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User talk:Quiddity 

I generally watch talkpage threads for up to/at least 3 days (so please reply there, if you like).
"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing." – George Bernard Shaw



small bag of holding

Noahveil

my links

First of all, thank you for putting back my link on the Tom Robbins page. There were many such links on wikipedia but other editors have had knee-jerk reactions and removed them without actually checking them out. Like you said, just because a link may appear to have a COI doesn't automatically make it spam if it's got good information pertaining to the subject of the page.

That link has been taken down twice now by editors who simply decided I was a spammer and ruthlessly went through the entire Wikipedia removing every single link I ever made, first by irishguy and now by Raven in Orbit. Many of the links had no COI whatever, links to articles by other people that just happen to be hosted on my site.

Please, I need somebody rational to talk to about this. Just as my Tom Robbins article is of value to people looking up Tom Robbins, so too are my articles about Andy Kaufman, Michael Nesmith, Godfrey Reggio, Jonathan Demme, and many others, all deleted by Raven in Orbit, the same one who deleted the Tom Robbins article, all declared SPAM for no other reason than they came from me.

Believe me, I understand "no original research" and COI, but these were all articles previously printed by the LA Weekly, Daily Variety, Movieline Magazine, and the WGA. I'm not a spammer, even though the articles happen to have been written by me. If I wanted, I could go into the articles themselves and edit in what I know, but my writing style isn't really a neat fit, so I thought it was more proper to simply add links at the bottom.

Do I simply need to find third parties to add those links? Some of those deletes make absolutely no sense. I'm the editor of the Los Angeles Free Press. I put up a link to the Los Angeles Free Press on the Los Angeles Free Press page. Raven in Orbit took it down, calling the link SPAM. Now people looking up the Los Angeles Free Press won't find a link to the Los Angeles Free Press. Madness.

Any advice or help would be appreciated.

Noahveil (talk) 19:45, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Replied at User talk:Noahveil/Archive 1#Reply from Quiddity and below.
See also User talk:Delicious carbuncle/Archive 2#every link to my site banned.

User:Noahveil

See User talk:Gb/Archive 15#Blocking after 1 warning for start and reply.

Thank you for your message - I think it's probably helpful to start when their contributions start.

November 2005 - a bunch of contributions, 99% of which were to add links to www.disinformationtoday.com and articles by User:Noahveil himself.

February 2007 - exactly the same thing again. 45 or so links to his website added in about an hour. Nothing else - no constructive contributions whatsoever. All these links are to a blog, and thus not a reliable source per WP:EL.

January 2008 he edits under an IP (User_talk:71.102.70.171) reinserting deleted external links to the same site on Sweeney Todd. He'd was warned on that IP address about adding inappropriate external links. There may well be other IPs which he's been editing under - I've identified at least by looking at Veinor's link count for 13 February 2007 where you'll see 44 links to dareland.com, of which 40 were added under Noahveil, but 4 under User:4.246.248.148.

26th March this year - a few more under the Noahveil account. 29th March, a couple more, ending with Lee Strasberg. He was warned by Delicious Carbuncle who subsequently reported the account to AIV where I then blocked. I initially blocked indefinitely, then tweaked it down to 48 hours.

Was the block punitive? Not really - preventative, if anything. It stopped him doing what he'd been doing and brought his attention to the relevant policies.

Could more, or stronger, warnings have been given? Of course - but the same could almost certainly be true of any block. From both a superficial and an in-depth look, however, it's clear that at that time User:Noahveil had only one intent - to add links to his website, in breach of any number of policies. He'd been warned in January 2008 - whilst I concede that the subsequent warning in March wasn't followed by any activity, he hadn't actually shown any intent to change his activities between January and March - WP:Block goes on to say that warnings are not a prerequisite for blocking, and that users who have been made aware of a policy (as he had) and have had a reasonable opportunity to adjust their behaviour (as he had) may not require further warning.

As for him being a poor newcomer, well, I don't really subscribe to that (and I'm not sure what trend you're talking about - he's only been blocked once). He's not a newcomer, as he's been around for years. His sole intent, during that time, has been to include as many links to his own website as possible (there's even one hiding away behind his entry in a list of personalities linked to the station KROQ-FM). If he's entered into meaningful discourse with you about participating constructively in the encyclopaedia, then that's all good, and actually (in my view) justifies my block to a large degree - if not blocked, would he have done so? Or would he just have ignored the warnings and carried on as before.

Thanks for the reminder to assume good faith, incidentally, although I'm not sure where the link provided was supposed to take me! As you touch on, the obligation is not a carte blanche one - it is to assume good faith in the absence of evidence to the contrary. I had sufficient evidence to the contrary, in my book. GBT/C 12:38, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

User talk:Delicious carbuncle#Lewis Arquette

Please respond to User:Noahveil's question, if you wouldn't mind helping him again here. Oh, and when are you going to bring up that misleading edit summary issue with him? Regards. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 20:53, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the heads-up.
Re: the misleading edit summary, I imagine he simply clicked the "undo" link, and then adapted the auto-summary to something that looked correct (but in this case, wasn't). I don't believe it is worth hassling him over - he is aware that his edits are being scrutinized by others now, and back in February he had very little experience with the more arcane aspects of Wikipedia. Hope that satisfies you :) -- Quiddity (talk) 21:49, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
It's a nice theory, but if you look at the actual edit, there's no way that could have happened. As well as undoing the previous change, he simultaneously added material. And as has been pointed out before by someone else, the user's inexperience with WP is due to the fact that it's a four year old SPA for adding links to his own site. You appear to have taken him under your wing -- for whatever reason -- so I'm not going to pursue this unless I see something egregious, but no, I'm not satisfied. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:33, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
When you click "undo", it presents the edit form, ready for editing. He could have also copied the summary from a different revision and altered that.
I find your attitude towards this dissatisfying. You are refusing to see the evidence from an outsiders point of view: This edit by you, on 29 March 2008, was the first personal message that we can definitely assume Noahveil saw, since November 2005 when he was welcomed.
Please take a look through this thread, where I've tried to explain why good faith is a complex thing, that we have to make an effort to assume (vandals often become good contributors, some even become admins eventually). If you don't give someone a chance to learn from their mistakes, noone benefits. "People are the most important resource there is, for Wikipedia; not frightening anyone off forever, is the 2nd most important job we have, as ideal Wikipedians (after writing an encyclopedia)." -- Quiddity (talk) 00:20, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for the demonstration - I accept that your version of events is plausible. In fact, my assumption that the user undid a misspelling and inserted his web site turns out to be completely backwards, on closer inspection. The user undid the removal of his website and corrected the misspelling while he was in there. I don't disagree with your general premise that SPAs or outright vandals can become useful contributors, but in this particular case I am doubtful of it ever happening, even with your guidance. (Occasional spelling corrections notwithstanding.) I wish you well in your efforts. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:06, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Main Page proposal

Transcluded discussion

Note. This is a transcluded, three-way conference call. And no, I don't know Kelvin Sampson! ;-)

Quiddity and jc37,

I'm just thinking out loud here. Are you all interested in trying to put together a serious Main Page redesign proposal that actually has a snowball's chance of getting implemented? My current proposals are deliberately out there in a concept car sort of way - just to look at some possibilities. Obviously, this proposal would have to be very conservative with just a tweak here and there, and not breaking any of David Levy's rules. It's just a thought. Let me know what you think. RichardF (talk) 15:26, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd love to help, but I'm very busy this week. Will try to keep an eye on anything and give any feedback I can. Will have more time a week Tuesday. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:37, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I'll be happy to help. The question is, where do we start? : )
For me, I think we should list the various components which would be deemed "wanted", and work from there, paring down, and figuring out layout.
But I'm open to most any kind of discussion format : ) - jc37 20:27, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
The 2 tweaks I've liked so far, are the dates added to "In the news" (e.g.) and the brief intro paragraph (e.g.). -- Quiddity (talk) 19:40, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I really shouldn't do much on this until the weekend either ;-) I noticed some talk about getting consensus, but I doubt there really is any. The closest thing the redesign probably should pay close attention to is David Levy's post I linked above. I'll start a "RichardF3" we can tear up with a to-do list on the talk page. RichardF (talk) 00:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I was about to suggest the portals browse section should include all the sections on Portal:Contents/Types TOC, until I noticed that Carlaude singlehandedly refactored the classification system to eliminate "Philosophy and thinking," create "Religion and Philosophy" and put thinking under "People and self," at least sometimes. I'm tired of this kind of crap, so I'm not sure how much energy I'll put into this activity. So far we have two concrete suggestions from Quiddity. I think the new Types TOC diminishes the Contents pages, but I won't put any any energy into disputing it. You all decide what you want to do. RichardF (talk) 23:40, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted the user, asking them to discuss the edits, per WP:BRD.
That aside, to continue this discussion : )
Anyway, I still think we can come up with a list of "userful links", as a start.
The main page seems to best work when it has a concise introduction; a few links for navigating the encyclopedia; a few links for navigating the community; a few examples of exemplary material (WP:FC); showing the "usefulness" of the content (news, and DYK); and links to sister projects.
So from here, it's mostly a question of what the specific links (and FC) should be, and the "layout" of the page. - jc37 00:36, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
I appreciate the sentiment jc37, but check out all the changes Carlaude made. They affect the layout template and all the related sections on all the Contents subpages. It wasn't a simple change.
I added do's & don'ts on User talk:RichardF/Main Page3 for layout, content & palette. Do you want to add anything specific to that? RichardF (talk) 00:52, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, I had missed the other edits. I've reverted, and left a note on their talk page. I would welcome a suggestion as to an appropriate venue for further discussion regarding those changes.
And as for page3, I'm "mired" again, but I will look them over later. : ) - jc37 03:38, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
Quiddity, The Transhumanist and I probably had the lion's share of the involvement in the current design. Most of the discussions are at Portal talk:Contents. The Transhumanist moved some related discussions to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Contents. As I already mentioned, I'm just not into another go-around with a Contents TOC redesign. Besides this latest editor, who appears to have a Christianity agenda, I don't know who is. RichardF (talk) 11:43, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Anyway, my proposal to use a complete twelve-item set of portal links is at this diff. RichardF (talk) 12:42, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Even in terms of "twelve portal links," I can debate with myself what "the twelfth link" should be. Eleven links would be the same, with one spot up for grabs. My personal preference, based on defunct WikiCharts usage reports I've seen, is what's listed above, Sports. The purist version of using the established Contents TOC would be Reference. Going with the current main page, it would be All portals. RichardF (talk) 14:32, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
Okay, here are some stats from http://stats.grok.se for May/June (#X is overall page rank in Feb, if in top 1,000).

Of course, already being on the Main Page is a big advantage! :-) RichardF (talk) 19:24, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, okay, the "All portals" version probably makes the most sense for a 12 portal layout! :-) RichardF (talk) 03:11, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

foundation-l: What is on the back of the logo?

Hello! I don't have access to foundation-l and for various reasons I won't go into probably won't, but I saw your comment about this thread. I wonder if you could do me the favour of mentioning the table I put on m:Talk:Errors_in_the_Wikipedia_logo#Proposed revised characters in that thread? It would be nice to see what people think of these suggestions. I'm trying to build a 3D model in POV-Ray off-and-on, but have gotten tied up with other things. I'll bring it up when/if I get finished. :-) Thank you! --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 07:28, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi. My apologies, but I'm not going to do that. I have a hard enough time getting listened to on the mailing lists without being a middle-man! It should be easy enough for you to sign up for a throwaway email account (gmail, hotmail, etc) to post anything you like to foundation-l. Sorry, and good luck. After getting two requests, I've done so :) -- Quiddity (talk) 21:47, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
Oh, thanks! I've been considering doing something like that anyway for unrelated reasons but, well, there are complications. :-) But thanks anyway! --tiny plastic Grey Knight ⊖ 08:18, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Greetings Quiddity, thank you for notifying me about the discussion on this topic! I wish I were not so busy and could contribute additional time, but I have too much to do right now to try and go back to 3d modeling.  :( But it's kind of neat to see a graphic I made long ago uploaded into the wiki archive by someone else and being captioned as "An early attempt at deciphering the symbols on the ball. Several of these guesses were correct."  :) I noticed people were debating the topology but I think we did work it out, no one seemed to take note on the discussion list of the youtube video of our findings, which came to 58 pieces. We studied that pretty well, as well as a physical puzzle globe sold as a product for feasibility... so I hope that work does not go to waste. I'm not on that mailing list so if you think it's worth pointing people to the prior blender artist discussion I'd appreciate it. I'm happy to be kept in the loop but it seems to be in good hands—a lot of the same ideas are being independently invented (using the back for dead/obscure languages, making the ball physically realizable). The one thing I'd like to remind people of is the concept of thinking of the Wikipedia logo very abstractly--to get mindshare on the idea of puzzle globes in general rather than a specific color scheme or number of pieces. If WikiMedia were a corporation interested in branding, you would say that a puzzle globe with letters should make people think of wikis no matter the context; I'd try as hard as possible to own that pattern. In fact, I suggested that print editions might model their version of the logo after the IBM selectric typewriter ball. In any case, thank you again for the heads up, I'm woefully neglectful of my wiki duties this year. Metaeducation (talk) 21:05, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Disambig editing template idea

I'm a big fan of the idea you presented here and here. Is the ball still rolling forward on that? If not, is there anything I can do to help get it rolling again? — Swpbτ • c 19:12, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I've passed the gentle nudge along to the appropriate person. Thanks for reminding me :) -- Quiddity 19:28, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Disambig js

Howdy. I'm looking for assistance or advice, on moving the proposal at MediaWiki talk:Common.js#Disambig editintro forward. RockMFR was assisting before, but said he doesn't have time to get back to it. (I picked you randomly, as a frequent editor of the js page itself ;) Thanks :) -- Quiddity (talk) 18:42, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, but I think I'd rather not...there's enough for me to do already, and I've already upset quite a few people lately with controversial edits. I'd suggest thoroughly testing using your monobook.js and then doing an editprotected request on MediaWiki talk:Common.js/edit.js when you're confident that the script is bug-free. If you'd like any advice on how to go forward, I could at least point you in the right direction. —Remember the dot (talk) 04:56, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Hi. The script (User:RockMFR/disambigeditintro.js) is thoroughly tested. The header-template shows up as intended when I edit any page tagged with one of the Disambiguation Templates, and doesn't show up on article pages that happen to include the word "disambiguation" (such as Word sense disambiguation).
My only questions are about how it should be implemented (because I'm not very familiar with the workings of the MW-namespace or page-protection):
1. Is it better to fully/semi-protect the header-template (Template:Disambig editintro), or would it be better to move it into the MediaWiki namespace (e.g. to MediaWiki:Disambig editintro)? Its use seems to be comparable to MediaWiki:Talkpagetext.
2. Should I request that the script be added to MediaWiki:Common.js or to MediaWiki:Common.js/edit.js?
Thanks again :) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:59, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
If you want the header template to be semiprotected, leave it in the template namespace. If you think it should always be fully protected, then it would probably be better in the MediaWiki namespace.
Scripts related to editing and editing only should be placed into MediaWiki:Common.js/edit.js. That way, the script is only downloaded if the user tries to edit a page, so pages load faster for ordinary readers that don't need the scripts.
Glad to help :-) —Remember the dot (talk) 16:40, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Disambig editintro vs set index articles

Quiddity: I have responded to your message at my talk page. (And no worries, there are several simple solutions.)

--David Göthberg (talk) 20:20, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Unintentional spamming

You wrote here that your monobook converts ISBNs to Amazon.com links. I'm sorry, but as an independent bookseller, this makes me sick to my stomach. I also feel that it is grossly inappropriate, since it privileges one rich and powerful vendor above others within the body of Wikipedia, a violation of our WP:NPOV policy. Could you please address this? --Orange Mike | Talk 14:11, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

(See below for post-epiphany update)
Good morning to you, too! Le Guin is such a wonderful author. "The Author of the Acacia Seeds" is one of my most reread and recommended-to-others stories.
  1. I don't buy anything through amazon; I use their service for viewing the sample "search inside" pages, and other things that their huge metadata repository allows (finding related titles, book cover images, total page numbers for citations, checking that the ISBN given is for the 1st edition printed, checking publication dates, etc etc). I buy books from my local (non-big-box) bookstores, or local 2ndhand stores, or local indy comic store, or through abebooks, or take them out from one of my local library branches. Similarly, I search for musician information at allmusic.com, but order/buy from my local indy music store...
  2. The script is taken from Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Set Book Source. There are at least 350 editors using it; though any of those might be set to redirect to somewhere other than amazon (as the script's instructions explain, any url from Wikipedia:Book sources is a valid target).
If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:19, 22 September 2008 (UTC)


Oh! Having reread your message a few times now, I've realized that you mis-interpreted my original statement. You thought I had a monobook script that edited-converted-and-saved ISBNs into direct-amazon links, within articles. That would indeed be inappropriate!
The script just redirects my personal clicks on "ISBN ....." links into [whatever target, amazon in my case] links, to save me having to scroll down the huge list at Wikipedia:Book sources each time. Nothing gets changed in the articles themselves. (I've edited my original reply (above), as part of this reply's edit, to avoid further confusion). Hope that clears it up. -- Quiddity (talk) 23:53, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Re: Mysidacea

No, I was most likely wrong. It's just that when someone adds links to the same domain to many articles in quick succession, I tend to get suspicious. I didn't realize that he was linking to a university's website. Thanks for letting me know. J.delanoygabsadds 14:16, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Fryslan

You might consider joining WikiProject Friesland for we allways need more participants. We can always use someone to help us to cope with vandalism on our articles or to create templates, upload images. No real knowledge is required. Just more members is what we need and a more international participant list would be great. -The Bold Guy- (talk) 18:10, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for responding

Gosh this wiki wotsit is more complex than it looks. Your suggestion didn't include the tag I was looking for - which I think was 'expand' I really wanted a full list of tags - but then maybe if I found one I'd wish I hadn't... Hope this is an ok place to respond,- please delete if not —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.2.101.220 (talk) 27 September 2008

Fuckerware party

Page (redirect) was restored as per your request. I checked the ghits you mentioned and they are there. Term is new to me indeed. -- Alexf42 23:00, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Note to self. discussion at User talk:Alexf#Deleted party article. -- Quiddity (talk) 01:41, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Shiny

What a Brilliant Idea Barnstar
A disambiguation page edit introduction is the best idea I have ever seen implemented on Wikipedia. Well done! Neelix (talk) 12:42, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
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