User talk:Postdlf/Archive2

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Vandal moves

Be careful when undoing move vandalism. You don't appear to have done it correctly and seem to have deleted Wolfman and Demonslave's user pages, as well as the GNAA talk page. You have to move back and then delete the moved-to page. An admin will now have to undelete these pages and move them back. VV 08:11, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • I don't believe that was because of me—I checked the history of everything that I deleted carefully. I couldn't figure out what happened to their user pages either, but I know that I didn't delete the moved content anywhere. Postdlf 08:23, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Well I can't find them either, so I'm guessing they were deleted. The deletion log indicates you deleted (e.g.) Wolfman's user page at 7:16 UTC when it was at Wikiwiki...wiki. I could be wrong, these trails are not easy to follow. VV 08:55, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • I'll walk you through what I did: 1) I deleted the redirect at User talk:Demonslave in anticipation of moving it back, but unfortunately did not find where it had been moved to (bad link). 2) I deleted User talk:Wolfman and moved it back there from wikiwkiwkiwhatever, which was then deleted. 3) I deleted Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Gay Nigger Association of America, and moved it back from wiwkwikwiwwhatever, which was then deleted. That's it. Demonslave's talk page was the only delete that I did that wasn't fixed, but my deletion only got rid of the useless redirect left; I just wasn't able to track down where it was moved to in order to move it back. I am an admin, btw, (which is how I deleted articles) so I can still view the content of deleted articles and their histories, and restore them if need be. Postdlf 14:03, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Someone appears to have vandalised Checks and Balances by removing a lot of text without properly discussing the change, I don't know how to do reverts, can you? Francis Davey 15:51, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Capitalization issue

Hi there -- two things about the Arthur MacArthur article. 1) If these were 19th-century sources, some of the conventions for capitalization have changed since that time, and 2) current use specifies that you capitalize when referring to someone directly with their title, but not if you refer to their position alone: e.g., I spoke to Governor Jeb Bush today." versus "I was present when Jeb Bush was elected governor."

I hope this clears things up. Thanks, BCorr|Брайен 12:41, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • Seems to make sense. Postdlf 16:15, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)


Nat. Gallery Bldg pic

Hi! Thanks for uploading Image:Nga west building.jpg. I notice it currently doesn't have an image copyright tag. Could you add one to let us know its copyright status? (You can use {{gfdl}} if you release it under the GFDL, or {{fairuse}} if you claim fair use, etc.) Thanks so much, – Quadell (talk) (help)[[]] 20:59, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

subcategories

I saw your comment on User:Maurreen's talk page about subcategories -- does that mean that this edit should be reverted? Fpahl 07:50, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Blocking IPs

Hi, I noticed that you blocked a couple of IPs indefinitely. According to the blocking policy, really the only situation for which that is appropriate is anonymous/open proxies. If you are blocking for that reason, please put the {{BlockedProxy}} template as the reason so it will be clear to anyone looking at the block log why the block is indefinite. Otherwise, I would suggest using no more than 24-hour blocks on IPs initially, and consider increasing the time if the same IP causes the same problems again later. --Michael Snow 04:44, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • Sorry, I was just trying to help us get out of the whack-a-mole situation we get into with the persistent vandals. I've reviewed the blocking policy more carefully now. Postdlf 22:33, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)


Fifth grade

This was kept because there was not an obvious consensus to delete. Redirect votes do not count as delete votes. Also the article was much improved since it was first nominate, making the early delete votes of questionable merit. If you disagree with my decision feel free to relist the article on VfD to see if it will produce a clearer consensus. - SimonP 01:49, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

User Sandbox

My User IP changes among various things that start with 66 and the second is either 32 or 245. I started editing Wikipedia in February 2004. This time, for the first time in Wikipedia history, I created my own user sandbox, which is where I put something that I originally planned on putting at Talk:Education in the United States. The reason I put it in my own user sandbox is I think that someone would consider it POV. How did I do at using a user sandbox?? 66.245.79.156 15:24, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Violation

Hello Postdlf,

I have started an article called Pace Academy and I see that you have removed it on terms of copyright violation. I just wanted to know what you saw wrong in it and why you removed it. I have replaced it with an article where I did not take from their website, but I was wondering why it was that even though I put that it came from their website, that you had to take it off. I had said:


  • The PACE Academy's Online Brochure offered on their website describes the following about this Academy: (Original).

Feralfighter

I removed your last edits to the article—please follow the instructions on the copyright violation notice. You can't simply edit the article until the copyrighted material has been removed from the history. This requires a complete deletion. In the meantime, you can create new material on a temporary page—please reread the instructions given at Pace Academy and don't remove the violation notice again.
As for why I put the violation notice up in the first place, you reproduced writing verbatim from a copyrighted website. This was obvious copyright infringement, and attributing the website as the original source does not excuse it legally. Nor could you claim fair use, because there was absolutely no reason to use their precise wording other than so you didn't have to write the text yourself. Postdlf 05:55, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

North Carolina category

About the people you removed from the North Carolina category, and who belongs where: Is this just a difference of opinion between us, or is there some kind of policy on the matter? Maurreen 13:05, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

See generally Wikipedia:Categorization—there are guidelines regarding triviality and whether something would be better off as a list, etc. I believe the same is also mentioned on Wikipedia:Categorization of people. But it's mostly a matter of common sense for the reasons I mentioned on your talk page, and clear overwhelming practice—have you seen a lot of that kind of categorization going on, of plugging articles in every category that is merely mentioned no matter how insignificant to the subject? I had assumed this was a mistake, so I really don't know what the reasoning would be for classifying a Chicagoan and a Massachusetts musician as Category:North Carolina base-level topics, or any people, for that matter, as base-level topics to a state. Why did you stop there? Why didn't you add James Taylor to Category:University of North Carolina, Category:Martha's Vineyard, Category:London, and Category:California? Those are mentioned in the article, too.
It gets positively ridiculous if we just add every article to any category that is mentioned in an article. The categories cease being useful because they get lost at the bottom of articles in a list of trivial classifications, and because the categories themselves would end up being flooded so much by mostly irrelevant articles that you couldn't find the articles that are actually about the category. And even if North Carolina was important to the subject, it doesn't mean that the subject is important to North Carolina—please use subcategories. There is a Category:North Carolina people. But if you really want to link everyone who had any ties to the state, why don't you make a List of people associated with North Carolina, which you could then annotate with "lived there 19XX-19XX", "born there," "died there," "visited every other weekend," etc.? That would avoid all the pratfalls of categories. Postdlf 18:41, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Vandalism by 24.250.217.87

I saw that you permanently banned the IP, 24.250.217.87, for vandalism. He is back vandalizing now; see his contributions page.

Concerning Governors of Utah

Regarding your comments on my "blurbs" about the governors of Utah, I would like to bring to your attention that the content is in the public domain since it was paid for by the public's money. Plus, that content wasn't stamped as copyrighted content. Please re-instate the content and I would make a mention somewhere there that it is taken from the Government of Utah website

  • The content was stamped as copyrighted content—the bottom of the website said that it was copyrighted by the State of Utah. Now the works of the federal government are in the public domain under U.S. copyright law, but nothing prevents a state from owning a copyright over its works. The content will not be reposted. Postdlf 16:18, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • I live in the State of Utah and this topic is going to be on the ballot this coming election. The state wants to have a copyright on intellectual property produced taxpaers money. The issue will be decided in Novemeber, but until then , regardless of what the state stamps on its website it doesn't have copyrights or intellectual property rights on anuthing produced using taxpayers money.
    • You have the law backwards. While the state can decide to submit its works to the public domain, until it has done so, they are presumptively copyrighted under federal law. Especially since there is a copyright notice on the state's website, unless you can point to a specific contrary provision of law, we must accept them as protected from copying. How hard is it to rewrite them? Facts aren't copyrightable—it's just the specific expression of the facts that is. BTW, please sign your comments with ~~~~ (four tildes). Postdlf 19:46, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)


Violation II

Hello Postdlf,

This is feralfighter again. I forgot to tell you that I have permission from the Director of Pace Academy to put this information up on the website. I guess I should have told you that before, but now I remembered, and so I think that may help with your repititious copyright violation notices.

Thank you, --Feralfighter 09:31, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • I will e-mail him to verify. If I get a positive response, I will note it on Wikipedia:Copyright problems, where the article is currently listed. Even if this is verified, however, I would still recommend a rewrite of the article's content, as wikipedia does not permit language that appears as an advertisement or otherwise POV—the content must only reflect objective information about the subject. Thanks! Postdlf 13:06, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Any Luck Yet? I have decided to rewrite it when I get a chance, but I am really busy right now. Speak to you later! --Feralfighter 01:01, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • No response as of today. If Pace Academy does not respond by tomorrow, it will have been 11 days since the article was posted and 7 since I e-mailed them, and the old article will be deleted. Please wait until this gets resolved one way or another—if permission can't be verified, we have to delete the old so that the questionable material does not remain within the article's history, and so you can start from scratch. Postdlf 01:35, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hey Postdlf, I think that we should let it go now. It seems as though they will never email you back, and so I think that I will stop pursuing it. I might start from scratch, but I don't think I will fight to have the "copy-and-paste" version allowed anymore. Thank you for your time. --Feralfighter 18:03, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Re: Categories

I respectfully disagree. Is there a page where the preferred method is stated? It seems horribly redundant to have Washington DC in Political Divisions of the US and Washington DC (cat), when Washington DC (cat) is in Political Divisions of the US. Cats need overhauling anyway, but is there an article setting this forward? --Golbez 01:46, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

BTW, I do thank you for mentioning it to me, just in case I am wrong. :) --Golbez 01:46, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)
The last time I remember the issue being discussed, it seemed to me that the consensus was in favor of how I have explained it, at Wikipedia talk:Categorization#Article in category and parent of category. At the very least, I have never seen an argument against it advanced further beyond unelaborated assertions that it's redundant, and I also haven't seen any argument as to why curing this supposed redundancy is more important than all the reasons I put forth on your talk page. But I think my earlier comments on the categorization talk page were more clear. Postdlf 02:14, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Re: Category:Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse

As near as I could tell, this page violated item 5 of the "other pages" case put forth on the Wikipedia:Candidates for speedy deletion Page regarding empty categories. As this page was deleted, at least one admin agreed with me. I personally believe a category is not even needed for this topic, as a single article could easily cover all aspects of the scandal. If there had been content on this page, I would have probably recommended it for deletion based on the rules for deleting small categories with little potential for growth. I am open to your thoughts on the matter if you would like to explain why you think the category is necessary. Indrian 02:40, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

  • I don't know that there is an actual need for it, but the reason why I had asked was that you listed it for speedy deletion three minutes after it had been created, and without explaining why in your edit summary or on the category's talk page. It clearly wasn't a category that had fallen into misuse, because it was new and I notice now that it has since been recreated by its original author. It has remained empty, however, but still I think that unless a category is nonsensical or is clearly misspelled, etc., it isn't really grounds for speedy deletion. Especially since categories listed on Wikipedia:Categories for deletion that get no objection tend to get deleted pretty quickly anyway. Postdlf 04:48, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Mendocino County, California

How good are your fact checking abilities? Did you actually check any of the towns 63.197.235.94 added before reverting them all and saying "your test of our fact-checking abilities worked and has been removed"? I know that most of them exist, having personally been to more than a few; was there a specific town you thought was not factual? I haven't researched the whole list, but enough of them do exist that I reverted them all for now. Please be careful with that rollback button. ~leif ☺ HELO 04:54, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • The anon user copied data from Fort Bragg, California as "Levinville" and changed some numbers such as the population, but left others so that there were more households than there were people. Levinville isn't even listed in the 2000 U.S. census, so it couldn't very well have 2000 census data, and "Levinville" and "California" together get NO google hits. That was the falsehood to which I was referring. I then checked several of his additions to the county page and they were likewise not listed in the census, and so were neither municipalities nor CDPs, and considering the Levinville page, I saw no reason to trust the anon's information. Postdlf 05:13, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • I have checked most of the remaining Mendocino County communities on google, and they seem to check out, but "Levinville" is still unexplained as anything other than fiction. Regardless, I think it was totally inappropriate of you to remove my comment from the anon's talk page, especially without waiting to see my explanation first. Postdlf 05:39, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
      • Sorry, when I replaced you message on their talk page I thought it was totally inappropriate to greet (what appeared to be) an innocent newbie with a message indicating that none of those places existed. But I haven't heard of Levinville either, and I now agree it's likely a "made up place", especially if they created an article for it with bogus info. But when I stumbled upon this situation I saw no record of that page, and seeing as how you had removed a large number of places I knew to exist, I figured that you were the one in the wrong. Apologies for removing your comment on their talk page, and for my somewhat rude tone above. ~leif ☺ HELO 18:03, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
        • S'alright, I appreciate your apology. From your side, once an article is deleted it no longer shows up in a user's contributions, so it wouldn't have been easily evident that was what I was reacting to. I guess we both acted a little hasty.  ; ) Postdlf 18:08, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Clairvoyance (album)

Why have you deleted this? Surely this would have been better placed onto WP:VfD! Someone might have improved it. I'm actually going to do this right now. - Ta bu shi da yu 10:29, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • Speedy deletion reason #4—very short articles with little or no context. It didn't even tell who the artist was, let alone construct a sentence. Postdlf 12:08, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Deletions

The only justification for the deletion of Meaning and Knowledge was that is was not notable. Currently according to the Wikipedia:Deletion policy lack of notability is not a valid reason for removing articles from Wikipedia. I am thus listing all articles that are VfDed for that reason on Wikipedia talk:VfD decisions not backed by current policies. They will stay there until the time that new policies are implemented or that the community decides that my actions are inappropriate. In either case the articles will be clearly listed and can at that point be easily deleted. I will do so myself if a proper consensus is achieved. - SimonP 00:59, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

  • I posted comments regarding Wikipedia:VfD decisions not backed by current policies on the Village Pump. As I explained there, I personally think this was a highly inappropriate unilateral action for you to take, but let's see what the community has to say. Postdlf 01:02, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the heads-up. I've left word on the link to the Village Pump section that you sent me. - Lucky 6.9 02:20, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Years in fashion articles

Hello, were you planning on adding written content to these articles? Yes, by I have need of fix the corset artikels first. But the corset artikels have need of suport from Years in fashion. Haabet 06:20, 2004 Oct 23 (UTC)

Unprotection of Tom King

FYI, I unprotected Tom King (actor), since it had been over a week. Should the page be speedily deleted now? – Quadell (talk) (help)[[]] 16:33, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

Poll

I have created a preliminary version of Wikipedia:VfD decisions not backed by current policies/poll. Your comments would be much appreciated. - SimonP 17:08, Oct 23, 2004 (UTC)

63.197.235.94 possible vandalism

I had a number of messy changes through a number of pages from this URL. This person has a characteristic style - each edit is entered individually, lots of place names and Mueseums as a characteristic spelling. Contra Costa County, California had 20 unsatisfied links entered, with bad link names, but useful in a way - but entered a railroad museum that looked phoney, turned out to be a museum located in a restored railway station. Entire text of Mount Diablo State Park was duplicated (but not from the edit page - by cutting from the article display) and placed in a new article "Mt. Diablo State Park". A lot of the stuff entered looks legitimate, but consists of 20 unsatisfied links. Be alert. I reverted the article for Mendocino County, California, please inspect the edits and see if any merits inclusion. I embedded a message in the CoCoCo article, see the talk for that page for my message to this user. I have been going through restoring the revisions with proper spelling, syntax, and external links and I am coming to the conclusion that this is not intentional vandalism, just not good work. I am leaving the Mendocino County, California article to persons more knowledgeable about this county. Best wishes, -- Leonard G. 17:23, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • Interesting...it's great that you caught that. I hope you and User:Leif can work together on watching this guy because you seem to be familiar with the area. The only reason why I caught that anything was amiss was because, while routinely checking new articles by anon posters, I noticed that one entitled "Levinville, California" had "Fort Bragg" at least once in the content rather than "Levinville", and the demographics given were internally inconsistent (listing more households than the supposed population). A little research showed that not only was there no actual census listing and statistics for such a place, but 0 google hits. Making a fictional place article by copying text from a valid one and changing some numbers makes me think that this is more than just bad editing. BTW, I think you should copy your message from the Contra Costa talk page to the anon's talk page. If nothing else, it places a record in one place of the problems people have had with that IP. Postdlf 17:59, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Of the three towns they added to Sonoma County, California, one does not exist (los lomas). There have been two bogus towns on the Mendocino county article from them now, among many other legit ones. I think this is deliberately subtle misinformation/vandalism and the user should be blocked if they don't explain themselves real soon. I guess I'll keep trying to verify their contributions for now... ~leif ☺ HELO 19:41, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Categories

I don't know all the subcategories. In my view, adding an imperfect category to an article is better than leaving the article without a category. Maurreen 17:15, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • I don't agree&mash;it still requires someone else to go in and fix it afterwards. Why not do it right the first time? I don't know all the subcategories either. So before I categorize anything, I search through the structure to see where it would best go. Could you please do the same? Postdlf 05:42, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A nice cup of tea and a sit down

On the archived VfD page, you wrote: " The result of the debate was DELETE. 10 votes to keep, 6 votes to delete"

Isn't that a keep?

I came here to make the same point. I see that you actually did keep the article under its correct title of Nice cup of tea and a sit down, but the anon's wrong version above seems like a plausible misnomer, so I'll make it a redirect. If you want to smoke crack, feel free, but don't handle VfD while under the influence!  :) JamesMLane 08:44, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
You caught me. I was smoking crack.  ; ) I was working through VfD by copying and pasting the boilerplate language at the top and missed that I didn't change it to "keep". Good thing I executed the right result at least... Postdlf 13:19, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Zod

Why have you redirected my little article about the Zod rune to a General Zod page?Diablosnuevos 00:37, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • Because an article about a single item from a single video game is highly likely to be deleted if I were to list it on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion. The strongest association of "Zod" is to the Superman character. If you want to include more specific information about the item, I suggest you do so on the page for the video game, if there is one. What are the chances that someone is actually going to search for "zod" the video game rune independently of wanting to know about the game itself? Postdlf 23:34, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

WP:VFD/HS

Just letting you know that I thought you might be interested in taking a look at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/High schools, as well as what I wrote on Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 05:43, Oct 31, 2004 (UTC)

Requesting guidance

Hello. I want to make sure I don't make a mess of things, so I clicked Recent Changes looking for an admin and spotted you right away. Since you're online you get the question.  :-) On 10 OCT I tagged Mens Mental Health as a possible copyvio. The author claims to be the copyright holder of the main article, and also claims fair use for a section drawn from another source. I've looked into it and believe both claims are valid. This will be my first use of admin abilities so I want to make sure I understand what to do. If I'm right all I have to do is revert the article to the original edit, delete the temp page (just a copy of the original, with a note added) and leave a message on the article's talk page. Will that do it or am I missing something? Thank you for any guidance you can give me. SWAdair | Talk 07:22, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It sounds like you have the right solution. I actually don't have too much experience dealing with copyvios, but from what I understand, you seem to have the right process down. I haven't really looked at the original article, but based simply on its title I would additionally consider whether it should be merged elsewhere, or perhaps simply moved to a new title. Postdlf 07:42, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Pike County, Ohio

The mising communities in Pike County, Ohio are all townships. I don’t know why Rambot didn’t create these articles from Census data. To answer your question about source data, I got a list off all townships in the 88 counties of Ohio from the office (website) of the Ohio Secretary of State. The list went into Wikipedia at List of Ohio townships. Originally, I created articles for the townships in Hamilton County, Ohio while updating things about the Cincinnati area. I updated Pike County when I created an article for Beaver Township, Pike County, Ohio while trying to encourage a Jr. High student from there to contribute to Wikipedia. Lou I 14:51, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Category:Minor league baseball teams

Hi, I have a simple category question. I noticed some minor league baseball teams are in Category:Baseball teams, some are in Category:Minor league baseball teams, and some are in both.

Should there be a consistent categorization scheme?

Thanks,

Econrad 17:30, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • Yes, most of the articles simply haven't been moved to the proper subcategory yet. I don't know why anyone would put them in both. Postdlf 17:35, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Mitsubishi subsidiaries categories

Just so you know, the Mitsubishi companies are not subsidiary companies. They are part of the keiretsu. I think the best name for the category should be either "Mistubishi" or "Mitsubishi companies". Christopher Mahan

  • Do they merely use the Mitsubish trade name, but corporate entities owned by Mitsubishi? I guess I misunderstood then. Postdlf 22:00, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Article Licencing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1
I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:
{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

OR

Option 2
I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:
{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. – Ram-Man (comment) (talk)[[]] 23:47, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

  • Sorry, I looked at this awhile ago and wasn't able to come to a decision. I'll let you know soon. Postdlf 01:13, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

List of Mobile Phones running Linux

Why do you restore List of Mobile Phones running Linux? This is useless title.

Arlington, VA racial data

I'm not sure why you reverted my edit to the Arlington article. the casual reader is no doubt confused when he/she reads the current version, and I feel my simpler version is better. Better to explain things in 3 words than 30 words, you know? 'Native American', 'Pacific Islander' and other negligible groups shouldn't be included if they are , e.g. 0.03% of the population. That's just silly. Also, the census racial data are estimates, so figures like 45.975% may as well be rounded to 46% for the sake of simplicity and easier reading.

Oh and by the way, I used the 'White non-Hispanic' data provided by the Census. The current version no doubt confuses people in that regard too. We should aim to be succint and straightfoward, not so convoluted that we lose and confuse people! BSveen 18:57, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)

  • I disagree entirely. Even if the data are estimates, it makes a lot more sense to include what the census has reported than to decide you can somehow make a better figure yourself by rounding off. Second, "negligible groups" are nonetheless part of the demographics. It would be silly to list racial groups showing 0.00%, but otherwise the information is real, valid, and relevant. Third, this demographic information is part of an extensive project for all counties, municipalities, and CDPs in the country. As a reduction in information would be quite a significant change of convention for countless articles, I suggest you list your comments on the Village Pump or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Counties. There are too many people involved in maintaining these articles to allow for a unilateral format change, particularly one that reduces information. Postdlf 19:12, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I won't pursue this further, but it really wasn't "reducing information". It was changing that bit of the article from a confusing mess that the casual reader wouldn't understand at all, to a straightforward, simple-to-understand piece. And I don't see why a group that has 0.003% of the population should be included, it's just a waste of space and confuses people. The goal of an article (any article) should not be "let's see how much we can confuse people", rather it should be the opposite, which is what I was trying to do. But anyway, you won't heard from me on this again, good day to you. BSveen 19:23, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)

Category redundancy

Please don't add redundant categories to articles. Why would someone belonging to Category:Governors of Arkansas additionally need to be placed in Category:Arkansas politicians AND in Category:People from Arkansas? Postdlf 22:53, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • So that there is an alphabetized list of people from Arkansas rather than a variety of subcategories. If someone wants to see all of the people from Arkansas they can go to that category. If they want to see politicians from Arkansas they can go to that category. If they want to see Governors they can go to that category. It is my opinion that when people want to see the category of "People from Arkansas" they want to see the alphabetized list of "People from Arkansas", not a list of types of people from Arkansas. I am keeping my contributions limited to Arkansas as that was suggested since I wished to avoid conflict, which seem to be inevitable in other categories. Since I have been really the only one interested in the various Arkansas articles and started most of them there has been no conflict. If you would like to change all the categorizations on all of the Arkansas articles please put together an alphabetical list of all "People from Arkansas" to take the place of the category. Its easier to let the categorization script do it and keep up with it, but I don't care how its done as long as people have an alphabetical list rather than just a list of subcategories. Thanks.

By the way. I would have much preferred if you had awaited my response before you went off reverting all of my changes. Thats pretty darn rude. There was no immediate need for you to do that without waiting for discussion of course. So I will have no regrets about putting them back without consulting you. The Arkansas categories are pretty much my sole interest, jumping in and reverting all that when its not an area dear to your heart, without discussion is what makes Wikipedia such a bitch sometimes. Like it was URGENT to revert my changes when in fact most of these articles didn't exist and had no categorization at all before I added them.

And on third thought. Screw this project again. I have no idea why I started editing here again. Like I didn't learn my lesson the first time I participated with all you rude jackasses that spend more time trying to stamp out pet peeves or insert political opinions into articles than you do actually writing articles. Revert everything I've ever done if you like.

(unsigned comment by User:24.144.15.243)

I'm sorry you've taken this so hard, but this isn't about you or your contributions. There is a well-established and sensible practice of not including articles in every parent category of the specific subcategory that they belong to. Why not also include the articles in Category:Arkansas, Category:American people, Category:People? Maybe someone would like an alphabetical list of every single article about a person on wikipedia. But the whole point of subcategories is to break articles up into useful, organized relationships. Otherwise, the categories become unmanageable, and the articles senselessly cluttered. If you want an all-inclusive and undifferentiated list, then make a list article. Postdlf 01:46, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
And thats what sad about Wikipedia, policy enforcement trumps discussion. If I were removing articles from finer grained categorization and placing them in broader categorization instead, then I can understand how that would be harming the user. But the results were that they remained in the finer grained categories and also were presented in a broader category that is also necessary. Its not like "alphabetical order" is some bizarre concept. The result of your changes, and policy, is that now a user can't come in and see an alphabetical list of all articles about people from Arkansas like they could yesterday. Your suggestion to return this functionality to the user is to put together a manual list that mimics what the categorization script COULD do with no fuss. Of course, I was willing to shrug and go on if you took the time to replace the functionality. But replacing the functionality is really not any fun, its easier just to not bother waiting the few hours until I responded to try and find out my deal or my intentions for this area I've been messing with for a couple of years. Its more fun to just flit in, show your badge, and go on a reversion spree. I have no doubt that you just can't see why anyone would want an alphabetical list. I have no doubt you can't see why this sort of thing is dismissive of other contributors and drives them off. It really wasn't that urgent to recategorize the Arkansas list IMMEDIATELY and preemptorily without the courtesy of waiting for a response...was it? Its not like someone was going to DIE if you provided that courtesy instead of starting in with your shovel immediately. This encyclopedia doesn't even have an article about the Battle of Petersburg, the climactic battle of the US Civil War. Maybe you could have spent the few hours on that while waiting for me to at least make my point. Or perhaps you could have spent that time going ahead and making an alphabetical list and then suggesting that it take the place of the functionality I was trying to provide. Perhaps then I would have recategorized the thing on my own. Its easy to dismiss me as getting upset about "me" and "my contributions". But it ain't about that. I'm assuming you don't necessarily want to be seen by others as a petty bureaucrat or tin-badge policy enforcer and don't want to run people off. You won't have to bother with me any more, but next time you might just give the courtesy of allowing the other contributor to respond and then at least attempt to reach some sort of mutual accomodation. Or you can just assume contributors like me are jerks. Whatever.
One could, I'd note, apply this above argument to yourself — what was so urgent about adding these categories that you couldn't have asked a question about it beforehand? ("It's not like someone was going to DIE if you provided that courtesy...") You accuse someone of being rude because they reverted your changes without discussion; have you considered that your additions without discussion could equally be considered rude, particularly since it goes against policy? Now, I support the "Be Bold" rule, and I also support collaborative editing and discussion, but if you want to change the category policy, go and discuss it at Wikipedia talk:Categorization, not in particular instances. The place to discuss a compromise on policy is not on individual articles. The reason we have policies in the first place is because we've reached consensus on certain things, and want to avoid rehashing the debates over and over. So yes, in a sense, project-wide policy does trump article-specific discussion: common agreements have been carefully hammered out by the community, and there's no point doing it over again for each and every article. — Matt 16:41, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Edit summary

There is a place for an edit summary under the edit box; please use it. --Ben Brockert 00:59, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)

Ah, somebody beat me to the comment! Us lazy people (and us people on dial-up connections, for whom opening a page can take an annoyingly long time) very much appreciate a short edit summary so we know whether to check what has happened to one of the pages on our watchlist - e.g., you made category additions or tweaks to several New Hampshire-related pages; if "cat" or something equally terse but informative had been placed in the edit box, I might not have had to double-check them. Thanks. - DavidWBrooks 14:12, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Sorry, I've been working on a broad category structuring across all of the state categories, and normally try to work pretty fast. I'll try to insert something in the edit summaries. Postdlf 21:31, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

North Carolina Places, Geography, and the Research Triangle

Postdlf, I noted your removal of the North Carolina Places category today. It was pretty ambiguous as a category, so thanks. My concern is the placement of the Research Triangle in North Carolina Geography. It seems a bit out of place there since all the other entries in that category are natural topographical topics, and the Research Triangle is really just a name placed on a tri-city region. Since the Research Triangle has no natural geographical boundaries and is more of a political or municipal region, does it belong in Geography? Could we make a Metropolitan Area or even Megalopolis category?

I know this is beyond nit-picking, but I'm kind of new, so I thought I'd ask if listing twin-city and tri-city groupings as geography was an accepted community practice. I agree that categorization is really helpful, and like I said I'm new so I have a tiny watchlist and notice every little change.

-Pedro Picasso 00:42, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)

  • Welcome to wikipedia! Categorizing that article is a difficult issue, but I thought because it defines a region, however imprecisely, geography was about the closest fit. Perhaps as time goes on, there may be enough articles overall to justify categorization by state of research facilities, but I don't think so at the present. Postdlf 00:55, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Category:California people

Just to let you know I've put Category:California people on WP:CSD and changed Miko Lee from being in Category:California people to being in Category:Californians (where everything else is). —msh210 20:52, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • I'm actually favoring Category:People from California. That's what most of the states have now—see the contents of Category:People by U.S. state. Damned if I can figure out what the name is for people from most states, if there is one ("Connecticutians"? "Mainers"? "Massachusettsimans"?), and we should have a uniform naming system across all state categories. Postdlf 21:03, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Category:American sports by state

Is there an easy way to move the Category:Sports in Hawaii articles to Category:Hawaii sports so that it can be consistent with the others states? Also, do Category:Guam sports, Category:Sports in Puerto Rico, and Category:American Samoa sport belong here -- all are listed under Category:Sports by country for now. --Dryazan 20:56, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm adding Category:Sports in American dependencies since I really really don't like them being listed under countries... Feel free to change if don't like. Dryazan 14:48, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

        • Nah, I'm fine with that. Postdlf 04:54, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Legal ethics and FNF

Just one example: FNF campaigned to make parental responsibility automatic for unmarried fathers. The 1989 Children Act introduced the concept of parental responsibility as a legal term - it's intention was to remove the stigma of being an illegitimate child. Up until Dec 2004, parental responsibility had to be acquired. Now it is automatic if the father's registers the birth of the child. I think this type of campaigning fits well into the legal ethics category, so I am shocked and appalled :-) that someone who claims to have legal knowledge should have become a wikipedia deletionist. HEre is an email I sent out to one of the FNF internet forums last night:

David Blunkett

I was quoted on Radio 4 this evening reading a judgment out of my Family Law Handbook. The BBC chose to use Families Need Fathers rather than a solicitor to tell its listeners:

"A father was refused contact with his 2-year-old son because the mother's new husband's objection to contact was such that the marriage and the child's welfare would be placed at risk. The Court of Appeal dismissed the father's appeal. "

It's from Re H (A Minor)(Parental responsibility).

Matt Stan 12:14, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I am currently trying to write a code of conduct for solicitors involved in private law child residency cases. Maybe you'd like to act as a reviewer. Matt Stan 12:14, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • Regarding the category, I'm still unclear on your argument as to why FNF is a legal ethics topic. How does it relate to the regulation of the legal profession, to the ethical obligations of lawyers? Please reread legal ethics, and hopefully you'll see why it is inapplicable. Postdlf 19:16, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
No I don't think I got it wrong. Legal ethics (or the absence of them in the case of family law!) are exactly what we are about. Why do you think Radio 4 did choose to use our organization rather than a law firm to explain the law in relation to the ethics of the situation of the UK's Home Secretary and his child, if they didn't think we would put across the legal-ethical rather than just the legal POV? Matt Stan 00:26, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The fact that you disagree with the current state of family law on ethical grounds doesn't mean that a charity that offers a solution is a "legal ethics" topic. The content of FNF has nothing to do with the legal system's internal regulation of lawyers and judges, which is all that "legal ethics" pertains to. Speaking of ethics, I noticed on your user page that you're a trustee of FNF. I suggest you refrain from further writing on that subject, as you have a conflict of interest between your duties to the charity and interest in it and your duties to be academically objective on wikipedia. This is also why we heavily discourage autobiographies. Postdlf 04:38, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Vandal 63.197.235.94

Greetings. Can you see how this IP can be blocked? It appears to be solidly fixed, editor shows up episodically and adds bad edits (Contra Costa County, California, Alameda County, California, Mendocino County, California, Danville, California, various animal articles) adding massive numbers of unsatisfied and/or poorly constructed links, inaccurate statements, non-existent towns, town parks in county articles, improperly constructed external links to vanity sites, etc. It takes a lot of work to clean up after this editor. See User talk:63.197.235.94 and his/her contributions user contributions. Can you assist or find a sysop who can?

Leonard G. 03:56, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It's a difficult case whenever an editor contributes a mix of useful and chaotic edits. Are they merely incompetent? Is english their second language? Or are they very complicated vandals, sneaking in vandal edits in a stream of otherwise innocuous contributions? I will keep an eye on their contributions and enact a block if it's on a matter that they have been explicitly contacted about on their talk page and have continued to fail to respond. Postdlf 04:52, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Thanks. The latest edits were not as bad, but others have identified these in particular as possible copyright violations. Believable, as the edits appeared greatly improved over previous (possibly two editors at this IP?) Leonard G. 03:38, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Counter-smack

You speedied Counter-smack, which was then recreated. It is now on VfD if you would like to weigh in, as it is not a CSD. Regards, Whosyourjudas (talk) 05:26, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

re: category:Pro-Life on WP:CFD

Love your new opinion categories. How about category:wikipedians who think opinion based categories are a bad idea? - Rick Block 04:40, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Chatting with the kids

Hey, you wrote to my friend Maggie. What did she do wrong? Please tell me, you loser!- Wolfj 

We are sorry for anything we have done wrong or to offend you. But we don't understand what we did wrong. We arn't buging you in any way so why don't you just forget about it. ????? -Turcottem

Oh, Sorry. I was not trying to use it as a chat room. In fact, I wrote to Maggie asking her to write some articles so that we WOULDN'T be using it as a chat room. My friends will STOP writing to each other, we will STOP being friends, and we WILL write some anti-postdlf articles. Don't delete them, or I'll speak to a Wikipedia administrator about you.

Hey, Wolfj here! I'd just like to say that you've made your point. I'm leaving Wikipedia. Goodbye, you sarcastic jerk.

Hi, postdlf, i'm sorry that my friends:Wolfj, Turcottem,Maggie102, and i have been using this websit as a chat room. I mean, we are deprived from each other, we needed a way to talk to each other. We thought we were doing nothing wrong, but i guess we were. when you were in school, did you want a way to talk to your friends when you couldn't? well then you should know how we fell. Answer me as fast as possible (Don't ban the school, i just wanted to tell you that we're sorry).- WD-40

Cartoon Mascot Vandal Guy

Thanks for reverting the deletion of my comments at Talk:List of advertising characters. Might blocking 67.117.218.13 be in order? —tregoweth 04:18, Dec 11, 2004 (UTC)

Just saw the post on List of blocked IP addresses and usernames. Thank you, O kind sysop. :) —tregoweth 05:02, Dec 11, 2004 (UTC)
You're welcome. I honestly wonder if there is something wrong with him though, what with the combined excessive incompetence and obsessive focus. Maybe he's autistic. Postdlf 05:05, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I've been trying to figure him out, too. I'm guessing autistic and/or not a native English speaker. Too bad there's no real way to communicate with him. —tregoweth 05:34, Dec 11, 2004 (UTC)

Homeroom on Wikipedia!!!! Like, OMG!!!!

I see that you have had dealings with our new group of school children. You can look at any one of a number of these kids (User:WD-40 is one place to start) and check contributions and see that they do 100% editing to each others' pages. I.e. Wikipedia is now a message board for 5 or so students who appear to be in the lower reaches of high school. I only became aware of them after banning a vandal for 24 hr (probably the one who was writing articles saying "YOU WILL ALL DIE IF THIS IS REMOVED!") and had the above user show up on my talk page saying that I had "banned his school" from Wikipedia. I.e. kids, during class, are using their computer lab computers to muck about on WP, just talking to each other. (sigh) I figure folks need to pile up all the group's offenses, go RfC, and then do an IP ban from editing, but I hesitate to knock out a school. Geogre 05:12, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • I did notice the whole group of them, but so far have only blocked User:Wolfj for vandalizing my user page. I was wondering whether a user may be permanently blocked simply because they haven't contribute anything other than off-topic talk page comments. Thoughts? Postdlf 05:14, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well, I think that user pages can be deleted for "private web hosting," and this is somewhat like that. We really don't have any actual policies, that I know of, to do this, but policy isn't needed. What would be needed is probably a Village Pump announcement of a group RfC. The point would be to try to knock out the whole group for, essentially, misuse of the site. We almost surely need a policy, but it would have to be extremely carefully written to prevent people from using it to bash their least favorite editors. (I'm thinking of people who VfD each others' user pages as part of a war or a grievance.) We don't allow user pages to be ads, private web hosting, etc., and I think this is somewhat in the same area. Geogre 15:16, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Connecticut natives vs. People from Connecticut

Can I please ask what the reasoning behind this is? The Connecticut natives category is extremely well-maintained and organized, and only consists of people born in the state. It has also been in existance for months now, whereas the People from Connecticut category has only been up for a couple of weeks. Moving all of those entries over to People from Connecticut for no apparant reason would be extremely time consuming. Is it simply a naming issue? Beginning 22:49, Dec 12, 2004 (UTC)

  • One issue is conformity with the vast majority of other entries in Category:People by U.S. state. The other issue is dealing with the contents—why is someone's birthplace necessarily the geographic locale by which they are best categorized? It may be, if that is where they lived for a substantial time or where they are associated in the public mind, in which case they are suitable candidates for the "People from" category. Otherwise, the article gains nothing by being categorized by that state other than likely clutter and confusion as the tenuous connections mount. For example, I've lived in four (kinda) states throughout my life, and spent no more than about a week in the city of my birth (though I lived significantly longer in the state). I'd think it would just be confusing and unnecessary for an article about me to have listed "Ohio natives", "People from Washington, DC", "People from Virginia", "People from New York"... Typical wikipedia article subjects are likely to have even more geographic trivia in their biography, and we should limit them to the state with which they are most clearly associated. Always consider whether a list article is more appropriate than a category. In the case of birthplace, I think it is. But if it is genuinely the state that their life as a whole is best associated with, then they are appropriately categorized by it. Postdlf 22:59, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Deletion policy

I see you recently deleted "Oliver the humanzee". I'm a new admin, and trying to work out whether I need to go strictly by the criteria for speedy deletions. While it's clear to any sane person that the article you deleted wasn't encylopedic, I don't quite see how it can be speedy deleted in terms of that policy. Can you comment? This is not intended as a criticism of your action, just that I'm looking for guidance in similar matters.-gadfium (talk) 06:46, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • Interesting question, that. Looking at it again, I see that I made a mistake—it appears it was a "valid" cryptozoology topic. However, the article was poorly written so that the first few lines made it look like nonsense making fun of some guy he knew; if that's all it was, it would be properly speedy deleted. Ask yourself if any reasonable person could believe the "article" contains valid content. Deletion is always a judgment call, and poor writing can make this tougher. I have restored the article, but it needs some reorganization to properly communicate the information. Postdlf 07:53, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Deletion of US Government Financial Statements

Hi Postdlf, cc solari action network wikipedia thread. You deleted my page "US Government Financial Statements", suggesting that wikisource was a better place for this than wikipedia, since this is for infos in the public domain. I will be taking your advice on this, as this seems to make sense.

On my user talk page, you also asked what what I was trying to accomplish with this.

For starters, I want to provide background information that will help researchers, journalists, and other knowledge workers rapidly identify people in the government that are abusing the fiduciary responsibility entrusted to them. Example of question I would like a fast answer to,

  • Who audits HUD?
  • Who maintains HUD's information systems?

That's sort of how I see this working, if it works. The information is out there, and a lot of it is in the public domain, but it's hard to get to and disorganized. So I want to make things easier.

In addition to providing the background information, I want to comment on it and analyze it as well. But mainly I came to wikipedia because I want to provide a collaborative discussion area where people in the solari action network (a phpbb board I frequent) can build knowledge and wisdom as a team, as many people have expressed desire for this. Our area of expertise and interest is "how money works." Getting help on this from non-solariactionnetwork wikipedians who are interested in this is of course the dream (assuming they all agree to take my point of view ;) )

It would be nice if you would restore the deleted page so I could just copy and paste it into wikisource, but if that's too much trouble I will recreate it. I have been away from my computer for a week for a much needed vacation, so I wasn't able to follow its progress on wikipedia.

Another question. Is there an official policy where people (for example, from the newsgroup) who are interested in what I am doing "vote" against deletions if this sort of thing occurs again? If yes, how many votes would I need to trigger an official undelete?

Just trying to understand how this works!

There are some things I realize such an effort needs to bear in mind. From what wikipedia is not:

  • Wikipedia is not a soapbox, chatroom, or discussion forum.
  • Wikipedia is not Propaganda or advocacy of any kind. But of course an article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to approach a neutral point of view.
  • Wikipedia is not the place for original research

I believe I can work within that for this topic.

Tphyahoo 22:17, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

When something is listed for deletion, a notice goes on the page that links to Wikipedia:Votes for deletion as well as the specific vote page for the article (Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/US Government Financial Statements). That is where you would have voted against deletion. Now that it has been deleted due to a unanimous vote, you may post a request for undeletion on Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion. I don't believe you'll have any success there, however. Even presuming the end result is something that would be acceptable on wikipedia, you can't start out by posting original source material like that. Do your work offline and then post something that is in and of itself acceptable under our guidelines.
I have doubts that your intended project, even when complete, will be appropriate, however. If you wish to expand the article on the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development to include objective information about its inner bureaucracy, that is fine. But performing your own "analysis" and doing it to establish what you consider to be misconduct seems to be irredeemably POV, and probably even original research. While it is proper to report on conclusions and accusations that others have made in academia and the press, drawing your own conclusions is something to be avoided no matter how well grounded you believe they are in fact. Why don't you try objectively expanding the HUD article first, and then see where we can go from there? Postdlf 01:12, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Deletion message

How very postmodern of you ☺ &0xfeff;--fvw* 23:58, 2004 Dec 16 (UTC)

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