User talk:HaeB/Archive 2009-2010

Welcome to my talk page :)

In general, I prefer conversations about specific articles to be held on the corresponding article talk pages, so that other editors can follow them too.

If you are referring to a particular edit, it is best to use a diff link.

I usually reply here. I am often working on several things at the same time, so if I haven't answered yet even though I am online and editing elsewhere, please have some patience - if it is really urgent, prod me with a follow-up message.

I can often be reached via IRC, too (HaeB on Freenode).

Archives

Archive 2004-2008

Re:Quantum Mechanics - Theory Section

High on a Tree, I noticed that you reverted my minor edits of the Quantum Mechanics Theory section. Here's the relevant edit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quantum_mechanics&diff=next&oldid=275044825

First, I understand if you don't like or understand the phrase, "To wit" but it is entirely appropriate to use it in the opening sentence of this paragraph. The Wiktionary even has a reference to it that illustrates my point, "Originally that is to wit (that is to know), from Old English witan (verb) (to know, to be aware of)", and "(formal) That is to say; namely; specifically." This is an adverb that can be used both at the beginning, and in the middle of, sentences to specify something, as illustrated in the Wiktionary definition here. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/to_wit)

Secondly, I'm curious to know why it's not acceptable to refer to the electron states in the note about spherical symmetry. Aren't we writing this for the uneducated reader, and not someone who will already know that implicitly? I have an extensive background in physics, but I am always interested in removing ambiguity from articles by stating some things explicitly.

I'd be interested in your thoughts, as I am somewhat new to the editing side of Wikipedia. Thanks.

Sincerely, Stentor7 Stentor7 (talk) 22:31, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Hello Stentor7. First, please note that I was mainly concerned with reverting the edits of User:Kroflin, not yours. But since your edit had already happened after those, I had to decide if I wanted to make the little extra effort to keep your edit or not, and mainly because of the "To wit" I didn't see it as an improvement. Let me explain:

I know what "to wit" means and I don't doubt that your use was grammatically correct. However, it always refers to what was said immediately before (the "That" in "That is to say"), and I could not see how the statement There are numerous mathematically equivalent formulations of quantum mechanics is a more specific version of the previous sentence (the last of the Quantum mechanics and classical physics section), which said that the laws of classical “Newtonian” physics still remain accurate in predicting the behavior [of certain objects]. So "To wit" would have implied a relationship which was not there, confusing the reader.

As for the clarification "of the electron", I thought it was obvious that this sentence in brackets was still about the electron example described in the previous sentence - from the language and the use of brackets alone, without knowledge of quantum mechanics. But I don't have a strong opinion about this and if you still feel that this clarification improves the article, I won't object if you re-add it.

Again, I didn't see your edit as very problematic and perhaps I wouldn't even have bothered to revert it if it hadn't been mixed up with the other user's edits already (which I did find quite problematic, but that is another story). Since you say you are new to editing Wikipedia and seem to be a thoughtful and attentive person, I want to encourage you to read the beginning paragraph of Wikipedia:Be bold - if some of your edits get reverted, don't take it personally (it has happened to just about every Wikipedian; as long as you are prepared to listen to other users' objections and work with them toward consensus, you should be fine).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 00:11, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Ja Rule discography

About 60.240.30.161 he's been always reverting my edits putting in the wrong chart positions and the wrong sales/certifications. I even left a private note warning him to do so. He doesn't look at the history or pay attention to private notes, he keeps on vandalizing the page. Here's the link for the abuse report http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Abuse_reports/60.240.30.161, I'm asking you to investigate on the amount of times he's been vandalizing the page, and he will not stop doing so, even after your previous edit. He should be blocked right now. Hometown Kid (talk) 07:40, 13 March 2009 (ET)

Probably your report didn't get attention because it wasn't listed on Wikipedia:Abuse reports. But that is the wrong page for this kind of request anyway - it is concerned with cases where the ISP of that user should be contacted about abuse, not for simple blocking. For that, Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism is a more appropriate place.

These fakes seem to be a really common problem especially in hip hop related articles. I recommend reverting all changes and additions of sales/certifications which do not cite a reference - see WP:BURDEN.

For RIAA certifications, there is a little trick to get a reference link which can be verified directly instead of having to do a new search in their database: After entering album or artist name in the search form, the little link called "First" on the results page will give you a stable link to these search results.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 15:44, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

NYT

Hi Haeb,

long time no see, un jetz hockste bei die Amis? Na aber und wie. Dicken Job gekriegt? Sag mal, du Vaterlandsverräter, könntest du nicht mal den NYT-Artikel helfen aufzupäppeln? In geschichtlicher Hinsicht meine ich. Und in der deutschen WP-Ausgabe. --Bonzo* (talk) 14:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi Bonzo*, nice to hear from you ;) Mind you, this is the English language Wikipedia, not the American Wikipedia. Ich bin leider auch kein Experte für die Historie der New York Times, und bin mit anderen Themen genug beschäftigt... vielleicht später einmal! Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:07, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

User:Gouryella block

Since you've been dealing with User:Gouryella as well, would you mind commenting at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Gouryella_bad_images? I wonder if an indefinite block was too harsh. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:19, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

It seems the matter has already been reviewed and concluded by FisherQueen. Maybe a month would also have been sufficient (as the user did some productive article editing), but on the other hand these copyvio uploads have been going on for more than a year (I myself first warned the user in May 2008) and the optimal time for a mere warning block has long passed. Thanks for taking care of this situation. Regards, HaeB (talk) 22:44, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Doug McKenzie (magician) article

HaeB, I was wondering why you keep adding the advertisement and 3rd party reference tags to this article. The page isn't selling a product or service and does not attempt to do so. The sources cited in the article are also extremely reliable 3rd party sources. (Broadway's Playbill, IMdB, The Conjuring Arts Research Center - an extremely reputable and celebrated source in the magic world, and The Big Issue Scotland - with weekly readership of 670,000 people in a country with 5,000,000 people.) I don't understand your insistence. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.190.247.10 (talk) 16:30, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Reply at Talk:Doug McKenzie (magician). Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:47, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Kim Schmitz

Would you please habe a look at Talk:Kim Schmitz? Thanks. --78.34.4.52 (talk) 16:14, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Kim Schmitz Talk Page

Dear HaeB,

Further to your comments on Wikipedia entry for Kim Schmitz on 3 April, the content has now been edited section-by-section, input has been received during this process, and this has been taken into account in the version that is currently shown at the bottom of Discussion Page. As there have been no further comments since this version was uploaded, it appears that the editing process is complete. However, I appreciate that Wikipedia place an important emphasis on establishing consensus, so I wonder if there are any remaining steps to be taken prior to uploading the revised version to the main Article Page. I look forward to hearing your thoughts. --Tturner2009 (talk) 03:53, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

A note re: Talk:Rorschach test/2009 consensus review

Please be advised that I have recently conducted a review of the Rorschach test (formerly Rorschach inkblot test) talk page and archives. At some point, you have commented on the issue of the display and/or placement of the Rorschach inkblot image. Based on my understanding of your comment(s), I have placed you into one of three categories. I am issuing this note so that you can review how I have placed you, and to signal if this is an appropriate placement and/or to make known your current thoughts on this matter. You may either participate in discussion at the article talk page or leave a note at my talk page; but to keep things in one place, you should also clarify at Talk:Rorschach test/2009 consensus review/addendum. Longer statements may be made here or quick clarifications/affirmations based on several pre-written statements can be made here. Best regards, –xeno^talk 14:55, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

• Further to the above, we would appreciate if you could briefly take the time to place yourself below one of the suggested statements here. If none of these statements represents your current position, please compose your own or simply sign "Not applicable" under "Other quick clarifications". Likewise sign as N/A if you do not want to participate further in this debate. If you choose not to respond then you will likely not be counted with respect to further consensus-determining efforts. –xeno^talk 14:52, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Edits on vector page

Sorry, new to editing and I didn't know that you had to explain all of your edits. I read the sources and determined that the information was misrepresented in the article. Learning as I go here, thanks for the advice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arfdoggy (talk • contribs) 17:49, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Removal of PROD from Carplan T-Cut

Hello HaeB, this is an automated message from SDPatrolBot to inform you the PROD template you added to Carplan T-Cut has been removed. It was removed by Tetglawson with the following edit summary '(this is only a description which can be checked by the sources)'. Please consider discussing your concerns with Tetglawson before pursuing deletion further yourself. If you still think the article should be deleted after communicating with the 'dePRODer,' you may want to send the article to AfD for community discussion. Thank you, SDPatrolBot (talk) 01:27, 18 August 2009 (UTC) (Learn how to opt out of these messages)

Braunton Burrows

• Thank you for your note about the information that you removed from the above article, however please check before issuing such notes as it certainly was not me that entered the info that you quite correctly removed. Regards Paste _{Let’s have a chat.} 16:52, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
  • I take that back, I've just checked the article and, how I don't know but when I was improving the format of the article which involved spacing around the image of the dunes the paragraph inserted by the anonymous ISP had been reinserted. So my apologies, as I say you were quite correct to remove it.Paste _{Let’s have a chat.} 16:57, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Signpost help

Thanks for expanding the upcoming article on Jimbo/Sanger/Calacanis. I'm not sure I've seen you around the Signpost much (though I'm pretty new myself) but your help is welcome. - Draeco (talk) 05:41, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Glad I could help. For a few years now, I have been submitting suggestions to the tip line and editing stories in preparation every now and then, but only in 2009 did I start to write a few stories myself with byline. - About the current article: I was not sure if the story is newsworthy enough to be covered in the Signpost, as there was not much new information about the controversy itself, but Calacanis' "Wikipedia worse than Manhattan" comparison makes it at least entertaining. I still feel a bit uneasy about neutrality here, as we are essentially only presenting the arguments of one side, but perhaps it is safer to err on that side in this case. Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:20, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Pons7.gif

Hello HaeB, you removed this image from the Stanley Pons article, saying it was "used without a valid fair use rationale here". Ah, I see what you meant -- this is in fact from a canonical photo capturing the enthusiasm of their original publication; as explained on the newly uploaded image: see Image:Stanley_Pons_cold_fusion_gear.jpg for details. Thanks, +sj+ 22:47, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

controversy story

I moved it since it seemed like it could stand on its own: Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-11-09/German_controversy

I just want to say that this article is nicely written. It makes fun to read it and is filled with links to relevant informations. Both thumbs up :-) --79.193.110.82 (talk) 14:23, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

great story! were there any pictures from the panel? -- phoebe / (talk to me) 05:55, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it appears that none have been uploaded (I asked Pavel from Wikimedia D about this). There was a video stream but I don't know if it was under a free license or if anyone has saved it. Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:21, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I convinced the video guys to upload a raw recording immediately, however I don't think they did so. --Leon (talk) 12:06, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

like requested: de:Benutzer:Jan eissfeldt/fhb ;), best regards --Jan eissfeldt (talk) 17:01, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Read it, thanks! Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:47, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Please keep your reverts apropos...

Reverting one cite may be OK, but reverting both seems a bit odd. Sukiari (talk) 10:07, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I explained both in my edit summary. Please make sure that the sources you cite actually support the statement that they are cited for. See also Talk:Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident#Threats_of_violence and be aware that you are already in violation of WP:3RR.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 10:13, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

What the hell is your problem?

What part of undue weight do you not get? 63.215.29.202 (talk) 19:11, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

You (or The Red Peacock) did not say anything about undue weight, you blanked the whole section and even the whole article without explanation - despite warnings on your talk page by several other users. You should explain your concerns on the talk page of that article.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:47, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Dick Morris

I removed that section because the link is dead. Showtime2009 (talk) 20:01, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I assume you mean the Globe and Mail link, which is indeed dead (although it seems to have been alive recently - it still turns up as a Google search result). Thanks for catching that one. But The Globe and Mail is a printed newspaper, and a link to an online version is not strictly necessary to quote an printed article. See WP:SOURCEACCESS.

And what's more, the section that you removed cites two other sources which continue to be available online.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:47, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Ultra Records

Hi HaeB,

Thank you for your note re: Ultra Records. I'm not connected to them. I just started trying to contribute more to the site and figured I'd start with what I know best, which is dance music and, more specifically, their artists. I will definitely take a look at the links you sent over, though I thought any changes made were neutral and reliably sourced.

Regarding the mass add of ultrarecords.com, would it be acceptable to link to the specific artist page on their site rather than just the site in general, as that is one of the more reliably sourced and informative links (usually) for most artists?

Thanks for your time,

Mendle44 Mendle44 (talk) 06:37, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi Mendle44,

thanks for your understanding, and you are welcome to improve Wikipedia's dance music coverage.

You may have noticed that another user has already removed most of the links that you mass-added.

But as I said on your talk page: If there is a subpage on ultrarecords.com with a substantial amount of good information about one particular artist, a direct link to that subpage (this is called a deep link) might be appropriate in the article about that artist. It is always preferably to directly add that information to the article though (citing the web page which contains it as a reference, like you already did with the DJ Magazine poll).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:27, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Marina 106..

[1]

you comments are required here on account of Marina 106.~

Nabil rais2008 (talk) 11:56, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Recent Smarandache edit

I agree that removed material requires some explanation, so I agreed with your recent edit. Nonetheless, I reverted it (except the tag) because I think there is good reason to delete this particular material and I gave the reason in my edit summary. Phiwum (talk) 22:04, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Real Climate

What should I call the blanking of sections of sourced material if not vandalism? Please revert your edits they do appear to be in bad faith to me. (LVAustrian (talk) 19:10, 3 December 2009 (UTC))

Look, of course you have the right to disagree with Stephan Schulz' edit, but to call it vandalism amounts to accusing him of intentionally damaging Wikipedia, instead of merely holding a different opinion than yours. That is not acceptable. See also Wikipedia:Assume good faith and Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:15, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

You deleted the critical section. I restored it so the article as equal weight. I think your deletion may have been an accident.(LVAustrian (talk) 19:16, 3 December 2009 (UTC))

Reply at Talk:RealClimate. Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:26, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

FYI

Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts#User:HaeB_-_edit_warring Gerardw (talk) 20:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

As LVAustrian's complaint seems to have been declined already, I'll just note here that his accusations of belonging to "administrators and or mediation cabal members", or having been involved for the article for two years, or having it made a "full time job is to watch climate change articles", or having a COI in this matter do not apply to me. I also find his vandalism accusations at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:LVAustrian_reported_by_User:KimDabelsteinPetersen_.28Result:_.29 quite unfortunate given that I had already asked him not to use that term for good-faith edits above. Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:43, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I didn't see anything there, as I indicated [[2]]. I was just flagging it here because I didn't see evidence LVAustrian had notified you like the WQA instructions ask. Regards. Gerardw (talk) 01:56, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I know, thanks for the notification! Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

RealClimate

I am quite familiar with weight policy. I will not edit the page again today, but if the concerns remain tomorrow, I will re-add the POV tag until the issues are resolved. There are at least 2 established editors who have aired this concern. My view is this: on the topic of political content of a blog, a Guardian opinion from a climatologist involved in the GW debate carries as much weight as a SA magazine award (which is, after all, an opinion as well). You may not share my opinion, but please do not insinuate that I do not understand policy. ATren (talk) 21:12, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi ATren, I was referring to your argument "as long as one view is included, we should not exclude the other", which in itself precisely ignores weight policy as it is explained on WP:UNDUE. The "after all, an opinion as well" argument that you are presenting now is also beside the point of that policy - of course they are both opinions in the end, but that doesn't imply that they must carry equal weight.

I disagree with your argument that a one-sentence remark in an opinion article by a former climatologist (who, according to the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy lacks scientific stature and "has published little if anything of distinction in the professional literature, being noted rather for his shrill op-ed pieces ...") carries the same weight as the collective opinion [3] of the editors of one of the oldest and most respected science magazines.

But as I indicated in my comment, I will respect the insertion of the tag if it is done with a justification that is at least formally in line with policy.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:43, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

HaeB, two points:

1. The text in question is about the political content of a blog. One source gives the opinion that it is objective, the other says it has political overtones. When judging political overtones, there is no special qualification that the editors at SA have over Michaels. In fact, by virtue of Michaels being more involved in this debate, it could be argued that he is more qualified to judge political nuance.
2. You neglect the fact that it was published as an opinion in the Guardian. The editorial board at the Guardian selected, reviewed, and approved this opinion for publication. That gives it weight. It's also worth noting that George Monbiot writes for the Guardian, and his criticism of GW skeptics is frequently quoted in the BLPs of those skeptics, despite Monbiot not being a scientist. I myself have supported the inclusion of Monbiot opinions in GW skeptic BLPs. If non-scientist Monbiot's opinion is sourced throughout multiple skeptic bios, Michaels' opinion should be usable here.

ATren (talk) 02:30, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Regarding your first point, I think most people would see it exactly the other way round - that someone who has been criticized by RealClimate is lashing out at them in retaliation is not surprising. An independent judgement by someone not involved in such a debate is generally regarded as more valuable.

Your second point is a straw man, the issue wasn't if the fact that Michaels had uttered this opinion was reliably sourced, but if it be should given equal weight with that of Nature etc.

It might be worthwhile to re-read WP:WEIGHT and apply your second argument to the example given there, the flat earth concept. There are countless highly reliable sources reporting that view. Take [4], for example - to adapt your argument, "The editorial board at the BBC selected, reviewed, and approved this opinion [that the earth is flat] for publication". Still, that does not justify its inclusion in the article earth.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 12:09, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Global warming is not flat earth. There is a world of difference between scientific consensus and scientific fact, and the fact that pro-AGW editors ^{present company not necessarily included in that classification, but I've seen the flat earth argument from self-acknowledged pro-GW editors in the past -- ATren} continue to bring up flat earth perhaps reveals the root of the problem here. Yes, if this were a flat-earth discussion, I would agree with you on weight and fringe, but it's not. There are at least a half dozen ways I can show beyond reasonable doubt that the earth is curved. The level of validation for the AGW hypothesis, while compelling, does not begin to approach that. We don't see incontrovertible evidence of AGW during a lunar eclipse or in photographs from space. It rather involves incredible amounts of data, analysis and interpretation to conclude AGW. Apply the flat earth weight standard to GW is just as wrong as it would be to start adding extensive flat earth content to the earth article. There are shades of gray in controversial topics such as this, and we need to realize that. ATren (talk) 16:25, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Another straw man - of course I did not say that "global warming is flat earth". I just pointed out that your second argument above is flawed because it would apply to contemporary flat earth concepts as well. The reason I chose flat earth for comparison was simply that it is the example mentioned in WP:WEIGHT, not that the "pro-AGW editors" cabal told me to.

I think that to continue this discussion, Talk:RealClimate#notable_criticism is a better place, where Apis, Kim D. Petersen, Stephan Schulz and Nigelj have also tried to explain the flaws in your understanding of the weight policy.

Looking over your last 250 edits, it appears that since at least the end of September, your Wikipedia activity has consisted almost exclusively of fighting over climate change related topics. Being constantly involved in such conflicts may have strained your ability to assume good faith, still, I would like to ask you not to make unwarranted assumptions about the motivations behind my edits ("pro-AGW editors").

Regards, HaeB (talk) 18:41, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I've clarified my statement which implied that you were "pro-GW". I've never said my argument should be applied to flat earth, only GW, which is entirely different. Flat earth is the strawman here. WP:Weight may use it as an obvious example of the policy, but it doesn't mean that the principle is always so black and white as with flat earth. Anyway, the discussion continues on talk if you'd like to add input there. ATren (talk) 19:07, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Regarding my editing statistics, I am more of a depth (as opposed to breadth) person. I don't generally like to get involved in topics until I really feel like I understand them. I've been watching these articles for several years now, learning about GW as I did, and lately I've felt more compelled to get involved with what I perceive to be widespread problems. I have no horse in the GW race; I truly don't care about the debate (though I do care about sustainability, so it's not like I reject the notion of GW. I just don't care about the debate because I'd rather focus on solutions). ATren (talk) 19:19, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Larry Page birth place

One unregistered editor has twice reverted your change of Page's birth place, putting in Lansing instead of East Lansing. Although when I reverted his change the first time I left a note for him to read the Discussion, he either did not read it or he ignored it without reading it. He then reverted again to Lansing instead of East Lansing, and I again changed it to East Lansing and added a note for him to refer to the Discussion page. Since you have taken a lead in editing this article, I am not going to make any further changes to it, so if the user once again changes it to Lansing without any note or discussion, I will leave it to you to decide what to do. Regards.~~Mack2~~ 01:02, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Nobody "owns" a Wikipedia article, I just happen to have watchlisted this one. But as I said on the talk page there, I agree that your research looks solid, and it should at least be addressed before making this change again. Regards, HaeB (talk) 16:33, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

question

(Moved here from [5])

ARE YOU IN BERLIN, GERMANY AT THE CONFERENCE NOW? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.39.23.147 (talk • contribs) 01:18, 30 December 2009

Haeb, you can IP check me. This is one of the sock puppet masters of Eugene Kaspersky. I am at 26c3. Would you care to meet? You may reply here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.163.94.24 (talk • contribs) 01:18, 30 December 2009

You mean you owned some of these accounts? It would have been great to meet and chat a little ;) Unfortunately, I saw your message only after the Congress was over (you should have left it here on the talk page, or emailed me, instead of writing on the user page). So maybe next time! Regards, HaeB (talk) 17:01, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

That is correct. I hope IRL we could chat freely and friendly and talk about some of the tactics we used to achieve the non-stop attack (private and public VPNs, tor VPN, mobile networks, a private test wiki, etc). I unfortunately missed your talk and despite talking with the Angles, Help Desk, DECT phones, no one knew who you are. On top of this, you have one of like 5 talks that failed to record properly so I couldn't identify you. Also, I was on FreeNode quite a bit in the #26c3 room but never found you online. Perhaps we can meet next year ;) ~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.22.105.108 (talk) 22:01, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreement on Talk:Public/Private Ventures

I agree with what you say at Talk:Public/Private Ventures but I don't know just where to call attention to the problem, beyond the template I already added. I am not rewriting this article, and I am not asking for your help there, either. Any ideas on calling attention? --DThomsen8 (talk) 16:35, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Apart from placing a tag, as you already did, I don't know of any good possibilities. In theory a Wikiproject related to the topic might be a way to notify interested and capable editors, but I somehow doubt that the two projects listed on the talk page specialize in the kind of expertise which would be useful here. Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:04, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Climatic Research Unit hacking incident

Thank you for your contributions to the encyclopedia! In case you are not already aware, an article to which you have recently contributed, Climatic Research Unit hacking incident, is on article probation. A detailed description of the terms of article probation may be found at Wikipedia:General sanctions/Climate change probation. Also note that the terms of some article probations extend to related articles and their associated talk pages.

The above is a templated message. Please accept it as a routine friendly notice, not as a claim that there is any problem with your edits. Thank you. -- TS 02:42, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Rinse FM

Please take time to see the article talk page instead of instantly reverting. Rapido (talk) 09:37, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't see consensus for your deletions on that talk page. Anyway, you did not give that discussion as a reason when making these massive deletions of sourced material. Please take time to familiarize yourself with the usage of edit summaries:

It is considered good practice to always provide an edit summary, but it is especially important when reverting the actions of other editors, or if you delete any text; otherwise, people may question your motives for the edit. (WP:FIES)

While we're at it, it is not considered polite to mark the deletion of 85% of an article's content as minor (see Help:Minor_edit#When_not_to_mark_an_edit_as_a_minor_edit).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 09:46, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Well previous edits I have made do include edit summaries. Either I'm hassled to include an edit summary when I have discussed on the talk page, or I am hassled to use the talk page when the edit summary suffices. It appears that I am damned if I do, and damned if I don't. As you will see on the talk page, the rationale for the removal of content is that the selective "praising" quotes and someone's pseudonym are not relevant. There is no "consensus" as the only two parties involved are myself and Prezbo. Rapido (talk) 09:53, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Quite obviously a false dichotomy, no one has asked you to leave your edit summaries empty. A simple "see talk page" would have sufficed.

I have addressed your concerns on the article talk page - Pitchfork Media and Fact magazine are both appropriate sources for this kind of topic.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 10:07, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I request you refrain from posting to my talk page. Rapido (talk) 14:29, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Because of this one edit?

To cite Gerardw [6]: "Most signficantly, removing other editor's talk page comments in other locations [than one's own talk page], except under narrow circumstances, is a significant policy breach and, had Rapido not reverted, would have been in my opinion be grounds for referral to more formal Dispute Resolution forums." I.e. you should appreciate that I gave you the opportunity to self-revert - which you did, to your credit. I also note that you received a very similar note from EdJohnston just earlier this month. Are you sure that continuing these controversial actions would help your cause?

Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:27, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

user:Rapido

As Rapido has requested that I not post to his talk page, I've raised the issue at WP:WQA. As a courtesy it might be appropriate if you could please pass that on to him in turn (maybe there's a 'bot?), as I don't wish to breach his non-posting rules. Thanks, Andy Dingley (talk) 12:54, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Before I was able to read your message, Rapido had already noticed that discussion (and, see above, banned me too from his talk page - to my recollection, the first time this happened to me since I have started editing here in 2003...). Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:27, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Civitas weblinks

Dear HaeB,

No there isn't a connection. I have been looking at a wide range of social policy texts, which includes many of theirs, and would like to see them listed on more the Wikipedia pages for easier reference/access when I next look them up, so I was starting with those ones, it wasn't for advertising purposes. If I misunderstood the guidelines in any way, sorry —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sinkutanku (talk • contribs) 12:22, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. It was just that I had noticed that your first edits had been to the article Civitas (think tank) [7][8] (adding lots of links to their project websites). It seems that the new User:Saidpath has now taken up a similar task.

Note that I don't object to the use of publications by Civitas or affiliated writers per se, especially if they are used as sources to add actual information to article, instead of just links. (In fact, it was myself who added the mention of Furedi's views to the CRB article in the first place [9].)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 14:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Dean Karlan article

Hello HaeB,

I was wondering if you could remove the COI tags at the top of the Dean Karlan article which I have edited. I do not think the tone nor the content is objectionable. Please let me know if this is possible.

Thank you,

Shardulkoza (talk) 15:57, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi Shardulkoza, I suggest you ask HelloAnnyong about this, the user who inserted the COI tag. (I did not edit the article at all, as you can see from the version history.)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:05, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Hey

Was looking for you on IRC about Vital Voices, but I see you have it covered thanks Mlpearc MESSAGE 20:24, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Armenian Genocide Article

Can you tell me why you've undid my edit? No one in Turkey ever spent time in jail for such a crime. Almost all cases were filed by the same lawyer but he can't do this anymore as such cases first have to accepted by the Ministry of Justice as of 2008. Even those cases that were finalized, the prison sentence was changed to a fine and even those fines were postponed. No one in Turkey ever paid a fine or spent jail time in Turkey. If you cannot come up with a reasonable answer, I'm sorry but I have to report you. You have edited wrongfully ignoring the discussion for that article. TheDarkLordSeth (talk) 05:30, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

You seem to have overlooked the edit summary, where I already told you the the reason: The claim that you inserted ("no individual or organization have been found guilty") was patently false (see e.g. [10]: "On 7 October 2005, Hrant Dink was given a six-month suspended prison sentence by the Sisli Court of First Instance No. 2 in Istanbul for "denigrating Turkishness" in an article he wrote on Armenian identity"). I appreciate that you haven't repeated this claim in your comment above, but I still fail to see what's wrong with the current wording in the article - it already notes that most cases have been dismissed, and the notable fact is that such a law exists at all and that people have had to defend themselves in lengthy court cases for stating what is the prevailing worldwide scholarly view on the issue.

Please make sure your additions are factually accurate, and are actually supported by the cited sources (I assume that when you added this, you didn't check the cited source: An Independent article published in 2002, three years before Article 301 even came into effect).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 13:51, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

My claim is indeed real. There are no people that have spent jail time or paid a fine. The section in the article make it sound like such a case is widespread and many of the prosecuted writers are spending jail time when in fact all the cases were made by a single lawyer and all of them not carried out even if a sentence was given. So if you can't find a source that say that any writer have been sent to jail in this issue how can you imply in a sentence that people are sent to jail for this? TheDarkLordSeth (talk) 02:50, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

• The passage in the article is factually accurate (nothing about jail time or fines there).
• You inserted a false claim into the article, which I removed for the reasons explained above.
• If you want to discuss other statements, I suggest you do that on the article's talk page. If you refuse to take responsibility for your own edits, and insist on ascribing statements to me which I did not make, I see no point in continuing this discussion with you.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:11, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I have seen many people on different Turkish channel pursue the genocide claim and go against the official position of the Turkish government. Majority of them never faced charges. Even Taner Akcam, who is the most openly Turkish "historian" that defends the genocide claims, is not prosecuted. He was charged years ago but the charges were dropped by the court immediately. Since 2008, it's required to get a permit from the Minister of Justice to charge someone under Article 301.Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending this law. I think it should be abolished completely(though I found a very similar law in German Penal Code). I have looked at your article. In all the examples it gives, the charges are either dropped, postponed or still inconclusive. I research online to see if anyone was sent to prison but found that either charges were dropped or if a sentence was given it was postponed not to be executed. I wanted to leave it the original way it was as it makes the best job to portray Turkey as worse as possible but reality begs differ. Even though reality points this I will simply stop pointing out factual errors in this article as it's censored by Armenian members for their own pleasure. Oh also the reason I posted this on here instead of the discussion page is because you ignored the discussion that was already on this topic on that page. Best regards indeed, TheDarkLordSeth (talk) 04:09, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Correction of quotations

Sorry Maurice Carbonaro (talk) 10:39, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

No problem - I recall that when I wrote that article, I had the same impulse to "correct" the typo. But considering who made it, this is a case where the usual convention to preserve the original spelling is especially relevant. Regards, HaeB (talk) 17:40, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

An SPI case of possible interest

Hey. As one of the users who seem to have dealt with at least two of the suspected socks listed on Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Showtime2009, you might be aware of other accounts fitting the pattern described in the case. Thanks, Prolog (talk) 13:54, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Good work. I noticed some of the same things back in November and now I am feeling a bit guilty because I could have saved you quite some work if I had published my notes back then (and probably prevented a lot of POV edits during the recent months). I have added them now.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 17:40, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Your evidence would definitely have been enough if you had created the SPI. Anyway, good to have another sock listed. Prolog (talk) 22:59, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I have admitted to sockpuppeting but the richard account is not mine. Showtime2009 (talk) 02:19, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for ITN help

Just a quick note. Thanks for your help at the Signpost's In the News section the last two weeks while I was out of town. - Draeco (talk) 12:23, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Sources for Seigenthaler being pissed

Dude, he almost smashed Chase for inserting false information on the page, surely that's enough to assert that he would be pissed because Jimbozo has yet to force the implementation of a safer method of correcting misinformation after 5 years. Cold JJ (talk) 15:05, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

See WP:BURDEN. I am not aware of any comment by Seigenthaler specifically about flagged revisions. And by the way, he (or his case) certainly has caused some changes on Wikipedia (for starters, WP:BLP didn't exist back then), regardless of whether you personally think they are sufficient.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 15:08, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Your problem

is that you have two time clauses in a single sentence causing issues. "After" and "as of". You are trying to resolve them together and constantly reverting to this version is basically edit warring to keep an grammatically incorrect sentence. If what I wrote is missing a fact you see key, insert it without reverting to the mess of the sentence that is there now. Here is your problem: After an early growth phase had been financed by a $10,000 investment from his parents (paid back soon afterwards), the site is supported by advertising links to an online dating service as of March 2010 1st time clause "After an early growth phase had been financed by a $10,000 investment from his parents (paid back soon afterwards)" (and I also don't find the fact that he paid it back quickly to be crucial to this statement). "The site" is the subject. "is supported" is your verb, and the "advertising links to an online dating service" is your object. You then have it followed by another time clause "as of march 2010". You have two independent time clauses modifying the statement. If you'd like to talk about sloppy editing, continually reverting to something instead of trying to fix it is the poster child for that. Separating those statements to make the language less awkward and describe the events clearer makes a lot more sense than insisting on this poor version and making sniping insults. The differences between what you want and what I wrote are trivial and could easily have been fixed without reverting to this version. If you don't want to actually fix it, don't blindly revert.--Crossmr (talk) 05:24, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Like I said, I am certainly open to suggestions for improving my writing and as I am always eager to learn more about English grammar, I have read your "two time clauses" theory with interest. Unfortunately I found it a bit confusing. To my understanding a "clause" always contains a verb (predicate), and I couldn't find that in "as of March 2010". Be that as it may, I would have been happy to get out of the way and let your improve what you see as bad style, but I had serious concerns about factual accuracy. Given that I took the time to explain them in detail, it is disappointing that you chose to ignore them in your reply except referring to them as "sniping insults".

I also can't help noticing that another user is not at all convinced of the stylistic superiority of your rewording.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:00, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

for all your hard work on the Signpost lately. I liked your commentary on the O'Neil article.

		The Signpost Barnstar
		For outstanding contributions to The Wikipedia Signpost, I award HaeB The Signpost Barnstar.--ragesoss (talk) 18:26, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Very kind, I appreciate it, and my involvement in this week's issue has also made me appreciate even more the huge amount of work you have been doing as editor so far ;)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:06, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice

I's Kay Kiljae Lee and I made some correction. you can find me by kiljae lee. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kay Kiljae Lee (talk • contribs) 03:46, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

RE: please explain the deletions | Vertrue

Hallo Hoch auf dem Baum... der grund fuer das loeschen des FreeScore.com absatzes ist, da Freescore nicht zur Vertrue firma gehoert - es ist eine eigenstaendige LLC. Ich werde in den naechsten tagen einen artikel nur fuer Freescore aufsetzen, da dieses thema auf einer eignen seite diskutiert werden sollte. Was denkst du? --Webmasterstk (talk) 19:40, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, somehow I didn't get around to looking into this. But at least thanks at least for the explanation, that was my main concern. Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:12, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Sanger coverage

I hope it's okay that I moved your coverage of the Sanger stuff to a separate article. If you object, let me know and/or move it back. I'm going to publish shortly.--ragesoss (talk) 23:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

No problem, it surely makes sense.

I am done with writing for this week. Maybe some thoughts about deadlines are in order ;) Like in previous weeks, I sort of waited if somebody else would jump in to cover some the most important topics. A hard deadline - e.g. by publishing the current issue automatically via a time variable - would have obvious disadvantages, but perhaps also some benefits.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I was much better about enforcing deadlines last year, when I was also more proactive about making sure stuff got covered. In recent months, I haven't been able to devote as much time to it because I have an infant now. But I guess that's no excuse. I'll try to push things back to a regular Monday publication date and encourage writers to meet the deadline.--ragesoss (talk) 23:53, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Vert

My apologies; I mistakenly thought I was reverting earlier vandalism, which you had already taken care of. There was no intent to undo your edit. Cheers, 99.156.68.203 (talk) 00:20, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

thank you!

per the above barnstar & discussion... thank you! for doing such a great job on the signpost the last few weeks. I am sorry I've disappeared :( this weekend I was actually out of town at the M&W workshop but forgot to update the newsroom to say so. Anyway, your articles this week were great, good job. And yes, let's try & get back to monday publication! It works fine for me to have a Monday deadline since I can edit on the weekend. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 23:54, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Fox News article about Sanger's child porn accusation

Just saw your edit summary here. I read the Fox News article and thought it was worth discussing, until I noticed that the AFP article trumpeted by Sanger[11] was only picked up by a handful of news sites. It's best to wait another week or so to see if the story develops. Ottre 18:58, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I doubt that it will, but yes, I think coverage in next week's Signpost might still be justified. Unfortunately, it looks like I won't get around to do it this time though (as I discovered during the first story three weeks ago, summarizing Sanger's copious publications about the intricate details of his opinions and positions can be quite time-consuming).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:12, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

RIAA

The section i changed is true. I work with the RIAA and we are trying to ge it up on our website and a reliable source i know why you changed it i undid it and it will be up and running soon (RIAAcertification(talk)

Good. You are welcome to re-add the information when a reliable source becomes available. Until then, please stop edit-warring to insert a statement that claims that the cited source says something that it does not.

Please also note Wikipedia:Username_policy#Company/group_names.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:16, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Small problem we have had some problems with our website and our reliable source and we lost it on our website and we can't get it back for some reason, so can you please take off the edit-warning. We will try to get the information back and post it as soon as possible. Regards RIAA certification. PS: My boss told me to edit the page —Preceding unsigned comment added by RIAAcertification (talk • contribs) 00:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I am very sorry to hear about your misfortune, good luck with restoring the web page in question (what was the URL again?).

I am afraid that updating the article will have to wait until a reliable source becomes available, see WP:BURDEN.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:12, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

My boss wants to know why you do not let us post the info about Bon Jovi. He said that they can not get the records back and no one seems to have them for some reason. Regards RIAAcertification —Preceding unsigned comment added by RIAAcertification (talk • contribs) 16:05, 3 June 2010 (UTC) My boss wants to know if we can use this information that i used to change the artical. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RIAAcertification (talk • contribs) 16:09, 3 June 2010 (UTC) I am RIAAcertification i got blocked on my old user and i am using my sins account.--Bonjovi332 (talk) 19:43, 3 June 2010 (UTC) If you look at the far right of the record numbers you will se the [7] and the sngles you will see [33](that is old info like i said we lost the new info.--Bonjovi332 (talk) 19:58, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Signpost

Dear HaeB, I see you're in the byline for this week's signpost article about the British Museum activities. Could you please make sure there is appropriate mention of the major project to come out of that day, the WP:GLAM/BM/Featured Article prize? This is more than the reporting of an event but a (IMHO) major announcement and could potentially be broken off into its own subsection. Also, could you make sure that the NYTimes article about the event gets mentioned in the "in the news" section too? Sincerely, Witty Lama 21:58, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Reply at User talk:Witty lama. Regards, HaeB (talk) 14:28, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your work - that's great! And I agree with all the points you made on my talkpage. I would ask one more thing, the removal of the phrase about the creation of the article Wikipedian in Residence as it looks egotistical from my perspective even though I didn't have anything to do with writing it. Witty Lama 19:08, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-06-07/News and notes - I understand that concern, but I thought the revised wording would avoid that impression? Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:16, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Concern over reportage of the "Pending changes" trial

Hi HaeB, the post linked to in the News section of the draft of the next Signpost seems to be less certain of the 14 June start than the Signpost report is.

I had a look at the Help page linked to as well, which is going to get a lot of traffic after publication. It is very confusing, a matter I've taken up on the Help talk page.

It's very concerning. Tony (talk) 15:22, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi Tony, I am glad someone is doing fact-checking ;) Seeing your subsequent edits on the story , it seems that your concerns about the date have already been resolved. I think that June 14 was spelled out quite clearly in the linked announcement, and from the current discussion at the RfC it seems that at least at the moment, they are intending to stick to it.

Note that I had only provided the link and the headline for the story, as a placeholder, it was phoebe who actually wrote it. In this edit you removed her byline and a lot of other changes/fixes from my previous edit, see the edit summary there. I am assuming it was an accident.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 16:27, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Re: Technology report

I'm not sure, will have a look later today. Unfortunately, Brion was filling quite a nice techie "liaison" role, but since he left the role of CTO it's gone back behind closed doors a bit, making it a bit harder to write substantial news rather than just educated guesses. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 08:20, 9 June 2010 (UTC) (signature added with next reply)

(Sorry for not signing my last post, seems the auto-tool I was using doesn't append a signature automatically. Rectified.) I have added in a quick story that may be of niche interest; nonetheless, it is an uncontroversial one and I think it helps the page as a whole (now 2 stories + in brief).

Yes, well, don't quote me on that, it was only my uneducated impression. I'm looking forward to Danese getting more involved, as I'm sure she will. Being an outsider and taking over from the "ultimate" insider that Brion was cannot be easy. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 08:20, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Confused

Hi HaeB, I'm new to The Signpost's protocols for stories. The story I wrote at Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2010-06-07/Citations obviously missed the deadline for the June 7th issue. Does that mean it will go into the next issue? Is there a mockup of the next issue somewhere? If it gets killed will I be notified? ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 03:53, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi Noraft, I thought I had explained the concerns about the story rather thoroughly on the talk page. — HaeB — continues after insertion below

You did; but that explanation didn't say you were choosing not to run the story. Thanks for the clarification. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 23:33, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Work on each week's issue is coordinated at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom‎. I left a remark there (see [12]) soliciting opinions by other Signpost contributors about your story. No one voiced support for publishing it, whereas one Signpost regular marked it as flagged (meaning nor ready for publication). And later a third Signpost regular expressed concern about the story at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost‎.

From your comment here ("I saw that the next issue was due out on the 7th (today, and still needed three stories"), it seems that there was a misunderstanding caused by the page that listed the stories being worked on for the issue - each week it is initialized with a standard template leaving room for up to three stories, but only rarely are all three slots used (that might for example be the case in weeks with an exceptional amount of important news to cover). In other words, unlike a paper weekly we don't have a fixed amount of pages to fill ;)

So in the end I decided not to publish the story in that form. But if you still feel that the Template:Cite sign is an important novelty which many Signpost readers would be interested to learn about (at the moment, it seems to be used in 4 articles altogether), you could add a shorter version of the story to this week's News and notes (we are overdue with publication, but work on that section will likely take some more time anyway), or of the issue after that (June 21), and wait for feedback.

As I said last Monday, you would be very welcome to help restarting he Signpost's (currently dormant) Discussion report, which tracks policy changes and important discussion each week.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:19, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Grab some glory, and a barnstar

Hi, I'd like to invite you to participate in the Guild of Copy Editors July 2010 Backlog Elimination Drive. In May, about 30 editors helped remove the {{copyedit}} tag from 1175 articles. The backlog is still over 7500 articles, and extends back to the beginning of 2008! We really need your help to reduce it. Copyediting just a couple articles can qualify you for a barnstar. Serious copyeditors can win prestigious and exclusive rewards. See the event page for more information. And thanks for your consideration. mono^{pending changes begin june 15} 17:50, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Why am I getting this message? Mono's delivery method is random, so you probably showed up somewhere Mono went. :)

Thanks for the invitation. Well, I don't expect to achieve more that a very modest score, but I added myself, in a Cool Runnings spirit ;)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:25, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much for signing up for the July Backlog Elimination Drive! The copyedit backlog stretches back two and a half years, all the way back to the beginning of 2008! We're really going to need all the help we can muster to get it down to a manageable number. We've ambitiously set a goal of clearing all of 2008 from the backlog this month. In order to do that, we're going to need more participants. Is there anyone that you can invite or ask to participate with you? If so, we're offering an award to the person who brings in the most referrals. Just notify ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! or Diannaa ^TALK of who your referrals are. Once again, thanks for your support! Diannaa ^TALK 20:42, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

re Signpost (14 June)

Hi HaeB. When are you expecting "going to print" on this week's issue? I'm trying to keep the Pending changes bits correct for that time, would hope to know roughly what tense I should be preparing for :) Thanks, - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 18:24, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

The Arbitration Report is not marked as finished, but I am right about to publish anyway. (I already changed the Pending Changes story to future tense.)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 18:27, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I've made sure BRION is correct as of this moment. Yeah, I noticed that. Cool. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 18:33, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Interview with Danese Cooper

Hey HaeB, you wouldn't happen to know if anything happened with this one before, do you? I'm thinking I might put a quick email through, test the water. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 19:24, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

To my knowledge she hasn't been contacted - to be sure, one could also ask Ragesoss (about the previous months), but I wouldn't worry too much about it. Great that you are having a go at it.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 20:54, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

F&A this week

Sorry about that. I usually left the page at user:seresin/p and the published editor would move it from there. But you had no way to know that, so sorry if you were confused. ÷seresin 19:40, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Book:Wikipedia_Signpost/2010-06-14

Just so you know the bot will create the book pages automatically. FinalRapture - † ☪ 01:25, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I somehow guessed so, but see my question at Book talk:Wikipedia Signpost#Generating book page while publishing a new issue (your comments would be welcome there): Headbomb had recently put the advice into the Signpost Publication Instructions to generate the book page by hand. And as long as the book page is linked from the archive page of each new issue it makes sense to have the book generated immediately after publication, because a lot of readers arrive at the new issue via the archive page (we link to it from each new issue announcement on Twitter and identi.ca).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 10:48, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Gary_Taubes

Would appreciate your comments on current version of Gary_Taubes. Darrell_Greenwood (talk) 15:27, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

OK, I'll take a look at it tomorrow. Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:46, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

69.248.128.104 reverted. I was referring to 87.194.14.248's version. Regards, Darrell_Greenwood (talk) 03:38, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks for your excellent editing on Taubes. All quiet now. Darrell_Greenwood (talk) 03:48, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

GOCE Backlog Elimination Drive

Hi HaeB, I was wondering: Would you be willing to put a note somewhere in the Signpost that the GOCE Backlog Elimination Drive is starting July 1? ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 04:12, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, I am a bit wary about a possible conflict of interest since I signed up for the drive myself ;) But I am going to add a short note to this week's "News and notes". Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:22, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 00:17, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

In the news

HaeB, it needs a going-through, and I told Forty two that I'd do so in the next few hours. Is there time? Tony (talk) 11:17, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I guess there has to be - I don't think it's in optimal form for publication yet. So yes, go ahead. I might also make some changes and additions to it. Regards, HaeB (talk) 11:33, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I've made a suggestion at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost; it might not be a good one or one that gets to the crux of the issue of late publication, but I thought I'd throw it out there. :) Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:59, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I'll reply there later about the general issue, but for the moment let me just note that what is holding up publication right now is not that we are waiting for additional material, but that the material which is already present needs to be brought into shape. Regards, HaeB (talk) 16:06, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Backlog Elimination Drive Has Begun

Hello, I just wanted to take a moment and announce that the July 2010 Backlog Elimination Drive has started, and will run for a month. Thanks for signing up. There's a special prize for most edits on the first day, in case you've got high ambitions. Enjoy! ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 04:11, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Dude.

You are fantastic! Just sayin'. extransit (talk) 06:44, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to you too for your recent contributions to the Signpost! Regards, HaeB (talk) 14:58, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Reminder

Hi! This message is just a friendly reminder that you signed up to participate in the GOCE Backlog Elimination Drive. I noticed that you haven't logged a single copy edit yet. We'd love to see you participate! The drive runs three more weeks so there's still plenty of time to earn barnstars. Thanks! --Diannaa ^(Talk) 22:24, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

GOCE Newsletter

GOCE July 2010 backlog elimination drive chart Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors Backlog Elimination Drive! We have now passed the halfway point, so here's an update. Progress Report - Progress toward the targets has been good. 751 articles out of the approximately 1,600 we would like to get completed by the end of the month were done by July 15, so we will be very close to meeting the target for volume. However, we would like to clear all of the 2008 articles from the backlog, and there are still 892 left to do. Please consider choosing one of these older articles when looking for something to copy edit. If we focus our firepower we can completely wipe out 2008 from the queue. Participation Report - 95 people signed up for the July drive. This is a great result compared to May, when we had 36. However, in May only one person that signed up didn't do any copy edits, and in July only 59 of the 95 have posted any copy edits on the big board. The task may seem insurmountable but please remember that if all 95 participants copy edit just one article a day from now until the end of the month, we will eliminate 1,300 more articles from the backlog. So please consider participating at whatever level you can! All contributions are appreciated. This newsletter was prepared for the GOCE by Diannaa (Talk), S Masters (talk), and The Raptor Let's talk.

Bookmaker's probabilities and Pending changes

It's the betters who affect the probabilities, as I'm sure you know. If Pending changes brings vandalism to a halt on those pages (which it should, shouldn't it?), the betters will soon realise and their behaviour will change. Simple as that. I thought it was an obvious thing to say, and needed to be said.

The Pending changes people might well use that list as a source for adding pages to their watch. After all, who wants the public betting on damage to our articles? It's bad for the project. Tony (talk) 04:28, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Because the announcement already gave a list of odds, it seemed to me that this is fixed-odds betting, not parimutuel betting (where the betters affect the odds). Of course placing a page under Pending Changes protection will affect the absolute probability that it will be victim of vandalism that achieves media coverage (as required to win the bet), but that possibility existed for many weeks before the trial, and there is also normal page protection, so if Paddy Power's researchers are worth their wages, they must have taken that into account.

The statement that the "trial will beat the betting agencies at their game" also didn't make much sense to me for the reason that a trial is not a better, and if it would refer to admins involved in the trial, I would assume that bookmakers have a clause that excludes betters who are in a position to significantly influence the event that is the subject of the bet.

I absolutely agree with your last statement, and I wonder if it has something to do with the apparent removal of the bet offer from their web site.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 10:42, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

PING

I've just sent you an email. Please look at your inbox. I promise I'll work out how to get into IRC, soon. Tony (talk) 12:59, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Got it two minutes ago, thanks!

Regards, HaeB (talk) 13:15, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Unacceptable

[13] After a long discussion in which you objected because I wrote an article, I agreed to drop my claim to publication and publish it as a comment instead. I reworked it to comment on In the News, and thought it was sttled, because you never said another word.

Hours befgore publication, you sneakily and underhandedly try to bury it. That's unacceptable behaviour on your part. Making it seem that qa compromise had been accepted, then changing it just before it'd be too late.

Don't even think of doing that again. If you wanted to object, you had an entire week to do so. Doing this right before publication is an attempt to bury it so that it won't be seen by people, who generally read the signpost right away. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 05:21, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Reply at User talk:Adam Cuerden. Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:11, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Not buying it, leave it alone. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 06:15, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay, having had a little time to think it over, I can accept you acted in good faith, but I still really think that you should've at least attempted to contact me about it first. I have some issues which I do not want pushed about, and, having been through the Commons situation, this is one of them. It wasn't helped by Wikinews asking me to be interviewed, spending 6 hours interviewing me, then spiking the story because Jimbo decided not to reply to the counter-interview at the time.

I still think this should run. I'd rather publish this and get the misconceptions out of the way than come back to this again and again. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 07:44, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but no. I adapted it to refer to that story. I'm sorry I didn't respond to Wackywace, but the thing was hidden behind a "nothing more to see here" hat/hab thing shortly after his post. Also, you won't edit war? You are edit warring. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 04:05, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I did not revert to the same version, but (as explained) attempted a different compromise. You, on the other hand, didn't even have the decency to preserve the standard formatting introduced in my edits (for example, Signpost talk pages should start with this template).

Let's see now how many users appreciate your work at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-07-26/In the news. Regards, HaeB (talk) 04:37, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I edit under my real name. You use some pseudonym that protects you from the consequences of your actions. I've removed your comment, and will ask for you to be blocked if you replace those lies. I have asked that you be stripped of your editor position for your gross attacks against your staff. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 05:45, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost have decide that you should not be able to read commentary on the problems with censorship. This is the first time commentary has been censored from the Wikipedia Signpost, however, evidently, speaking out against Jimbo Wales' actions in the recent Commons debacle is too controversial.

Since I started editing Wikipedia, I've created literally hundreds of Featured pictures, a dozen or so Featured articles, a couple Featured portals, a featured list, and various other things.

What has my reward been?

I've been harassed, bullied, and generally treated like dirt. An arbcom case was opened by Charles Matthews, then a sitting arbitrator, to punish me for not immediately agreeing to his request to reconsider a block, with no additional information than "I think it's a good idea". I instead sought opinions on ANI, and so Charles Matthews got his friends in the Arbcom to harass me for three months. After two months, they decided that they really should have sought other means of dispute resolution, and opened an RfC... which came out firmly in my decfense. This wasn't what they wanted, so they ignored it, attacked those who spoke out against me, and did what they wanted

It took a year for the Arbcom to finally agree to withdraw the case, replacing it with an apology, and detailing the many procedural and ethical lapses.

More recently, I've been blocked for having an arbcom statement slightly over the limit - while I was in the middle of a lengthy rewrite. The other user I was in dispute with also had a statement over the limit throughout that time... and was never so much as warned.

Wikipedia treats its users like shit, but, ironically, only the long-time experienced users. If you ever begin to become jaded, your upset at Wikipedia will be used to implement more injustices.

Here we see an example. At the start of the news cycle, I wrote an editorial, following the Signpost's stated guideance for such. When it was done, I was told that they no longer publish editorials, and, instead of raising a fuss, I offered to simply publish it as a comment to stories, and the thread discussing it was closed.

Two hours before publication, the editor of the Signpost deleted the comment, without telling anyone. I objected; he had participated in the discussion, and the discussion had been closed for nearly a week, with the comment ready for publication throughout that time. I had dropped my insistence on publication of editorials, or any attempt to revise the article into a non-editorial overview, based on what I had seen as the agreement.

Now, not only is talking about censorship censored, but even a private complaint about at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AWikipedia_Signpost%2FNewsroom&action=historysubmit&diff=375694073&oldid=375693486 editor making grossly inaccurate personal attacks against me, based on patently false allegations, has been censored.

I quit. Both the Signpost, and Wikipedia.

Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 09:28, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

This description of events is wildly inaccurate. E.g. "without telling anyone" - see [14]. Also, your text about Jimbo was moved to another Signpost article's talk page (where it was less off-topic), not deleted [15][16]

After you reverted me again, I kept my promise not to edit-war over it and left your "editorial" in place even though I consider it to be an abuse of the Signpost talk page. It was then first collapsed and later removed [17]by two other users.

You did not say what these "lies" should have been and I had provided links to back up what I said (also here).

I see you have also posted this in various other places where it has been removed by at least five other users: Talk:Main Page, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests, Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous), Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom[18]

Like I said before, I think it is absolutely legitimate to criticize what Jimbo did on another Wikimedia project back in May. The question is where and how often. To me, this is about fairness - about how much prominence one person's view should be given over the hundreds of others that exist about a matter like this.

I do appreciate your other work for the Signpost and you are still welcome to contribute to F&A.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 11:28, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Discussion report now boring

It's pretty boring now, isn't it. Who cares about some AfD? I have no idea why there's an objection to covering what readers discussed in the previous edition. If you are worried about "privileging" SP pages, let's get rid of all of the "covered in previous SP" links.

Again: boredom is the key word. Tony (talk) 06:11, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Let me get this right: because ncmvocalist loudly objected, you got rid of it. Riiiight. Tony (talk) 06:20, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I am extremely displeased at this. Thanks for wasting more than an hour of hard work to try to make that page worth visiting. I will be posting in the dicussion page a note about how much of a yawn it is. Tony (talk) 06:29, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Did you read my Newsroom comment[19]? (I also said something about caring for AfDs there.)

"why there's an objection" - well, I am not saying that Ncmvocalist's word is gospel, but I had thought that in this case he and Pretzels had explained that clearly, at least clear enough not to go ahead just as if there was no objection. But I tried to explain it a bit more. For example, I do think that in this case the section caused an inexcusable imbalance between views expressed on Foundation-l and on our own talk pages.

I knew you must have spent quite some time of it and I really felt sorry. But I do think that after the discussion you should have been aware of that WP:BRD (or shall I say DBR) risk.

Your last remark conflates talk pages and articles. Would you say the same about the article namespace? (I.e. "Disallowing personal opinions by Wikipedians - i.e. NPOV - does not make sense because we have wikilinks to other articles?").

"Boring" - I admit, you do have a knack for an interesting writing style, which has done quite some thing for the Signpost recently. However, it is not only about style, but also about content. We can summarize almost every Wikipedia talk page discussion in engaging words, but in the end we have to ask whether what we are summarizing is relevant for our readers.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:37, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

So you won't mind if I diff the censored version at the top of the discussion page? I don't know what "Foundation-l" is, and what the "inexcusable imbalance" is. Tony (talk) 08:36, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Signpost Spamlist

I have alphabetized the list, as it was starting to get a bit messy . Here the diff :). Thanks,Acather96 (talk) 08:27, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Technically, the order doesn't make much of a difference (except that those on the top of the list get their copy a bit earlier - the bot currently needs about two hours for its paper run [20]. But for humans, it's nice to have it cleaned up now, thanks ;)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 12:06, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Signpost

With regret, I am leaving the Signpost team until further notice. When I first arrived I thought that everyone would be civil and understanding, but after three weeks I have come to accept that there are some editors who simply aren't. WackyWace ^{converse | contribs} 13:48, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your Signpost work so far! I find such things quite unpleasant too (and right now, dealing with them is distracting me from getting the actual managing editor job done), but after a while one gets less impressioned by drama of various kinds. Take a break as you need and come back when you feel it is right. Regards, HaeB (talk) 14:19, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I have resolved my dispute with the editor in question and will resume work on the Signpost in a couple of weeks. WackyWace ^{converse | contribs} 14:26, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

HaeB, good catch on cusTomer at News and notes. You might consider reducing the size of the Fornell pic so it's about the same size as Jimbo's above? Thanks. Tony (talk) 17:15, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Signpost (August 2)

(You will excuse the ambiguous headline; you seem to get so many messages every week I thought it was probably prudent.) Great work getting some stuff down for the tech report - turns out it's been the busiest week for a while (great timing!). Having just got home a little earlier than expected, I'm finishing it off now, just wanted to a) thank you and b) apologise in advance for tweaking your style somewhat for internal consistency - nothing major though, I'm sure.

Oh, that reminds me, I had enough internet time to read but not reply to your last email; I'm hopeful we'll get a Danese Cooper interview soon, have reminded her, she apologised, and so forth. Regards, - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 15:36, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

GOCE Backlog Elimination Drive Wrap-up

Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors July 2010 Backlog Elimination Drive. Thanks to all who participated in the drive! Over 100 editors—including Jimbo Wales—signed up this time (nearly triple the participants of the May drive). This benefited the Guild as well as the articles in need of copy editing. You can see from the comparison graphs that we increased the number of completed copyedits substantially. Unfortunately, we were not able to meet our goal of completely wiping out 2008 from the queue. We also were not able to reduce the backlog to less than 6,000 articles. We suspect people were busy with real life summertime things, at least in the northern hemisphere! We were able to remove the months of January, February, March, April, and May from the backlog, and we almost wiped out the month of June. We reduced the backlog by 1,289 articles (17%), so all in all it was a very successful drive, and we will be holding another event soon. We'll come up with some new ideas to try to keep things fresh and interesting. Keep up the good work, everybody! Stats If you copy edited at least 4,000 words, you qualify for a barnstar. If you edited in the May 2010 GOCE Backlog Elimination Drive, your word totals are cumulative for barnstars (not the leaderboard). Over the course of the next week or two, we will be handing out the barnstars. GOCE backlog elimination drive chart up to 31 July Eight people will receive The Most Excellent Order of the Caretaker's Barnstar (100,000+ words): Chaosdruid, Diannaa, Ericleb01, Lfstevens, Shimeru, S Masters, The Utahraptor, and Torchiest. Bullock and Slon02 will receive The Order of the Superior Scribe (80,000+). The Barnstar of Diligence (60,000+) goes to Derild4921, GaryColemanFan, kojozone, and Mlpearc. The Modern Guild of Copy Editors Barnstar (40,000+) goes to A. Parrot, AirplanePro, Auntieruth55, Bejinhan, David Rush, and mono. Nobody will receive The Old School League of Copy Editors award (30,000+). The Tireless Contributor Barnstar (20,000+) goes to Backtable, Cindamuse, dtgriffith, Duff, e. ripley, Laurinavicius, NerdyScienceDude, and TEK. The Cleanup Barnstar (12,000+) goes to Brickie, Casliber, cymru lass, December21st2012Freak, Nolelover, TheTito, Whoosit, and YellowMonkey. The Working Man's Barnstar (8,000+) goes to Bsherr, Duchess of Bathwick, HELLKNOWZ, Mabeenot, noraft, Pyfan, and Richard asr. The Modest Barnstar (4,000+) goes to Adrian J. Hunter, Airplaneman, Annalise, Camerafiend, Cricket02, Fetchcomms, Gosox5555, LeonidasSpartan, Paulmnguyen, Piotrus, SuperHamster, Taelus, and TPW. Gold Star Award Gold Star Award Leaderboard Articles Words 5k+ Articles 1. Diannaa (248) Shimeru (200,392) Shimeru/Ericleb01 (13) 2. Slon02 (157) Diannaa (164,960) Chaosdruid (8) 3. GaryColemanFan (101) Chaosdruid (130,630) Derild4921 (7) 4. Torchiest (100) The Utahraptor (117,347) GaryColemanFan/Slon02 (6) 5. Shimeru (80) Ericleb01 (114,893) Bejinhan/The Utahraptor (5) Coordinator: ɳorɑfʈ Talk! Co-coordinators: Diannaa TALK and S Masters (talk) | Newsletter by: The Raptor You rang?/My mistakes; I mean, er, contributions

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of The Utahraptor at 18:12, 1 August 2010 (UTC).

Stories?

You added two links to N&N (this and this)—was there a story you wanted written? If so I'm up for it. Regards, WackyWace ^{converse | contribs} 10:18, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

It was really just intended as a brief item (listing all recently published chapter reports). But if you want to flesh it out by writing short summaries of each report, go ahead! Keep it concise though, and bear in mind we should publish in a few hours. Regards, HaeB (talk) 10:33, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I've done a piece on the chapter reports, a piece on the Sangar interview, and per the newsroom discussion I've removed the RfA data chart report from this week's issue. I've messaged Mabeenot about the WikiProject report which seems to have some issues. N&N and ITN both need copyedits but when they're done, we're ready to go to press. Regards, WackyWace ^{converse | contribs} 12:43, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I am going to do some necessary edits though (e.g. these are by far not the "first Chapter Reports", just those from the last month, and the Sanger summary should focus a bit more about the newsworthy stuff instead of things he has already said a thousand times before), and just added another prepared story. I agree that the RfA story can be pushed to next week, and the author seems to be fine with it too. Regards, HaeB (talk) 13:22, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Signpost

You should be aware of this as the editor. KnightLago (talk) 00:48, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I had already seen it, but thanks for the heads-up. Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:05, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Those who tresspass

I responded on my talk page and also on the TWP talkpage. I removed the secondary Hastings remark since he is speaking for unknown "others". If their opinion is notable then they should be specifically quoted. Arzel (talk) 17:00, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Attacks on me

Hi, I don't know which attacks you mean, but I will certainly take your word that you were not responsible for them. As for referring to certain Wikipedians as Cretins and Vandals, as is my wont, I ONLY use those terms to describe, well, actual cretins and vandals who DO come into WP articles and do terrible things to them. I'm not referring to the many wonderful WP people that I worked with happily for a number of years like User:RLetson and User:Mike Christie -- if every WPian were like them I would never have left, nor, I think, would any of the other people who are now at Citizendium. Cheers! Hayford Peirce (talk) 18:51, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

What quality reporting is

Now THIS: Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2010-08-09/Admin_stats is quality reporting. And not you know what. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:30, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Glad that you liked it ;)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 04:30, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

suggestions to vandalize

HaeB, you wrote, "In March, a page on the English Wikiversity about researching Wikipedia by "Ethical Breaching experiments", which included suggestions to vandalize it on purpose, generated controversy (see Signpost coverage.) HaeB, please provide me with quotes from the deleted Wikiversity page that constituted "suggestions to vandalize it on purpose". --JWSchmidt (talk) 12:42, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

A valid request. Here you are: (v:Wikimedia Ethics/Ethical Breaching Experiments, version of 3 March 2010, 23:02:19, cf. for example [21]):

Suggestions from Gomi (link)

1) Add citations to plausible-sounding but fictitious references to BLPs and/or health/medical articles. Inserting no actual defamation or misinformation, but supporting statements with fake references will show how open to abuse the Wiki model is;

2) Create articles on non-existent people and companies. This will be difficult, but if carefully checked to be non-existent, the harm done here is minimal;

3) Create fake articles on (non-existent) latin-named plants and animals, similar to #2, above;

Regards, HaeB (talk) 13:17, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

• HaeB, if the examples from "Gomi" were intended to "show how open to abuse the Wiki model is" and if "Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Even harmful edits that are not explicitly made in bad faith are not vandalism" then why do those suggestions constitute "suggestions to vandalize"? --JWSchmidt (talk) 13:33, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Do not create hoaxes unambiguously states "Hoaxes in Wikipedia are considered vandalism" (and the statement appears to have been there since 2006).

If you are of a different opinion, I suggest that you first find consensus to change that guideline. (Be aware though that the argument that there is a need to show it is "possible to insert hoaxes into Wikipedia" has already been addressed there.)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 14:16, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

HaeB, if "A hoax is a deliberate attempt to deceive or trick people into believing or accepting something" then how do the examples from "Gomi" constitute hoaxes? The suggestions from "Gomi" were intended to "show how open to abuse the Wiki model is", not "trick people into believing or accepting something". --JWSchmidt (talk) 15:05, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

If you are eager to argue that fake articles on non-existent things (Gomi's words) must not be considered hoaxes, I don't see a point in continuing this conversation. I believe your initial concern about the Signpost article has been sufficiently addressed.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:11, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

HaeB, the suggestions from "Gomi" are suggestions for how to demonstrate existing problems at Wikipedia. In the context of the Ethical Breaching Experiments project, those suggestions were being examined as ways to improve Wikipedia by drawing attention to existing problems related to the accuracy of Wikipedia articles. Wikipedians have been called upon to do everything possible to ensure that BLPs are "right". The suggestions from "Gomi" are thus good faith suggestions for how to draw attention to existing problems, an important step in getting action that will improve Wikipedia. HaeB, if you want to dismiss such a good faith effort to improve Wikipedia by calling these suggestions from Gomi "suggestions to vandalize", then you should be able to explain why good faith suggestions for how to improve Wikipedia must be viewed as "suggestions to vandalize". Are you claiming that the suggestions from "Gomi" were suggestions for how to deliberately attempt to deceive or trick people? It seems clear that the intent of suggestion #2 is to show that Wikipedia BLPs about non-notable people can exist as published Wikipedia articles without the content being verified. My concern about the Signpost article is that it not depict a good faith effort to improve Wikipedia as including "suggestions to vandalize" Wikipedia when it actually included suggestions that were not intended to deceive (hoax), but rather to illustrate a problem that Wikipedia has and help lead to a fix for the problem. A reporter concerned about the accuracy of a story might interview people like Gomi and ask about their intentions, rather than make bad faith assumptions about intentions. --JWSchmidt (talk) 23:07, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

And Ted Kaczynski isn't a murderer because his Manifesto clearly indicates that he was trying to help society ("he argued that his bombings were extreme but necessary to attract attention"). - WAS 4.250 (talk) 19:32, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Experimenting with unsourced information is an interesting idea and does not require a hoax or vandal. Experimenting with false information is unnessecary (because there is a lot of it about already non-studied), and does require a hoax or vandal. Someone could tell you that you can't have it both ways, but you must. You cannot wear a blindfold and expect permission to walk around. You'd definitely injure the Ming vase. No. No. You would. ~ R.T.G 15:31, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Email

You have email. KnightLago (talk) 01:07, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I sent a reply last night. Regards, HaeB (talk) 16:11, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Possible News stories

Hi Haeb, I added a story for "In the news" section, please take a look when you have some time. I found 2 more candidates [22] [23], I have no idea of their Newsworthy-ness. This is a slow week for news as it is so take a look if there is anything worth salvaging from there. I also found a news story reporting the formation of the South African chapter for wikimedia, it was reported as recent [24] Again, I am not sure which ones would fit in for this week, so please give me your thoughts when you get around to them. Thanks.--

Also, I wanted to mention something about the fundraising drive for this year, the community is invited to the fundraising page on meta to give messages that are going to run in the banner during the fundraising drive and the social media campaign for this year, I just wanted to know where should something like that be mentioned. Theo10011 (talk) 10:15, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

The customer satisfaction survey was already covered in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-07-26/In the news.

Manjoo's review is just one of many of the book, and it doesn't say more about Wikipedia than other reviews, or the announcement for the book, have said before - see also Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-06-07/In the news. As noted on the review desk, I have read the book and am preparing a full review (intended publish it in tomorrow's issue, but it looks I will have to push it back one more week). Maybe I will mention Manjoo's and other notable reviews there.

The announcement of a lecture Jimmy Wales will give next month doesn't seem terribly newsworthy, but I won't object to a one-sentence note. If he will say interesting (and new) things about Wikipedia in it, we can always report more about it in September.

The Wikimedia South Africa workshop definitely merits mention, there is more information at [25].

Fundraising: Haven't looked at it, but "News and notes" could be a place to mention it.

You can find some other newsworthy items (mostly for n&n) in this week's dents.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 12:28, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Haeb, will do. I am really impressed with how thorough you are with your reporting (most of my story ideas have already been covered) great work and let me know if there is anything specific you want me to cover, I will look into the above mentioned stories. Thanks again.--Theo10011 (talk) 18:08, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

GOCE Backlog Elimination Drive invitation

There are currently 2,829 articles in the backlog. You can help us! Join the September 2010 drive today!

The Guild of Copy-Editors – September 2010 Backlog Elimination Drive The Wikipedia Guild of Copy-Editors invite you to participate in the September 2010 Backlog Elimination Drive, a month-long effort to reduce the backlog of articles that require copy-editing. The drive will begin on 1 September at 00:00 (UTC) and will end on 30 September at 23:59 (UTC). The goals for this drive are to eliminate 2008 from the queue and to reduce the backlog to fewer than 5,000 articles. Sign-up has already begun at the September drive page, and will be open throughout the drive. If you have any questions or concerns, please leave a message on the drive's talk page. Before you begin copy-editing, please carefully read the instructions on the main drive page. Please make sure that you know how to copy-edit, and be familiar with the Wikipedia Manual of Style. Awards and barnstars A range of barnstars will be awarded to active participants. Some are exclusive to GoCE drives. More information on awards can be found on the main drive page. Thank you; we look forward to meeting you on the drive! — ɳorɑfʈ Talk! and S Masters (talk).

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of The Utahraptor at 23:22, 17 August 2010 (UTC).

Attention and participation

As you've previously commented on this topic, your attention and participation is invited here: Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost#Ncmvocalist_needs_to_step_down_or_be_replaced — Rlevse • Talk • 23:45, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the revert. I re-read this several times before making the edit. Each time my brain misread the sentence. Two sets of eyes are better than one. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 13:51, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

G'day HaeB

Hope you're good :-) - I wonder if you might spare a mo to review my post at the bottom of this page - it's about a recent Signpost story I think you wrote - no rush and no drama, but I'd appreciate it if you could take a look :-) cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 01:30, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Replied there. Regards, HaeB (talk) 04:09, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Dispatch

Good enough? ResMar 03:20, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Had a very very brief look, my first impression: Good idea, nicely written. The selection might need to be given some further thoughts, though. It's good that you're upfront that it is a bit subjective (and it has to be to some degree), but one should still strive to maximize the value for readers by including tools that are likely to be useful for many, and perhaps skip some that are too specialized. E.g. DYKcheck seems to have a rather narrow purpose. On the other had, something like Reflinks is rather universal and might be worth covering (just an example).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 04:26, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I've removed several specific ones. Cheers, ResMar 14:13, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

• Mono and I suggested that we delay publishing this dispatch, but I'm not going to even bother saying anymore after ResMar's spectacularly bad faith response. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:03, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Don't you think you are, I don't know, stretching it a little? I said my mind and bad faith rubbish isn't exactly a positive response on your side, either. Besides, it was I who originally marked it postposed, following Sandy's comments (although the official designation lies with the head editor, of course). ResMar 02:31, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Not at all. There was a lot of potential in what you wrote, but there were some issues that needed to be addressed before it was ready for publication under The Signpost title - we tried to tell you as gently as possible because, as Mono explicitly stated, the aim of this is not to discourage you; it's to improve things. We want it to be published soon, but not too hastily when it's not a time-sensitive matter, and it really could do with the improvement and focus. None of us want newcomers to be bitten, but that doesn't mean bad faith distractions are going to be appreciated: "Someone has been reading too many arbcom reports", "I seriously feel you lack faith in me Sandy. Wikipedians are not graded in the amount of contributions they have", etc. Truth is one thing; bad faith is another. You were the only user who dragged these topics into the discussion when in reality, the issues with the report had nothing to do with the amount of contributions you made, the faith any person has in you, or the number of arbcom reports editors have read. It was saddening to see that you weren't receptive to the feedback, and it was only after Sandy, a very experienced editor, very bluntly responded to you that you actually marked it as postponed. I think it leaves people hoping that this is not your general approach in handling criticism. Ncmvocalist (talk) 11:09, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Ok, lets hope so then. ResMar 17:11, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Signpost: Pending changes trial

Hi, I changed the wording of two phrases in the Signpost article.

You/your co-author described the second option in the poll as "slowly reintroduced into the mainspace". The actual wording is a gradual, limited expansion up to a max of 10k articles. The difference is the hard-cap on expansion. The point is that it's not a gradual rollout to the entire mainspace, but is capped at 10k articles. Also, I changed "test form" to "current form" to avoid the connotation that the second or third options are not still under trial evaluation. Let me know if you disagree with any of that. Thanks, Ocaasi (talk) 09:45, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

That story (including the statement in question) was written by Resident Mario.

Usually we try to avoid changing a Signpost story significantly after the official publication time, and I don't think the statement is grossly misleading (in any case, Signpost readers who decide to vote in the poll will have the opportunity to read the full description there before doing so). However, I agree that your clarifying edit improves the story significantly in an important aspect (I remember wondering myself what would become of the 2000 articles limit when I briefly skimmed it before publication. As Signpost editor, I try to do some vetting, but unfortunately I don't have the time to fact-check everything).

Thanks for the notice, and please continue to hold the Signpost to high standards.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 14:55, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Scibaby

The edit you reverted here[26] was the work of Scibaby, in case you were wondering. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 17:38, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the signpost

Hi, I'm not familiar with inclusion criteria, but there is a pretty sad story that could, perhaps, fit the Signpost trivia section, regarding paid editing on Elance.com, found out by User:Themfromspace. You can read about it at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mark Portmann. Apparently the offer to create the article for cash (made because the requester was probably not aware of WP:REQUEST) was taken up by a professional writer editing as User:Carlang, who failed at our criteria so the article was restructured by our community. I saw the signpost covered something similar in 2009 concerning User:Zithan, and it doesn't go away apparently. Best regards Hekerui (talk) 21:32, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi, usually WP:POST/TIPS is the best place to leave a suggestion, but as the author of the story you mention (Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-06-15/News_and_notes#Paid editing), I am actually interested in this topic. It could perhaps merit a brief note in the "News and notes" section.

It appears that the article's creator denies that he got paid for it. Is there more evidence besides him having an account on Elance and the temporal coincidence?

Regards, HaeB (talk) 02:27, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

This example of paid editing isn't really out of the ordinary (except that it appears like it will survive AfD). There are many examples of paid editing that I have discovered, a few I have brought to AfD can be seen here, here, here, and here. I would advise against publication of this story since magnifying the issue could encourage it more and could give away tactics that are used to discover these articles (WP:BEANS applies here). ThemFromSpace 18:24, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Hello Hekeiru,

I really am not sure where you got the idea that I was paid for the creation of the project. I think it's highly insulting that you would not only assume this but go ahead to actively promote the notion. I seem to recall there being a rule against personal attacks against Wikipedia contributors (Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks).

I also think that, given the importance of 'verifications' in Wikipedia, your assumptions are not only completely uncalled for but frankly a tad too unprofessional.

For the record, as I have already pointed out weeks before, although i do not deny the existence of the post in Elance, you will notice (had you taken time to properly research) that I have no links to the project on Elance.

I exist as a provider in Elance , BUT i did not bid on the project. I did not receive payments for the project. And i was certainly NOT contacted by the sponsor of the project.

These are all details that can easily be verified with a simple click, even for nonmembers of the Elance community.

I have no problems with you discussing topics related to paid editing in Wikipedia. I, in fact actively, encourage it. I however do have a problem with people making up stories about me for their own benefit.

Somehow, i suspect you would too.(Carlang (talk) 08:36, 28 August 2010 (UTC))

Hello Hekairu, Thank you for the reply. I am glad that you find statements of mine such as "i chose to believe the former" completely meaningless. If anything you will understand why i find ambiguous statement such as yours "Apparently the offer to create the article for cash (made because the requester was probably not aware of WP:REQUEST) was taken up by a professional writer editing as User:Carlang" even more annoying.

I asked for a simple apology. You have chosen to instead given me a lecture based on the things that I did wrong when i posted a message to you while carefully ignoring the (more important) points that i raised. I am glad the matter for you is concluded. We might not have communicated directly but you have certainly conveyed your message and personality across very clearly.

As requested you will find the tildes below. Do have a lovely day.

Carlang (talk) 05:44, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi Carlang, in case you were wondering: At this point, I don't think there will be a story about it in the Signpost (cf. my August 26 question about additional evidence).

However, let me take the occasion (as this conversations happens to be on my talk page) and ask you: Have you been involved in other paid editing projects on Wikipedia? Can you provide any insights about the market for such projects on Elance?

Regards, HaeB (talk) 09:39, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, HaeB. You have new messages at Talk:Himesh Reshammiya.
Message added 19:16, 27 August 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

sir i know that i changed the himesh reshammiya article a little bit but someone had vandalised it and made it look really bad someone even removed his name himesh and put his surname in every sentence and nobody is providing any citations to prove any of the views expressed. even articles widout protection dont remove the name of a person and are fuly cited whatever concerns or questions u have please discuss them on the talk page and lets make this article a good and readable article JahaalChakravarti (talk) 19:51, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:Vandalism before accusing other users of vandalizing articles. Managerarc is not a vandal and gave a reason for the format change in the edit summary. It is usual to call article subjects by their last name. See Talk:Himesh Reshammiya for the rest. Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:56, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for calling you sir,I dont need to suck upto you,you are trying to vandalise and ruin the wikipedia article on Himesh Reshammiya and then are accusing me of vandalism,I have second account on Wikipedia as an administrator and I can block you. JahaalChakravarti (talk) 10:07, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

re: Abuse/edit filter redactions

The Server Admin Log would appear to suggest the changes have gone live, but it's easy to get lost in the smoke and mirrors. Know any bureaucrats to check with? :P - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 13:27, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Are you suggesting to carry out a test? ;) - I won't spend time researching this further because I think the current wording is vague enough to cover both possibilities (live or not yet), but if you find out, please make it more precise. Regards, HaeB (talk) 15:55, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

F and A

I was about to email you the link to the blog! I'll act on your suggestion and put the link after Southpark's entry at F and A. Also emailing you about a possible event for F and A. Tony (talk) 00:23, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Category:New encyclopedism

RE: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 August 23

What about having something like v: User:KYPark/Encyclopaedism/Timeline here? It is ready to be imported. You are welcome to talk at Talk:New encyclopedism#Timeline. Thanks. --KYPark (talk) 06:02, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Chart

N&N isn't really complete without the stats chart. I'm not sure of its copyright status and can't find any contact info. Was wondering if you could resolve this? You've far more experience with it then I do :) ResMar 17:17, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's a bit late already, as we should publish in a few hours - but I just sent him an email, let's see if we get lucky. (His mailing list posts contain an email address; you could also have tried to leave a comment at the blog post. Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission has detailed advice for such cases.)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:06, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

We actually got lucky :) He replied and put the image under CC-BY-3.0, by adding a license statement to [27]. I just added it to the story. He might generate some other interesting graphs, too.

Thanks for the idea and the prodding ;) Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:31, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Fantastic :D ResMar 23:37, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Signpost deadline

Hi, why make it 03:00 Monday when it's to be 03:00 Tuesday? It would be better to formally change to a Tuesday deadline; otherwise, contributors will stretch the envelope, and we'll be perpetually late. It really needs to be a firmer deadline than now. If Monday is no good for you, I'm fine with a later deadline. But not this uncertainty, which invites tardiness, especially for the newsy items. Tony (talk) 07:58, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Could we focus on getting the next issue out right now, and hold a detailed discussion about publcation times later? I don't think you understand how deadlines work in reality. If we put the deadline on Tuesday instead of Monday, everything will just happen one day later.

It's good and understandable that you are pressing for more punctual publication (back in April when Ragesoss was still editor, I prodded him in much the same way, see above), but the sky is not falling - the Signpost has been published on Tuesday many, many times before. I suspect it might even be the most frequent publication day, I might do a little statistic on delay times later.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 08:13, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd rather focus on a stricter deadline than past stats. You mentioned a webchat facility on Sandy's page. I find the IRC just impenetrable; unless someone tells me how to get onto it, simply, briefly, I can't cope. Is webchat easier? Tony (talk) 13:13, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I haven't tried out this one myself (I use a dedicated client), but it was said that it easier to use, something I can confirm about other webchats. Did you try the link in the Newsroom yet?

Regards, HaeB (talk) 13:40, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

The link in the newsroom take me to a page where I need a log-in—actually, I just tried it again, and it logs in but wants me to choose some bizarre nick (won't allow Tony1, boring), and wants me to type in a channel ... ummm. What? Tony (talk) 14:22, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Webchat is just as bad. It expects me already to have a nick, know what to put in "Channels", and presents other imponderables. Why do these developers make it so impenetrable? Tony (talk) 14:24, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, let's look into this later (I'm already publishing, so trying out IRC for those last-minute coordinations with you will wait until next issue anyway). Do you remember who set up the webchat, was it Mono?

Regards, HaeB (talk) 14:37, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Dissapointed

[28]. See talk page. Writing for the Signpost has been one of the least fun things I've ever done. ResMar 18:39, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'm sad to hear that, and I went to great length to support you in your tools story, but in this case Tony did the right thing (and others didn't object to his solution either). For the rest, see my reply at WT:POST. Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:08, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

You made a mistake by not notifying me. You're making an even larger one now ignoring it. ResMar 19:15, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

See my reply at WT:POST: It was not me who made the edit that you are objecting to, and after I had learned about it, I put up a note about it on the Newsroom page. And ignoring what? Regards, HaeB (talk) 22:11, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

And what is this, I wonder? Tony (talk) 08:22, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, very good point. Regards, HaeB (talk) 09:35, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Ping...

You've got mail. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:35, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, read it, going to reply soon!

Regards, HaeB (talk) 00:40, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing that up. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:23, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, thanks to you too for taking care of it in the first place (it was on my todo list, but I was still busy with other publication-related things). Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:30, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

slashing and burning

Hi, I'd chop as much reference to his other works as possible. While you are very familiar with this constellation of publication and presentation, the readers aren't. They would rather concentrate on a clear, straight line, focused just on the book under review. In a book review, I think you're expected to take more liberties (far more than in a WP article) in terms of not referencing ideas. We want to just sail through his ideas, and if some of them are rooted in previous talks, it seems like clutter to tell us—by reviewing his book, we accept that all of those ideas are inherent in it, even though they may have begun life in previous publications. That's the stuff of an academic journal article (and pointedly not of an academic conference paper, at least in oral mode). The bullet-pointing is unusual in a book-review genre, even though ironically its' the kind of layout that makes it easier on the eyes. Makes it seem like a lecture, somehow. I would avoid enumerating the chapters. So ... "In the sixth chapter, Shirky comes back to ...". It is hard-going for me, and I do that kind of stuff for a living. Sorry to be brutal, but that's what you want, isn't it? Your intellectual depth shows through, sure. But it's not reader-oriented. PS I just noticed BrEng "programme". I'd avoid "Finally", and maybe we want a thumbnail set of punchy statements currently at the end, but towards the start. I'm not sure I understand why the book is a contribution to the field, having read the piece. Oh, just at the end, the stuff about Citizendium, and your own input, seems suddenly interesting. Tony (talk) 07:59, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback and don't worry about my ego, I'm doing fine ;) - I reserve the right to disagree with you, but even in the cases where I think you're wrong, I often learn from it. Do remember though that our next reviewer might be less used to your feedback.

Most of the other reviews I have seen (example) mention Here Comes Everybody, this is very natural as it is his previous and most well-known book which, as I say in the review, has much overlap with the present one. The naming of chapters is also very usual, but I didn't put them back in. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time for the "thumbnail". About "academic" etc: It's also about the links. What is clutter for someone in a boat sailing through the matter might be a jumping off point for a swimmer immersed in it. I noticed how you recently described the Signpost moving away from being "nerdy", which I take to be a reference to unattractive style, but remember the word can also be associated with being smart, thorough, learned or, um, Wikipedians... ;)

Anyway, water under the bridge, thanks for the time you spend on this, overall I do think it improved quite a bit because of you.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:47, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I do worry about your ego! Tony (talk) 06:55, 7 September 2010 (UTC) And let me say the review is admirable, by the way. Well done, even if I have qualms about the register. Tony (talk) 10:54, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

What to do about the Dispatches on tools

HaeB, I'm sure we're all fed up with the circle-treading and politics on this one. I want to take decisive action now, and Mario is not online. Vocalist suggests breaking it into three weekly installments. I suggest transferring it out of the politically charged Dispatches portforlio.

Please see my note to Vocalist. Do you agree that this might be done soon, and Mario then asked for his opinion when he returns online? Tony (talk) 11:20, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I will go through the discussion so far and try to decide soon, looking for objections against specific flaws of the current version rather than general thoughts. I like the series idea in principle, but it has been proposed before without consequences (waiting whether someone would carry it out was one of the reasons to postpone the thing previously), and unless someone commits right now to doing it rather than just suggesting it, it's not really something we can build on.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 12:53, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't know much about scripts. I'm willing to try to divide it, but I don't know how to prioritise (unless it doesn't matter). Tony (talk) 13:56, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

See my longer comment there. It's a bit tricky to carry out changes when the author isn't open to many many ideas. Combine this with the fact that FCDW are evidently taking care not to take away too much of his style from the article, his name from the article, or him from it, and are simultaneously trying to bring it up to scratch, then part of the result is a voluminous amount of effort making things happen and an even more voluminous amount of time. That's the cost; people lose their patience and interest. For example, you'd notice in the discussion, when reorganising the story seemed to be coming to a standstill, I gave an unsubtle nudge and after a bit, he agreed to action it himself. If this is the way smaller changes happen (and I'm not even part of FCDW), larger changes cannot happen at the rate expected of other stories. If the desired destination is not visible through this approach, then weed out the unwillingess from the equation and we all might get there sooner. If that cannot happen, then either people will need to be brutal with it (which will probably result in the same sort of reaction he had after the last August issue was published) or it isn't going to be up to scratch even for a special story. I can't see any other way around it. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:01, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I read your comment there. Do you see any specfic factual errors left in the current version?

About the time and cost: Right, but this is water under the bridge now. I agree that RM has shown a tendency to be too easily frustrated by legitimate concerns, I hope he is learning that Signpost articles need to be open for improvement and editing by others. But I am going to decide on the basis of the content (of the current version), not according to whether it rewards or punishes certain behavior.

NCM: would you be willing to commit (or do you know someone who would commit) to make it into a series? (Which presumably would not only involve dividing, but also expanding to some extent). If so, I would see that as a reason to postpone it again, and would commit myself to help resolving disputes with RM that arise in the process.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 15:55, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Are the users reviving FCDW not committed to doing so? Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:59, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

So that's a no from you? Well, I can't blame you.

I haven't seen other users commit to do that (except RM himself, who just split it). If I have overlooked someone, tell me.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 17:16, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

It's not a "no" from me; it's a "no way". A major change which should have occurred 3 weeks ago occurred a short while ago (a breakthrough...but) after a large amount of abuse from one of our regulars - it reflects poorly on all of us; I'm not commenting beyond that. If FCDW is not ready or able to do what it was designed to do within a reasonable period of time, then I guess that's too bad and it means we have less resources. My objection to publishing is withdrawn in light of that: I no longer hold a strong enough view on whether it should be published or not. Regards, Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:58, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Notes

See here, and also here. KnightLago (talk) 15:09, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Replied on Risker's talk page about the first one. About the second one, it appears it might be getting addressed[29]. Always feel free to point out such issues. (Before publication time, the Newsroom migh be a better place for it.) Regards, HaeB (talk) 15:24, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Will do. You may also want to note a comment made by Risker. KnightLago (talk) 15:47, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Despite being active...

Was not. I'm usually on twice, in the morning and at night. That happened to be during my interm period. ResMar 16:39, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

You are referring to these two comments: 20:1120:17 ("Unfortunately, ResMar still hasn't replied (despite being active) to this question, which represents my main concern at this point"). That question had been posted at 18:28. Between 18:29 and 18:52 you made another 7 edits, which presumably means you were online. - It's not that important, you are of course not required to check your watchlist or reply to questions while you are editing elsewhere, it was just to indicate that I had given you the opportunity to weigh in before I had to act because the publication was imminent.

I hope you didn't mind the reworking. The reader feedback was excellent - sort of a happy end, wasn't it? The second part still needs some work though.

Another thing, thanks for your help in this week's News and notes! Unfortunately the brief note about the Swedish chapter report received at least three significant corrections, some after publication. And I just corrected two factual errors in the edit statistics story for the upcoming News and notes. Please double-check facts in the future.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 11:46, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Dispatches

What stands from publication? ResMar 22:13, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Did you see my note here? I suggest focusing on wikilinks and stats, and cover these two topics with some degree of completeness. Stats maybe in the narrower sense of tools that analyze an article's history, such as WikiDashBoard and Wikisense that are already listed (not edit counters that focus on analyzing a user's contribution history). To complement them, at least Wikitrust and [ http://toolserver.org/~soxred93/articleinfo/] should be mentioned. In the same vein, I might add WikiBlame and [30]. Dispenser has indicated that he might do some more work on the article, too.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 13:56, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

The first one yes, the next two...no. Neither is useful for someone writing an article. They are geared towards looking into vandalism. Interesting, but not notable. ResMar 21:34, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

It appears you are not familiar with these tools. They are not mainly used for vandal fighting. Maybe the "blame" term is confusing - it is a tongue-in-cheek expression which appears to have originated in software development, e.g. SVN has had a "blame" command for many years, but certainly not to deal with vandalism.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 18:43, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

So if I add the first one, then we are good to go? ResMar 03:56, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

No, please read my earlier remarks again. There are other things to do too, e.g. I just fixed some mistaken statements in the introduction (the article might actually be better off without it).

But it would be good not to have to postpone it again. I promise I'll help myself to get this in publishable form for the upcoming issue (just like I did for the first part). But Dispenser has indicated he wants to edit it further, too; I hope he will do so.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 18:43, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I;ve pinged him, however I think it can go ahead with or without his rewrite of WikiEd :-) ResMar 01:47, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

cross-project subs to Signpost

Just wanted to touch base with you on the above issue:

As you might know, Tony and I recently tried sending out the SP weekly summary to ourselves at other projects. In doing so, we found that while the distribution was not problematic, the summary caused problems as it would not display properly in Commons; also, the summary showed red links for all of our language sisters. The en.wp mailing seems to be some sort of template transclusion, which I cannot work out how to amend to correct the red links – what we need is for current project links to be replaced with piped interwiki links. Can you have a word with the team member who built the template, to make that change? Cheers, --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:20, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Did you overlook my message on your talk page from September 2? See also the discussion here. I have since run it for the last three Signpost issues and the links worked fine (also on Commons). As I said here and on your talk page, once the format of the message is finalized (yesterday we were discussing adding a byline and possible a logo/icon), I intend to implement an automated solution which provides the text ready to copied and pasted into the bot's "Spam" page (it is not possible to use the templates directly on another project, but Pretzels' template system can be extended to provide different formats).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 09:10, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for reverting a vandal's insertion on the Yahoo page

I saw your participation there for the first time so thought you were a newbie and came here to welcome you. However, it looks like you have been around much longer than I have :-)

But thank you anyway... Ottawahitech (talk) 21:20, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Talkback from UncleDouggie

Hello, HaeB. You have new messages at UncleDouggie's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Dutch chapter, report convention for Signpost

Hello, did I understand well that you are in touch with the Signpost? Here is a report maybe suitable. Kind regards --Ziko (talk) 18:27, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Netherlands: professionals still to come

In a members convention with 21 people, the Dutch chapter witnessed the farewell of Hay Kranen who left the board after three and a half years. After an amendment that the board can have up to seven members, two new members of the board were elected: Maarten Brinkerink and Sieband Mazeland.

Alas, the professionalisation of WM-NL will take more time. Another issue is the best way to transfer donations from the Netherlands to the USA. Paul Becherer said that he will receive an important answer from the tax office very soon.

Other plans for the future: On November 20th, a meetup will provide interested members with more knowledge about the Wikimedia world. January will see a bootcamp for collaborators of musea, and a members convention with the budget for 2011 (this means, after the fundraiser).

Hi Ziko, thanks for the information! Interesting news from chapters and other projects is always welcome in the Signpost; you may have noticed several items about WM NL / nlwiki related topics in recent months. The above report is probably a bit too detailed, though, and one of the most noteworthy bits - the numbers for Wiki loves monuments - has already been reported in this week's issue, thanks to your blog post. We may also report the board changes briefly (link to the complete list of board members?). And once the chapter has finalized a solution for the transfer of donations to the WMF, that might be interesting too. Regards, HaeB (talk) 17:35, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I see, thanks for the comment. Can you do something with this? --Ziko (talk) 18:14, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll use it, with some editing, in this week's News and notes, and credit you in the byline.

Just two clarifications: The meeting took place on October 9 in Utrecht? (cf. Five Ws) And "professionalisation" means the hiring of the chapter's first paid employee?

Regards, HaeB (talk) 00:10, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes on both :-) --Ziko (talk) 14:06, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Signpost delivery

Is it possible to get rid of that annoying #switch parserfunction in there? T. Canens (talk) 02:12, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Obviously yes, if only the output is concerned - I've been wondering about the same. (I didn't design the message template. While I have been streamlining several parts of the publishing process since I took it over a few months ago, I haven't gotten to look into this yet. Of course one wouldn't want to mess up by overlooking any obscure bot functions or the like, given the size of the subscriptions list.) Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:08, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Done. Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:08, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

GOCE copy edit drive

Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors Backlog Elimination Drive! The Wikipedia Guild of Copy-Editors invites you to participate in the November 2010 Backlog Elimination Drive, a month-long effort to reduce the backlog of articles that require copy-editing. The drive will begin on 1 November at 00:00 (UTC) and will end on 30 November at 23:59 (UTC). The goal for this drive is to reduce the backlog by 10% (approximately 500 articles). We hope to focus our efforts on the oldest three months (January, February, and March 2009) and the newest three months (September, October, and November 2010) of articles in the queue. Sign-up has already begun at the November drive page, and will be open throughout the drive. If you have any questions or concerns, please leave a message on the drive's talk page. Before you begin copy-editing, please carefully read the instructions on the main drive page. Please make sure that you know how to copy-edit, and be familiar with the Wikipedia Manual of Style. Awards and barnstars A range of barnstars will be awarded to active participants, some of which are exclusive to GOCE drives. More information on awards can be found on the main drive page. Thank you; we look forward to meeting you on the drive! — The UtahraptorTalk to me/Contributions, S Masters (talk), and Diannaa (Talk)

Signpost: Milestones?

I'm not familiar with the whole Signpost process, but suspect that there might be some interest that any time now we will hit 17 million articles across all Wikipedia languages. LeadSongDog come howl! 20:50, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the hint - maybe not as big a milestone as the one billion edits, but might merit a a mention. Source? ([31] isn't quite up to date.)

You are also welcome to leave suggestions for Signpost stories at WP:POST/TIPS. Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:27, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 October 2010

• News and notes: Mike Godwin leaves the Foundation, ArbCom election announced

• In the news: Good faith vs. bad faith, climate change, court citations, weirdest medieval fact, brief news

• WikiProject report: Nightmare on Wiki Street: WikiProject Horror

• Features and admins: The best of the week

• ArbCom interview: So what is being an arbitrator actually like?

• Arbitration report: Case closes within 1 month

• Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 18:50, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Just saying

As we've discussed before, I'm increasingly unhappy about the directions The Signpost has moved since Ragesoss left. The ArbCom reports are increasingly negative and pointy, the Dispatches lost oversight and collaboration and were replaced by poor writing and fact checking, and now this, in spite of the damage the Essjay affair did to Wiki. Just saying, but I don't think this bodes well at all, and that makes three. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:32, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't choose to post there.

I don't understand how you read the report I wrote (published five days before your comment) as "increasingly negative and pointy". I think the Community is benefitting from our coverage, and most readers continue to be interested. That said, I'm not speaking about the other reports you mentioned (except for what I had said here). Regards, Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:17, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Consistency with past arb reports

FYI [32] (you might recall a past case where I was concerned about a timeline that was presented-- this is a case where presenting the actual timeline would help dispel the notion that Raul did nothing for 12 hours-- the impression left in the current article). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:19, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't recall such a case offhand (a hint?), and I don't think the current wording creates such a notion, but to avoid it just in case I'll add the time you mention to the "was alerted". BTW the current wording (with its awkward double "after") is the result of a rewrite that I don't fully support. Regards, HaeB (talk) 20:31, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Review the arb report on Marskell, and the discussions we had then. Thanks for looking in to this: since it has garnered media attention, we should get it right. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:34, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

In case it helps, I became aware at 10:45 UTC, investigated, saw the problems, and I posted to Raul at 11:15 UTC-- that was the earliest he could have known. I think the Signpost article already has the time he pulled the TFA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:57, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Umm, I had already made this edit, have you had a look at it? And what media coverage were you referring to? Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:06, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

yes, I looked after I posted here ... much better. The media coverage is spam blocked ... not sure how to get it to you, but you should know the Signpost article is linked. The only other unfortunate thing I see in the article now is the edit summary in Risker's post which says I promoted the article. That is not accurate, but that *really* doesn't matter, since delegates don't review, only determine consensus, so it's irrelevant if Karanacs or I promoted. E-mail me if you want the media link? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:10, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't know that you regard Kohs' postings as media coverage... Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:27, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I was attempting to be vague :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:31, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

HaeB, this phrasing may be ever so subtly wrong:

The copyright and plagarism concerns were about DYK articles by other editors, and in particular about the day's featured article, Grace Sherwood (on a historical witch-hunt, in accordance with the Halloween theme), ...

The debate started about DYK and had been going on since October 28 (see the top of the ANI thread) before the Sherwood issues surfaced at ANI well into October 31. Until that point, it was exclusively a DYK discussion, so the "in particular about the day's FA ... " part might warrant some wordsmithing. Hans Adler's chronology here is the most accurate I've seen. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:47, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I understand that the DYK discussion had been going on for a while (and took/takes more room), but do you really think the wording is misleading? Anyway, how about this?

Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:58, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think most would find it misleading because it's subtle, but better to get it right now; after days of copyvios surfacing at DYK, attention came to the TFA. That's better (but I thought Hans wording was great). Thanks for looking at that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:12, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Maybe "... extended three days later to the day's featured article, Grace Sherwood ..." (timeline). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:18, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

OK, added the three days [33]. A full timeline (especially extending to before/after Sundy) would lead a bit too far; and the focus is still somewhat influenced by the section's scope.

But anyway, thanks - some would call it nitpicking, but I call it a highly commendable attention to detail ;) Really, don't hesitate to come up again with such remarks in future, I value concrete feedback. I may need to write a bot moving your comments to the Signpost Newsroom, though ;-p

Regards, HaeB (talk) 02:48, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Though I was absent during most of this, I echo what HaeB just said. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:34, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Other perspectives

It seems Rlevse won't be providing a comment. He has mailed me saying you asked him for one but he hasn't time to put together something comprehensive and anything he does write that isn't very carefully worded "will get pulled apart". Absent Rlevse's response, you may want to consider doing something with this diff by which provides another perpective.  Roger ^talk 21:33, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

(EC) I offered him to simply quote him verbatim as "I was not plagiarizing". But indeed, he has mailed me again saying that he prefers a "declined to comment" in the story - as I wrote just prior to your message, in the Signpost Newsroom (see the end of my comment there).

Personally I understand and somewhat share the perspective expressed in the diff you provide, but it is a bit difficult to justify picking out a random comment out of the flood just for that reason. What did you intend to write after "by" above?

Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:50, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Against which, I suppose, there are plenty of other editors expressing similar opinions to Olive's about the tension with WP:OR on Jimbo's page ... Oh, and Olive's comment is a first hand account from someone who also worked on the article (albeit iut in a minor way) so that in itself makes it newsworthy.

Nothing .. it was a typo :)  Roger ^talk 21:58, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

There's also stuff on Rlevse's talk page  Roger ^talk 21:40, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 November 2010

• News and notes: Foundation's finances, geodata milestone, interim counsel, museum conference

• In the news: Airplane construction with Wikipedia, lessons from the strategy project, logic over rhetoric

• WikiProject report: Scoring with WikiProject Ice Hockey

• Features and admins: Good-lookin' slugs and snails

• Arbitration report: Arb resignation during plagiarism discussion; election RfC closing in 2 days

• Technology report: Foundation office switches to closed source, secure browsing, brief news

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 03:00, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Obituaries

Hi there. It was my understanding that obituaries usually fall under WP:ELNO #1: One should avoid external links to "Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article." Almost by definition, any information in an obituary will be included in an article if it became a featured article. Though there has been little discussion on the subject, in the only existing discussions there was agreement of sorts on this. I understand that obituaries are, also almost by definition, copyrighted, and cannot be included verbatim, but my understanding was that the guidelines speak exactly of such cases - rather than leave an external link one should include the information in the articlke. Am I missing something here? Is my understanding of this guideline incorrect? Best regards. --Muhandes (talk) 13:04, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi, first let me say that I don't want to discourage your efforts to clean up external links in general - it is certainly often necessary and I agree with several others of your removals. However, in the case of these obituaries from The Independent, I think it would be an over-interpretation of WP:EL to consider them as inappropriate links. In interpreting the (deliberately) vague wording of WP:ELNO #1, I would argue that the value of such an obituary from a notable publication lies not only in the information provided, but also in the choice and presentation of the material (which cannot be reproduced even in a featured article) - an obituary is a fixation of the publication's view on that person's entire life. (For mere news articles, or less notable publications, it would be much harder to make such an argument.) And pragmatically, I also think that for example this article, which contains a whole lot of potentially controversial information about a recently deceased person - criminal activities etc. -, but only offers the reader (and the Wikipedia editor) one single footnote in a non-English language to verify them, is better off with having a comprehensive RS such as the Independent's obituary linked in the External links section until more sources are provided. Maybe think of it as a large violation of WP:V balanced by a small (if at all) violation of WP:EL. Regards, HaeB (talk) 20:26, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I see your point. Pragmatically speaking, wouldn't it be simpler to just use some fact from the obituary and use it as a source? Also, there are articles where the obituary really adds close to nothing. I don't believe Leni Riefenstahl really needs an additional obituary in the external links section. Finally, I wouldn't have gotten into this if not for this user's contributions, which simply added obituaries by David Childs to articles, not forgetting to write "by David Childs" on each of them. It simply looked like a spammy behaviour to me. What do you think? --Muhandes (talk) 22:14, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I understand your concern about that user's contributions. In cases like this, it is probably better to cite WP:EL#ADV or a similar reason for removal - i.e., not expressing a final judgement about the appropriateness of each link, but rather stating that because of COI concerns, the link should better be left out until other editors unaffiliated with the site or the author of the linked text can make that decision. I do think the link in Leni Riefenstahl is useful, but it's true that the above arguments apply more strongly in other cases. Converting a link into a reference can serve as a pragmatic solution, yes. Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:52, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Question to you on discussion page

I posted a question to you on the article's discussion page --Orangwiki (talk) 20:54, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure why you directed the question specifically at me - I didn't write or edit the part of the article which is being discussed there. But I will try to answer there tomorrow (I see one other user has already done so). Regards, HaeB (talk) 00:18, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

You edited the part above "Notes from Julian Assange: please do not remove" and Julian Assange, if it really was him, added "More notes from Julian Assange" at the bottom of this with a new title. You answered quite detailled and good to the first part and to Assanges Notes from 21 April, so I thought it would be helpful if you could answer about this request too. Assange, according to the New York Times is "on the run, but has found no refuge", "checks into hotels under false names, dyes his hair, sleeps on sofas and floors, and uses cash instead of credit cards, often borrowed from friends". Assange could end up in jail as "Pentagon and Justice department officials ... are weighing his actions under the 1917 Espionage Act". So here we have Assange complaining that his journalistic protections are attemted to be taken away, that his description in his Wikipedia article does not include "publisher" and "writer". I find it a very demanding task to at the same time make sure a living person is not harmed by its own Wikipedia Article, but also make sure that the article is not simply written according to the wishes of that person it is about, because the article should be written neutral. I don't see myself as such a senior Wikipedia editor and thought you might be able to judge better on these requests and could give a good answer. But as others have by now inserted his requests already into the article, feel free to either comment on it or change it or not. I Didn't want to unvoluntarily involve you into this, but as Assanges remarks were unanswered for 5 days before I thought that may be you could be interested. Thanks --Orangwiki (talk) 20:42, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Conflict of interest

Thank you for this. Whilst I am prepared to accept that along with the Undue weight, subject to a little more softening, NMV does not appear to be able to accept this. He clearly cannot accept that there is a conflict of interest on his part, this seems to be from an editor I had a difference with last week. If you ask me, it as every appearance of pay-back. Why is it so long? - it should be three sentences, one paragraph, max? Should not be written by someone I had a difference with last week. I just wanted to let you know that I am not prepared to accept the report as it is, and will be putting it up for MFD immediately. Regards, --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 10:27, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

(This was later resolved on IRC, resulting in a compromise, but see my concluding public response here. Regards, HaeB (talk) 11:15, 27 November 2010 (UTC))

• This is poor form in the extreme. Signpost is being given to the dogs when we allow parties to an arbitration case to control the content (aka editorialise) what appears in the arbitration report. This smells of a cover up in the backchannels, not anything which would suggest this was written by someone independent. The Signpost is really not an appropriate name to publish that report under. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:12, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

While I agree that parties to an arbitration case should refrain from editing such a report (and I still have to reply to Ohconfucius' above comments here, repeating some things I already said in private), none parties were allowed "to control the content" here.

Re [34]: Which parts of the current version do you think are inaccurate, and which additional facts should be disclosed for what reason? Especially regarding the latter part, I don't think that agreeing to compromises has to impact one's integrity.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 14:29, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

He made no less than 3 reversions on this report and he edit-warred with you last week over some other stupid assumption that he made by himself. You were OK with what was written and now that he made a threat on your talk, you suddenly feel changes are needed such that the entire thing is revamped into a form that two friendly-parties of the case agree with. That's certainly what your edit and summary suggest. If he wanted to MFD it, he embarasses himself, not The Signpost, so I don't understand what it is you think you've done.

It should be made clear that when he asked for his restriction to be relaxed, it was solely for the use of a single script for a limited purpose, not a straight request to relax the restriction as a whole. That's why I quoted exactly what it was he requested. The response by the arbitrators was for a different "relaxation" such that it was wholly terminated. It should also be made clear that neither uninvolved nor involved users from the community commented (it's obvious that arbs commented because they're the ones who terminated it). That involved users were not notified is significant as no other involved users commented. Obviously, I could personally notify those users and ask them to comment both at the request and here - if they present a much harsher account than anything I've written to date, do you intend on negotiating with them too and coming to a "compromise" which might end up being what I wrote anyway? If it was a compromise, I'd say it's worth it, but this is succumbing to the demands of involved users because they're not happy with the account by someone who's familiar with the process but not involved in their affairs. What I wrote didn't even distinguish between uninvolved and involved so as to be sensitive to the issue, and then I compromised when you removed the mention of notification altogether. However now, beyond the last couple of lines, nothing represents the time, attention, or effort I put into this report, and I do believe it impacts my integrity when this isn't a mere compromise anymore. But whatever...publish it in any way you like. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:54, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

And now rather conveniently, the motion has been passed so the only place they can comment is at a noticeboard where their input will quickly be archived, or where Signpost reports about it.... Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:58, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

At least I was relieved that you didn't name any factual inaccuracies in response to my question.

I had told Ohconfucius quite clearly (on IRC, repeated in my public response linked above) that his edit-warring and COI edits were not acceptable. But behavioral issues don't mean that content issues should be ignored.

• You were OK with what was written - apparently you referred to my comment "Seems finished" in the Newsroom? This was merely an interpretation of your intentions, as you had not updated the Status field there (it still said "not started" at the time). But it's true that I didn't see serious problems with it at that stage. However, that did not mean that I was prepared to spend lots of time to defend every part of it on your behalf against objections. In the compromise I made sure that those aspects of the case which I considered essential - e.g. the state of the restrictions after the motion - were covered, in spite of suggestions to drop the Arb report entirely for that week. From the information available to me, I could not quite see the significance of the notifications thing (if there was a serious violation of procedure, how come the Arbs passed the motion and a clerk enacted it?). While that may just be due to my own ignorance about Arbcom procedural regulations, you did not present a clear case why it should be included. About the Arbcom granting more than what requested, I see your point a bit more clearly now, but I still don't think it was an extreme problem to omit this.
• cover up in the backchannels: We talked about this in the public IRC channel #wikisignpost (with several other users present), which I set up exactly for this purpose - coordinating stories before publication - many months ago, and which is advertised in several prominent places. Of course no one is obliged to use IRC, and I would have taken into account any further comments from you (especially explanations for the necessity of the notifications statement), but it seems you went offline minutes after this edit, only coming back soon after the compromise had been sorted out. Actually we have had a similar situation several times now, where I had to sort out objections against the ArbCom report with publication imminent but you apparently offline, taking up a disproportionate amount of time for me as editor.
• If he wanted to MFD it, he embarasses himself, not The Signpost - indeed, but I still prefer to avoid such escalations, especially when I don't see the necessity for the purpose of putting out a decent Signpost issue. You may recall a case some months earlier where you and I had objections against efforts by a Wikipedian to use the Signpost as a forum for his opinions, and my efforts at compromise ultimately failed to prevent that Wikipedian from thoroughly embarrassing himself in several prominent venues all over the project.
• In general, it might be very helpful to write down some MOS-like guidelines for the Arbitration report (expanding on Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Resources#Arbitration_report, but perhaps not on that page), documenting consensus about the basic aspects that are usually always present in coverage of such a standard event (e.g.: Link to the original case, name requesting user(s), describe the previous sanction, the request, the Arb votes and the resulting sanction...); explanatory remarks or coverage of unusual details can then still be added on a case-by-case basis.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 11:15, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Your words are obviously quite meaningless (and that needs to change if it's going to be worth my time or effort anymore). You say copyedits should be made with care and should not introduce factual errors; no change since even before I started writing the arb report. You tell him to stop edit-warring; he does it again the next week even more than he did earlier - to the point there was an even more obvious COI issue than the previous week, and there was an issue with him trying to control the content to favour his own stated position. I'd looked into the alleged "objections" and found there was no basis for them; obviously you disagreed otherwise the need to spend disproportionate time defending does not arise or to "compromise". And if this was a mere "compromise", I'm not even sure I'd have a reason to be concerned or to feel the need to disassociate myself from the publication altogether. That I did should really make it clear how serious I am. You "don't think it was an extreme problem", but it obviously is enough of a problem.

I have a RL; I can't help but be offline during certain hours of each day of the work. If that's a problem, you haven't told me up until now. Maybe those advertisements should more accurately contain a provision that writers are obliged to be available at certain hours which are convenient for certain people in a certain medium which is not actually on Wikipedia? And for the record, the MFD would have more likely settled this issue; though I understand what you think you might have been doing, this is distinct from the circumstances of the user you are alluding to. I think that addresses everything. Regards, Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:47, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean by "meaningless".

Also, it's not quite clear to me what your remarks about copyediting have to to with the present topic (I didn't talk about copyedits in the Arbcom report at all), but if you meant to imply that calling Tony out for such problems some months ago didn't have a positive effect, I would disagree - as I said on Saturday, there was an improvement. Similarly, after we had to add post-publication notices to two subsequent issues of the Arb report in July/August, it fortunately didn't happen again.

Although as editor I reserve the final decision about publication, I much prefer to resolve such objections by consensus if it is possible, especially if they come from someone who is being reported about. That does not mean I endorse them editing it themselves (cf. WP:BLP vs. WP:COI in the article namespace), but that I talk to them to find out if there is a wording that they find acceptable and that I consider sufficient from the readers' perspective.

You "don't think it was an extreme problem", but it obviously is enough of a problem. - that's a confusing remark. My statement was about the omission of something in the November 8 Arbitration report, what makes you apply it to this diff in the November 22 Arbitration report instead?

I never required you to be online at certain hours. I said that if you happen to be inactive at a time when publication is imminent and serious objections to your reporting arise (a situation that has occurred several times), I have to resolve them based on what you have said until then. If compelling arguments for a certain version are brought up only after publication, they can't be taken into account.

What do you think about the guidelines idea?

Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:31, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Meaningless...I meant has no effect in practice.

There should be nothing confusing about the fact that a similar issue was identified in the Nov 22 version - where what is being requested is not quite the same as what Ohconfucius is reporting as being requested.

A guidelines idea is probably going to be misused and a subject of controversy if the date delinking case is anything to go by. That said, perhaps it is necessary, given the gross amount of cluelessness in this week's reporting of a request which hasn't even been accepted. Requests for arbitration are only reported once a case has been accepted - that's when the Arbitration report should be following it up; it shouldn't be reporting every request for arbitration that is brought forward otherwise it would be a subject of gaming by filers if that happened. We don't need to attract further attention (or embarassment) to the filer, or whatever their request may pertain to. Often, requests are not ripe for that step, so like in the case that was foolishly reported this week, earlier steps in DR need to take care of it (aka absent Signpost magnifying the disputes). Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:45, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

• If last week's (including the above) was anything to go by, nothing is going to change anyway...but at least I'll be courteous: due to other priorities which have popped up, I won't be able to cover this week's. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:03, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for giving notice in time. Fortunately, other writers were able to jump in, as you may have seen. I hope you will find the time to contribute to the Arbitration report (or other Signpost sections) again in the future. Regards, HaeB (talk) 11:15, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Truth in Numbers? Everything, According to Wikipedia

Hi HaeB, you stated at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Truth in Numbers? Everything According to Wikipedia, that this film received coverage in Süddeutsche Zeitung - I have not been able to find that text of that coverage yet. Can you help me with finding that source? Thank you, -- Cirt (talk) 23:47, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind, I found it, you linked to it on the talk page. Thank you, -- Cirt (talk) 00:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Anyways, whaddya think of recent expansion and improvement efforts [35] ? :) -- Cirt (talk) 00:52, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm quite impressed! A few quick remarks on possible further work (might get around to do it myself later): 1) Lede: "the question of which individuals should be editing Wikipedia" - there might be a better summary of the film (I think the Glosserman quote that this refers to is meant more generally, about who should be tasked with summarizing knowledge in various forms; e.g. if the answer is "only experts", you wouldn't have Wikipedia, but Nupedia or something else). 2) It's perhaps a bit too early to summarize the reception; in any case we should be on the lookout for further full-length reviews in widely read media. 3) In Gdansk, the filmmakers said they would make the raw footage available under a free license - I don't have a reference at hand, but the announcement would seem to be a notable fact. Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:11, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

All good suggestions, please keep me posted on your research, -- Cirt (talk) 13:43, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Copyfraud and licensing discussion

Hi, this is to inform you that I replied there. I didn't have enough time to do so before. Regards, Cenarium (talk) 03:08, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Naturenews

Hi HaeB, think I'm right in thinking you often contribute to "in the news" in the signpost. I spotted an article in naturenews which might be of interest for next week: doi:10.1038/468359a If you wish to use it, but can't access it, drop me a note and I can email you a copy. Cheers SmartSE (talk) 14:48, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Ah, just realised that you're streets ahead of me. Nicely done! SmartSE (talk) 16:32, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Der Spiegel Mess. Board Censorship

how shall i proof, that they delete posts? are you mentally retarded? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.72.216.156 (talk) 15:26, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

As I said: By citing independent reliable sources (see Wikipedia:Verifiability), which should also support the claim that it is "known" for that. Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:38, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

So i was right, you are mentally retarded. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.72.216.156 (talk) 23:09, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

GOCE elections

Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors Elections are currently underway for our inaugural Guild coordinators. The voting period will run for 14 days: 00:01 UTC, Friday 1 December – 23:59 UTC, Tuesday 14 December. All GOCE members in good standing, as well as past participants of any of the Guild's Backlog elimination drives, are eligible to vote. There are six candidates vying for four positions. The candidate with the highest number of votes will become the Lead Coordinator, therefore, your vote really matters! Cast your vote today.

Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors via SMasters using AWB on 01:41, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

My additions

Thanks for brushing up my article. I wasn't quite sure how to put the points but they are not inaccurate. I was working on Sri Lankan women authors and was doing immense research into each one listed at some point in wikipedia. I started on one author as she was suddenly deleted from wikipedia after 2 years because as an administrator put it, "an unusual" trigger to delete that originated with a email to wikipedia foundation. The article that was included in wikipedia in 2008 was there till 2010 but then someone decided an email to wikipedia would be nice to trigger a delete. The article went into a AfD and even with consensus to keep the resut was delete. Ofcourse the article needed work and I came in too late to add material to it, so I can understand it needed more work but the email that triggered the AfD was unusual and brought forward wrong accusations. Despite that the article was deleted. So I started doing one. I dug up everything I had and did almost 3 months research and put the article forward. Despite meeting notability criteria outlined in wikipedia, there was an ongoing inaccurate utter from certain well established editors and administrators that I need to show notability. There were numerous mainstream newspaper articles and magazines about the subject from third party journalist. I asked the administrators to check with the newspapers. They didn't and discarded notability facts as made up, not verifiable and not reliable. They deleted the article although there was enough notability. They didn't give any chance to work further on it, incubate it or take any other options to add material in foreign archives. While I was talking to another administrator who was giving me useful tips on getting the article included, some other administrator who is mostly dealing with baseball and football team articles just deleted it. I was so frustrated about their lack of understanding notability requirements of wikipedia and uneagerness to look into foreign authors even after providing massive amounts of links and scanned pages of stuff. I was looking at wikipedia bias (as I felt it was) and came across this site and just enjoyed reading the actual truths you all have written, That's why I contributed. I am trying to prevent injustice to foreign authors on wikipedia and have started a new article to include notable authors that are foreign put their work stretches beyond their home country. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Muthuwella (talk • contribs) 15:57, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

You are referring to my revert here.

In general, I would say it is rarely a good idea to make additions to such a general page based on just one particular ongoing conflict in which one is involved oneself. It's better to stick to summarizing observations that have been made over a longer period and a multitude of articles and areas.

I don't have an opinion specifically about the issue that you are concerned about, and surely Sri Lankan women authors should be adequately covered in this encyclopedia, but after briefly reviewing the situtaion, it appears that the e-mailed request for deletion was discussed in a public deletion debate. So even in this case, it is not correct to state that "Anyone who dislikes someone can email the wikipedia foundation by an annonymous email and trigger a delete" as if this were enough to achieve a deletion; for that, support from other editors has to be obtained. And considering that the request came from a Sri Lankan, it is not clear how it should have been a case of systemic bias.

It appears that your Wikipedia activities have so far only centered on this particular author. How many other Sri Lankan women authors are you working on? It may be helpful to list such examples in the description you seem to be preparing here.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 20:51, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Signpost report on unreferenced BLPs

Hi Haeb... As you may have seen in my posts as WP:AN, WP:ANI, WT:URBLP, and WT:DYK, the DYK project has adopted a new policy to accept nominations for recently-referenced BLPs that have been two-fold expanded. I have been trying to raise awareness of this change and when I saw the unreferenced BLP coverage in the current Signpost, I thought that it was an opportunity missed. This change in policy from the DYK project, which has a requirement for thorough sourcing, is intended to reward editors who make substantial and quality improvements to unreferenced BLPs (as opposed to just adding a reference or two and removing the unreferenced tag) and to draw attention to these BLPs. I have nominated several articles under this new policy myself (A. M. M. Naushad, Katy Munger, and Bruce DuMont). If there is further coverage in Signpost of unreferenced BLPs, perhaps the change in DYK policy might rate a mention? EdChem (talk) 07:20, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree, it would seem like notable information regarding the uBLP topic. (I don't think that WereSpielChequers, who wrote the current story, omitted it deliberately.) Regards, HaeB (talk) 09:17, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, HaeB. You have new messages at Dabomb87's talk page.
Message added 04:43, 8 December 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Thanks for wikifying Talk:Julian_Assange

[[36]] i'm giving you the technology barnstar for illuminating a difficult technological issue. Thanks! Create42000 (talk) 18:04, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Rencontres Wikimédia

Following an urgent request from Tony (talk) at WP:GOCE, I'm just dropping you a quick note to let you know that I will be copyediting the Rencontres Wikimédia article. I will update this note when I have finished doing so. Cheers. – SMasters (talk) 11:48, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've finished the copyediting work. Cheers. – SMasters (talk) 12:36, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, your help is greatly appreciated, but note that Tony's request mainly concerned material that is still going to be added to that article in a few hours. Regards, HaeB (talk) 15:20, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware. Unfortunately, I will not be around at that time, but will add another note at GOCE for others to have a look at the new material. – SMasters (talk) 15:33, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Report

Hey. Sorry for leaving you hanging this week on the WikiProject Report. Mono "retired" again and I was too busy in real life to take a look at it until now. I've formatted it and added the standard intro and ending.

On another note, I'm doing WP Military History next week which should be good (they've always got something to say). However, I'm a little concerned about the Dec 27 article. Belugaboy picked WP Basketball because Mono had suggested it before he left. Unfortunately, that project is about as semi-active as WP Algae and looking at the response he's gotten so far, I'm afraid there won't be enough for a good Report. I've suggested he try a more active project like WP NBA, but I've gotten no response from Belugaboy. What do you think? -Mabeenot (talk) 00:48, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind. It looks like he is changing to WP NBA. -Mabeenot (talk) 00:53, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi Mabeenot, good to hear from you (and on the occasion, thanks for all the consistent work you've been doing to produce the Wikiproject reports; they are an important part of the Signpost).

Significant changes to Signpost articles after publication should be avoided without a pressing need. (There are several reasons for that; one is that readers should be able to expect that they do not miss relevant information if they don't check back or watchlist a Signpost story after reading - just like in a normal newspaper article, and different from a normal Wikipedia article.) As I said in the Newsroom, if such unfortunate circumstances occur again, it will be better to postpone the report to the next issue, adjusting the schedule accordingly.

Regarding your other remark: It makes sense to assume that more active Wikiprojects tend to lend themselves better to Signpost coverage. In general, what's your experience in looking for Wikiprojects to cover - do you think there's enough suitable ones to fill our pages for the foreseeable future, or is it worth to also look for other long-term collaborations which are not formally wikiprojects (like the Graphics Lab or the Uncategorized task force that were covered recently)?

Regards, HaeB (talk) 04:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Signpost review of the year

Just to let you know, I've started the page for our annual review of the year, and I've rung round a few people asking if they'd like to contribute. Thanks, wackywace 10:27, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Please note my comments in the Newsroom. Regards, HaeB (talk) 18:07, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, HaeB! Whatever you celebrate at this time of year, whether it's Christmas or some other festival, I hope you and those close to you have a happy, restful time! Have fun, Rock drum Ba-dumCrash (Driving well?) 17:01, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, wishing you to be having the same! Regards, HaeB (talk) 18:07, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

Thanks, to you too! Regards, HaeB (talk) 18:07, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Vector Marketing review in progress

Hello, there is a neutrality review in progress on the talk page of Vector Marketing. Your input is requested since you have recently/activly edited the article. Regards, Phearson (talk) 05:03, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Edits in German Wikipedia article

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=German_Wikipedia&action=historysubmit&diff=404693586&oldid=404635425 Hi HaeB, I don't quite understand why you removed "started in 2007" and the info that discussions are still going on. I think it is an important fact that those controversies are not resolved, but more like that positions have hardened. People start making fun of Wikipedia deletions in a way like "you may find this information if Wikipedia Germany has not deleted it yet (or else - if you can - just look it up in the english Wikipedia)". I did research in press coverage of Wikipedia deletions, and the oldest articles (as referred to) are from 2007, the latest are just a few weeks old. So I think "started in 2007" and "during the following years" is well cited. I know that I am right about the numbers too, I just can't find the data (yet). --W-sky (talk) 13:03, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello W-sky, let me first point out that I am well acquainted with these controversies and the press coverage (I covered them in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-11-09/German controversy, an article that was mentioned favorably by one of the most prominent critics, and I also went to the panel discussion at 26C3).

My removals were in accordance with WP:BURDEN and WP:OR (for example, it is original research to base the statement that controversies about deletions started in 2007 on a press coverage search), and also, as I said in the edit summary, to alleviate the problem that a reader clicking on the provided citations would not have found a source supporting the statements in questions.

But beyond mere policy, I also think it is extremely misleading to imply that the conflict between inclusionists and deletionists only started in 2007, or that it is particular to the German Wikipedia. (In fact, the Standard article from 2007 that you cited is mainly based on deletion controversies on the English Wikipedia.) I remember alarmed discussions that the German Wikipedia community is going downhill and that valuable articles are getting deleted from as early as 2004.

Also, there is a lot of unfounded and mistaken Internet sentiment about the differences between the German and English Wikipedias, for example the claim that the former has more rules and is more bureaucratic - while this conveniently fits into certain national stereotypes, the exact opposite is true in my own observation. (The downside of this on the German side is the much-decried "Adminwillkür".) And while it seems that we already agree that a proper source is needed for the claim that "the deletions in German Wikipedia are much higher as, for exaple, in the English Wikipedia", please be also aware that a direct comparison is difficult anyway since unregistered users can't start new articles on the English Wikipedia.

I'm not saying that declining participation and mistaken deletions can't be a problem, or that there aren't noteworthy differences between the English and German projects, but encyclopedia articles should be more fact-based than Heise forum discussions, especially when writing about Wikipedia itself. Please also see my remark on the article's talk page about one of the added sources.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:33, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, understood. I have got no more questions and will provide more facts to the article when I find some. W-sky (talk) 13:26, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

GOCE Year-end Report

Season's Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors We have reached the end of the year, and what a year it has been! The Guild of Copy Editors was full of activity, and we achieved numerous important milestones in 2010. Read all about these in the Guild's 2010 Year-End Report. Highlights Membership grows to 503 editors 2,589 articles removed through four Backlog elimination drives Our encounter with Jimbo Wales Guild home pages reorganized and redesigned Report on our inaugural elections Guild Plans for 2011 New barnstars introduced Requests page improved Sign up for the January 2011 Backlog elimination drive! Get your copy of the Guild's 2010 Year-End Report here On behalf of the Guild, we take this opportunity to wish you Season's Greetings and Happy New Year. See you in 2011! – Your Coordinators: S Masters (lead), Diannaa, The Utahraptor, and Tea with toast.

Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 06:22, 31 December 2010 (UTC)