Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Tropical Storm Erick (2007)

Raul, I'm hoping you'll look at this FAC, as its closure may be viewed as setting a precedent. There have been months of discussion at WT:FAC about how to handle shorter articles (in relation to past FAs), with the discussions touching on issues of notability, how do we define 1b comprehensive, whether there should be separate recognition of shorter FAs not eligible for TFA, potential for merging, whether an article is stable if it could be merged elsewhere, whether an article provides adequate context, worthiness for TFA, availability of sources, and more. The community has been divided throughout these discussions, with this being the only change to gain consensus out of hundreds of KB of discussion, filling three archives and still going. I'm concerned that the recurrence of these issues is stalling FAC (see WP:FAS). The article is 750 words. It has passed muster on other WP:WIAFA criteria (that is, except for the length/context issue), and has nine Supports. It has three Opposes and two Comments indicating that the article should be merged to the storm season article or that it doesn't provide adequate context (from User:Hurricanehink, User:Yomangani, User:Geometry guy, User:Stone and User:Mike Christie). I will make the call if I must, but I'd much rather have your input. The FAC community has invested a lot of time and bandwidth into trying to sort this issue, so I feel a clear call is warranted out of respect for the effort invested. Separately, I will send you an e-mail regarding Marskell's planned absence from FAR as soon as I have a chance to gather my thoughts.[1] [2] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:09, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Also, a potential situation at WP:TFA/R between January 8 and January 9, both high points, explorer and expedition back to back, will present a problem in the point tallies. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:35, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Raul, the January 8 article, Alfred Russell Wallace, is about a scientist who did field work. Although he may fit the category, he was not primarily an explorer. Nimrod Expedition, proposed for January 9, has since been removed by the proposer after opposition to its nomination on the basis it had too many points and was proposed too early, although within the rules. (There appears to be a feeling among a few that high-point articles should not be proposed early on in the 30 day period, despite the rules, as they displace other articles requested for the interim.[3]) Everyone appears to hope you will feature it anyway, but the proposer wants no part of ill feelings caused by a nomination at the request page.[4] Regards, Kablammo (talk) 14:46, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Raul, thank you for helping me out on the Florida Catholic photo. I posted their new permission letter here [5]. And I forwarded the email to OTRS. NancyHeise ^talk 18:16, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Sure - glad I could help. Raul654 (talk) 06:20, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

I moved a part of your response up one section, with the signature. I hope that you don't mind. If you do just revert and I'll add my response again. –M^T 05:46, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I wanted to recommend some additions. From the History Page it appears that you entered most of the information for the article. (Let me know if I'm wrong.)

The section currently references the myth of Ixion and his punishment upon a wheel of fire.

On TV.COM[7] the title is explained as follows:

"The title is a reference to King Lear: "You do me wrong to take me out o' the grave: Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears Do scald like molten lead." Londo's situation is similar to Lear's ...."

It is spoken by Lear in Act IV, Scene 7. In fact, the word "wheel" is used four times in King Lear. As used by Lear in the above quote it appears to be a reference by Shakespeare to Ixion's punishment/fate.

J.M. Straczynski himslef seems to verify that a reference to King Lear was intended and that it is Londo's situation that is comparable to Lear's. See The Lurker's Guide: [8]

JMS also says that

"The wheel of fire visually has spokes proceeding out from a central flame; the center burns outward. And several of the fires smoldering lately have done that; with Byron it was a literal flame that has now gone out along the spokes and had substantial repercussions, with more to come years down the road."

In fact, "The Wheel of Fire"[9] is both the title of a book about Shakespeare's tragedies and a Wikipedia entry. In this context, the wheel of fire refers to the sequence of events (called "fortune" in King Lear) that result from the hero's tragic flaw. Two of the "wheel" references in Lear are related to this concept of fortune.

I thought you might want to add some of this to the title section. Ileanadu (talk) 21:04, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. Raul654 (talk) 05:17, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

...Define Vandalism. I am editing the articles so that the articles are more accurate on the facts. Global warming and related subjects are a theory not a fact, There is a lot of evidence to support, but it is not obviously true. Kluft (talk) 19:46, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I've already responded to your comment on the talk page where you left your previous comment. In short - you are wrong. Your edits are detrimental to our articles. You must stop. Raul654 (talk) 19:48, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I'll just add a little something: This is completely wrong. CO2 levels are stated as being higher, not because we assume it to be so, or because theory says it must, but instead because all our data show it to be so (ie. fact). But please provide us with your evidence for the opposite on Talk:Climate, and please stick to reliable sources, which in this case means peer-reviewed science - not blogs, op-eds or newspaper articles. Perhaps you should also try to read the reference (or alternatively the look at raw data.) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 19:57, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, I am not in any way trying to say that Global Warming or related subjects are true or false, nor am I here to give an counter argument. But that it has not been proven in either direction; so something not proven true or false, but believed to be true, is a theory. I believe that letting reading know that 'Global Warming or related subjects' have not been proven true or false is good, just that there have been a lot of evidence found to support it, but not enough to make to make it undeniably true. Yes, in that thermometers don't lie, but it doesn't always mean the world is warming, it's just supporting evidence. I just want to make wikipedia better. I am Not vandalizing, this is what I see to be true. But if don't, then I'm forced discontinue my work here. Kluft (talk) 20:21, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

In science everything is a theory. Gravity is a theory, we run nuclear plants all over the world, based on the Atomic theory, Internet communication over DSL is dependent on Quantum theory etc. etc.. Please see Wikipedia:Words_to_avoid#Theories_and_hypotheses.

In these article, we present the scientific opinion according to the weight of evidence, and adhere strictly to a neutral point of view - which doesn't mean equal opportunity, but rather that we present the sources and information, according to their prevalence in the literature. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 20:37, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Can you take a look at Josko33 --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 01:06, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Heh [10]! I'm getting good at spotting him ;) And thanks. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 01:13, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to jump in on this article before you were done. Hope I did not create any edit conflicts. A fascinating subject. It would make a great DYK nomination, and I have put it up for that award. Since you're still working away, I'll leave it alone to avoid edit conflicts. Cbl62 (talk) 05:03, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't mind the DYK nomination - I was going to put it up for one anyone. And don't worry about edit conflicts -- I like seeing other people fiddling with my work :). So go ahead and edit away. Raul654 (talk) 05:05, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

On 19 December, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article The Swimming Hole, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

BorgQueen (talk) 23:54, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, this would have been interesting ;) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 00:21, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi! As a bureaucrat on Wikipedia, I'd very much appreciate it if you would fill in your details on the newly updated Bureaucrats page. Thanks! Majorly ^talk 14:29, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Can you review some Scibaby rangeblocks? I've just blocked dozens of anonymizing IP ranges which fall under your /16 rangeblocks. If an IP is under multiple rangeblocks, it'll take the settings of the larger range. In this case, your /16 softblocks will override any hardblock of the smaller ranges. Since several subnets are now hardblocked, it would be good if you could look over these IPs and see if a /16 softblock is still needed: 128.241.0.0/16, 130.94.0.0/16, 168.143.0.0/16, 198.172.0.0/16, 205.212.0.0/16, and 207.67.0.0/16. Thanks, Spellcast (talk) 04:16, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

The following sockpuppets have used those ranges:

• 128.241.0.0/16
  • 128.241.41.115, 2 November, Vextration (Scibaby)
  • 128.241.104.20, 23 October, Strayson (Scibaby)
  • 128.241.88.36, 17 October, Showconfig
  • 128.241.88.36, 12 October, IJALB
  • 128.241.88.36, 6 October, CHECKORUP
• 130.94.0.0/16
  • 130.94.106.238, 13 December, Josko33 (Scibaby)
  • 130.94.123.169, 1-2 November, Vextration (Scibaby)
  • 130.94.106.229 , 5 October, Yustachian (Scibaby)
• 168.143.0.0/16
  • 168.143.114.10, December 19, Josko33 (Scibaby)
• 198.172.0.0/16
  • (No bad edits found)
• 205.212.0.0/16
  • 205.212.73.231, December 14, Josko33 (Scibaby)
• 207.67.0.0/16
  • 207.67.146.241, 25 November, Istrill (Scibaby)

What do you suggest be done about these ranges? Raul654 (talk) 11:20, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

All those IPs are under a blocked range from anonymizer.com (except 128.241.88.36, which is blocked under a different anonymizing range from anchorfree.com). The narrower rangeblocks should hopefully do the trick and since your softblocks were overriding the hardblocks, I've unblocked the above /16s. If you see another IP from one of the above ranges, it could be part of another anonymizer.com range. If not, you can simply reapply the /16. Spellcast (talk) 12:39, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi, you might want to consider using Ceres as the TFA for the new year's day. Nergaal (talk) 00:22, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Nergaal. We just had an astronomy article for TFA and I'd like to avoid having another one so soon. Raul654 (talk) 11:21, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Mark,

About two years ago I uploaded quite a few GIF-animations to wikipedia, at the time GIF-animation was the only form of animated media. For example, I created the animations for the Coriolis flow meter article (and I wrote the article). Now there is the possibility of uploading Ogg theora files, enabling much better compression than animated-GIF.

I've been combing wikipedia and other sites for information about generating Ogg theora files. But I get the impression that all the available software is conversion software.

Do you happen to know software (for Windows environment) that can take a series of frames as input, and turn that in an Ogg theora file? As far as I can tell, what existing software does is convert files that are already in video-format. All I see mentioned is conversion of quicktime .mov to Ogg theora, WMV to Ogg theora, .avi to Ogg theora, etc. etc. Cleonis | Talk 20:45, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

The short answer is that you shouldn't -- for human-made animated graphics and diagrams (as opposed to live video -- the kind you shoot with a video camera) animated gif is the most appropriate format. It's smaller, (potentially) lossless, substantially better supported in browsers, etc.

The longer answer is that if you really want to despite my above concerns, the only way I can think of to do it would be to go from animated gif -> X -> ogg theora, where X is some intermediate video format (1) for which there exists a program that can do gif->X conversion, and (2) that can be converted to theora by ffmpeg2theora. I'm confident that such a format exists, but without further investigation I couldn't tell you what it is. Raul654 (talk) 06:03, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, generally animated-GIF is bigger than compressed video. For an extreme example of a bloated GIF, see: Image:Precessing_Kepler_orbit_280frames_e0.6_smaller.gif

Animated-GIF files are smaller if and only if the design is optimized for small file size. For instance, I don't use color in animated-GIF. Using grey-scale only I can make do with a palette with 16 entries. Then each pixel in each frame takes 4 bits instead of 8 bits. Other optimizations are possible, but it's cramping my style.

You have a point: I hadn't quite realized that the compression algorithms that are used in MPEG and Ogg Theora and so are optimized to compress real world scenes. Compressing diagrams is another ball game. So, animated-GIF will have to do. Cleonis | Talk 10:20, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Did the translation! Just wondered if you could look it over - I'm not sure whether you speak/read Russian, but it needs someone to proofread and make sure I translated everything correctly - my Russian is good but not perfect. Graymornings_(talk) 21:30, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't speak any Russian, but I did polish up the article as best I could. (primarily changing all instances of "USSR Academy of Sciences" to "Soviet Academy of Sciences". USSR is the noun, and Soviet is the adjective.) Raul654 (talk) 08:23, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the proofread - the article's looking good. Graymornings_(talk) 23:26, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Raul, I've looked for the answer for my question, but wasn't able to find it anywhere, so I thought I'd just ask you. Are featured lists eligible to be put on the Main Page? Thanks for the consideration, and Merry Christmas. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 06:42, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is daft enough to be this obvious, but you ought to check out User:Scibaby1. I'm guessing it's just your run-of-the-mill vandal, but who knows. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 12:29, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

It's a sockpuppeteer. Probably not Scibaby himself, but one pretending to be him. Raul654 (talk) 06:19, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Wherever you are, and whether you're celebrating something or not, there is always a reason to spread the holiday spirit! So, may you have a great day, and may all your wishes be fulfilled in 2009! Fvasconcellos (t·c) 14:43, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

		Merry Christmas!
		Christmas medley A chiptune medley to annoy Ironholds :D Problems playing this file? See media help. Raul654, here's hoping you're having a wonderful Christmas, and here's also hoping that all your family and friends are well. Lets all hope that the year coming will be a good one! If we've had disputes in the past, I hold no grudges, especially at such a time as this. If you don't know I am, I apologise, feel free to remove this from your page. Come and say hi, I won't bite, I swear! It could even be good for me, you know - I'm feeling a little down at the moment with all of these snowmen giving me the cold shoulder :( — neur ho ho ho(talk) 00:09, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Happy Holidays, Raul, and thanks for putting up with some of my nonsense. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 05:55, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Fvasconcellos, Neurolysis, Ottava Rima, and all the other people watching this page. Yes, I had a very merry Christmas. In fact, I got engaged. :) Raul654 (talk) 06:04, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Wow, congratulations, Mark!--chaser - t 06:19, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Congrats! Guettarda (talk) 06:27, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations, Mark !! Here's to a joyous New Year (and well wishes to the other half) SandyGeorgia (Talk)

Congrats! Its nice to see that someone around here is able to keep up a real personal life. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 17:29, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Raul654,
I wish you and your family all the best this Christmas and that you also have a Happy and safe new year.
Thankyou for all your contributions to Wikipedia this year and I look forward to seeing many more from you in the future.
Your work around Wikipedia has not gone un-noticed, this notice is testimony to that
Please feel free to drop by my talkpage any time to say Hi, as I will probably say Hi back :)

All the Best.   «l| Ψrometheăn ™|l»  (talk)

• Congrats! Merry christmas Raul! (Haven't edited in ages just stopping by for the xmas cheer :)) RN 22:26, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

• Many congratulations! Now don't do like I did, and have your father-in-law-to-be catch you doing programming homework on your wedding day... Best holiday wishes to you and yours. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:49, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Any thoughts on User:MalcolmMcDonald? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:57, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

If he's a sockpuppet, I don't think he's a sockpuppet of Scibaby. Raul654 (talk) 02:41, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to lay pretty good odds on Boyster as a scibaby sock. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 10:43, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Close the bets - i'm certain on this one.... I'll be very surprised indeed if it turns out not to be scibaby.... --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 10:58, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

And he couldn't lie low for long - so here's the next one: Sparnge --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 10:57, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Raul. Did you get my e-mail? -- Avi (talk) 04:10, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes I did. Sorry about my delay in responding - in the Christmas rush, it got lost in the woodwork. I've replied now. Raul654 (talk) 06:03, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what is the procedure to change the daily TFA intro, but it's too small. The main page is completely unbalanced and tweaking the DYKs/ITNs won't be enough. Cenarium (Talk) 01:35, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I've added three previous hooks to the DYKs and at least there's no blanks any more, but the TFA intro is overwhelmed by the DYKs. Cenarium (Talk) 01:47, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I've expanded the blurb slightly, as I have seen other admins make slight changes to the blurb. If it is not satisfactory, I have no objection to it being changed back or modified, please do not consider it wheel warring.--Wehwalt (talk) 03:18, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

The blurb is a bit short, but IMO it's not too short - the usual thing we do in these cases is trim ITN. If someone wants to expand the article intro and update the blurb to match, I don't object. Raul654 (talk) 06:45, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

No, I'm keeping my hands off. Thanks for your forbearance.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:55, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

You are logged as the creator of Template:Video on 17:31, 28 April 2005.
In March of 2008, Eric Schmidt of Google said that videos are being uploaded to YouTube at the rate of 10 hours of video per second[11]. Wikipedia will also be uploaded with many user-made illustration videos as well as short fair-use feature movie clips.
In this environment, a deletionist campaign against Template:Video last March at WP:Templates for deletion/Log/2008 March 21#Template:Video, struck me as idiosyncratic, with arguments I characterize as software kernel programming simplicity and minimalism (reduces bugs), misapplied to human-scale artistic design (clips from famous movies don't need a marquee).
It was also conducted in bad faith. I counted about 200 WP videos at that time, and at least 23 of them used Template:Video:

El Tatio, Spectrum analyzer, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Ubuntu (philosophy), Annie Oakley, DNA microarray, Levitron, Green-winged Macaw, Dissolve (film), Derek Wall, Trouble (board game), Paragliding, Aurora (astronomy), Railroad switch, Fencing, Human rights in post-invasion Iraq, Apollo 11, Apollo 14, Sign language, Bruce Perens, Tank, Babirusa, Mind the gap

A techie editor lacking an esthetic (art-music) education replaced all them with the bare image tag (so that videos and pictures look alike in Mediawiki code), then TfD'd claiming non-use. I negotiated his withdrawal of it at Template talk:Video#Rewritten video template.
That editor had replaced the templates without notifying the talk pages of the impending TfD. I did so and spent more political capital than I wanted to. I decided not to spend even more reverting the 23 after the TfD was withdrawn.
As a result, now another non-esthetic-education techie editor is again pursuing a Template:Video TfD at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2008 December 27#Template:Video. In effect he is claiming that because I didn't get into 23 tussles that the idiosyncratic editor caused, that the Template:Video is now subject to deletion never mind the bad faith actions leading to the TfD.
These esthetically challenged deletionist techies are trying to take away page layout artists' tools that they don't know how to use. I think some page needs to be organized to stand guard over esthetic choice at Wikipedia -- or at least to protect something as simple and obvious as an optional movie marquee parameter.
On the other hand, if you don't care about this template any more, I have other things to do. (Please reply here if desired) Milo 09:29, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Raul, opinions seem to be all over the place on what WP:Layout#Links to other Wikimedia projects should say about Wikisource. See for instance WT:Layout#Proposal and http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/WS:S#WP_guidelines_on_links_from_WP_to_Wikisource. Your Akutan Zero recently made it through FAC with the "Wikisource has original text..." logo intact. WP:SELFREF disallows references to Wikipedia (except roughly for disambigs and for templates that indicate something that would keep the article from passing GAN or FAC), and SELFREF also seems to counsel against references to other Wikimedia sites (for example, we simply present images in articles, without mentioning that they're hosted at Commons). I've asked around, and arguments go both ways: some say that it's important to promote Wikisource because we want people to upload to Wikisource; some people say that, if we should be promoting the Wikisource logo in article text, why shouldn't we be promoting Wikipedia in article text? Thoughts? (Watchlisting for a few days.) - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 19:34, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

On the smaller question of why I did what I did with the Akutan Zero article: I put a link to wikisource because I thought that the article was *greatly* improved by having a ready link to the intelligence documents the find generated (which it took me 2 hours to manually OCR). I can see no reason why the article would be improved by not providing the reader with this document. I placed the wikisource template in the body of the article next to the relavant paragraph ("Data and conclusions from these tests were published in Informational Intelligence Summary 59, and Technical Aviation Intelligence Brief #3, and Informational Intelligence Summary 85.") I admit the placement is debatable -- for consistency's sake, it might be preferable to limit them to external links sections only, but in this case it clearly ties in better in its current location.

On the larger question of what to do with links to other projects -- that's difficult to generalize. I can see how Wikisource, Wikinews, Commons links are useful, but I can see little reason why any other project would be linked (except arguably in-line links to wikitionary.) My rule of thumb is that in almost all cases, they should go in the external links section, unless there's a really good reason why they shouldn't. Raul654 (talk) 20:05, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 22:33, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I have resumed discussion on the sealift. Sherif9282 (talk) 18:19, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

The inscription is in the description. --David Shankbone 00:40, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Why thank you, David -- I'm touched. I appreciate it. Happy new year! Raul654 (talk) 05:25, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

haha - didn't somebody somewhere once say something about once the monuments begin to be built, the revolution is over...?  :-) --David Shankbone 18:48, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

You can still read pages, but cannot edit, change, or create them.

Editing from 75.50.128.0/17 (your account, IP address, or IP address range) has been disabled by Raul654 for the following reason(s):
Range used by Scibaby

This block has been set to expire: 06:47, 25 October 2013. 

I'm not scibaby. Some of your blocks are causing collateral damage. I've been working with this project and doing some volunteer work for WMF (in the way of blog promotion and moderation and OTRS) so you can imagine my feelings when I got this message. I know you work hard, and we all make mistakes, please double check this range. Best, NonvocalScream (talk) 04:52, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

You are a legit user and I've seen that you do share a number of ranges with Scibaby. I've made efforts to limit my blocks of your shared ranges so that they prevent logged-out users from creating accounts and editing. You should not be affected when logged in. (If you are, please let me know which blocks are causing the problem). I checked the range you mentioned and it should be exactly as desired - affecting only logged-out users. Raul654 (talk) 05:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

If it is anon only, I should not have been affected... There must have been a bug. (or I logged out?) I had experienced that message for a few minutes. If it happens again, I'll double check to ensure I am logged in, or file a bug report regarding the anon only setting. Very best, NonvocalScream (talk) 11:44, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Raul; I'm finished on the Eakins for now. Feel free to have a look and ask questions or make suggestions. Cheers and Happy New Year, JNW (talk) 05:51, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

		Happy New Year!
		Hey there, Raul654! Happy new Gregorian year. All the best for the new year, both towards you and your family and friends too. I know that I am the only person lonely enough to be running this thing as the new year is ushered in, but meh, what are you going to do. I like to keep my templated messages in a satisfactorily melancholy tone. ;) Congratulations to Coren, Wizardman, Vassyana, Carcharoth, Jayvdb, Casliber, Risker, Roger Davies, Cool Hand Luke and Rlevse, who were all appointed to the Arbitration Committee after the ArbCom elections. I am sure I am but a voice of many when I say I trust the aforementioned users to improve the committee, each in their own way, as listed within their respective election statements. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to update the 2009 article, heh. Best wishes, neuro(talk) 00:57, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Raul, I've been creating an alternative main page for my own use (and maybe everyone's if it goes through WP:MPRP), and I've come across a problem. In each TFA template, there is an ending div tag after the paragraph; is there a reason for this? There was never an opening div tag, so why does it need a closing one? I've gone back to look, and the end div appears as far back as I can tell in every day, so maybe there's something wrong with whatever you're using to make all the templates. User:Dudemanfellabra/Sandbox2 uses divs/CSS to display all the main page content, and this ending div breaks my page (It's easily fixed by adding an open div tag just before TFA, but others may not be able to figure this out). If there's a reason for it, could you please explain.. or if not, could you please remove it and make sure it's not added to future ones? Thanks a lot! --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 17:53, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

It may have started Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 17, 2006. Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 16, 2006 doesn't have it (in fact, there's an edit removing it), and it didn't appear in spot-checks earlier than that. I can, if necessary, write a script to regularize these blurbs. Which reminds me; the first TFA page was Wikipedia:Today's featured article/February 22, 2004. Planning anything for 5 years of TFA? Gimmetrow 18:00, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't know HTML, so it's entirely possible a stray tag slipped in. If you could fix them with a bot, that would be great.

As for 5 years - wow. Time does go by fast. Until you mentioned it, no, I wasn't planning on anything, but I'm open to suggestions. Raul654 (talk) 18:21, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to be a bother, but I notice that you've added TFAs for the days up until January 7th... each of these also contains the unnecessary ending div. Do you use some type of program/bot to create the templates, or do you do it manually? The history of each template shows your user name and not a bot, so my guess is manually. If this is true, you don't need the "</div>" at the end of the descriptive text. I thought after it was brought up, the problem would be fixed, but it continues. The old TFA templates don't necessarily need to be fixed, but new ones hereafter shouldn't contain the div tag. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:50, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I do it by copying and pasting the previous day. Remove it from the last day I've schedule and I will propagate it from there. Raul654 (talk) 20:44, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Since the first TFA was Mozart, there is still Mozart family Grand Tour not used.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:49, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Might add a "Featured 5 years ago" link along with the "Recently featured" links. Gimmetrow 03:58, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Or get the DYK people to have " ... that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the first Today's Featured Article, five years ago today?" throughout the day.--Wehwalt (talk) 04:04, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to do a bunch of other things at the same time. On the list are;

• remove the trailing /div
• wrap any images with <div style="float:left;margin-right:0.9em"> and </div>
• replace Image: with File:
• add "more..." links where absent
• replace the trailer text with {{TFAfooter}}
• remove links to 4-digit numbers (years) and links to month/day combinations

Anything else? Gimmetrow 00:15, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

No, I don't think so. Raul654 (talk) 09:23, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

What do the "recently featured" links mean for the 2004 February 22, 23 and 24 entries? All those linked articles appear later in 2004. Gimmetrow 00:34, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

A bit of history - Mozart wasn't the first FA to appear on the main page, per se. It was the fourth or fifth. The FAs started appearing on the main page the previous day, and people were changing it every few hours. I decided that was crazy and imposed a rule that we would change it every 24 hours. Mozart was the first one to stay up for the full 24 hours. So basically - you can ignore the "recently featured" for those days - they were articles that went on the main page for a few hours, not the full day they should have been. Raul654 (talk) 01:32, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

On 3 January, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Barack the Magic Negro, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Hello,

I have been told by Guillom a OTRS admin to place a official request on the meta page before receiving access to the queue. I placed now a offical request on meta (See here).

I am hoping that you can place there a message that I can help with the language I speak. I hope that I can help real soon so your backlogs are soon gone :)

Bye, Abigor (talk) 18:18, 6 January 2009 (UTC) p.s I watch this page if you respond here :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abigor (talk • contribs) 18:19, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Raul,

We at WikiProject Oregon are preparing to send out an email to 90 Oregon legislators, inviting them to submit photos for use on their Wikipedia biographies. It occurs to me, at this late date, that this could trigger a lot of work for you and anyone who handles the back end.

Is this OK? Is there anything I can do to help, if you get flooded with requests? Here is our message, in draft form. -Pete (talk) 23:41, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Go ahead - it's a great idea. Right now the photo submissions queue is bursting at the seams, so I might be taking you up on that offer. Raul654 (talk) 00:01, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

PS - I've removed the first sentence from your draft. Raul654 (talk) 00:04, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the simplifying edit -- I like it! Hopefully we get some good photos. Please let me know what I can do to help manage the workload. -Pete (talk) 00:25, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Raul, sorry about removing the inline credit from the photo in the Jourdan Dunn article; I figured the photo provider may have required that credit as a condition, but I wasn't sure about the external linking. Did he also require that the image caption include a link to his site, or could that link be included only on the file page? I don't have a problem with crediting the provider in the caption, but I was just wondering about the link since my habit is to avoid inline ELs where I can. Thanks, Politizer ^talk/_contribs 01:34, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't do it unless it's specifically requested, and it's not something that most people ask for. Both Ed Kavishe (professional photographer who sends us photos of people in the modeling industry) and Jim Summaria (professional photographer, sends us pics of musicians) have asked for in-line photo credit along with links to their websites. The send us *lots* of high quality pictures. If you see pics from them, don't remove the in-line citation. Raul654 (talk) 02:04, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, that sounds fine. Sorry about last time; now that I know, it won't happen again. :) Politizer ^talk/_contribs 02:30, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Hello Raul654, I've posted a question for you in the talk page. Sherif9282 (talk) 20:17, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Replied there. Raul654 (talk) 07:37, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Hnkelley (talk · contribs) requests a modification of a rangeblock by you. Best,  Sandstein  22:34, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

He emailed me a few days ago, and I've been so backlogged with other things that I haven't gotten back to him. I'll get back to him tonight or tomorrow morning. Raul654 (talk) 02:46, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Hey, you have disabled my IP address from editing? It says Range used by TileJoin but I haven't a clue what a TileJoin is. I can't find it in the rules and stuff. Can you elaborate? Urbanknowhow (talk) 22:57, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

User:Tile join is a prolific sockpuppeteer. He registers many user accounts and later uses them to disrupt Wikipedia. IP addresses and ranges he has used are, as a matter of course, blocked in such a way as to prevent them from registering now accounts. However, these blocks do allow existing accounts to edit Wikipedia. Thus, people who already have accounts (such as yourself) are not affected as long as you log in. Raul654 (talk) 08:32, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

...I'm ready to start back on cleanup detail.  :) I've done a number of original articles on this new account including a few DYK articles and cleaned up some of my old ones, so it hasn't been purely "whack-a-vandal." I have a few ideas for new content once some of my other writing and production duties in real life subside a bit. I have two articles in mind for bringing to feature status to boot and one is pretty darn close. As far as keeping things tidy, heaven knows it's us against them and I want to be an "us" once more. Thanks again. You've been here for me since day one (you left my first welcome message) and I appreciate your guidance and friendship more than I can express. --PMDrive1061 (talk) 04:22, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Done - you have your admin bit back. Raul654 (talk) 04:38, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! It's an honor to be back and you have my word on this very public forum that I'll live up to the responsibility. Owe you yet again. --PMDrive1061 (talk) 06:10, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Raul, just to make sure you know, Radiohead is at FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:18, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

No, I had not seen that. Thanks for the heads-up. Raul654 (talk) 06:26, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Hello Raul654. GoRight (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), whom you have blocked, is requesting to be unblocked. The request for unblock is on hold while waiting for a comment from you. Regards,  Sandstein  23:02, 9 January 2009 (UTC) Comment: The arguments made in the unblock request appear prima facie persuasive to me. I am also concerned that the recent history of The Deniers (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) could lead an observer to the conclusion that you blocked this account so as to gain an advantage in a content dispute. Your comments on this matter or a lifting of the block would be much appreciated. Thanks,  Sandstein  23:02, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I didn't block him over his recent edits to the Deniers, per se. I blocked him because those edits were the latest in a string of extremely disruptive behavior on GoRight's part. Since the RFC and community sanctions were imposed on him last August, I've been keeping track of his disruption here. In short - he contributes nothing of value, while wasting the time of others. (Just look at his talk page, on the two threads prior to the block -- the one here wherein he is warned against using talk pages as soap boxes and for making personal attacks, during which he reverted warred to keep his disruptive comments in the article); and my warning to him that further disruption from him on global warming articles would no longer be tolerated). Raul654 (talk) 23:11, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your swift reply. It seems that this is a rather complicated issue, and I am loath to make a hasty judgment here. Still, I am not convinced that this block was appropriate under these circumstances, if only because you and he do also seem to disagree in matters of content. I'll leave his unblock request open for now in the hope that another administrator more acquainted with this situation will review it.  Sandstein  23:24, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

If you want to take over the block (that is, unblock and reblock), that is fine with me. Raul654 (talk) 23:26, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather not, because, to be frank, I can't really see blockable disruption in his most recent edits.  Sandstein  23:30, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

All of his edits since coming back on January 2 fall into one of three categories:

• Using Talk:Global warming as a soap box to make personal attacks and then revert warring to when they are reverted (or wikilawyering on his talk page to justify his behavior by claiming that his personal attacks weren't directed at other Wikipedia users, just "AGW scientologists" in general)
• Revert warring to rewrite his history here
• Removing sourced, highly relevant information from global warming articles

A better question to ask would be - has he made even a single productive edit since coming back on Jan 2, or is he here solely to disrupt Wikipedia? Raul654 (talk) 23:41, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I have reviewed the request for unblock and decided to accept it. — Aitias // discussion 02:41, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I am cleaning out Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images/2008 December 25 and saw your comment at the listing of a few images, like File:Ali-Moeen-Writer4.jpg. What is the current status on these, is there a chance of a clear permission through OTRS? Garion96 (talk) 01:53, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

We got a response, and it looks like it's good, but I haven't yet checked to make sure everything is in order. (I haven't dealt with that one because the queue is very backlogged) Raul654 (talk) 02:06, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your help and support. As mentioned before, I understand why you blocked it. Reagan and Helms (talk) 04:55, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Do you really believe this page to be productive to the encyclopedia? Per Wikipedia:Attack page, "keeping a 'list of enemies' or 'list of everything bad that some user ever did' is not constructive or appropriate. Bear in mind that the key to resolving a dispute is not to find and list all the dirt you can find on somebody." This is Wikipedia policy and you know better. I hope that you'll use common courtesy and delete or blank this page. Oren0 (talk) 09:45, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

The key to resolving this dispute is to resolve GoRight's misbehavior - namely his penchant for making personal attacks and harassing others, revert warring, making BLP violations, wikilawyering based on his own false claims of policy, etc. Notice that during the two months he wasn't here, the GW articles were relatively peaceful.

So, to answer your question -- if that page reduces GoRight's disruptive editing, then it's certainly helpful to the encyclopedia. And, in point of fact, it's not a list of everything bad he's ever done - it's way too short for that. It's a list of bad things he has done since the last community ban discussion, during which people said "oh, he can't really be that bad" and said he deserved another chance. (Also, during those discussions, GoRight claimed to have turned over a new leaf and said he would behave more civilly and adhere to a 1rr. This is now exposed on that page for the lie that it was.) In total, the last covers about his last ~150 edits, a tiny fraction of the total. It will also be evidence against him if this goes to another RFC, or before the arbitration committee.

If I should happen to see GoRight start to behave better, I'll delete it myself, but I'm not holding my breath. Raul654 (talk) 10:02, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

User:Raul654/GoRight, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Raul654/GoRight and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of User:Raul654/GoRight during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. DuncanHill (talk) 12:38, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Since you helped out with the Jim Summaria pictures, I thought you might be interested in working on the professional guide to contributing pictures to wikipedia page that I am trying to create. Remember (talk) 22:03, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I think you've over-thought that page. Essentially, when getting a photographer (or musician, or anyone) to contribute media Wikipedia, you need to address three issues:

• Why should I freely license my pictures (or music) so they can be used on Wikipedia? Answer: Because putting them on Wikipedia is great advertising. You will see the traffic to your website spike. (Especially if you offer them in-line attribution with a link to their website) [Photographers like hearing this!]
• What's the catch? You have to license them under a copyright license that allows use to copy and use them, for any purpose, including commercially. [Photographers do not like hearing this!]
• How do I contribute? Answer: MAKE THIS AS SIMPLE AND WELL-ADVERTISED AS POSSIBLE!!

There's not a whole lot you can do about #1 and #2, so #3 is where the efforts should go. From a UI design perspective, contributing to Wikipedia is a disaster (especially as it involves the junction of En Wikipedia versus Wikimedia Commons). It's basically impossible for an outsider to comprehend. My solution, the the photo submission system, was to throw manpower at the problem, and it works pretty well (The queue has been backlogged as of late, but this is one of those good problems - it's a sign the system is becoming popular)

Anyway, so I think you need to redesign your page, from the bottom up, to be simpler, and more focused on what is and is not important to potential contributors (photographers, musicians, etc). Things like COI, or "Should I upload to Wikipedia or Commons" needlessly complicate what should be a very simple description, and are going to confuse and off-put anyone who wants to contribute. Raul654 (talk) 01:13, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Also, it might be worth getting testimonials from professionals who have already contributed. I myself have talked four into contributing: Jim Summaria (photographer, mostly photographs musicians), Ed Kavishe (photographer, photographs models mostly), John Harrison (music professor/violin player, I talked him into sending us some violin pieces of his) and Aaron Dunn (webmaster/primary contributor to Musopen) Raul654 (talk) 01:19, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with all of your suggestions. Feel free to make any helpful changes yourself, otherwise I will do so (when I can find the time). Remember (talk) 13:18, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Have you seen the changes I've made? Check them out when you get a chance and let me know what you think. Remember (talk) 01:51, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your revisions. Remember (talk) 16:31, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Page has now been moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Photography/Guide for Professionals. Thanks again for your help and feel free to revise it further to make it better. Remember (talk) 13:22, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Raul, I've started a draft at Wikipedia:FCDW/AprilFools, with the aim of end of January/beginning of February publication in the Signpost. Do we need to say something about the kinds of things that went wrong last year, that people got blocked for? Is it necessary to discourage some of that? If so, I'm not sure where to find that information. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:34, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Raul, I'm aiming for February 7 for Wikipedia:FCDW/AprilFools, in case you want to review it first ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:45, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

New York City Meetup Next: Sunday January 18th, Columbia University area Last: 11/01/2008 This box: view • talk •

In the afternoon, we will hold a session dedicated to meta:Wikimedia New York City activities, look at our approval by the Chapters Committee, develop ideas for chapter projects at museums and libraries throughout our region, and hold salon-style group discussions on Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects (see the November meeting's minutes and the December mini-meetup's minutes).

We'll make preparations for our exciting museum photography Wikipedia Loves Art! February bonanza (on Flickr, on Facebook) with Shelley from the Brooklyn Museum and Alex from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

We'll also be collecting folks to join our little Wikipedia Takes the Subway adventure which will be held the day after the meeting.

In the evening, we'll share dinner and chat at a local restaurant, and generally enjoy ourselves and kick back.

You can add or remove your name from the New York City Meetups invite list at Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Invite list.

To keep up-to-date on local events, you can also join our mailing list.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 02:43, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Raul, please be aware of the discussion at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests#January 22 regarding the date (not sure how that would be handled best). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:00, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I think a good case could be made for either day. I'm not yet sure which one I'll schedule it for. Raul654 (talk) 19:10, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Raul. First, thanks for selecting AKA to be featured on the mainpage on Thursday. I was just wondering if you were going to select a free image for that date, since many are available on Wikimedia Commons. Thanks. miranda 03:43, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Done. Raul654 (talk) 19:07, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! miranda 03:50, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Can you please check Realson - i'm rather certain that we'll have a match. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 05:42, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

You are correct. Raul654 (talk) 05:49, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm wondering about User:Trent370, on the basis of this edit: [12] Johnfos (talk) 05:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that was him. Raul654 (talk) 06:03, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Samurai [[13]]

Out of curiosity, did you consider using the article's only free image? Giggy (talk) 02:22, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I did consider that. The problem is, if you don't know already know who he is (and most of our readers don't) then it's not clear who he is, or what his relationships to 4chan is. Raul654 (talk) 02:28, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't say no to a lolcat but I suppose that has the same issues as moot. Giggy (talk) 02:30, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

The blurb specifically mentions lolcats and links to the term, and I think the phenomenon itself is much more well known that moot himself is. Raul654 (talk) 02:34, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I might forget but October 10 is World Mental Health Day, so might be a good one to have major depressive disorder mainpaged...or something else if I get another one up to scratch. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:40, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Raul: responding here rather than at the swimming hole because I'm going off-topic slightly. Okay re: rationale for the title. As for Agnew, I'm sure to have quite a bit on him, just from all the Eakins books I own. I'd also like to start the article on Amelia Van Buren, one of my favorite American portraits (I've written a column on another of his portraits, to be published in the spring). Don't know how involved I will be, since the new semester starts next week, and I've got syllabuses to copy and lessons to plan, articles to write....oh, who am I kidding, I always end up here... JNW (talk) 04:18, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Can you please provide an update to this PUI? It would be ideal if you could also include a ticket# so that other OTRS agents can follow it up in your absence. Stifle (talk) 11:56, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

The major ticket is 2009010310003991. It took me a while to find it again because Howcheng closed it. He uploaded the picture as file:Ali Moeen.jpg, which is a duplicate of the above file.

Also related is 2009010610017042 Raul654 (talk) 20:02, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Hello! Your submission of The Agnew Clinic at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Mgm

It's a real shame there is a problem. Please expand so this wonderful painting meets the guidelines. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:59, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I've added more than that just now. Johnbod (talk) 15:28, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Raul, one of the TileJoin rangeblocks has snared a seemingly long-term editor, User:Jatkins. It seems to be caught in three rangeblocks. Perhaps, IP exempt? Thanks and regards, Woody (talk) 18:18, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm unblocked now - thanks guys. --Josh Atkins ^{(talk - contribs)} 12:07, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Hello Raul654,

A discussion is ongoing here. Awaiting your reply. Sherif9282 (talk) 18:51, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand why this was archived. The first oppose was from a reviewer where I addressed the majority of his concerns. The second oppose was from Awadewit, who was asking for somebody else to take a look at the situation. --Rschen7754 (T C) 19:27, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

He is requesting exemption from your rangeblock of Waffles in Box. They do not appear to be related. Would you be OK with letting him through? Daniel Case (talk) 21:54, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Him and RagnarokiÇ both seem to have been caught up in the block. From the checkuser, I cannot definitively state they are not Wafflesonbox, but if you want to go ahead and give them an exemption, that's fine. Raul654 (talk) 22:01, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I have made quite a few changes to The Agnew Clinic. Victuallers (talk) 12:17, 18 January 2009 (UTC) ?? Victuallers (talk) 15:58, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm surprised you have deleted the work I did yesterday without explanation. I guess you could see this as being bold. However as the Agnew Clinic notes that is was possible to identify everyone in the picture and art historians record who they are then why is it important that these are not mentioned? Is your objection to me editting your article? I'm happy to roll the article back to how it was if you feel that is better. I am having difficulty assuming good faith... please help. Victuallers (talk) 16:29, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Among other problems, the caption is grammatically incorrect ("A The Agnew Clinic by Thomas Eakins"; the template has two instances of self-referential writing ("Click button to enlarge or use cursor to investigate" & "use a cursor to investigate.") which should be avoided; it contains a ton of links to non-existant local page sections ("#Victuallers"). My edit fixed the bad links, and put them into an HTML comment if and when someone should happen to create articles for them. Until then, we DO NOT create image-map links to non-existant articles. (Image map links are not the same thing as red links). Please take another look and fix all the damage you've done with your recent revert. Raul654 (talk) 01:18, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I see that Yomangan has fixed the same problems I fixed. Raul654 (talk) 17:03, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Raul, just coming over to ask you to run a check concerning the last case we just dealt with, because, right after you made an annotation to Ibaranoff's page, a new account was registered, and it immediately goes to argue in Ibaranoff's style on the talk page of one of the articles he was editing. I shall list the accounts below:

• Ibaranoff24 (talk ·  · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Hedpefan59997 (talk ·  · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

Thankyou for your time.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 04:11, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Already taken care of. Raul654 (talk) 04:12, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Please note that the sockmaster was edit warring over the article Mudvayne and Hed PE. I suggest you put both on your watchlist.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 04:17, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I noticed you undone the protection of another admin. Are you considering unblocking him after all the disruption he has caused i.e. sock puppetry, block evasion, dozens upon dozens of personal attacks, e-mail abuse, etc.? Can I ask you to at least involve the community and the blocking admin in this decision? The most worrisome part is the user denies all of this, even violating 3RR when the page history is viewable by anyone. I just saw you unprotected his talk page, it was protected after 10 abuses of the unblock template, and a tirade of personal attacks. Before undoing the rest of their actions will you please discuss first? Have a good day. Landon1980 (talk) 06:54, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

So you are saying you would unblock him without involving the community and the other 10 or so involved admins? Not suggesting anything just asking. Part of me thinks you must not be aware of the extent of the disruption he has caused, and have not seen how he still denies everything down to edit warring. All the "I'm right and everyone else is wrong's" are getting old. I can't imagine not letting the community take part in this decision. His fate should rest with the community, if he does admit to his wrongdoing that is. Landon1980 (talk) 07:15, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

In regards to his talk page being protected and his inability to reply. This was explained to him countless times by countless admins, yet he insisted on abusing the unblock template, would not admit to any wrongdoing, and continued the sock puppetry and block evasion. He left them no choice other than to protect his talk page. I'm sorry if I'm coming off as hostile, and I'm not intentionally. I just think it is a common courtesy to involve other admins when undoing their actions. Landon1980 (talk) 07:22, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Landon1980, while I understand and agree with what (I think) you're getting at, as the blocking admin (but not the one who locked the page), let me say I'm ok with Raul unprotecting Ibaranoff24's talk page to chat with him, there is zero risk to the project in this, his ability to edit that page can easily be taken away again if need be. Ibaranoff24 has been with Wikipedia for a long time and speaking for myself, I was utterly startled by the sockpuppetry and unwillingness to acknowledge all those layers of untowards behaviour. Raul has more than enough experience with this kind of thing and if he can find a way to ease Ibaranoff24 back into helpful editing, I'm all for it. Backsliding can always be dealt with through swift reblocking. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:11, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Based on his answers to questions on his page [14], it doesn't seem that Iba is ready to let go yet. He still doesn't acknowledge any wrong doing, and is still ready to argue his original ban was wrong. I asked him if he would consent to a topic ban or at least say he wouldn't try and reinstate his edits on the pages that resulted in his block, and his answer wasn't very encouraging [15]. I can certainly appreciate what you're doing in offering him another chance and I agree he was once a very good contributor, but something has changed. I'd have to suggest that he spend at least a little while away from wikipedia to understand what happened, and then possibly work under a topic ban for a while when/if he returns. Thanks! Dayewalker (talk) 21:05, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Note that he also still denies the sock puppetry. Landon1980 (talk) 23:32, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

He still denies everything, pretty much. I'm staying off there, I asked my questions and got awful answers, so there's nothing more to be gained on his talk page. I'd advise the same for all parties involved, if you have comments on Raul's unblock suggestion, probably this would be the best place for them. Dayewalker (talk) 23:37, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't consider letting him off the hook, even if he does say that he won't edit the article, until he admits to the sock puppetry.— Dædαlus ^Contribs 23:50, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

In regards to him denying the sock puppetry. It looks like you are not the only checkuser to have confirmed this. Landon1980 (talk) 01:07, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the averaging explanation - I just can't stand it when people get their undies in a big ideological bundle without actually bothering to look at the data and the facts. Awickert (talk) 09:23, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Hello Raul. See User talk:66.215.121.156. This rangeblock is involved. I edited his RfU so it's now in your jurisdiction as the blocking admin. Since it is an anonblock, all he needs is to have an account created, but you probably want to verify that he's not Scibaby. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 00:37, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure, Raul; in about eight hours is possible. Cheers. Tony (talk) 01:41, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Excellent! Thank you very much. Raul654 (talk) 01:48, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

... needs to be disambiguated to Hurricane Dog (1950). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:00, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Done.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:04, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Did you get the previous day links as well? (Thanks!) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:09, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

No, but Gimmetrow did.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:14, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

"Skinny dipping" has apparently only been around since the 1950s and it sounded a bit out of place in the article. I've swapped bathing to swimming. Bathing doesn't sound strange to me, but maybe that's a British/American thing and the article needs to be in American English in tone as well as spelling. Yomangani^talk 17:28, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Raul. User:Manhattan Samurai has violated the probation three more times since your final warning. I have restored the block. Regards SilkTork *^YES! 21:52, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I concur - the rules for the probation were simple, and he was warned, but he simply won't abide by them. Raul654 (talk) 21:54, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Raul, There is a discussion going on here, WT:TFA/R#Mac for TFA on Jan 24 you might want to chime in on. I'm pretty sure I know the answer, nice idea, but too late to do anything about it. Still, making you aware. Dave (talk) 22:52, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Raul, the main page bolding bot busted twice this week: will you please review User talk:SandyGeorgia#Today's FA? I'm not sure what to tell Schutz, as I'm not sure where the template comes from. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:35, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Raul. Sorry to bother you, but I was hoping you could help me out with something. I don't really know much about checkuser so I was wondering if I could run something by you. We have a had a bad problem with the user above, as you can see by his confirmed and suspected sock puppets. He was originally banned several months ago but keeps coming back. He is getting better about concealing his identity. I am nearly certain User:Gladiator Knight 16 is his latest sock puppet. He always creates single purpose accounts to edit/disrupt The Used and their related sub-pages. There are several similarities between this user and User:USEDfan e.g. three word username, sourcing content with the same unreliable website, editing the exact same section as his last blocked sock puppet, putting update/grammar, etc. in the edit summary. I can provide a little more evidence if more is needed. The article has been semi-protected more than once to prevent him from socking, and as you can see his latest sock made a series of meaningless edits just to get autoconfirmed. This account was also created only a few days after his last sock was blocked. I have a hunch he has a couple sleepers in his sock drawer (as he usually does). He also uses sock puppet's to edit articles related to the Ratchet & Clank (series). I completely understand if you don't have time to deal with this. I can file an SPI report if you would rather me do that. They are always such a long and drawn out process though, and I'd like to have this taken care of before he starts being really disruptive again. Thanks and have a good night. By the way his last sock was User:Gold digger gold. Landon1980 (talk) 04:59, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi again, I'm not trying to rush you on this or anything. I just wanted to tell you if you would rather me add this account to one of USEDfan's SPI reports I can. Just let me know if you don't have the time. Cheers. Landon1980 (talk) 01:49, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I've drained the swamp for you. Raul654 (talk) 01:56, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Wow, you sure did haha. I really appreciate that. Landon1980 (talk) 02:00, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

There has been a dispute about the recent FARC votes to keep Chrono Trigger at the WikiProject Video Games talk page, specifically some questions about the reliability about some issues about one of the sources much of the site relies upon.じんない 06:02, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

On January 25, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article The Agnew Clinic, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Dravecky (talk) 05:50, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

would you please take a look at the hot bulb engine article and discussion.
Wdl1961 (talk) 15:04, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

About CC. Thanks for keeping us informed.

R.I.P.

— BQZip01 — ^talk 06:18, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Done. I enjoyed reading it. Tony (talk) 14:43, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

You have mail. Hipocrite (talk) 15:09, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I've passed along your thoughts to the appropriate people. Raul654 (talk) 16:46, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I see you get (at least some) results. I'll leave the rest in more informed hands. Please contact me if any more info is needed, though I doubt I know anything special at this point. Hipocrite (talk) 18:00, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Please see me on IRC, as soon as is possible (might be urgent, might not be, I don't know). If you don't see me, please drop me an email through emailuser. Cheers, — neuro^(talk) 01:27, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Taken care of in IRC. Raul654 (talk) 16:46, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I am having issues wording this so that it is concise and relevant to the reader. I am wary of being accused of self promotion by fellow editors as well. I will get a draft going in userspace first so you and others can comment before it appears on the live project. Mfield (talk) 20:49, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

You currently have a block of "72.62.0.0/16" to expire in mid-July due to suspected sockpuppetry by User:Scibaby. While I completely understand your motivations, to block an entire class-B network over a single user is far too broad. You've essentially blocked every anon Sprint PCS customer on the west coast of the United States over a single user, including me from editting anonymously.

I strongly urge you to tighten the block to something more reasonable. Blocking a swath of 65,000 IP addresses over a single puppetmaster is detrimental to the greater community.

Thank you for your time. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 03:45, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

In looking over your archive, I've noticed that the issue of your overbroad blocks have been brought to your attention numerous times by many different editors. I'm going to urge you to take heed to this feedback you are getting. How many potential editors are you turning away by blocking tens of thousands of IP addresses just to avoid a single user? The nuke-em-all-so-I-don't-have-to-deal-with-Scibaby approach is not proper in my opinion. Please don't say that they can use the registration service. As someone who worked the Help Desk for a long time, I can tell you that new users should not have to jump through hoops to be a part of the community. The vast majority simply won't bother and won't contribute at all which -- again -- is detrimental to Wikipedia. In other words, I'm saying that overbroad blocks do just as much harm to Wikipedia as a puppetmaster, if not more. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 04:04, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

No one disagrees that collateral damage is a bad thing. On the other hand, I am balancing the concerns of the dozens of other editors who use his ranges to edit wikipedia (a far cry from "tens of thousands"), versus the actual cost in wasted time and frustration to the regular editors who have to deal with the damage he does. The current solution, anon-only blocking his ranges and preventing account creation, is certainly a reasonable way to do that. If you have a better compromise, I'm all ears. But simply saying that we should let him continue vandalizing is not an acceptable solution. And, for that matter, I caught him tonight using another sprint PCS IP (70.0.185.83) to vandalize. So he hasn't gone away, and in fact unblocking that range would simply give him more resources with which to attack Wikipedia. Raul654 (talk) 05:13, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

For every person you have dealt with, how many HAVEN'T contacted you and simply went away? I believe it would be safe to say that only a very tiny fraction would bother to actually contact you. The fact that so many actually have contacted you indictates perhaps a few orders of magnitude more that didn't bother. How many constructive, good edits were prevented by blocking tens of thousands of IPs? Vandalism can be reverted. A prevented good edit is lost forever.

By your logic, you should just ban at the class-A level (/8) and be done with the situation. Afterall, there are only about 250 class A networks. Just a handful of blocks and you've rid yourself of Scibaby forever. Obviously this would be absurd, but frankly so is /16. You've blocked a LOT of innocent users and haven't, by your own admission, managed to block Scibaby! The scorched earth campaign you are on isn't working, but it IS costing. While I don't have a better alternative at this very moment, pursuing a failing strategy at the cost of good edits and editors should stop. If you ABSOLUTELY have to do a range block, please restrict your blocks to the /24 or /32 level. You'll probably be just as (non)effective at stopping Scibaby, but at least you'll reduce the collateral damage to something managable. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 06:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Your characterization of them as scorched earth blocks is patently false. As you yourself have already noted, you are editing from a blocked range. So obviously it *wasn't* a scorched earth approach, or you would not be editing. Anyone on one of Scibaby's ranges can request an account. If they choose not to avail themselves of that option, that cannot be helped.

As for the efficacy, just because something is less than 100% effective does not mean it is ineffective. Scibaby has had to curtail his vandalism, and the number of accounts he registers. The amount of damage has been substantially, noticeably reduced. Without getting into specifics, the range blocks have played a large role in that. (I don't get into specifics because every time I have discussed them, he has immediately changed his behavior, making me strongly suspect he reads what I write about him). Whereas your suggestion, blocking individual IPs and /24s, is competely effective. I spent about 3-6 months limiting myself to those blocks, and it was a complete waste of time and totally ineffective. (And may have further encouraged him).

In short, the range blocks work. Anyone on those ranges who wants to edit will have to go through the extra step of getting an account through ACC, but that's an acceptable tradeoff versus letting Scibaby vandalize using hundreds/thousands of accounts. Raul654 (talk) 02:30, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I patently disagree with everything you just said as it simply does not reflect reality. They don't work. New users won't go to ACC, and will just go away. Anyone with any experience in user-centered design knows that users will not jump through hoops, especially after seeing a message that tells them that they are essentially unwelcome (and yes, that's how the blocked message is interpretted by many). There isn't even a very visible link to ACC anywhere in the blocked notice. It is actually hidden from view unless the user goes out of his or her way to find it! No one is going to bother with that unless they are very familiar with Wikipedia already. Why would any new user actually go through the hassle that you are foisting upon him? Why should they bother?

By your reasoning, we should just block all anons because any anon could just go to ACC. However, that line of thinking has been rejected by the community again, and again, and again. Wikipedia would not be what it is without the anon editors that you are blocking wholesale just to rid yourself of a single vandal. I believe you are failing to look at the big picture and forgetting what Wikipedia is all about in your blind obsession with this one vandal. However, I can also see that my attempts to show you that blocking hundreds of thousands of IPs (now that I know that you've blocked several /16's at 65,000 a pop over this Scibaby person) is more harmful to Wikipedia than a single vandal is falling upon completely deaf ears. In my opinion, frankly, what you are doing is much, much worse than any vandal. You are deliberately alienating many potential new editors who could bring untold value to this encyclopedia... and for what? To rid yourself of a single immature kid? Bad tradeoff.

Since I can see that attempting change your mind is absolutely futile, I will not persue this any further. However, I will close with this: If Scibaby wanted to do long-term damage to Wikipedia, through you he has definately succeeded. -- ShinmaWa^(talk) 19:20, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Raul, Ursula Franklin could go in Chemistry, Physics, Philosophy or Culture and society. The nominator says her main contributions are philosophical, but suggests Culture and society; I'm unsure how you prefer to categorize articles like this one? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:21, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Culture and society or philosophy and psychology. Raul654 (talk) 15:55, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Note: For transparency this message was also left on the talk page of SandyGeorgia (talk · contribs)

In the interest of time, I am asking for special permission to file the FAC for USS Connecticut (BB-18) immediately on IAR grounds. I believe this will be the best method of allowing the article to reach FA status because it will provide editors at FAC the usual three to four week window to review the article, and unlike other articles there are three people who intend to through there all into the article to address all applicable points of objection during the FAC. Since I am aware of the ever increasing standards at FAC, I wanted to get your permission before giving anyone involved in this effort the green light to file. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:15, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead. Raul654 (talk) 15:53, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Raul. I saw your Feb schedule setting Cranmer for the 13th. I would like to monitor the article when it goes live and unfortunately I will be on vacation during that week (no internet access). Is it possible to switch the date to the following week, say the 16th? Thanks for your help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RelHistBuff (talk • contribs)

I've made the switch. Raul654 (talk) 17:43, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Raul. --RelHistBuff (talk) 11:13, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

On behalf of the Shakespeare WikiProject, I was wondering if this could replace the currently-scheduled TFA for Feb 14, Valentine's day. The connection is more than obvious, and much more appropriate than the graphic novel that is currently scheduled, in my opinion. Thanks. Wrad (talk) 18:45, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd point out that at least two editors at TFA/R supported 300 because it was a contrast to the sickly sweetness of Valentine's Day. The holdiay will, I believe, also recur in 2010. On (checks calendar) February 14, what a coincidence;-) --Wehwalt (talk) 18:49, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

No problem. I should have been better at requesting this at TFA/R, but I was a bit slow and Raul was pretty fast at scheduling this time around. I've asked the Shakespeare project to comment here, but maybe we should move it to the TFA/R talk page? Wrad (talk) 19:03, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

That's fine.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:06, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Discussion ongoing at [16] Wrad (talk) 20:46, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Raul, I have plans to travel between Feb 5 and (possibly) 16 Feb 14. I am not sure what internet access I will have: perhaps none. I can pr/ar on the 4th before I go, and perhaps on Tuesday, Feb 10, but I know I won't be able to promote on Saturday, Feb 7 or Saturday Feb 14. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:54, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll be visiting my fiance from Feb 10 - Feb 15. I can archive it before I leave, and again after I return. Raul654 (talk) 20:23, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll let Gimme know we'll be on a strange schedule. Have a nice trip! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:26, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

New York City Meetup—Museum Extravanganza Next: February 6-7, at the Met Museum and the Brooklyn Museum Last: 01//2008 This box: view • talk •

		The WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves
		By order of the coordinators of the Military history WikiProject, you are hereby awarded the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves in recognition of your contributions to six current Military History Featured Articles, your flexibility in managing the "Today's featured article" list to accommodate relevant main-page appearances, and your generosity in providing many images for our visual library. For the coordinators, EyeSerenetalk 18:59, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

	<font=3> Thanks again for your OTRS help - as you know, Plunketts Creek Bridge No. 3 made featured article today! Ruhrfisch ><>°° 04:33, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

This has been an automated because you your name was on the invite list. BrownBot (talk) 16:38, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

== File:Mathias Rust.jpg missing description details ==

On March 3, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article The Concert Singer, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.