. I did this after trying to read Misplaced Pages:Spoiler warning with auto-hiding turned on. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 20:58, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll incorporate that, also; thanks. (By the way, the reason the depth loop was written the way it was - breaking in the middle instead of checking depth at the start of the loop - was so that it didn't hide the endspoiler tag. This is mostly a matter of preference, though, so I made it configurable.) —Cryptic (talk) 21:05, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Guillemots: Deleted page? Why?

Ok, I did recreate the "Guillemots (band)" article because I DID NOT agree with the arguments those guys made to delete an article... I mean... Non notable? Doesn't meet the Misplaced Pages Music criteria?!

Just because the band isn't yet that famous this should be an argument to not make mention of them in Misplaced Pages? Well... Let's see... Everyone keep saying they are going to be huge in 2006... We need to wait them to be REALLY famous? Some guys are selling Guillemots albums on eBay for more than US$20 (when it costs less then US$3) because those albums were sold out, they are limited. Last week one of their songs reached the 4th. place on NME Charts. On UK Charts They got 74th. place... What are we waiting for? Do they really need to be number one to get an article on this encyclopedia? What can I do about it? Could you guys reconsider your vote? Thanks! —preceding unsigned comment by Stefanobw (talk • contribs) 02:01, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

If you think their circumstances have changed enough that the old deletion discussion no longer applies, list it on Misplaced Pages:Deletion review. Simply declaring that consensus invalid and re-creating the article isn't a reasonable thing to do. —Cryptic (talk) 13:05, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Oops

Please slow down and follow the full deletion process when closing afds. I had to clean up four articles today where you neither removed the afd notice from the article nor placed an {{oldafdfull}} notice on the talk page. —Cryptic (talk) 16:26, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for creating so much work for you. I'm sure there's a reason, but I'll try to stay more focused next time. I hope I've redeemed myself by histo-merging a couple of cut-n-paste moves you posted October 25. — FREAK OF NUR_xTURE (TALK) 21:27, Dec. 18, 2005

Ooh, thanks. I'd forgotten about those entirely. —Cryptic (talk) 21:51, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Moving articles on Afd

D'oh, sorry, I was hoping that wouldn't have been a problem. I tried creating the redirect first, but for some reason it kept showing up on my screen as a red link, as if it wouldn't save. So I tried something else. Guess I lost patience. CanadianCaesar 21:46, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Cryptic bot for AfD and CSD talk pages

Hi, Cryptic. I saw that Cryptic bot automatically archived the old discussions on the Village Pump. I was wondering if it could do the same on the talk pages of Articles for Deletion and Criteria for Speedy Deletion, which also get a lot of posts (especially AfD). Perhaps the lag time should be increased to 10 or 14 days, though. What do you think? Thanks, Kjkolb 13:18, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

My impression is that, although they're busy for talk pages, they don't get enough throughput that they need to be checked for archival every day, or even every week. WT:CSD, for example, only has six archives; WT:AFD, while it has quite a few more, has still only really needed to be archived once every three or four months on average. In comparison, WP:AN has averaged a new archive every twenty days since it was created. On the other hand, I haven't been watching their talk pages very closely at all for most of the last month. —Cryptic (talk) 15:29, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Request for access to revise a deleted page

Greetings. I was redirected to your page by the Misplaced Pages:Deletion review after discussing the issue with a sysop. I would like to get access to the article OGTV2 - From Tha Hood to Hollywood, that have been deleted a month ago, because i found a new reference link as a result of using Hotbot web search (i guess this link wasn't included last time, but i am not sure, and i would like to check the archives). This article is about a Snoop Dogg album, that is co-produced by west coast fellow rapper Daddy V.The new cited page would be the westcoast2k's news of October, 2004. This internet site mentioned on the West Coast hip hop Wikipage as one of the trustable West Coast information sources. Please answer me. Thank you. Lajbi 15:34, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Pasted to User:Lajbi/OGTV2 - From Tha Hood to Hollywood. —Cryptic (talk) 15:48, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Request for bot

Could Crypticbot please be used to remove old RFC issues? In particular, any link on the subpages of RFC can be deleted after one month (which is what I presently do manually). The exception is user conduct RFCs, which frequently last longer than that (which would require checking when the page itself was last edited, and moving the link to some archive). Radiant_>|< 15:20, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Can be done without too much difficulty, so long as RFC entries are always exactly one line long. I'm unlikely to have enough uninterrupted time strung together in a row to try it until the second or third week of January, though; I'm working twelve hour days now, and don't get a chance to edit at all except during my lunch break and sleeping hours. You might try asking on WP:BR, if you can't wait; getting consensus to remove the lines (are they archived anywhere, or just removed?) on RFC's talk page if you haven't already would be a good idea, too - bots and controversy don't usually mix very well. —Cryptic (talk) 15:34, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

• Cool! No, I don't mind waiting a month. RFC entries start with " (linebreak)* ", and occasionally but rarely have additional comments added to them by people who mistakenly believe they should respond on the RFC page. They need not be archived anywhere. I've been doing this manually for quite a while with no objections; given the speed of Wiki, any article RFC is outdated after a month. But I'll ask anyway. Radiant_>|< 15:44, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

The Movement

What do you think of the movement? Reply here. Thanks. --Kin Khan 03:18, 22 December 2005 (UTC)