User talk:Neutrality/Archive 16

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[edit] Request for advocate

Hello, Neutrality. I'll initiate your fresh page. I'd like to request your help with jguk. I don't believe he is editing the Wikipedia:Manual of Style in accord with consensus on the talk page. Thank you. Maurreen 02:30, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm not sure what is the best course to pursue. I've only been on Wikipedia a few months. I guess my question is whether this is appropriate for mediation or whether you have any other suggestions.

I am much less concerned with individual matters of style than I am about jguk's behavior.

Since October 17, he has been trying to push through various style guide changes (two in particular that he sees as favoring U.S. usage). I reverted him the first time, because they are substantive matters that I believe should be discussed first. He initially pled ignorance, that he didn't believe his material would be controversial.

Very soon after, another user added to the style guide a notice that significant changes should be discussed first or they would be removed. No one has objected to the "talk first" policy, and Jguk has used it to revert someone else. But Jguk rarely brings up his issues for discussion first.

He has tried to slip in substantive changes under the guise of a trim.

He held a poll about serial commas and using periods to abbreviate "United States." The poll was preceeded by no discussion. It was biased in that he gave prominence to his rationale for his proposals, but any rationale against was buried in users' votes and comments.He failed to gain even a majority, but he is still pushing the same issues.

He preaches "neutrality" in language (that is, favoring neither American nor British usage), but some of his actions speak otherwise. I asked him to specifically discuss the "neutral language" issue, given that he often cites it has his basis for action. He would not hold that discussion.

I estimate that the current Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style page has at least 60 kb devoted to his changes. His changes do not gain consensus, but he changes anything in the style guide he disagrees with.

People have suggested a few compromises, but he yields little. I asked about a few specific points whether anyone but Jguk objected. No one did. I made those changes, and he changed it again. He takes out references. It is almost as if he is holding the style guide hostage.

He has an unwarranted nationalistic perspective about the style guide.

I hope this is a good summary. I tried to be concise. The style matters themselves are not of great import. But his obstinancy is.

I have tried to gain wider input, via RfC, for instance. Like I said, I am unsure what is the best course to pursue. I would like to see his behavior restrained at least in some way. Thank you.

Oh, and by the way, the anagram is funny. Maurreen 04:47, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

P.S. The current RfC is about the style guide itself. I'm interested in your advice, if I pursue formal dispute resolution, whether I should keep it about the style guide itself or about jguk's behavior. The latter is my greater concern, but I'm not sure whether the behavior is bad enough for a Wikipedia case. Maurreen 04:52, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I can make such a timeline. Do you advise skipping mediation? Maurreen 05:03, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have begun preparing a timeline. In the meanwhile, jguk has suggested he and I suspend our editing of the style guide and discuss our general differences. I am willing to give that a try. Thanks. :) Maurreen 20:55, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Immigration to the United Kingdom

You voted for Immigration to the United Kingdom, this week's UK Collaboration of the week. Please come and help it become a featured-standard article. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 19:05, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] WP:RfD

those rules are really guidelines.

AFAIK, they're as 'ruly' as any other Wikipedia policy. Anyway, I keep to them pretty strictly as a kind of "safe harbour" thing - as long as I'm within those lines, nobody can kvetch at me too hard. Noel (talk) 00:20, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Aargh! My eyes!!! It burnssssss ussss.....

I see from Wikipedia:Cleanup that your eyes are being burned by Childhood autism. If your injured eyes will allow it, please swing by Inclusive classroom and Geography and early childhood education. Do all these articles seem similar to you? ("Geography" and "autism" are contribs of the same author.) My suspicion is that a college class has assigned students to prepare articles for us again. Warning for your eyes: The geography article employs colored fonts. Joyous 01:53, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Hiba

Hi Neutrality - yes; I've added the tag now. It was one of my earlier pics I uploaded before I knew about gfdl tagging. Trouble is, I never kept a log of pics I've uploaded, and can't remember where they all are - if you find any more of mine that I've not tagged, let me know and I'll tag them - MPF 11:18, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Commons

Hi. Just voted "Support" for your adminship on the commons. Since your number of edits there is low, I just wanted to check if the Commons:User:Neutrality is indeed you. Theoretical it is possible for a troll to impersonate another well known user on the commons to gain admin rights that way. Let me know if you're you or not :) -- Chris 73 Talk 23:51, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. Glad that you're still yourself :) Chris 73 Talk 23:56, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Interstate highway signs

Do you have a bot doing this? Or are you re-tagging all those by hand? – Quadell (talk) (help)[[]] 02:19, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Hillary Clinton article

Talk:HIllary Rodham Clinton points to Hillary with a capital I (eye). The article name is correct with a lower-case i. I was wondering if your magical admin powers extend to fixing such things. I suppose it involves some page moving or some such. Thanks. Wolfman 04:09, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Hiba II / pics

Hi Neutrality - am I right in guessing you are (slowly?) moving (all?) pics from Wikipedia storage to Wikimedia Commons storage? - could I ask when doing so with plant pics, to make sure there is a [[Category:(the relevant family)]] added to the page they're stored in? That way they show up in the subcategories on the [[Category:Plantae by family]] page at Wikimedia. I've added [[Category:Cupressaceae]] to the Thujopsis dolabrata page there, but don't know what others you've been doing. Thanks - MPF 18:06, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] You crack me up :-)

I love the all administrators bit! - Ta bu shi da yu 07:18, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Very! - Ta bu shi da yu 22:43, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] CheeseDreams

I unblocked her. I don't believe recreating and repopulating previously deleted categories can fit into any of the existing justifications for blocking, but I'm willing to change my mind if you have an explanation. —No-One Jones 21:48, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I've never liked the disruption section of the blocking policy—it always seemed too broad—but I can see how it would cover CheeseDreams' behavior. I would have preferred to deal with it through other means, such as deletion of the category, rollback of the categorizations, and a pointer to votes for undeletion, but I suppose if that failed then a block would be justified. —No-One Jones 18:57, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Pd-self Template

Hi! No problem, over the coming months I'll go back over my pics and change them all to the new PD-self template you requested. I never did like the wording of the old one. Best Wishes, Adrian - Adrian Pingstone 12:32, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hi again. Grendelkhan has started changing my recent pics to
Public domain This image has been (or is hereby) released into the public domain by its creator, Arpingstone. This applies worldwide.

In case this is not legally possible,

the creator grants anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.
Subject to disclaimers.

which I approve of and prefer slightly to

Public domain I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. This applies worldwide.

In case this is not legally possible,

I grant any entity the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.

. Is this OK with you or has he invented a non-approved template? Thanks - Adrian Pingstone 15:25, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Collaboration of the week

The Article Collaboration and Improvement Drive has officially closed. Congratulations, the candidate you voted for, Underground Railroad, is this week's Collaboration of the Week. Please help edit the article to bring it up to feature standard.

[edit] Question About Image Taging

I originally copied Image:BICity.jpg from the City of Bird Island website. I did not get approval for this and do not know the copyright status. Therefore, the tag you applied is not actually true. Fernkes 00:57, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Puget Sound Energy

I believe I've addressed your concerns, and removed the cleanup tag. Please let me know if you think it needs further work. Thanks. Niteowlneils 21:34, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Image:WikiThanks.pngThanks for helping to fix up Battle of Inchon, its much better now. [[User:BrokenSegue|BrokenSegue]]

[edit] CheeseDreams and Historicity of Jesus

Firstly, thanks for kind comments on my user page. They were totally appreciated... I'm in a much better state now so I'll be reverting back. It's good to know that people are very kind on this site though :-) As I said to a newbie editor who posted to my user page (I think the words of support have confused a few people on where to post comments to :P) I've been so impressed by the kindness of most people on this site when they see someone feeling down. Or at least I'm impressed by people I think count (which includes you, hey).

(note that I'm sending this message to a few people as a general call for help) Anyway, back to the point (I've posted this to WP:AN): Can I please get advise on how to deal with the extensive changes that CheeseDreams is making on this article? She's running roughshod over everyone on an extremely controversial article. It's already been stuffed up due to this user's edits and had to be protected by RickK (in it's highly POV and badly structured form: at one point there were essentially TWO articles on the one page). Now CheeseDreams is making a massive change without using the talk page, and it adding sections that don't even have any content in it! I've reverted back and have requested that she bring her changes to the talk page. I would appreciate advise on how to procede with this, I don't particularly want to engage in an edit war with her. - Ta bu shi da yu 14:04, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Your welcome message

OK, I like your standard welcome message. I wanted to put it onto a new user's page, but I can't figure out how to edit it to use, for example, my username. I tried template:User:Neutrality/Welcome, but that didn't get me anywhere. Where on earth is the source for this, and could you be so kind as to make it available somewhere where we poor unsophisticated hacks can get at it from Wikipedia:Standard user greeting? Thanks. Elf | Talk 23:26, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks--but I'm missing something. All I see on the standard greeting page and on your user subpage are the same things I saw before, which is {{User:Neutrality/WelcomeMessage}} , which isn't what i'm looking for--I'm looking for the content to be able to put my own edited version there, for example with my username. What am I missing? Elf | Talk 00:48, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Christian Terrorism

Hello. I come to you now, as I've read through changes and comments you've made everywhere, and feel a great admiration for your, well, neutrality. So I'd like to ask you to look at the Christian terrorism article as it currently stands, and get a neutral opinion on it. I am most likely too biased to see it from a 100% neutral POV, and I'm too sceptical to trust the neutrality of most others. Also, I'm very new to this page, so my own views on what is acceptable ethics online may deviate slightly - if not radically - from most wikipedians. And I don't want to get on people's bad sides :) Respectfully, TVPR 08:15, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Government of Maryland

Per your suggestion, I added a section on the state constitution to the Government of Maryland article, which I nominated for featured article status. Please take a new look at it and see if this addresses your concern. Note that there have also been other changes (all improvements, I think) to the article. I appreciate your time, Jacob1207 16:12, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Latin language

Greetings. I see your move of Latin to Latin language got reverted. Are you interested in putting this up for discussion on Wikipedia:Requested moves? It seems the folks lurking on Talk:Latin have a very narrow view and are resistant to the idea of Latin having any other meaning, so input from the broader community might be helpful. —Tkinias 11:18, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Arbcom Elections

  • Good job for getting almost 1/3 of the vote. [[User:BrokenSegue|BrokenSegue]] 04:30, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Yes, congratulations! : ) --MPerel 05:01, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)
  • Congratulations, my friend. You kicked my ass. I trust you will be an exceptional arbitrator. [[User:Blankfaze|VOTE BLANKFAZE]] | (что??) 08:11, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Congratulations on your election to the AC -- I know you will do a fine job, and I look forward to the direction the AC is heading. If I can ever help in any way, please drop me a note. All my best, Jwrosenzweig 22:55, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Congratulations are in order! Theresa Knott (The snott rake) 00:14, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Congrats. Gamaliel 03:26, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Congratulations!—Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 16:56, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)
  • Yes indeed, congratulations! I know you'll do well. I have filed a Friend-of-the-ArbCom briefing for you to read at your leisure. – Quadell (talk) (help)[[]] 17:57, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)
  • I wanted to personally congratulate you, as one of two candidates I endorsed who won, on being elected member of the Arbitration Committee. Well done! El_C

[edit] Old image tag

I notice you changed the tag on Image:Prohibition.jpg from "PD-US" to "PD-old-70". The later tag gives the title "Author died more than 70 years ago public domain images". I wonder if that a correct change, as there is no listing of who the photographer is, much less his death date. If you have that info, I think it should be noted on the image page. If we don't have that info, I think the previous tag is the more appropriate one. Cheers, -- Infrogmation 18:21, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Not having heard anything, I've changed the tag back. I hope this is ok. -- Infrogmation 18:19, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I notice you've tagged the image under the PD-art tag, which seems to assert that the author has been dead for 100 years, which can't be true here, as 100 years ago (1904), Spessard Holland was 12, and he only become governor in 1941. Silverfish 13:12, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Salt Lake City Infobox

First of all, thanks for voting for me for an admin. Secondly, I'm curious what exactly you did to the SLC infobox to get it down to {{Salt Lake City infobox}}.Thats pretty damned cool...What do we do if we want to edit it?? --[[User:JonMoore|Jon, Conqueror of Men | (Talk!)]] 02:55, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitration Committee terms

Along with my congratulations on your election, I wanted to ask what length of term you choose. The higher vote-getters in front of you have made their selections; conveniently enough, they have left exactly one 1-year term, one 2-year term, and one 3-year term available, so you still have a full selection to choose from. What's your preference? --Michael Snow 19:30, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Adding PD-Vardion to Location maps moved to commons:

What is the point of adding license information to images which reside on commons: (I mean location maps made by Vardion)? I feel that better to keep all license information within image itself. Probably you should create PD-Vardion template on commons: and add it to images there. --EugeneZelenko 02:56, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Kmlj returns

As User:Klmj, blaming me for blocking him (!). The thanks I get... I'll leave it to you to decide how to proceed. :) -- ChrisO 09:03, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Barnstar!

You know, I just never seem to adequately express how much I appreciate your support. Thanks for the Barnstar!! One quick favor: The formatting isn't allowing the picture to come through and I'm not sure how you intended to make it happen (blush). Can you make it all pretty and nice? Again, thanks and best of the season to you. - Lucky 6.9 17:10, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • Ooh, pretty blue!! Thanks again! - Lucky 6.9 18:35, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Hello

Congragulations on the Arbcom elections! I think that you are the only person for whom I voted in the past couple of months of this year to win an election. Thanks! BTW, the Efraín Ríos Montt needs protection. Thanks in advance if you can take a look. 172 23:03, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Barack Obama

I noticed you nominated Barack Obama for featured article removal, saying it was "not comprehensive". It got voted down, but I hope you'd tell me what you feel is missing from the article, so I can improve it. Thanks, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 00:31, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)

Not taken personally at all. Thanks for the advice, and happy hollidays. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 00:55, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Chemical warfare

You've done some work on chemical warfare, so I thought you might be interested to know that I've nominated it to Featured article candidates. I was hoping you would take a look at what we've done, and maybe help me perfect the article into something that we can all be truly proud of. -- ClockworkSoul 02:14, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] My block should've expired

Mmmk? I know 172 would like to have me perma-blocked, but the time's up. Sir Stone 20:37, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I blocked Trey Stone only for 24 hours. During that period, he kept on triggering a new autoblock by logging on with one new sockpuppet after another. Then many of these sockpuppets were banned... An administrator has every right to unblock him. But since Wiki is entirely voluntary, admins can opt to pick any task that they choose with the time that they volunteer. Personally, unblocking each of the autoblocks triggered by a racist, profanity- and insult- spewing vandal in his attempts to evade a block is not one of the ways that I choose to spend my time. 172 20:57, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What was the purpose of re-blocking my IP every time when it auto-blocks every name logged in on the IP? I am not aware of any policy of re-blocking an IP every time a banned user logs in. Doctor "Racist in Marin County" Trey 05:20, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't know. The software just has that done automatically. That's a question for one of the developers. 172 05:45, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Battle of Hampton Roads

Re: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Battle of Hampton Roads, please take a look back at this fac when you have a chance and let us know if we may have your support and/or of you have other suggestions to improve it. Thanks. Vaoverland 03:03, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Footnotes

I had a bunch of footnotes in the pet skunk article, some of which were deleted by your recent revision. Generally, I prefer to put footnotes to indicate where I got all my facts, especially when there are 40+ references, as in this article. However, I have noticed that people tend to delete them when revising articles I wrote. What is the current wiki-philosophy on footnotes? — Nathanlarson32767 (Talk) 06:59, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you did. You put superscript numbers. That does look better. — Nathanlarson32767 (Talk) 07:00, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Dogie

I notice you marked it to move to wiktionary before me. I was though tempted to mark it as a copyvio of [1], as it's a verbatim copy and paste. What do you think? --BesigedB 22:07, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Democratic Party title

There's been a pretty decent consensus for several weeks now that the political party articles should be named, "X Party (United States)", to conform with our usual practice in disambiguating article titles. See, for example, Republican Party (United States), Libertarian Party (United States), and Green Party (United States). As such, I'm moving United States Democratic Party back to Democratic Party (United States) to match the others. Please join the discussion on talk if you disagree. RadicalSubversiv E 09:13, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] 2004 MN4 Animation

I discussed my reasons for taking off the animation on the discussion page for 2004 MN4. I replaced it with a text link. -Ld | talk 21:17, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Hi! I think I saw a copyright notice for this animation... Are you sure it is a NASA animation (URL)? --Fred Stober 01:44, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Equal Protection Clause

Hello, Neutrality. I've noticed that you comment quite articulately (and frequently) about featured article candidates. If you don't mind, could you look over Equal Protection Clause and tell me what you think of it? I'd love to have your support. Hydriotaphia 00:59, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your edits; they're much appreciated! Hydriotaphia 01:33, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)
That's a damn good idea to add something about Bush v. Gore. I'll try to do that ASAP. Thanks! Hydriotaphia 03:10, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures at pet skunk

Hi Neutrality, I had some pictures included with the pet skunk article that Jane Bone gave me blanket permission to republish (they came from her online scrapbook). I had put in the description "courtesy of Jane Bone". Is there any other description needed? Thanks, — Nathanlarson32767 (Talk) 02:26, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Did Jane Bone release them into the public domain, or under the GNU Free Documentation License? We need an image copyright tag. Neutralitytalk 02:28, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)
Well, we didn't really get into the fine points. I explained Wikipedia was writing an article on pet skunks, asked if it would be okay to use content from her website, and described the pictures I wanted to use. She said in her email, "I would be honored if you used any information from Skunk Stuff. It will only help the domestic, for that I thank you!" Do I need to email her again? If so, what is the best way to explain what I am asking for? Thanks, — Nathanlarson32767 (Talk) 03:32, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Lumidek and POV pushing

Lumidek: Please review NPOV. Neutralitytalk 06:22, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)
Dear "neutrality", I hope that you realize that you've lost these three battles. It was really not nice from you to spread completely unjustified POV labels over the articles. The Bjorn Lomborg article is very neutral, very balanced, and well written - I wish I were the author because this would be another source of my pride. ;-) You might dislike this guy, but he is a rather extraordinarily guy, and therefore his wikipage looks analogous to other extraordinary guys. Also, my understanding is that the word "POV pusher" was meant as an insult. Well, sorry, but it did not really insult me. You know, the average people have the average ignorance about very many questions - not just physics which is my job at Harvard. The main goal of writing specialized articles about specialized topics is to help others to get the information - and to know more than the average. This is almost always "POV pushing" because the average opinions of the people about a typical question are almost always wrong, biased in a very concrete direction. In the idealized reality, the neutral point of view of the scientific wiki articles is always the weighted average of the users, where the weight is determined by their expertise. --Lumidek 17:46, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Well, who-hoo for you. All I can say is that you should quit trying to impose an extremist minority point of view (global warming is all made up, conspiracy theory nonsense) on articles at the expense of extablished scientific consensus. 17:52, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)
P.S. - By the way, do you have any actual training or expertise in the area of climate change? Or do you just pretend to be an "expert"? Neutralitytalk 17:52, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)
Global warming stupidity: Dear Bias aka Neutrality, what you write on my talk page is the typical example of the intellectual decay of the global warming alarmists. In fact, the lie about the alleged "scientific consensus" seems to be the only "argument" that anyone of you remembers. It's the only tool that seems to allow you to promote your extremely politicized points of view, and you are using it all the time. Every time there is a question whether an article or a piece of data should be published, the global warming alarmists scream "there is a consensus" and they only want the papers and data with the "desirable" outcomes to be published. All of you behave just like the Nazis, and I don't consider most of you to be my colleagues. The scientific skeptics in the global warming debate are not only a significant group, but they're actually the only group who mostly insists on the basic principles of science. And yes, be sure that I have enough official training in the relevant scientific disciplines to talk with you from a position of an authority. Best, Lubos
OK. Your latest message on my talk page definitely proved that you're a kook and crackpot. And as far as me being a "Nazi"—see Godwin's law. Neutralitytalk 18:22, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)