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User talk:John Vandenberg/Archive 9

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This user was a participant in the 2009 Great Misplaced Pages Dramaout, improving articles from July 18–22.

Say No to Drama.

This is a Misplaced Pages user talk page.
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Archives

1 - 2004 — July 7, 2007
2 - July — Nov 25, 2007
3 - Nov 25, 2007 — March 6, 2008
4 - March 6 — June 1, 2008
5 - June 2 — Nov. 8, 2008
6 - Nov. 8 — Dec. 31, 2008
7 - Jan 1 — Apr. 13, 2009
8 - Apr. 13, 2009 — July 1, 2009
9 - July 1, 2009 — Dec. 3, 2009
10 - Dec 2, 2010 — Sept. 4, 2010
11 - Sept. 4, 2010 — Feb. 25, 2011
12 - Feb. 25, 2011 — Aug. 29 2011
13 - Aug. 29 2011 — Jan. 2 2012
14 - Jan. 2 2012 — Aug. 15 2012
15 - Aug. 15 2012 — April. 11 2014
16 - April. 11 2014 — July. 14 2024

U'v got email

Emailed you on June 25th. RSVP there. Thx! SoCoColl (talk) 11:49, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Archive header

May I suggest {{talkarchivenav}} instead? -- Avi (talk) 12:35, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Done. thanks for the tip. John Vandenberg 13:30, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Only works until you have 50 pages, though. I just had to change my headers -- 22:49, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Talk page archive at Talk:Rachel Marsden

I added links to the two previous archives to the talk page, but I'm not sure if that was correct given the first entry on the second archive page. Flowanda | Talk 03:45, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

The archives were already mentioned in the small print in the second last box at the top, which says: "Archives: 1, 2"
But it doesn't hurt to make the archives more prominent. John Vandenberg 06:25, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Linguistic comparisons

Hi John, Head of Dept:I am the only Chairman in Immunology since about 1991 .I hope this will finish soon;burocracy has been shared among us lately.We have two parts in our Dept 1-Microbiology and 2-Immunology.Both parts function separately , so I am the Head of Immunology.If you are going to Edit something I would prefer to be named Chairman.The concept is different in all 3 countries: USA,UK and here.

Fundacion de Estudios Geneticos y Lingüísticos:I am the president.If I wanted to expel a member I could not ;perhaps after a long process.Dumu Eduba showed documents,that I was.

My last 2 books have been published by Fundacion de Estudios Geneticos y Linguisticos .FEGEL or Fegel is a private company:if I do not have time to proceed against the linguists who are after me ;I am not going to proceed to somebody who has worked with me.In addition,Justice in Spain is slow and very expensive.

I am going out and I will have access to Internet not everyday(or may be not even in some days).

In addition ,if you wish documents for your work ,just send me and E mail and I will send you by Fed Exp or any means.But I am not going to answer (with my name,directly) more private or personal questions except about what I have published and I must give an explanation, if requested,through my official E mail.


PS_Unfortunately I am now Head of Immunology and Microbiology also.I will get rid of Microbiology as soon as possible.--Arnaiz1 (talk) 17:07, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Emailed. John Vandenberg 02:23, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Linguistics--Arnaiz1 (talk) 17:09, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

When I have said Fegel ,it means Fegel Editions--Arnaiz1 (talk) 17:09, 3 July 2009 (UTC) We are getting too personal.Please E mail me--Arnaiz1 (talk) 17:09, 3 July 2009 (UTC)


Dear Jvdb,

I wrote a note for your mediation yesterday in AAV page. Make this sense? Here is a copy. Sincerely--Virginal6 (talk) 14:35, 12 July 2009 (UTC) Other Wrong Statements (like "scientific fraud") Vandenberg mediation does not want web pages as references. There is a web page from Fegel Editions which has nothing to do with Arnaiz-Villena.”Scientific fraud” has been removed because it was taken from this page. In addition the following phrase should also be deleted:

“and advertises that Basque can even be used to translate the Indus script of Pakistan, Rongorongo of Easter Island, and the Mayan glyphs of Mesoamerica, showing that "Usko-Mediterannean technology and religion diffused across the planet."[26”

This should also be removed because: 1-Its only reference comes from the same page. 2-Arnaiz-Villena has never writteen anything about Indus script,Mayan Glyphs or Easter Island Rongorongo language.

This is an information which is wrong and misleads Misplaced Pages readers. THIS SHOULD ALSO BE REMOVED.

--Virginal6 (talk)


I think after discovering this fanatic link,which uses Misplaced Pages as a source of defamation,


http://www.arguewitheveryone.com/race-issues/58836-100-facts-3-lie.html

(see end of third page)


I would rather change 

:

1”-FRINGE” by “UNORTHODOX”,since editors are changing Basque and Dene Caucasian languages Misplaced Pages pages in the last times to a more balanced ones and closer to AAV hypotheses:Basque has been compared with many languages and AAV is basically repeating those approaches.Because of these repetitions he should not be insulted in Misplaced Pages .

2-All extended critics are unbased :LAHOZ on ly critics his first book.LAKARRA critics 32 words out of thousands. (and he comes to the conclussion that 85% of the AAV work is wrong) ,since in fact what he says that 85% of the 32 words are wrong.Pichler (from un unknown Bulletin,refers toan Erratum- The last critic:Jacobsen does not mention to Arnaiz-Villena is a general critic which has nothing to do wit Arnaiz-Villena

3-In view ,of the Misplaced Pages misuse by phanatics,I would stick to the text propossed by AAV,now and we have always have time to add further.

This is what he-AAV proposes (pasted) 7:35, 11 July 2009 (UTC)--Virginal6 (talk) 14:35, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

REMARKS AND PROPOSAL I would not like to be crucified by months in this page “while we discuss calmly”(Dumu Eduba). Obvious mistakes could be removed as soon as possible.If we write in detail all other article paragraphs, we would fill all Misplaced Pages.I think that we should size this linguistic section on article.

1-I would like to remove soon languages which I have not even mentioned in my writings and “an invented accusation of scientific fraud stated by me”.The reference is a web page whith which I have nothing to do and my name is not in it. (EDITION A).Scripts names to be removed:Mayan,Rongorongo,Akkadian,Babylonian,Dravidian, Indus Valley, (Harappa,Mohenjo Darro),Proto-Indo-European,Greek,Latin,Semitic languages....If they still state that I have written a word on these languages,they should scan my false writing and show it here.

2-I have nothing to do with Fegel Company,I have contacted them and asked them to remove all quotations to Fundacion de Estudios Geneticos.I expect they remove it.

3-If Iruña-Veleia is to be mentioned, then mention supporters and non-supporters(EDITION B).

4-“Few scholars have found it worth their time to refute Arnaiz-Villena”:this a defamatory opinion.I think that they rather cannot refute (EDITION C).

5-DE HOZ CRITICISM: (1999)references only a small part of my work :the first of 7 books on linguistics .

a)Title of Javier de Hoz commentary “Travel to nowhere througout the Mediterranean:languages that Iberians,Etruscans,and Cretans did not speak”He does not write about Cretans a single word and refers to a single Iberian example to dismiss our whole work.

b)Statements written by Lahoz:

1-...sometimes this type (of books) are written by unscrupulous (“desaprensivo” in Spanish) people...,including people from the Academic World.He is stating I am unscroupolous I consider this a false unbased accusation which damages my reputation.

2- ...(authors) do not know at all gramatical structure of Iberian and Etruscan...(This is the one single time he mentions Etruscan except in title).Grammars do exist as such only after Middle Ages and although some Grammatical features ,not standardized and variable,must exist in the first times, but it lacks standardization.Our hypotheses on this topic are as good as Lahoz ones.

3-...(books authors) are a plain disaster (no further explanations).This is an un based defamation. 4-...(books) are an a aberration in methods and results.No further explanation.This is an unbased defamation. 5-...Public money has been missused to pay the issue of a book with a scientific interest similar to that of using wax puppets and exorcism to cure cancer. This is tasteless joke and a defamation.. 6-A crime has been perpetrated and there must be a responsable person to pay for it.(END) .(He referes to deviation ofpublic funds... or to the authors?).This book was unusually reprinted.This is a defamation;Hoz is not a Judge.. Thus ,Lahoz does not criticise the specific content of the ONE SINGLE book which was out,but attacks the authors ,without any base:he only does not agree with one example( 2 words in Iberian). I accept this.Although ,I believe we were right.He does not mention Etruscan or Cretan (only in title) : only to say that we do not know a word of Iberian or Etruscan grammars:our hypothesis on these are as valid as his.Grammars did not exist by then,and these languages are not firmly and finally translated.Historic linguistic reconstructoins for ancient languages are hypotheses only ,including ours.

I have already (last year, 2008!) complained to De Hoz himself:we had a nice chat and I asked him to phone me up if he had any problem with our writings.We are full professors at the same university.

We should only refer to his opposition he only dismiss work and authors without specific critics,just a general dismissal. .EDITION D.


-6-LAKARRA CRITICISMS: -LAKARRA(in Protovasco,munda...in Ohienart 21,2006,229-322) He has feuds with some others ..His references should not be included in Misplaced Pages regarding to Dene Caucasian or Basque or in this page.He reflect extreme views.; he states:

a-Page 242:Ruhlen and other seditious Greenberg underlings....Ruhlen is a linguist with different ideas,not a militar.Merritt Ruhlen is a linguistics professor at Stanford University and co-Director of a big project at the Santa Fe Institute of Languages. b-Page 243:He attacks senior linguist Theo Vennemann just because Theo V. thinks that Europe is full of old Basque toponyms, i.e.:Basque or related languages were the ancient European languages. According to Lakarra,Theo V. put forward this hypothesis ,because “eager of success at any cost”.This is an extemist view c)-Page 245 (footnote):he says that from 32 Basque words used by us ,8 are Lating leanings (we hypothezise the contrary) and 5 are invented “ad hoc” by us. Later,he acuses us of forgers.This is an extreme view and also he uses picaresque :he studies 32 out of thousands of words we have researched.Then,he transforms his “ 32 word study ” in percentages and ALL our work becomes 85% wrong.I do not think this is a serious critic.I would edit it(EDITION D).This reference should be removed. 7-WERNER PICHLER-He (?) writes in a Bulletin without adscription, editorship or peer-review “La Lettre D’AARS”.He dismisses “amateurs and specialists”:3 or 4 authors ,including us.We have studied Lybic –Berber Canarian Rock Inscriptions (from page 214 -243 ,about 200 Lybic Berber words) ,he does not critisize any of them and then comes to a clear secretariat Erratum ,which is corrected in any scientific magazine,issues later.There are several hypotheses.1)He has written the criticisms: he,who does not know neither Iberian nor Basque languages,did not notice about the Iberian Guanche inscriptions (he does not mention them).He might be upset abut that.This remark about us and about others would not have been admited in a regular magazine.2)He has not written the criticisms(he is quite old by now)I would remove this unknown Bulletin reference. (EDITION D)

8-JACOBSEN-He does not refer to me because its publication was before my first liguistics book was out. He specifically referers to a preliminar Alonso work (see his references),when I and my colleagues did not yet colaborate with Alonso.This paragraph is also very long and reflects only a point of view,about Basque language evolution which does not coincide with Alonso work (EDITION D)


-9-HIEROGLYPGHS-No universal claims of discovering were done or pretended by us. This is an editor opinion. Champoillon decipherment is not universal. Not a single Egyptologist translate the same hieroglyphic paragraph in the same way.There are no Egyptian Chairs at Universities:only Seminars. Many more Egyptian scripts has come out since Champoillon and a revision is needed . EDITION E

-10-OTHER SCHOLARS HAD DONE BEFORE THE SAME COMPARISONS THAN ARNAIZ-VILLENA,BETWEEN BASQUE AND OTHER LANGUAGES.

There is no cause for raging ,unless a lynching is going on.

1- All comparisons done between Basque and Mediterranean languages by Antonio Arnaiz-Villena had been done before by others.I do not see here the need of doing a thorough revision of the books written by me (at least in the article page).In addition, curious and spurious statements attributed to me are repeatedly being added:this is a mistake.

2-All European languages have a Basque base according to linguist Venemann.´ Iberian,Etruscan,Minoan,Sumerian,North and South Caucasian and Berber languages all Have been compared (see review in book “Towards a history of Basque language” edited by Hualde et al;John Benjanmins Publishing Co,1995,in chapter written by Larry Trask,pags 65-100),ISBN:9027236348.

3-Egyptian language is also related to to East African and Berber languages by Gardiner,accepted by almoust all scholars In “Egyptian Grammar”,Oxford University Press,1969,

4-Uhlenbeck,Bouda,Lafon,Marr,Dumeznil,Schuchardt,Reinesch,Pokorny and Trombetti have found relationships between Basque and Hamitic languages (Middle East and North African languages ,including Phoenician,Berber etc);Hamitic languages concept might overlap with Usko-Mediterranean languages concept.

4-Bengston and Ruhlen have treated relationships of Basque and Hurrian, Hatti and many other World northern and southern Hemisphere languages,not only Usko-Mediterraneans (see book”On the origin of languages “ by Merritt Ruhlen,Stanford University Press,1994,chapter “Global Ethymology” by Bengston and Ruhlen,pags 277-336;(ISBN 0847-2321-4)

5-Hittite has also been studied in relation to Basque (By Imanol Agirre es:Imanol_Agirre in “Vinculos de la lengua vasca con las lenguas de todo el mundo”.Edited La Gran Enciclopedia Vasca,1980,Bilbao,Spain (ISBN:842480501)

6-I have also removed references:1) to Iruña-Veleia from newspapers and recent web pages,following guidelines.2)to a web page on Egyptian-Bsque,following guidelines.

7-I have added “The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Linguistics” for contradicting our studies.


Please,read the text if see if it is suitable for a Misplaced Pages section of article.--Arnaiz1 (talk) 18:03, 29 June 2009 (UTC)



PROPOSAL

Fringe linguistic theories Arnaiz-Villena and his collaborator Jorge Alonso-Garcia have used Basque to decipher many of the ancient languages of the Mediterranean and Middle East which are believed by scholars not related to Basque, including Egyptian, Hittite, Sumerian, Hurrian, Ugaritic, EDITION A Elamite, and Phoenician.EDITION A .Arnaiz-Villena's Egyptian translations, for example, include the cartouche of the bilingual Rosseta Stone in which Champollion identified the name of Ptolemy, which in his version does not include that name .EDITION E.The Code of Hammurabi contains "no hint of laws" but is a Basque funeral text; They also have put forward to read poorly attested languages such as Etruscan, Iberian, Tartessian, Guanche, and Minoan, which nobody else has been able to decipher with any certainty. They posit that these are all part of a "Usko-Mediterranean" branch of the speculative Dene-Caucasian language family, which they extend to include the Berber languages of North Africa, EDITION A This thesis flatly contradicts basic Egyptological, Sumerian, EDITION A scholarship. Phoenician, EDITION A, Ugaritic, and Eblaite, for example, are clearly Semitic languagesEDITION A; Egyptian along with Berber and Semitic have been demonstrated to be Afro-Asiatic, and some linguists have been unable to find a connection with Basque,but not others :Federico Krutwig related Guanche and Basque and other authors related Basque with Iberian,Etruscan,Minoan,Sumerian,North and 8 South Caucasian ,Berber,Egyptian and Hittite ..EDITION A,EDITION F ,,. EDITION C De Hoz,1999 ,Werner Pichler-EDITION D (2005) and Joseba Lakarra strongly oppose these linguistic comparisons .Arnaiz-Villena hypotheses also contradict other established theories .---Arnaiz1 (talk) 18:05, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

--Virginal6 (talk) 15:51, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Personal vendetta?

John, it would seem that Red Pen is carrying out a personal vendetta against links to MyWikiBiz, even when they are linking to highly informative, instructive pages directly in tune with the Misplaced Pages article. See here, here, and here. Your opinion? Obviously, I can't get involved directly. -- Thekohser 03:13, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

WP:COI says that if you are related to a particular point of topic and would like an alteration of some sort (in this case the restoration of links) that you should use the relevant article's talk pages. It DOES NOT say that you should go around to specific users' talk pages attempting to garner support for a change or action. You need to be extremely careful Gregory.   «l| ?romethean ™|l»  (talk) 12:19, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
This is about multiple articles; a bit of a meta issue, and there is a meta discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:External links#Mywikibiz as external links. Posts on my talk page will rarely garner support for anything. John Vandenberg 03:46, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Rather than view this as a personal vendetta, it can be viewed as igniting discussion via WP:BRD. WP:EL is a guideline, and I dont think it is appropriate to remove links due to WP:ELNO #12 "Links to open wikis.." as that is guidance for the many crappy wikis around the Internet. There are many well administrated wikis. (A few days ago I noticed that Oracle Corp has one now) As a result we need to evaluate each link separately.

  • Rachel Marsden: in my opinion this link would be acceptable; the MyWikiBiz page contains useful information not able to be included in the Misplaced Pages page (such as the image), and biogs on MyWikiBiz are more akin to imdb/nndb, especially when the subject has had a hand in the writing of it. However I am not going to restore the link again as I dont like to force my point of view. Also, the MyWikiBiz page has broken infobox syntax and is a sea of red links.
  • Sum of Logic: Again this was an appropriate link, as any website that hosts a copy of public domain texts is acceptable. We should judge it based on its accuracy rather than the URL. However, this incomplete text should be merged into s:la:Summa logicae, which is also incomplete. As I am quite keen on putting public domain works onto Wikisource, I would copy this over to Wikisource myself rather than have a link to a copy on MyWikiBiz, as people are more likely to read and improve the text if it is on Wikisource, and the reader is more likely to donate additional texts to Wikisource than to MyWikiBiz. I'll contact Peter Damian about this as he might be interested migrating this work over to Wikisource.
  • Sophismata: This one is more interesting. That page doesn't clearly belong on one of the WMF projects; quite the opposite: it would be appropriate on Wikibooks, or Wikiversity, or it could go on Wikisource as an index page. In my opinion, this link fits more within the intent of WP:ELNO #12; while it is an extremely useful collection of information, .. the encyclopedic information in that page could be merged into Misplaced Pages, and as an external link it lacks any authoritative appeal.
  • Liz Cohen (mentioned in other discussions): another biog, and again the MyWikiBiz page has useful information we cant have unless the owner of the photos relicenses them. Any chance you could negotiate for one photo to be relicensed and copied to Commons??

John Vandenberg 03:46, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Question: while the community should "judge it based on its accuracy " what exactly is the difference between me posting a copy of the text on my personal website and some other user posting the text on MWB? I am pretty sure that if I tried to add a link to my personal web page saying "this is an accurate copy and the only copy available on the web" that the link would be removed. -- The Red Pen of Doom 19:22, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
In my experience, we dont give a hoot where it is located on the web. I often see external links to personal websites of someone who has transcribed a text. I often copy those public domain texts from personal websites to Wikisource, and update the Misplaced Pages link to point to Wikisource instead. However the Wikisource copy is no better than the copy on the personal website. Sometimes I also find pagescans of the original source, and marry the text with the images, and then proofread the text using those images.
Only when the reader can view/obtain pagescans should a text be considered verifiable. Removing links to unverifiable texts is counter-productive at this stage, and will deprive readers of useful links. John Vandenberg 01:08, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
I personally feel that WP:EL sets a little higher standard than "we found it on the web and the poster says that its accurate so we can include it". -- The Red Pen of Doom 02:19, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
And I feel that WP:EL is orthogonal to a guideline on links to sources. As far as I know we dont have any good guidance about public domain sources.
Are you familiar with which etexts on the Internet are low quality? For example, would you start by removing links to a significant number of the early Project Gutenberg etexts which are quite low quality ? What about all the sources that are archived on genealogy projects, such as Rootsweb? What about all our links to the CE1913 transcription that is on newadvent.org? Or the links to shoddy transcriptions of s:EB1911 that appear all over the Internet? I could spend weeks listing all of the links to poor quality transcriptions that Misplaced Pages is currently riddled with.
As I have indicated above, I would love a higher standard where we require that sources must have pagescans to the published edition before we consider them verifiable, however that would mean that most of our articles will not have links to accurate transcriptions that are available on the internet. Vetting links to public domain transcriptions is not easy - one link can take man-years to verify if the book is rare, or large, or in a dead language. The scale of this problem is overwhelming, and it is extremely unhelpful to have Wikipedians removing these links without understanding the problem domain.
Do you seriously believe that Peter Damian's transcription is a problem? Are you aware that the transcription on Latin Wikisource is worse than Peter Damian's transcription? Please take a look at the discussions between Peter Damian and myself that are lower down on this page, and on the WR thread he links to.
John Vandenberg 03:10, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
Focusing solely on External links - which is why I am here (because someone accused me of having a vendetta in removing external links) - We should include external links where we can "judge it based on its accuracy " - those sites that dont come from under the auspices of a source known for its accuracy shouldnt be included. I dont think that we should judge old latin texts differently than pokemon sites - giving it a pass simply because there isnt anything that meets our criteria is weak. -- The Red Pen of Doom 03:33, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Request

Do you know anyone at the Houghton Library, Harvard? There is a manuscript of Christopher Smart's Jubilate Agno there. Although I have some pieces, and a few others are also copied, it is hard to find a holograph or copy of the work in full. It would be a lovely edition for some eager individual at Wikisource to find. Could you pass on the word whenever you have a free moment? :) Ottava Rima (talk) 20:33, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

No I dont. Try WP:LIBRARIANS. --John Vandenberg 03:52, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

What do you think of...

This? I'm uncertain whether it requires oversight.—S Marshall /Cont 06:49, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

So far, this is a very clear case of BLP1E, and .. sadly .. it is not a notable situation as this happens a bit too frequently - I cant see anything special about this case, especially at this early stage with nobody accused. However I cant justify using BLP to trump prod in this case because this isn't unsourced material, and I am struggling to see a benefit of speedy deletion - it is primarily a NOTNEWS issue, and if it cant survive the prod tag, that is a good indicator that it doesnt have legs.
I am also uncertain about whether it requires oversight, as the details are all found in both reliable news sources and authoritative databases. As a result, I have emailed oversight-l to generate a bit of discussion and consensus on how to deal with this and similar cases. Thank you for alerting me.
John Vandenberg 07:43, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
Would you mind letting me know what oversight decide? It'd be nice to know how to handle these things in future.

The problem seems to have partly solved itself with an admin speedily deleting the page (I'd query the appropriateness of the speedy, personally, but I'm not worried enough to bring it to DRV).—S Marshall /Cont 08:26, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

This is a edge case, so the safest solution is to email the list, but I will let you know what the verdict is.
p.s. I actually made a point that I didn't see the need to speedy, and doubted that you would be keen on a speedy, but I also wont take this to DRV.
John Vandenberg 08:38, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
Oversighters decided not to do anything about this, as it was all information that is readily available elsewhere. John Vandenberg 13:05, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

copyright

{{helpme}|}uploaded umages are owned by me and filed with the U.S. Library of Congress. This includes all photos and cover art. Knightflyte —Preceding unsigned comment added by Knightflyte (talk • contribs) 16:24, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Re: multi-column templates

I don't know of a solution beyond simply using {{multicol}}. {{reflist}} has had this problem for a long time now; it uses the same method to create columns as both of our templates do, and it is a much more popular template; yet, there still has been no solution for it. Gary King (talk) 22:00, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Ockham's Summa on Wikisource

You should be aware the Wikisource version is riddled with spelling errors. I comment on this here. Peter Damian (talk) 07:42, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Answered there. John Vandenberg 16:45, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Mail

You have some. Cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:53, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi John. Did you get the message? If you're too busy, could you just ping me back with suggested Arbcom member who isn't so busy? Many thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:36, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
I've got it, and was planning on looking at it earlier in the w/e, but a few events overran me and Arbcom. (i.e. most of the committee is a bit busier than we had planned on being) I'm heading to bed; ill make it a priority tomorrow. John Vandenberg 16:16, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
Alright John, not a big problem. Look forward to hearing from you. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:58, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi there

Er, I received a polite note from one John Vandenberg thanking me for my "contributions".

It's true that from time to time I modify a wikipedia page if for one reason or another I have special knowledge on the subject, or my housebound personal library happens to contain a book of special relevance. It contains for example an original copy of the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica, leatherbound, printed on rice paper, still in its Louis Vuitton case, which I inherited from my grandfather.

In general though, I just don't have the energy to make a wikipedia account worthwhile. My IP address changes every so often; but I will try to sign with four tildes as recommended.

Best Regards, Terry Cole --60.234.132.128 (talk) 10:26, 12 July 2009 (UTC)


Hi Terry. I routinely welcome anonymous editors where I see that they have made good edits to an article that I monitor. Even if you do not make many contributions, having an account has a few advantages both for yourself and the community, if only because you wont be welcomed frequently ;-)
If you have any public domain documents or books in your library that are rare and important, Wikisource is another project you might be interested in.
With regards to EB1911, we are slowly transcribing a digital edition over on Wikisource at s:EB1911, and we have a set of complete pagescans at s:User:Tim Starling.
However there are other works on Wikisource where we have text without images, meaning we cant proofread it until someone with a copy of the book appears.
Anyway, nice to meet you. Feel free to drop in any time you have questions or problems. John Vandenberg 14:07, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Idea

I was quite interested in your ideas on version control and flagging revisions. I may follow this up. Another idea: as you may know I work on medieval manuscripts. One thing a Wiki environment would be well-suited to is deciphering of these. They are famously illegible and a group of people working together could definitely make better progress than one. Here is an example of one I made public. The disadvantages are (1) there are probably only 5 people in the world who have the experience to do this, relative to any particular area or era (part of the skill is knowing which Latin technical term is being used, and a strong vocabulary is essential in any case). (2) Copyright again. The version I posted there is a digital version that is copyrighted. To get over this I reduced the grain of the image right down from 3M to a few hundred k. Perhaps this would be acceptable to copyright owners, but not sure. Also, when the grain is reduced it makes it somewhat less legible though personally I have no trouble reading the image there. Interested in your thoughts. Peter Damian (talk) 11:07, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Copyright of scans depends heavily on the jurisdiction. sweat of the brow doesnt apply in all countries, so in those countries it is impossible to copyright scans of a very old text like this. In some countries the act of scanning somehow results in a new copyright. Museums often claim copyright when they have no such thing- they usually have contracts, but those contracts can't bind people who don't sign them. As a result of these contracts, they will put reduced quality pictures on their websites, ban cameras, etc.
My guess is that your example is under UK jurisdiction, which leans towards supporting copyfraud sweat of the brow, and would mean that your reduced resolution image is not "free" either. A way to get around this is to add a note on the talk page to ask people who are interested to email you for a copy of the image(s). This is still "distribution", however it is more defensible as it is a private discussion about the images, which I assume you obtained via a legal means. The only time that this would not work is if there are contracts which restrict you.
A hypothetical way to get around the sweat of the brow is to remove any "sweat" (or water it down significantly) by removing the artistic elements from the scan - i.e. post process the image down to black on white, etc. This hasnt been tested in court, but the sweat of the brow hasnt really been tested in UK court either - everyone merely presumes that the courts will rule in favour of it, and nobody dares establish case law for this, as both sides are worried about the precedent that may be established.
However, the transcription would be free irrespective of jurisdiction, and Wikisource would be a host for it. We have done similar projects, however each one of this kind presents new problems due to the difficulty in understanding the original. It may take a while to complete, but if it is an important text, ordinary scholars can do the grunt work (we often work with Wiktionary folk to get a handle on very technical words), and we can find the five people who can do the corrections.
Another option is to find a reprint or translation.
John Vandenberg 16:57, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
The manuscript is Worcester 13, which is an important witness to early work on logic in England (probably dated in the 1270's). Some of it has been transcribed, most of it has not. If you can find other scholars I would be interested. As to the image, it is a photograph, not a scan, which I commissioned from Worcester cathedral library. I will email to see if they are amenable to putting a lower-resolution image onto Wikisource. It would be an interesting project. You say there are other similar projects - really? Peter Damian (talk) 18:42, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

It's late at night

John, you may have read my post quickly. Please see the link to ArbCom's second draft update of its policy. That is what I cite below the existing policy. It's nothing to do with what I would propose, although I support the change. Tony (talk) 15:32, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

My apologies if I titled it incorrectly by not understanding what your post was all about. Could you establish another section title? I was planning on commenting on it, and now that you have clarified what it is, my comment is going to be oh-so-ironic. John Vandenberg 15:43, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
I have given it a different title. Refactor, but please keep it in a separate section. John Vandenberg 16:02, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Arnaiz-Villena is heavily insulted just copying his Misplaced Pages frozen page

http://www.arguewitheveryone.com/race-issues/58836-100-facts-3-lie.html

Look at the end of the 3rd page.

Page should be changed as suggested by AAV I have pasted his suggestion it in your talk page ,JVDB

--Virginal6 (talk) 15:42, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I have been slowly pushing on this biog. I am sorry if it is too slow, but I will make my way through the list of concerns. A large part of the problem is trying to understand the concerns. John Vandenberg 17:06, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
Please,ask me any question;I will be able to solve all technical ones .

I will be these days out of work and will be able to answer rapidly.--Virginal6 (talk) 06:41, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Renewed harassment by User:Jack Merridew

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

According to Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Jack_Merridew_ban_review_motion, you are listed as a mentor of the above described user. Following the long discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Jack Merridew-A Nobody, I thought he would leave me alone, but then the following happened over the past few days:

I don't know why the sudden resurgence against me, but trying to dismissingly disrupt multiple editors' efforts to improve the Home and Away character articles is not just some slight against me and the nomination of the Sally article is indicative of the indiscriminate and unknowing approach here. But given the past ANI threads between us and given his unblock conditions, I would think making some kind of flippant remark that I really am "a nobody" would be totally unacceptable. He has already been warned, sanctioned, etc. I don't much care to be insulted by someone who long-term harassed another user, nor do I care to have him see fit to target articles I try to improve. At this point, there should be no tolerance for such a thing and especially given the past ANI threads, the fact that he would make such a remark on my talk page alonside a slew of rapid-fire deletes for articles I tagged for rescue (if you check his contribs, the ONLY AfDs he commented in a ROW i.e. in consecuetive edits were either ones I tagged for rescue, tried to fix, or previously defended in an earlier AfD; given the dozens of active AfDs and given our history, well...). Please, please put a stop to this already. The talk page personal attack in itself should be blockable. I am not planning on starting any new ANI thread or anything else beyond this talk page request as I am here to build an encyclopedia and not play games, but I deeply implore you to do whatever possible to reign this ongoing fixation he has against me in, because I do not want to yet again become his new White Cat. Thank you for your time, help, and consideration. Sincerely, --A Nobody 05:15, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

tl;dr

Then there's Sarah's view of the soap opera mess: User talk:Jack Merridew#Thanks Jack and a shinny pointed thing. This edit is worth a look at. Sincerely, Jack Merridew 05:43, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I have looked at this quickly, and will discuss it with the other mentors within in the next few hours. John Vandenberg 08:24, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay, please let me know what y'all decide as it is still going on:
I start work on an article up for deletion, and he starts removing stuff from the article.
I shift attention to Animal Farm related articles a la this and this and this and not only has he subsequently edited or commented in any discussion related to these articles, but also started Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Animal Farm in popular culture. Is he going to go after any and everything I start to work on?
I comment here and he comments directly below my comment.
It is bad enough he approaches AfDs as a joke and in an insulting manner per , saying to "transwiki the editors behind these to Wikia" with an edit summary of "lulz". I am not okay with someone who is not here to edit maturely following me around and targeting areas of the wiki I work on. Please help.
Sincerely, --A Nobody 19:28, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
A Nobody: Please realise that while you may not necessarily agree with Jack's nominations of various things, other views may differ. Consider, for example, this request, in which The JPS is requesting Jack's assistance. In case you were unclear, The JPS is a highly respected user, with 30,000 contributions to his credit, who has been here since 2004 and has been an admin since 2006. It's possible to differ about specific items (such as the Animal Farm in popular culture AfD), while recognising the value add of activities in a given area (such as identifying problematic articles in popular culture areas and AfDing them). I think you need to try to relax about this matter. ++Lar: t/c 19:06, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
Other established editors and admins rightly see these edits as disruptive. For example, User:Matthewedwards writes, "I'm rather pissed off with User:Jack Merridew" and multiple editors expressed as much in Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Sally Fletcher that further demonstrate he is either making deliberately frivolous nominations or is not knowledgeable about the subjects under consideration. Now if it was just about some disagreement over inclusion criteria, whatever, but this targetting fictional universes right after I specifically attempt to do anything with them and given the history between us is ridiculous. And none of us should have to put up with being mocked on our userpages ("I think your username is appropriate") or in AfDs I didn't even comment in ("just a nobody who reflexively opines to keep everything."), especially when I actually do argue and nominate to delete as seen at User:A_Nobody/Deletion_discussions. And the community at large should not be told "transwiki the editors behind these to Wikia". Given his arbcom history condition of making NO disruptive edits, he has clearly violated that, because there is no acceptable justification for going to another user's talk page and saying in essence that they reall are a nobody or saying in AfDs that a whole group of editors are not welcome here. Even if he wasn't sanctioned under a condition to make nothing even remotely perceiavable as disruptive, such edits would still stretch the boundaries of WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. Sincerely, --A Nobody 21:37, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
It's not Jack's fault you chose "A Nobody" for a name... see attractive nuisance. We can't help what our parents gave us for names, so I think it's low to tease people about their real names, but if you tape "kick me" on your own back (via a choice of handle), so to speak, whose fault is that? THAT said, I do think Jack and you need to separate, and I'll have some words with him to that effect, reminding him. I'm sure John will too.
However I would be careful about calling edits disruptive unless you are sure they really are. Matthewedwards here seems to be saying stuff more along the lines of "too many at once" than "bad noms". I again will say this... you need to relax. Stop picking at everything Jack does, as it's a very unflattering image of yourself you end up projecting. In the long run it will do you harm. Try to be more collegial, more laid back, more mellow. It's less stressful than running to cry for help all the time. ++Lar: t/c 21:54, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
It is clearly the fault of whoever chooses to mock someone because of their username. We don't blame victims. And as far as labelling edits as disruptive goes, what do you make of declaring that all of us who create and work on fictional elements are in effect not welcome on Misplaced Pages and these good faith edits are "disruptive"? It is difficult for anyone to have an academic discussion in an AfD when the good faith article writers are dismissed in such a manner. You have noticed this meanness yourself elsewhere. Look, I would be glad to have nothing to do with him, but as Dream Focus identifies below, he keeps showing up after me in discussions and on articles I worked on and I can't imagine why. By contrast once he commented in the latst slew of fiction AfDs, I have resisted posting in them or rescue templating them. I do not get why he can't do the same with regards to me. My concern is that he is fixating on me as he did White Cat and I do not want that, because it is downright disturbing and shouldn't ber permissable given the history. Hopefully whatever you say to him will be the end of that and I can go back to improving articles and welcoming editors as is far more pleasant to do. Good night. Sincerely, --A Nobody 02:46, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
  • He does seem to be wikistalking you, and you aren't allowed to specifically target another editor like that. And some of his edits, for instance this one, do some rather rude. Dream Focus 22:36, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
    Wasn't that diff asked about above? ++Lar: t/c 22:45, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
    Yep, it is exactly what he is doing and it is still ongoing as seen with . As well as with articles that I am trying to rescue, see this example. You would think given this discussion one would try to add some distance instead... Sincerely, --A Nobody 14:10, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
    And still. Sincerely, --A Nobody 14:49, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
    If you seek to find offense, you will surely find it, somewhere. Given how argumentative you were about being called on misuse of citing WP:PERNOM to rebut folk who say "per nom" ... someone using 'per nom', then signing the same way you do... with no other comment... is a very mild form of editorializing. Jack should know better, true, and he has been counseled about this before, but really... YOU need to get a bit thicker skinned here. Either that or stop taping "kick me" on your back by doing stupid things like arguing at length in deletion discussions. I would summarize my advice to you as: "Grow up". ++Lar: t/c 20:09, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
    I argued with those who did not see fit to actually discuss articles under consideration, i.e. to not give article creators and writers the common courtesy of demonstrating any efforts of looking for sources or considering alternatives to deletion. Editors should come to these discussions ready to discuss the actual articles and specifics rather than to just vote. I am the only person in that discussion to actually cite specific sources and try to incorporate them into the article or look for places to merge what we have. Instead of coming here all authoritatively, why not help to improve the article content? Sincerely, --A Nobody 20:14, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
    You assume too much. ++Lar: t/c 20:34, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Searching for common ground

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A Nobody, I haven't been ignoring your posts here. To be honest, I'm still not sure what to do as a mentor here. But I need to do something now, as I fear this is going to end up with Jack Merridew becoming banned on technicalities and minor issues, or result in arbitration which will do neither of you any good. Both of you are working in the same area, and have diametrically opposing worldviews on a raft of issues. Since you work in the same area, you are going to bump heads occasionally. The most obvious problem you raise is the edit-summaries, and I have had a few ideas on how to address that, but not implemented any of them.

  • The first is an editor review. Jack has been here for a while, and would probably benefit from an editor review. I'll see if he is willing.
  • Another option is for me to crunch some numbers to see whether his interactions with you have been excessive (wikihounding) or is he sharing his love around and bumping heads with you as often as he is bumping heads with other people. This will take a while to do (a week, maybe?). If I see a problem in the numbers, I'll present them in an RFC; if I dont see a problem, hopefully you will be able to see it from a different perspective.
  • Finally, would you both be willing to take a break from AFD (and articles at AFD) for a while (a month?). Or perhaps a timeshare arrangement where one person goes to AFD for two weeks, and then the other person goes to AFD.
  • It would also be nice to see you two working together on some content in a topic which you have common ground in. Topics which you both agree need work. Or we build a long list of articles that need to be rescued (before anyone AFDs them) and that you both agree should exist, and you work together on bringing them up to standard. I am sure that we can find some common ground here.

Feel free to both answer here. To begin with, talk to me rather than each other, and please both be considerate of the other when replying to my questions. John Vandenberg 16:06, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

John, just consider the latest example. Given I am arguing with someone over a "per nom", to post a "per nom" feels like obvious baiting. The combination of leaving mocking messages on my user page, still following me around after a couple ANI threads in which consensus came pretty close to us leaving each other alone, makes that he still sees fit to comment after me or after subjects I try to save seem all the more disconcerting. To be blunt, I want nothing to do with anyone who long-term stalked another editor. He has nominated many articles for deletion that I avoided rescue templating or commenting in. It is not really all that hard to avoid someone. There is thus no legitimate or justifiable reason for him to have to comment on my talk page, show up in AfDs after me, after I try to rescue a group of articles to prod ones from that category, etc. And I suppose the most bothersome thing about it is he both agreed to "no" disruptive edits (he also was warned for personal attacks against Daedalus969) and was told by another of the mentors to leave me alone. Thus, I am concerned that someone who agreed by arbcom not to make disruptive edits has and who was told by one of the mentors to leave me alone has gone ahead and continued to follow me anyway. He has already been warned and already ignored it. I really don't see anything other than some kind of block to remind him of his agreement and Casliber's talk page warning that will prevent him from persisting. The concern is not so much me, but that he is indiscriminately going after these things and showing that he does not know about them, which presents a false impression of consensus in the discussions (such as lumping together one of the main characters of Home and Away with those that are not). And again, I am not interested in coming to some kind of terms with someone who long-term harassed another editor, who has violated his arbcom agreement, ignores warnings from his mentor, has mocked my current and old usernames, etc. If I can avoid commenting in AfDs he starts or after him, there is no legitimate reason he can't do the same. If I can avoid adding anything new to his talk page, there is no reason he can't do the same on mine. Sincerely, --A Nobody 16:25, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
I think you are overstating some of this. There are things about Jack that rub some people the wrong way. Try not to get too upset about them... There are things about you that rub some people the wrong way as well. You would be well advised to just chill out instead of calling for blocks of people just because they rub you the wrong way. ++Lar: t/c 20:04, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
I am calling for blocks for someone who has violated his agreement to make no even perceivably disruptive edits and for ignoring an administrator's warning to leave me alone. Sincerely, --A Nobody 20:14, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
You have not conclusively demonstrated that Jack's edits are disruptive, nor that his edits are targeted at you. You need to get a thicker skin, take the "kick me" sign off your back, and the chip off your shoulder, and grow up. I mean that most sincerely. ++Lar: t/c 20:34, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Fortunately, you have demonstrated that they are disruptive, or else you wouldn't have warned him to "knock it off". And to suggest such edits as on my talk page or mentioning my username are not targetted at me is absurd. Sincerely, --A Nobody 20:39, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
You cited something I said on 31 May. That has no bearing on now. Please provide conclusive evidence of disruption since then. Or, better, drop it. You need to get a thicker skin, take the "kick me" sign off your back, and the chip off your shoulder, and grow up. I mean that most sincerely. ++Lar: t/c 20:52, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
I already have provided it above; I have no idea why you are ignoring it. I can show someone a bananna and if they say it is not a banana then I don't know what more I can do. The best way forward is he avoids me and leaves me alone and then no problems all around. John suggested neither of us start nor comment in any AfDs for a month. Actually that sounds like a good idea that should be enforced. If John says he will enforce that to prevent this unnecessary hounding of me from continuing, I will gladly agree. Misplaced Pages is a big place. It does not need any two editors to have to contribute to any particularly aspect in order to survive. Any way, good night for today. Sincerely, --A Nobody 21:00, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
I looked at the two diffs you provided. I would not characterize them the same way you do. It is my view that much (NOT ALL) of the issue here lies with your own inability to let things slide, to not take offense easily, to remain calm, to just chill out. You need to get a thicker skin, take the "kick me" sign off your back, and the chip off your shoulder, and grow up. I mean that most sincerely. ++Lar: t/c 21:04, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
It is ironic to talk about growing up when copying and pasting the same thing three times... Lar, look, you do not know me in the real world, and I do not know you either. I HOPE you have not experienced what I have. And because of what I have experienced, it is ludicrous to think that my feelings, if they can even be hurt anymore, would be hurt by postings made by one made up username to my own made up username. My concern here is that I want to edit a serious encyclopedia and have mature, adult discussions in the process. At academic meetings, we do not just vote about papers or other items we want to produce. And we certainly do not invent nonsense non-words like "cruft" to dismiss each other's contributions. Moreover, we do not show up at each others' offices (say user talk pages for Misplaced Pages's equivalent) taunting each other, or for that matter baiting each other in the actual discussions. If we want to be taken seriously and not just be here for fun and games, then we cannot humor or excuse even if you think it mild mocking of other editors or approaching discussions not as discussions, but as votes or in some other non-adult WP:ITSCRUFT style of non-serious arguing. And certainly not when someone has a long history of problematic editing. Myself and others have had to contend with this stuff that came up in multiple arbcoms and ANI threads for years now. You may have had positive experiences recently or elsewhere, but others of us have not and we were obviously not just fantasizing about a problem, because MULTIPLE abrcoms and ANI threads resulted in actual sanctions across multiple accounts. Thus, it makes it that much more unreasonable to expect us to have to just be okay with signs of continued ill-behavior, because you have had some positive interactions. What may seem minor to you follows and builds on what ultimately did result in sanctions and what the community must have a low-tolerance for. It is not about being offended. It is about being able to have serious discussions with those familiar with the subject matters and who are seriously interested in improving the content if possible. And it is certainly not about differences in opinion over fictional subjects even, because I have argued to delete more often than I have seen a number of these accounts argue to keep, as seen at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Keith Starr, Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Tony Cunningham (Tony & Friends), Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/New Gaupher Eels, etc. I nominated or argued to delete over fifty times under my previous name and at least a dozen or so since being renamed as "A Nobody." But in every scenario, I both check for sources for at least several minutes and even see what I can do to the article, even if it is just grammatical in nature. And I usually stay away from subjects I am not knowledgeable on. Thus, inaccurately dismissing as "always arguing to keep", by someone who rarely argues to keep and does so perhaps less frequently than I argue to delete, in an Afd is just not true and it is that tendentiousness that is problematic. Sincerely, --A Nobody 15:37, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
Walls of text are an invitation to gloss over, pick at bits and pieces and the like. Succinctness is a virtue. A few points. Sometimes repetition is the only way to get through to someone who isn't listening to you. So if you see repetition, perhaps you're not listening? If your feelings aren't hurt by misuse of your username? Man up and ignore that instead of dwelling on it as you have. Most of the rest of that isn't really on point. He's not stalking you specifically... (don't flatter yourself that you're that important in his scheme of things) and asking for restrictions as if he were? ... is the ludicrous thing here. ++Lar: t/c 17:55, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
Just how long a leash has Jack been given? Is Jack's ignoring of administrative cautions to be now condoned? You may yourself not see him as pushing the limit, but as his latest target, I find his actions to be disrupptive to my efforts to improve the encyclopedia... and others agree. Sincerely, --A Nobody 18:54, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
An appropriately long length. I think you flatter yourself when you see yourself as a "target". Not everyone shares your view that your efforts are uniformly improvement oriented. I start to wonder how long a leash you need. Until you realize you are part of the problem here, little progress will be made. Man up, it will do you a world of good. ++Lar: t/c 18:59, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
Those who are here to build an encyclopedia recognize my efforts as "improvement oriented." So long as you continue to blame the victim, I agree progress will not be made. Sincerely, --A Nobody 20:01, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
A reality check: I am here to build an encyclopedia, yet I do not recognize your efforts as 100% "improvement oriented". That puts paid to that notion of yours that everyone holds you as the impeccable pinnacle of behavior. You are not perfect, you are just like everyone else. We are all imperfect. As long as you insist that the problem lies 100% elsewhere and 0% with you, no progress will be made. You must recognise that you are part (not all, but part) of the problem as well, and work to find a reasonable way to go forward. However, if you continue on insisting that no blame whatever lies with you, it won't just be that you won't be able to resolve this issue, there may well come a point in which you are subject to sanction over it. Keep that in mind. ++Lar: t/c 06:14, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
As of the time I started typing this reply, you last edited an actual article on 25 July 2009, i.e. over five days ago. Since then, at least a quarter, but maybe even a third or more of your edits have consisted in making unhelpful comments here, agreeing for deletion in one of those 1632 Afds Jack started, or arguing with me in the Grail Afd that closed as no consensus. By contrast, I have made numerous fixes to actual articles, as well as my comments in these conversations, and posted many welcome messages to encourage new users. Thus, it is not surprising someone asked me for help on my talk page, another posted some kind of nice appreciation template, and another editor seconded the template. You are not making a persuasive case and if anything are making it that much harder for any actual worthwhile mediation to occur here by manufacturing a distracting disagreement with me. I don't know if you're just trying to have the last word here or what. I will trust in John and Casliber's judgment as objective parties, and I reckon Jack will as well. So, no, neither I nor anyone else has to agree with you. Going back and forth with me does not make you right and nor are any of us required to agree. In any event, a reasonable way forward is for us to just avoid each other and on a place with over 2 million articles, that isn't really all that hard to do. After all, I haven't lost any sleep from avoiding commenting in the various fiction AfDs he recently started. Also, I did already try helping him in the past with an article on an Indonesian drum and while we brought the article to DYK status, things deteriorated soon after. Thus, it is probably best we just avoid each other and mutually take a break from AfDs for a month and instead focus on article improvement, which hopefully John and Casliber can set some agreeable and enforceable terms to that effect and I will go along with what they recommend as they are by and large unbiased here. So, I encourage you to not disrupt that effort any further and urge you to help us with article improvement as well. We are supposed to be here to focus on building an encyclopedia or articles, not a compendium of aggressive discussions. Good night. Sincerely, --A Nobody 08:00, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
You're confused about what "here to help build an encyclopedia" actually means, there is more to it than just working on articles. Your unwillingness to admit that you may be part of the issue here is what is blocking forward progress. Internalise that. ++Lar: t/c 19:33, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
I cannot admit what is not true. Sincerely, --A Nobody 19:44, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
There are none so blind as those who will not see. ++Lar: t/c 03:02, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:11, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
If you both agree to disengage from AFD for a month, I will consider it a binding agreement, and enforce it. It may not help, but it will both give you some time to think about something else for a month, and I think it will do you both a world of good. I am also a rabid inclusionist; I built delsort.js in order to try to help everyone rescue articles. We could even try an experiment in my userspace where Jack Merridew lists a batch of articles that they think should be deleted, and we have a peaceful discussion about them, without the threat of them being deleted. John Vandenberg 08:20, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
I would agree to not nominating, not prodding, not commenting in, or rescue templating any articles under discussion. I am an admin on several other wikis, so I would still transwiki articles under discussion and we both should still be able to help reference and improve articles under deletion discussion without commenting in the AfDs and not the same articles, because improving articles is what we should be here for and hopefully someone in the discussions will notice any improvements. Sincerely, --A Nobody 15:37, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
See John's third point above; the deal on offer includes not editing article at AfD; his emphasis. Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:58, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with you or anyone trying to improve articles under discussion by correcting grammar, adding references, etc.--even if they are ones I happen to be editing. My concern is just trying to get rid of ones because I want them kept and/or targetting areas of fiction I seem interested in, because I am the one interested in it, i.e. after having never edited those particular articles on say Home and Away, for example, showing up trying to delete them only after I work on them. You are more than welcome to improve articles as I would never take issue with anyone working to better our content. So, if we find references or come across an article with improveable grammar, if adding that reference or improving grammar betters the project, then that should not be discouraged and I would not raise any concerns if you did so. Sincerely, --A Nobody 17:23, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
You did not address my, or John's, comment about you not editing articles at AfD — a concern many others share. As to your view that my views and comments re fictional elements are driven by you — bunk. Read Larry's comments again: you are not that important in my scheme of things. Please agree to John's AfD proposal. fyi, I have no issue with you trans-wiki-ing articles at AfD to where ever. Also consider the other proposals here abouts. Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:35, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
O'Hai. Sure, I've been critical in some edit summaries: here I was referring to the fact that a table was using id="toc" class="toc" (which are for the *real* TOC) instead of class="toccolours" which is for tables that someone wanted to just look like a TOC. The former approach produces an invalid page; so, ya, we let anyone edit this site, regardless of ability — it would be nice if more of them knew what they were doing. Most of the rest of that diff is fixing the table headings to *be* table heading elements. Sheesh. This crappy template didn't close the small and noinclude tags. nb: someone had *moved* the page while it was at AfD and this resulted in the disambig page being deleted by mistake. I informed the user of the goof and another touted him for it ;) What claim this particular usage of "Nash" has to that spot in the template namespace is beyond me; it's not like that soap opera family is the original use of the name "Nash"; some editor just got there first with a ridiculous topic. One of the articles I mentioned "Articles for Ridicule" on has been deleted; (wonder why;) In this edit I clean-up the wiki-text of an article I have a low opinion of. See Misplaced Pages:Respect all articles.
I've peeked at Misplaced Pages:Editor Review and can see some use of giving that a try. There certainly are some reasonable people on this project and I'm open to their suggestions. I'll agree to a month off AfD; we have August coming, so we should go with that. From what you've said above, this would be no starting new AfDs, no commenting in any AfDs, and no editing articles at AfD. I'll not start any effective now and feel that current AfDs that we've already commented in and/or edited while at AfD are still fair game. They will play out in less than a week.
You mention the idea of us working on some articles together and I feel that's a fine idea. We should avoid pop-culture stuff, obviously, so how about some real stuff that has gotten poor coverage. Gianyar Regency is a stub about an area lived in by a half a million people, including myself. The word Gianyar actually covers a number of things; it is a regency of Bali that is made up of a bunch of subdistricts (kecamatan), one of which is named Gianyar, and it is the name of the capital city of the regency. The city is where I took the picture of a dog in desperate condition. See also: Kabupaten Gianyar, Gianyar, Gianyar, Desa Gianyar. There are also articles such as Sunda Strait Bridge which consists of four short paragraphs about what will be the longest suspension bridge in the world (assuming it is built, which it won't be). I certainly feel that there are a lot of articles that need improving and that I am open to working with A Nobody on.
Cheers, Jack Merridew 11:55, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
I recall that A Nobody had a dog on his user page at one point; mebbe we could collaborate on this?
Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:08, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
You have no new messages
You have no new messages

Hello, Jack. You have no new messages at #Searching for common ground
John, you can remove this thread at anytime ;) Cheers, Jack Merridew 11:59, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I'll take these comments on board and make a proposal soon. John Vandenberg 08:37, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

distilled proposal

It looks like we nearly have an agreement on a voluntary withdrawal from AFD for a month, however A Nobody wants to still edit articles at AFD, without participating in the AFD discussion. I would really like to see you both volunteer to avoid articles at AFD; a month away from that venue will do you both the world of good.

I know you both are pretty keen on building this encyclopedia - you are both here for the right reasons. For a while I've been trying to convince Jack Merridew to be an inclusionist (I am a masochist), and I think that A Nobody can help me with that. Taking my original idea of working together on some content, and including A Nobody's desire to work on articles that are at AFD, I propose:

  1. We set up a page in my userspace where either of you may list an article undergoing AFD, if they believe it should be rescued, stating why.
  2. Neither party touches those articles unless both parties agree that it should be rescued.
  3. If the non-listing party declines to rescue it, they must give a good reason why. The non-listing party can decline based on topical _preferences_ only if they have agreed to other listed articles. I will badger until a good reason is provided, but the listing party will not badger. (I might enlist Casliber and DGG to help as well)
  4. Neither party will be rude to, or bait, the other party
  5. With your powers combined, many articles are rescued. And I will pitch in and help with library resources.

John Vandenberg 14:40, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll agree to this. And I'll throw out Mycroft Holmes (computer), a fictional element, currently at AfD; I've already opined 'keep' and it looks like I'm in the majority, but the article isn't really very good. So, this is an opportunity to improve it. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of this and it's been years since I read it.
fyi, note my 500 or so recent edits in the area of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Intertranswiki which is rather about including appropriate content. I *did* advise Dr. Blofeld that I was not much interested in importing articles on Indonesian Soap Opera couples ;)
Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:02, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
My one concern is that if he or I agree to not edit articles nominated at all, it would invite others who do not like either of us to seize the opportunity to try to delete them. So, with regards to articles we created or have a history of working on, we should still be able to improve them even if we avoid the actual discussion. Sincerely, --A Nobody 15:20, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
I can see the potential problem. To avoid it, both would need to be a bit conservative in which ones you list, and because the non-listing party needs to provide a good reason for not participating, Cas and I will be carefully looking at the pages which are list.
How about we have a discussion at the end of the motion about any listed articles which were deleted?
If Cas and I are not happy with any of the deletions, we could initiate a DR. John Vandenberg 16:23, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
In any event, he is still going after those I rescue template: compare with . Sincerely, --A Nobody 16:52, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Do you expect Jack to keep track of everything you do, to the extent of ensuring he doesn't nominate anything you previously templated? In other words, what IS it you expect here? Specific to the example, you put that template on the list on 4 August. Subsequent to that, not one thing has been done to that list, including by yourself, to improve or even change it in any way. Strikes me that just slapping a template on an article without subsequently doing anything is possibly a misuse of the template, as it gives a potentially false appearance of interest in the page that is up for deletion. ++Lar: t/c 13:58, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
You really have me baffled here. You keep defending someone who obviously gets under the skin of others per Misplaced Pages:Wikiquette_alerts#Jack_Merridew and who instead of defusing such disputes just laughs at and mocks opponents (note the "lulz" in edit summary and "much hullaballoo about nothing", i.e., as I italicized, specifically using the name of the opponent). Back when White Cat correctly identified JM as a sock used to harass him and I agreed with his assessment, we had to contend with the usual hyperbole against us only to be proven correct. Having to put up with ANYTHING subsequently is a slap in the face. So, now we're left with this account that pokes fun of being a sock all of its userspace, mocks other editors (getting into disputes with not just me, but Daedalus, Hullaballoo, etc.), frequently approaches AfDs in an uninformed or non-serious manner, and yet for whatever off the wall reason, you act as if we should somehow legitimize this behavior. A while back many of us defended Ecoleetage in his RfA and similarly scrutinized Húsönd for opposing only to have the latter's concerns proven correct. Please do not be blinded here only to end up burned as I and others who defended Ecoleetage were. We already have multiple arbcoms of evidence and even if flashes, flashes nonetheless, of continued antagonistic behavior against others that cannot possibly supersede any good edits given the history. Imagine if you were right about something was mocked for what you ultimately were proven correct about and then had to contend with it all being excused nevertheless. Sincerely, --A Nobody 19:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Lar here, and have mentioned this before. You two are going to keep bumping into each other occasionally; if we are talking once or twice a week, and you are both acting in predictable ways, then I see no reason to step in. Only if he is routinely following you to odd corners of the project, or has an unusually high overlap with yourself, then it is worth complaining about.
How do you feel about the proposal? Can you commit to it for a month? John Vandenberg 14:13, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
Hmph; moar? I prefer this diff; my first, today.
See also: This ludicrous AfD that closed as 'keep' and compare the improvements to the article over the course of the week. It is *all* plot summary with *no* sources. Sheesh, Jack Merridew 14:55, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
John, the funny thing is, I don't seem to keep bumping into him, i.e. I am not rescue templating nor commenting in AFDs after him nor nominating articles he seems interested in for deletion. Anyway, as I said, set a date, and I will gladly refrain from prodding, speedy delete templating, nominating, or even rescue templating any articles. Sincerely, --A Nobody 19:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Apparent bad faith

This edit: shows bad faith, A Nobody characterized a good faith warning by me as "trolling" in the edit summary of his deletion of the comment (rather than replying) . This is typical behavior by A Nobody in response to criticism and shows that Jack is not the sole source of the problem here. It's entirely possible that A Nobody was just following Doctorfluffy around, a review of his contributions suggests he visited a large number of AfDs where Doctorfluffy commented, just to disparage Doctorfluffy's comments. One example would be Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Johnny Ridden, an AfD he was not participating in until he arrived to trash another editor's input. In summary, this sort of ignoring warnings and disparaging the input of others (whether it be via warnings, contributions to discussions or what have you) is not something the community, or I, should have to put up with. - Josette (talk) 19:48, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Don't you find calling my attempt to encourage discussion "trolling" itself bad faith? And if you noticed in most of those AfDs, I had commented in them prior to Doctorfluffy and as far as the other fiction ones go, I typically comment in fiction AfDs. What we shouldn't have to put up with is editors coming to AfDs with hyperbole laden edit summaries that do not discuss specific sources in articles. Sincerely, --A Nobody 19:51, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
Please don't change headings, leave that to John, I changed it back. I think you are confused. I used the word trolling because you characterized someones else's work as trolling. As for your "attempt to encourage discussion" I don't consider deleting my comment from your talk page, without further comment, but with an edit summary calling it "trolling" as encouraging discussion. Rather, it's discouraging discussion. You need to stop the behaviors you have been warned about, it's that simple. Josette (talk) 20:31, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
I am not willing to play who used "trolling" first games. And this just represents how lame Jack's defenders have to seek to distract from him by attacking others. I commented in three of the five AfDs you allude to above first, i.e. before Doctorfluffy and you have the gall to somehow allege something against me and make something out of five out of dozens of edits in one day. In any event, neither I nor anyone need heed warnings made hypocritically or in bad faith. It is that simple indeed and no, we need not humor or legitimize nonsensical attacks either. As far as AfDs go, they are discussions not votes. In discussions, editors discuss specific sources and options. And in discussions editors interact with each other, they do not just make a list of votes. I strongly urge you to discuss in AfDs rather than vote and to avoid hyperbole edit summaries like "sick of all the bs" or whatever. Thank you for your time and consideration, now I am going to eat some steak with me family. Sincerely, --A Nobody 20:43, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
What does Jack have to do with this? He had nothing to do with that article. This is about how you treat others. - Josette (talk) 20:56, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
This thread is about John's efforts to mediate between Jack and I. You posted this thread as part of a subheading of that larger thread I originally started. Moreover, your comments here follow up on your defense of him elsewhere: , , , etc. Please do not distract from John's effort at mediation. After all, I am not having my wiki friends comment here on my behalf. Sincerely, --A Nobody 21:14, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

email

Ping. rootology (C)(T) 18:53, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

DID I SAY YOU COULD EDIT MY USER PAGE!!?!?!?!

Thanks - I need all the help I can get seeming halfway intelligent. Steve Smith (talk) (formerly Sarcasticidealist) 03:31, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

From another talkpage, thanks for the welcome. Toolsother (talk) 15:15, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Template:Wikisource

Hello, John Vandenberg. You have new messages at Template talk:Wikisource.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

(Short version: You did fix it, Misplaced Pages just took a while to notice.) —Paul A (talk) 16:27, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Great, however I am still curious about the cause. We need some more technical folk to take a look and pinpoint the cause so that any other similar problems can be fixed as well. John Vandenberg 00:20, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

WP:NODRAMA reminder

Thanks for signing up for the Great Misplaced Pages Dramaout. Misplaced Pages stands to benefit from the improvements in the article space as a result of this campaign. This is a double reminder. First, the campaign begins on July 18, 2009 at 00:00 (UTC). Second, please remember to log any articles you have worked on during the campaign at Misplaced Pages:The Great Misplaced Pages Dramaout/Log. Thanks again for your participation! --Jayron32.talk.say no to drama 22:00, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

CU result?

Hi John, I engaged with you on Jimbo's page, remember, and I see you are a checkuser. I honestly believe that MusicInTheHouse is not the same user called Wikipeire, the reason being that both deny that it, I AGF; and MITH with 3,000 edits is a pretty well established editor by now, so no need for him/her to be somebody else, and it seems bizarre to contemplate. What I'm asking of you is this, "is it germane to recheck the CheckUser results on MITH, as the CU involved only said "likely", and likely appears weakish to indef block a 3,000 edit user, imo. MusicInTheHouse cannot edit outside his talkpage at the moment, and is relying to a certain extent on "the kindness of strangers". Hope you can help move this forward. Thanks! Tfz 01:25, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I am the arbitration committee member who initially looked into the Wikipeire appeal and found that there was very strong evidence to support MusicInTheHouse=Wikipeire. The ban appeal subcommittee decided that rather than decide this within the arbitration committee, we would initiate a SPI and let the community and an uninformed checkuser investigate it. The uninformed checkuser also decided that it was likely, and MITH was banned by the community. MITH can appeal his ban to arbcom, and there are plenty ways he can privately prove to the arbitration committee that he is not Wikipeire. I would love to learn that MITH is not Wikipeire, but the arbitration committee wont interfere unless he contacts us and convinces us that he is a different person. John Vandenberg 02:16, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

email @ your gmail

Hi! I sent you some email @ your gmail address. Could you take a look? I'm getting nervous about this subject. Please respond via email, if that's OK with you. EEng (talk) 04:43, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm looking at this right now. John Vandenberg 06:24, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

About Xinjiang Article

Hello. The 1st section (history) of the article Xinjiang is redundant since there is also another article History of Xinjiang. Most of the sentences are identical in both pages. I think the first section should be moved to the history article, including new additions, refs. etc. Xinjiang article better be just related to current Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, as Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is redirected to Xinjiang. Maybe a new name "Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region" fits better to page, afterwards. Otherwise, Xinjiang article becomes lengthy, and subjected to vandalism by people who do not want to see names of earlier states of a region belongs to their country (PRC).Obuli (talk) 22:48, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Our article Xinjiang should include a summary of History of Xinjiang. If you think that the History section of Xinjiang is too detailed, please trim it down. John Vandenberg 02:05, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Phineas Gage

For this photo not to be in the public domain would require a child photographer (unlikely) of a Gage near his own death in 1860 (unlikely), who then went on to live to be at least 95 to die in 1939 (unlikely). Making likely assumptions about these ages results in a photographer who had to live longer than 100 to die in 1939, 70 years ago. I think this is strong evidence, that, absent more info, this is a public domain photo under U.S. law. See the Gage talk page. SBHarris 02:22, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for making WP:NODRAMA a success!

Thank you again for your support of the Great Misplaced Pages Dramaout. Preliminary statistics indicate that 129 new articles were created, 203 other articles were improved, and 183 images were uploaded. Additionally, 41 articles were nominated for DYK, of which at least 2 have already been promoted. There are currently also 8 articles up for GA status and 3 up for FA/FL status. Though the campaign is technically over, please continue to update the log page at WP:NODRAMA/L with any articles which you worked during the campaign, and also to note any that receive commendation, such as DYK, GA or FA status. You may find the following links helpful in nominating your work:

  • T:TDYK for Did You Know nominations
  • WP:GAC for Good Article nominations
  • WP:FAC for Featured Article nominations
  • WP:FLC for Featured List nominations
  • WP:FPC for Featured Picture nominations

Again, thank you for making this event a success! --Jayron32.talk.say no to drama 02:20, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

how to write articles w/templates

Cheers, Jack Merridew 03:54, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

My assist

Apologies if you felt I was too keen to assist here - thought you might have gone off-line. Best wishes.--VS 09:51, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your help; its been a while since I have done an unblock, and I got stuck half way through as the template was telling me I needed to comment first, before replacing the template. All is well that ends well. John Vandenberg 10:03, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes, so many things to remember in this job at times. Cheers!--VS 10:13, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

WHY FREEZING A FALSE INFORMATION AT ARNAIZ_VILLENA PAGE ?

I believe you should help in this untenable situation. Arnaiz-Villena has said he has not written a word about Rongorongo,Mayan and other languages. You have said that this information source is not valid. Why don't you delete it? This is not a matter of voting about opinions ;this is preserving Misplaced Pages quality.--Virginal6 (talk) 16:14, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

See m:The Wrong Version. J.delanoyadds 16:18, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
I froze the page to prevent it becoming worse, and so that we could learn about the problems.
I am sorry that it has taken so long, but it is now fixed, and we can work on the next problem.
John Vandenberg 12:09, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Kangarli Khanate

The article Kangarli Khanate has been proposed for deletion. The proposed-deletion notice added to the article should explain why.

While all contributions to Misplaced Pages are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{dated prod}} will stop the Proposed Deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The Speedy Deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and Articles for Deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Alborz Fallah (talk) 09:10, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

SFan's Massacre tagging

Hi. You addressed this image and link destruction for a 6 month period and have probably researched this the most. Please stop by to add your presumably well-informed view and/or act on this. Incorrigible, perhaps? --Elvey (talk) 20:39, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Hello? Oh, whoops. I linked to the old AN/I above. I meant to link to my new AN/I notice, which I'd like you to review. Have the cycles to spare? --Elvey (talk) 23:44, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I will look at this today. Cheers, John Vandenberg 01:04, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I have had a long look through his contribs, and much of the work is good, and he does engage people who complain in order to help them resolve the image problems. I will talk to him about some of the occasional mistakes he has been making, so he does less of them and more of the good work. Thanks for letting me know. John Vandenberg 15:06, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, he does some good; it just seems to me that he does more harm both to the content, and to the creators of the content (wikipedians), than good. In trying to get this addressed, I have had to withstand 5 trumped-up attacks from one of his defenders, who shares his views. Not fun. SFan is angering large numbers of valuable contributors in short periods of time, as the links I put in the AN/I showed. I leave it in your capable hands to deal with him, and will drop the issue.--Elvey (talk) 21:47, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Message

I saw your comment here and have responded here. I can see how you got the impression that you did and want to apologize for personalizing things as much as I did there. I know you're a good guy doing good work here, I just think you got it wrong on that occasion. I was annoyed and I'm afraid I let it show. Anyway, just to say, there are no lingering bad feelings towards you or your work here on my part. I just hope I can get back to editing and put all this behind me if possible, even though I've quite enjoyed my wiki-break. All the best to you. --John (talk) 16:27, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

RE: Borders of Azerbaijan

Hi John. This category also has only one article (the same river) which makes removing under such ground that the category does not exist weak. You could not have ignored the borders since you created this article and on external links you added No. 6497 agreement. The word Abbasabad is used only twice, second time to highline Aras being the border. Your adding of that No. 6497 agreement is irrelevant to the article as it says nothing about the fortress itself, the only message it conveys is the dispute of certain groups on the borders of Iran. Your creation here further pushes that claim, we in fact see here Malikbek who had a similar intrusion on Khachen adding the same unreliable source you added on that article. You also added the weasel words which will leave people to think it was not in Iran, which it was. BTW, do you plan on fixing the copyvio here. Neither did you find relevant to add the word Iran somewhere because the original from where you copied it had the word Iran in it but you removed those sentences. Besides, the Khanate of Maku was a Kurdish Khanate not Turkic, it was falsely associated with a Kangarli Khanate given that this wording is practically hard to find anywhere in published works... will you be kind enough to tell me what prompted this reaction of yours to create such an article with such a wording? Thanks. - Fedayee (talk) 20:04, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Socks

Can you see the last two SPA fellows who just popped onto Talk:australia-India relations please? Thanks YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 04:20, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

It has been reverted; let me know if it continues and I will start digging around. John Vandenberg 04:35, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Hello

Hey, I sent you an e-mail. Please read it and respond, it explains everything. Afterwards, I'll send another for I came up with a solution.ThanksSchnitzelMannGreek. 22:12, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

How's it going('please respond via email)?Please refer to these posts ],and ]. They will be of most help and I have User:Inferno, Lord of Penguins willing to back me up because he said--"Not only do I simply trust you, but behavioral evidence suggests that to me as well."Thanks.SchnitzelMannGreek. 13:58, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
FWIW, I am willing to back him up too. Spongefrog, (talk to me, or else) 14:47, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
As was mentioned here already, I am very willing to back him up on this. Inferno, Lord of Penguins 00:58, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Clarification

I know that I wasn't exactly helpful at the later points in the "Search soon to begin" discussion. And how else will further issues be solved without my own input when people only get one part of the issue.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 05:35, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Discussion moved to Clarifications page John Vandenberg 05:52, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 06:03, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Question

Hi, question for you here in case you miss it. SlimVirgin 07:53, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

g'day john

(and egads! t'would seem I'm following Slim around - just serendipity, promise!) - I asked FT about the sockpuppet thing here. He previously mentioned that folk should ask you - perhaps because he feels he's unable to talk about it? Anywhoo - there seem to be some questions remaining to me (having had a look at TBP diff.s and stuff)... so I thought I'd swing by here and ask you if there's anything I should know, or where's a good spot to ask them. Hope you're good anyways - are you GLAMing at the weekend? Privatemusings (talk) 06:11, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I am looking into it informally. see
FT2 is not able to comment further, and has said so. I view your post there as badgering, and I would appreciate it if you would remove your post, and refrain from getting yourself involved in this dispute.
John Vandenberg 07:17, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
coolio :-) - I'll leave you to it for a couple of weeks then - I'm sure the questions that pop into your mind are the sensible ones anywhooo... I'll also leave susan (for it is she), my pet badger, here for you to mind - from my perspective you have a fairly low badger-bar - so be gentle with her :-) Privatemusings (talk) 09:19, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
you have removed susan! I think that's illegal in some states (and be careful if she bites - I think she may have TB... ;-) - I was also going to mention that I really like your userpage layout and pic - very modern 'n classy :-) Good luck sorting everything out, and I'll pop back in a fortnight (or maybe comment wherever you kick off a public discussion?) Privatemusings (talk) 10:23, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
10 days down... any word? :-) Privatemusings (talk) 04:39, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
No. But I have most of the data I need to chew through... which is a start. John Vandenberg 05:23, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Reporting a moderator

Hi, John! I dont know if you remember me, you had helped me get into the Latin work on Wikisource. I would like to report a moderator by the name of Zaxby, who, after I made multiple correct edits on a page and then made one mistake edit, slapped a warning about vandalism on my discussion page, which is still there. Then, after questioning the warning, I was derided and ignored, also to be seen on my discussion page. Yes, I then made the error of returning some fire, at which point, after insulting me, he slapped me with a warning for attacking editors, ie, him. Can you straighten things out here? Im a huge contributor to the Latin Wiki and I hate to get banned because of this guys misunderstandings about my edits to a page and his bad attitude. I certainly dont think he represents the spirit of the Wiki. Thank you very much. Please let me know what you think of the situation. CeleritasSoni (talk) 00:22, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi, sorry I havent responded to your call for help sooner. It appears this dispute is about Pedro Martínez. I dont understand why user:Zaxby is warning you, and you should ignore them or remove them from your user talk page. If it continues, let me know. John Vandenberg 02:12, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Hey

You've got mail. AdjustShift (talk) 16:34, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

ChildofMidnight Unblock

I would like to voice my opinion on your unblock. CoM, for an hour, threw personal attacks at every user, admin and ArbCom person within arms reach. This wasn't a little fit throwing, this was blantant violation of WP:NPA. The block should have been either changed from a ArbCom violation to violation of personal attacks or lessened to 12 hours for those personal attacks. CoM wasn't going to attack once he was unblocked, he got what he wanted and you handed it to him. I would ask that the personal attacks from tonight be addressed and something be done cause this isn't the first and certainly won't be the last time he will hurl a personal attack at someone. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 08:16, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

As I stated in the message I was working on when you unblocked and the discussion was closed, it wasn't just the Obama-related discussion, it was the attacks he was throwing around in that discussion that caused me to block. The ones afterward -- eh, comes with the job description.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 08:24, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
The block rationale explicitly stated that this edit was the reason for the block, calling it a violation of a topic ban which didnt obviously apply to that edit anyway.
Unless the arbitration violation is extremely clear, the problem should be taken to WP:AE for discussion, or a separate thread on ANI or WQA.
You blocked the user six hours after the "problem" diff. They had made many more comments on ANI after that time, and they had not commented further at ANI for over an hour. i.e. six hours had passed and nobody thought that diff needed a block, and all of their comments had sat there for an hour, and nobody was calling for a block. Here is what ANI looked like at the time. The section containing the problem diff had been archived, Wikidemon (talk · contribs) had filed a clarification request, and discussion had moved to the ANI thread "Stalking hounding and harassment".
While that diff may have been "the last straw", none of the straws were violations of a topic ban. The appropriate way to prevent further drama would have been to say clearly on the users talk page: "Your earlier comments at ANI were disruptive, and there is now a clarification request. Please don't launch any further personal attacks on to ANI, otherwise I will take this to AE." Caution notes and warnings are the appropriate way of dealing with these types of situations, especially when a lot of time has elapsed, and/or when the user has moved onto a different task. Note that at the time of the block, CoM was submitting a statement to Arbcom on that clarification request.
My unblock was almost two hours after the block. If you had a better rationale for the block, and the blocked party was ranting and raving saying that a better block rationale was needed, you had plenty of time to provide one.
I can appreciate that some think a reblock was necessary, however as CoM had "endured" two hours of a block which wasnt justified, based on the rationale given, I figured it was not worth reblocking for a different, more valid, rationale. That just rubs salt into the wounds. I didnt handle it perfectly because I have been a bit busy this evening, and didnt immediately recognise that he had started posting about it again, however with a little communication CoM disengaged from this situation without a reblock.
John Vandenberg 11:50, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
The main reason I didn't expand my rationale any earlier was that I didn't want to throw fuel on the fire, especially since CoM had responded heatedly. If my block reason had been "attacks against other editors during violation of topic ban", with the single diff I first gave, would that have been better, or would it have had the same issues the first summary did? If not better, how about "attacks against other editors during discussion about Obama article, from which he is topic banned"?
I didn't take it to AE because I wasn't a party to the discussion at hand -- my Obama editing has been fairly limited. I think the only time I've really gone up against CoM was in a CAFE discussion that Grundle2600 was driving, though we've crossed paths at other times. (Wonder if there's enough info on the toolserver to see when people have posted on the same thread in WP: or Talk: - WikiStalk.py only says if you've edited the same page, which isn't terribly useful for something like AN/I...) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:24, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
He was responding in that manner because the block was enforcement of the arbcom topic ban, which didnt clearly cover this. You then logged it as a enforcement, and said it was due a violation of the topic ban. The topic ban doesn't clearly cover this, and we will need to clarify or amend this. However if it isnt clear, the review process at WP:AE allows for admins to base their decisions on previous violations and comments from the party and others.
I dont know of a tool which can find close intersections between two people, however you can use this tool to see how involved you are in Obama articles.
Here are a few.
John Vandenberg 17:11, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
Bookmarked, thanks -- I forgot about that one. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:27, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
Neutralhomer, your accusation on ANI that CB=CoM was also a violation of "Wikiquette". And then this "non-apology" .. hmm. I think you can do better than that if you wanted to mend fences.
Are you at ANI to solve problems? I've not look at your contribs, but your involvement in that thread is mostly stoking the drama. As I have said to SarekOfVulcan, problems like this should be sent to WQA, or if an admin is going to unilaterally block for civility/personal attacks, they need to be sure to present a good block rationale and listen to the blocked person rant and rave because ... they might be saying something useful. John Vandenberg 12:06, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
It may have been a violation, but it is something I believe. If you notice from last night, neither of them were on at the same time, both have the same style of editing, and both use the same tone of language. But as I told another user, I don't have enough to prove it. So, I let it go. I won't apologize for something I believe in, even if it offends someone. This isn't grade school where we apologize then go play in the dirt...this is real life and you don't always get an apology nor deserve one.
Anyway, back to CoM....so, what you are saying is personal attacks after a block are perfectly OK, should go to a "non-binding noticeboard" where he would get nothing more than a slap on the wrist and a "don't do that again now" and sent along his way. Nothing he said was "useful" nor was the slightest bit polite. That deserves an apology....and some form of punishment. Had I done that during a block, not only would my talk page been locked, my block would have been pushed up further just for the personal attacks. He needs to be held accountable for his actions. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 15:24, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
So you wont apologise for something that offended another contributor, but you demand an apology from CoM, who I am guessing believes in what he wrote as fervently as you believe in what you wrote? John Vandenberg 15:44, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
See, you are comparing the two, what I said is not a personal attack under WP:NPA, a policy, it is "Wikiquette" violation under WP:WQA, a "idea" kinda...no one is sure what it is. You can't compare the two. His went on for an hour solid, non-stop, and directed at everyone....mine was posted in plain view on ANI to one person and I was admonished for it and stepped away from it. Compareable to a small child kicking and screaming in a store until he got the toy he wanted, CoM hurled personal attacks at everyone in reach until he got what he wanted. When the kid in the store got the toy, he stopped....same with CoM, he got unblocked, he stopped. Doesn't make it right. Also doesn't compare even close to what I said to CB. - NeutralHomer • Talk • 15:58, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
WP:NPA "Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence." - you alleged that CB=CoM without any basis. John Vandenberg 16:02, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
So, you are comparing the two...nice. So, if I apologize to CB, will actually take this seriously or are you going to let CoM slide on the whole hour long personal attack thing? - NeutralHomer • Talk • 16:04, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
I am not saying that what you and CoM have said is equivalent, as they are comparable only in that both are inappropriate according to the same policy.
If I saw you making allegations like that regularly, I would warn you, and expect that you are blocked if you persist with tossing unrelated allegations into ANI threads. CoM was blocked for a violation he didn't commit, without a warning. I don't doubt that SoV had good intentions, and that he had a better basis for the block, but he didnt communicate it very well, which meant that the ability to appeal the block is removed.
If you can build a good rationale for a reblock, and convince uninvolved administrators that it is needed, feel free. But I am of the opinion that the two hour block(?) is sufficient (doubly jeopardy, perhaps), and CoM has been sternly cautioned by myself and Ncmvocalist about the way he has approached this.
Your hypothetical is only comparable if someone blocks you for your questionable behaviour hours after your allegation, and without warning. If that happened, I would take into consideration the colour of the froth, but I would be focusing on how to solve whatever was causing the frothing.
Also I want to point out that I have not condoned how CoM used his talk page while blocked, and I had nothing to do with it remaining unlocked.
Finally, I am not going to respond further here tonight, as I have other issues to focus on. Please give my talk page a miss for a while; I'll be happy to talk more about it tomorrow.
John Vandenberg 16:40, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

ChildofMidnight

Hi John. This diff seems to be a continuation of the personal attacks that CoM was placing on his talk page prior to your unblock. It's very hard to make any sense of it. ChildofMidnight has edited two articles created by me, Chateau of Vauvenargues and Butcher group, in their very early stages. Neither of the topics - French culture/Art history and mathematics - are within his normal interests, so although I wouldn't go so far, this editing - both unhelpful and uninformed - could possibly be described as wikistalking. On the other hand, as an academic I happen to know a lot of academic economists, including the late James Meade (an honorary fellow of my college whom I met at high table), Willem Buiter and Robin Wells, the wife of Paul Krugman. I have spent a little time trying to ensure that the BLP of Paul Krugman is as neutral as that of the other winners of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. I have also tried to improve the articles of Meade and Wells. I also created Robert Hall, Baron Roberthall some time back. Mathsci (talk) 09:07, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

This was discussed already in an ANI report where Mathsci and Connolley's behavior was determined to be inappropriate. I will try to dig out the link tomorrow. Mathsci has been seeking confrontation with me ever since. Hopefully Arbcom will do something about Connolley in the arbcom case you're hearing as he's at the core of the problem. He seems to do a lot of good editing, but does what he pleases without restraint as far as admin actions go. He and Mathsci are close friends on and off Wiki, but teaming up as they do shouldn't be acceptable. By all means investigate his diffs in the context of my helping out on new page patrol and making basic copy-edits. I suggest checking my contribution history from that time period. And by all means check out Krugman's article as well. I'm a good faith content contributor and happy to collaborate with anyone. But Mathsci's abusive rehashing of this incident where he also outed another editor is problematic. I have no idea why he continues to try and create disruption in this way, but perhaps he thinks this is an opportunity to go after me. Pretty sad behavior. ChildofMidnight (talk) 09:28, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
I'll take a look at this within an hour. John Vandenberg 09:38, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
ChildofMidnight is misrepresenting both WMC and me. I have edited namespace in the usual manner: there has never been any problem with my namespace edits, which are in diverse encyclopedic topics. Handel House Museum was my last article and I have started Handel organ concertos Op.7, which will develop slowly. Even on your talk page CoM continues to make fallacious and histrionic innuendos. As I recall CoM was blocked for making the first edit to Talk:Butcher group. The highly problematic nature of this edit was pointed out subsequently in an independent review by User:Charles Matthews on WP:ANI (I'll find the diff if need be). His own editing even now is highly problematic. I briefly tried to neutralize the lede of Paul Krugman, which is in a highly unstable state, veering from neutral to smearing and back again, partly due to ChildofMidnight's edits. BTW I hardly know WMC: when ChildofMidnight writes that he is a "close friend" that seems to be something CoM has fabricated and is again an example of his disruptive on-wiki behaviour. I do know Charles Matthews slightly: we have indeed been fellows of the same college and faculty of the same department, but at different times; we have both been firmly put in our place as mathematicians by Alexander Todd. User:R.e.b. is the only wikipedian who is a close friend of mine in real life, as far as I know. Mathsci (talk) 10:15, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

The massacre of the Cathars

Hi. Would you consider undeleting the above? I believe that I created it as a redirect to something (not sure what). The target may need adjustment at this point. I am linking to it from my sidebar and think it a valid search term. I'm open to ideas as to the target and will go looking; Catharism#Massacre seems likely. Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:20, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

checkY Done John Vandenberg 08:58, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks; I just updated the target per teh current wiki. Cheers, Jack Merridew 09:06, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

ANI

Well, Okay. But can you please let me know when things are being done? I keep ending up in situations where I'm told after the fact that things are happening. Usually after continued problems cause the situation to become much worse. For instance, the Homeopathy statement. Had it been dealt with within a day, a sentence or minor edit would be ample. But now quite some time has passed, and any edit is going to be to an obscure archived page - which means that the possibility of relief is reduced to miniscule proportions unless there's a public statement, which is far more than the problem actually deserved. Shoemaker's Holiday 03:45, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I can't give you a timeframe on when something will be done; we aim to conclude matters so that they do not need to be revisited time and time again, yet you keep raising this in public time and time again.
I am sorry that we have been slow in getting back to you at time. We have been working through a review of the second case. Please realise we have an extremely busy workload, trying to prevent new problems, and your case is not the only one being reviewed at the request of parties (you know of at least one other). This takes time.
I will give you an update twice per week until we have finished handling your outstanding requests. The first one will be within 48 hrs time, once I have caught up with recent events.
John Vandenberg 04:13, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't need a timeframe, it's just I need to know things are happening, or, at least, that it's not been forgotten - a lot of things I've been told were going to happen eventually never did. (Also, in this case, it wasn't me who brought up Hoffman, but Risker. If an Arbcom member decides to try and hurt me by suddenly talking about how he thought the Hoffman case was right, and how the whole statement was just an effort to get me to shut up, then me talking about Hoffman again is going to happen, and I think you'll agree it's justified. Indeed, if I'm correct, every time I've brought up Hoffman since December has been because of outside forces forcing my hand. If another site is using it to attack me; if Risker decides to make a statement about how the case was valid in order to try and upset me, etc, etc, then I don't think it's unreasonable to talk about it again.) Shoemaker's Holiday 04:22, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't want to discuss this with you at the moment, and definitely not here.
Sorry, but I fear this has done more harm than good. John Vandenberg 05:01, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikisource Question

I wanted to import the decision from Northeast Bancorp, Inc. v. Governors, FRS to Wikisource to complement my Bank of New England article. The text is PD and I would remove any headnotes/footnotes, but wanted to make sure it was ok. MBisanz 04:17, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Go for it. see s:United States Reports/Volume 472
John Vandenberg 04:20, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. MBisanz 04:44, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

BS

The Special Barnstar
For being such a great user who works hard to counter vandalism, removes abuse, contributes to articles and being a greatly appreciated user;) SchnitzelMannGreek. 16:05, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

P.s.You got email;)SchnitzelMannGreek. 17:58, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Please respond--did you get my email?SchnitzelMannGreek. 19:33, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Hello/---Are you even getting my messages?Once you respond to my last email---I have something important to discuss so please don't ignore me.SchnitzelMannGreek. 14:48, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I have received your email, and will answer it, like I have answered all of your previous emails. But it will not be tonight. John Vandenberg 14:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I have something important to say once you do get the chance;)SchnitzelMannGreek. 14:56, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Personally,I don't think this can wait for long. If you can please spare some of your time?SchnitzelMannGreek. 15:05, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
If it is something new, please email me. John Vandenberg 15:09, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Deletion sorting tool

Hi, I'm probably missing something obvious, but I can't get the tool to work for me. I'm on Safari 4.0.2 and latest Mac OS X.

Here's what happens when I try to use the tool: 

Nominated article name: Hungary–Mexico relations: Status
Check the article "Hungary–Mexico relations" exists ...: Status
done: Progress
OK : Status
Grabbing edit form for Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Hungary: Status
Error: TypeError: Result of expression 'query.toSource'  is not a function.: Error

Here's my monobook.js: 

importScript('User:Quarl/util.js');
importScript('User:Quarl/wikipage.js');
importScript('Misplaced Pages:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Add LI menu');
importStylesheet('Misplaced Pages:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Add LI menu/css');
importScript('User:AzaToth/twinkle.js');
importScript('Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Deletion sorting/delsort.js');

Twinkle is enabled in my Gadget Preferences.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks. --Cybercobra (talk) 06:11, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I think there has been problems with Safari. There are a few Macs around my office; I'll see if I can test this in the next few days. John Vandenberg 14:50, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Appreciate it. :) --Cybercobra (talk) 16:13, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
I can now confirm it doesn't work on Safari 4.0.3 and does work on Firefox. --Cybercobra (talk) 19:27, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
I tried it (4.0.3), too and got "Can not determine article name for "Misplaced Pages:Articles for_deletion/Simon_Dunn", aborting: Error" (I clicked "England"). Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:11, 13 August 2009 (UTC)