User talk:Dragons flight

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Contents 1 Paleoclimatology 2 AFD 100 days 3 WP:AFD100 4 Fundraising info 5 edit summaries 6 CO2 concentrations 7 WP:RA 8 AfD Summaries and Changed Votes 9 Hey 10 Thanks 11 Hey, if you're looking for bot writing work... 12 Grovel, beg and plead 13 Category inclusion 14 AFD100 15 Bot for keeping counts 16 Palaeotemps 17 wavefunction 18 Pleistocene extinctions 19 Why remove my edit? 20 Stable versions 21 Images scale generic question 22 Commons2 23 Toolserveraccount 24 Seeking techie input 25 Its a small internet after all 26 Footnote bug and bugzilla 27 Categories 28 Jimbo's authority 29 Barnstar 30 Permissions 31 Backlog monitoring of WP:AIV 32 RFA front matter 33 DFBot (tasks • edits • actions log • block log) 34 Sidebar redesign final vote! 35 Box overload 36 Random note 37 ROUND TABLE (or Round Table (band)) article 38 Licensing verification 39 Wikipedia:User categories for discussion 40 Re: parentheticals 41 need help with sidebar redesign 42 Energy portal 43 sidebar done 44 Backlog tracker 45 hey 46 commons:? 47 Invitation to join WikiProject Environment 48 Your admin suggestion 49 model calibration 50 Self admitted plagiarism 51 Category:Category needed backlog 52 AFD summary 53 Summaries of ongoing AFDs --> Open AFD debates sorted by age (Dragons_flight summary tool) 54 No follow 55 From Walt 56 MP interwikis 57 Considering bugzilla request for "Complete list" feature 58 Opus Dei RFC 59 Since you appear to be a sane admin...Help? 60 Apparently my doubt in my abilities was vastly unfounded 61 Holocene Temperature Variations 62 Criteria for deleting The Plimptons 63 minor change to template:RfA 64 Sorry 65 AfD Summary requests 66 Vote stacking 67 Category tracker 68 Graphics Lab

[edit] Paleoclimatology

This artical and related are starting to look much better. I would ask that you rewrite the sections on the current plunge into the present ice ages to reflect information relating to say the formation of the isthamus of panama. At that time, as you note, the current increases in glaciation occurred. You have this well written in the writeup on the image: 65 Myr Climate Change.png

but its not in the artical that hosts the image: Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum and its not in the Paleoclimatology artical either. This should all be merged together. I can do it - but I'd just be using your words.

I note that all of your charts show the future to the left and the past to the right. This is not the convention most civilians are familiar with. One consequence of this is that people think CO2 and temperature from the volstock cores are "correlated". In fact the data shows temperature increases predate CO2 increases by about 1000 years. I would suggest you annotate this and point this out!

I have an easy explanation for this and I've been trying to find some studies to support it.

When the earth cools during an ice age large amounts of organic matter get frozen. This is even true of the tundra today - it contains massive amounts of organic matter. This freezing inhibits the ability of micro-organisms, particuarly fungi, to break it down. Later as the temperature starts to rise the organic matter thaws and just as if you were to unplug your freezer, fungi move in for a feast.

The fungi are responsible for consuming all organic matter including bacteria and turning it into CO2 water and minerals. I can find lots of references for this since I'm working in mycology and microbiology.

So that time delay is easy to explain and this explains why people misunderstand the data. The tie between the release of CO2 from frozen organic matter associated with glacial advancment has nothing to do with a correlation between CO2 concentrations and temperature in the paleo record.

If you can make this point then great. I'll continue to watch this and if you don't get to it I'll take a stab. BTW - I wrote the original artical on Paleoclimatology about 1999 or so - its been so long I can't remember. Later Greg Benson added a great deal. I can't find him. Much of what we wrote has stood the test of time. Yet we can still make it much better.

I would really like to get more perspective between the relatively short term issues such as the tree ring data and the volstock ice core data verses the long term paleo-record that goes back millions and billions of years. Civilians, and even I think many of our climatologists, seem to lack this perspective and I am constantly left with the feeling that people look at the Volstock data for instance which gives us some idea of what has been going on over the last 2+ million years of present day ice age and draw the conclusion that this somehow gives us an idea of what has been going on for the last billion years.

With regard to CO2 causing global warming - the Taconic orogeny stands as a real thorn in the side to this idea. The paleoclimatology artical has to remain NPOV. At the same time it has to put these issues into perspective. At present I think we have too much orange juice mixed in with the apple juice. The artical skips from scales of 1,000,000's of years to 100's of years (for instance tree rings) with no warning - so its a bit of a mismash.

Also I hand drew a chart a few years back that showed temperture verses CO2 levels and I didn't have the tools to draw it up. I'll be willing to fax it to you. Your work is very similar in concept. The chart you have here: image: All palaeotemps.png

should IMHO be included in the Paleoclimatology artical and it would be good to show CO2 levels and temperature on the same chart. terr(talk)

[edit] AFD 100 days

Hi. I liked your AFD 100 days analysis. Would you like to do a new one? I thought that the original one could be added to so as to provide deeper analysis in trying to analyse trends. I have referenced it many times in arguing for deletion reform etc, and some people have criticised me, suggesting that I am misinterpreting statistics, and I even had 1 fellow suggest that there is 1 and only 1 way to interpret it, and that is different to how I interpreted it. (not logical, I know, but hey).

I would appreciate it if you could do a new one sometime. If you want some help with it, let me know. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 21:33, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll probably revisit it during the Xmas holidays. Dragons flight 22:20, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I would love to see another one to see what my statistics are... I've been on AfD since January. Grandmasterka 20:00, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:AFD100

It's been about 100 days since the end of the span of your old report. I think a new report, starting from September 9, 2005 would be most useful. I'd be interested to see how the percentages have changed in light of recent CSD expansion. — FREAK OF NUR_xTURE (TALK) 01:57, Dec. 24, 2005

[edit] Fundraising info

Much of the donations data is on the wmf site:

• Paypal donations
• Fund drives
• charts from 2004
• some more stats

More stats are always helpful; correlations between donations and traffic would be worth noting. +sj + 17:25, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Those data all need to be standardized before any meaningful fundraising vs traffic analysis can be done. I'll see about that soon. However, there are no standard traffic data to work from other than Alexa stats... --mav 17:45, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] edit summaries

Regarding the page User:Dragons flight/RFA summary, I wonder if it makes sense to have more informative edit summaries. Perhaps the bot could say the names of the people it's updating every so often, if it would fit. Then good for people watching on their watchlists, right? -lethe ^{talk +} 21:16, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CO2 concentrations

Hi Dragon, thanks very much for your more than valuable contribution by creating these lots of pictures especially about Global warming. Since there have been some current changes or extensions in data regarding past CO2 concentrations and present temperatures, I thought about asking you if you'd like to create an update? You're likely well aware about 2005 temperature data from NASA GISS. In addition, new ice core records now go back 650k-probably 800k years instead of some 450k years showing atmospheric CO2 concentrations (see here for example).

Just a kind suggestion, don't feel pushed towards doing something or whatever. Best wishes! Hardern 12:34, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:RA

Is RABot capable of updating Wikipedia:Articles requested for more than a year, or does it only remove bluelinks? (If not, who does updated that page?) I just noticed that it should probably be brought up to April 2005 from December 2004. Not that the mainstream WP:RA probably couldn't also use a bluelink removal pass, if you have the time and inclination. Thanks! -- Beland 22:53, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

RABot is run only very infrequently because frankly WP:RA has grown so sprawling that even with an automated tool it takes a long time (~30 minutes) to run because I have to verify that the edits are reasonable and that it is not being fooled by poor formatting. But, even so, RABot was never responsible for managing the year old requests. I believe that User:SimonP was the one who usually did that. I suppose getting appointed to ArbCom cuts down on one's time for things like that. Dragons flight 02:15, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AfD Summaries and Changed Votes

First of all, I absolutely love your AfD and RfA tables; however, I've noticed that it does not remove changed votes from the tally. For instance, if you look at United States v. Schwimmer on 23 Apr 06, you'll see that your table indicates a 9.1% (1)vote to delete when in fact 0% of the votes are to delete. I believe it is recording this one vote to delete because I originally voted to delete but then changed my vote by striking it out. You may want to think about having your bot recognize votes that have been crossed off (by looking for a <s> or <del> before the vote) and remove those votes from the tally. Just a suggestion. Thanks. AmiDaniel (Talk) 22:30, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

It already discards struck out votes. The "delete" is coming from the nomination. Dragons flight 23:14, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Aha! That makes sense--you're a step ahead of me. Sorry about that, and keep up the good work! AmiDaniel (Talk) 23:29, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hey

Dragons flight,

I saw you stop by at Xoloz's RfA, so perhaps you might be able to read this before getting back on the road again. I've been meaning to commend you on your remarkable tools, linked from your User page. They're brilliant, and you have the thanks of this Wikipedian for the obvious care and thought that must have gone into constructing them. There is some potential for misuse of a few of the AFD trackers, I believe, but no more so than with many of our Wiki processes, and on the whole I have little doubt that your tools are a remarkable help to editors. Keep up the very, very good work.;-) Regards —Encephalon 12:18, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

...For what you do here. Your graphs are amazing, as a corporate designer I've seen thousands of terrible graphs, yours are always concise and simple. How Matlab works will probably always remain a mystery to me, hopefully one day Apple will make a graph engine for the Rest Of Us. To the point, as a great fan of this place, I have to speak up when someone goes above and beyond. Kudos to you. Rainman420 06:42, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hey, if you're looking for bot writing work...

I saw your comment at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats'_noticeboard#Hopeless_failures_.26_DFBot and thought "Well, if he's looking for more bot writing work..." :) Have a look at [1] and tell me what you think if you would please. Thanks, --Durin 17:38, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Grovel, beg and plead

Can you please please please do another AFD100? I'd be very interested in how the trends have changed since the 1st one. Reyk _YO! 11:49, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category inclusion

Hiya! I just thought you should know that the pages User:RABot/Stat description and User:RABot/Stats both show up in Category:Wikipedia requested articles. Normally, I'd {{sofixit}} but as it's a bot account (I don't want to break the bot) and you are who you are, I figured there's a good chance you intended it to be that way. If you'd like me to go ahead and fix the pages, please leave me a message on my talk page, otherwise I'll just assume you've got it handled. :)

Thanks! ~Kylu (u|t) 22:25, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

It was created back before includeonly existed. I have now updated it. Dragons flight 23:52, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AFD100

Do you have any intention of repeating WP:AFD100, or perhaps running it regularly? It's very interesting, although it could use some slightly stronger admin-specific disclaimers (like showing User:Jki as having a 30% threshold due mainly to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Travis Fahey; that could perhaps be avoided by removing any obvious extreme outliers before running the count). —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 09:01, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bot for keeping counts

Hello Dragonsflight. With your wide range of handy tools which keep track of RfA tallies, AfD tallies etc, I was wondering if you could do another. It would involve a scoreboard of the number of articles or posts currently on a given category or page. Eg, there is irregular coverage on CAT:CSD, so a scoreboard showing the current number of entries in the cat would be good. Similarly, all the images which are eligible for speedy deletion, prods, posts to AIV often get clogged when there is some assumption that someone else is looking after it, so a quick scoresheet which reloads every 15mins or so, would be great. Many thanks, Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 02:05, 15 June 2006 (UTC).

I've thought about similar ideas before, but it will be at least several weeks before I have an opportunity to do anything along these lines. Dragons flight 14:14, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Palaeotemps

Like your new site, and "fixed" time axes. You were going to look at trying to do this for us, remember... 1000px|centre

--Glen Fergus 21:55, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] wavefunction

Hello - no idea what happened - didn't see a "you are editing a prior version of.." message. Actually when I check the edit history (compare versions) between your addition and my reply to other person your paragraph doesn't even show up? I didn't delete it so why isn't it there now? what happened - look your addition [2], then my reply to someone else (sorry didn't notice your reply at that time) [3] looks like I deleted it - honestly didn't will put it back in - no idea how this happened??? Sorry I've put it back in.HappyVR 10:24, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks like it dissapeared on my second edit - but how can this have happened?HappyVR 10:36, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh and looking again you made a mistake too: if f=a+ib then |f|^2 = aa-bb, i assume you meant fxf(*) (where f(*) is the complex conjugate a-ib) which does equal aa+bb.HappyVR 11:20, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry ignore that - my mistake - I was thinking of |f^2| not having good day.HappyVR 12:07, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pleistocene extinctions

Howdy, I noticed your edits to the Holocene extinction event page. I started a discussion on the talk page, Talk:Holocene_extinction_event#North_American_Genera.2FSpecies, about that section. I was hoping you might have some input. Thanks, --TeaDrinker 22:27, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why remove my edit?

Mr. Rohde,

I dont understand why you remove my edit. I dont suggest anything "wrong" with your graph. I am being completely unbiased and neutral to the plot. I am adding a footnote to the graph for additional clarity to uneducated readers in this matter.

Accoding to the Admin code of conduct: "Like everybody else, admins are expected to behave in a civil manner, to not engage in revert wars and to not claim ownership of articles"

Are my statements not valid - the initial VOSTOK data is only ~363 data points for 400k+years?

I will try not to take things personally as suggested in Wikipedia editing comments. I am sure you know - Wikipedia content criteria states Wikipedia:Neutral point of view Wikipedia's core approach, neutral unbiased article writing. In addition I gave the link to the data so people could see the data. I recommend you also show the data to the viewers.

I do appreciate your work in the area. I can tell you spent many hours if not days developing all your graphics. My comments in NO WAY are personally directed to you - just a statistical lesson if that. And I still believe my comments are valid commentary on the graph.

Regards,

David

The problem is, as I've stated in the edit summaries, that your conclusions are likely to be wrong and since they are your conclusions, and not derived from any established criticism, they constitute original research, which is not allowed.

On the technical point, yes, Vostok is sampled on average every ~1000 years (though the spacing varies a good deal), but that does not necessarily imply that one could obscure large swings such as are seen in the modern period. Carbon dioxide has a long residence time in the atmosphere making it likely that perturbations would be seen even with sparse sampling. Secondly, the maximum difference between adjacent samples is only 50 ppm, with 95% of shifts less than 20 ppm, whereas the modern shift is already about 100 ppm in the last 200 years. If rapid shifts can occur, then statistically one would expect random sampling to capture some. Third, we know from carbon isotopic evidence that the modern increase is caused entirely by the burning of fossil fuels. That explanation obviously doesn't work in distant past, so there is no reason to expect large rapid changes, like are occuring in the present day, to have occured in the past. Fourth, other studies at other sites, though generally less comprehensive support the conclusions offered by Vostok.

Your argument boils down to: "and there might be other shifts we didn't see because of sampling", but for the reasons given above and other reasons I haven't tried to enumerate, it is generally believed that there aren't any large unsampled variations. Hence your warning is uncalled for and unsupported by existing research.

I hope this clarifies why I have been removing your text. Dragons flight 17:59, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with your comments for the follwing reasons: 1. What I present is not a conclusion but an observation. I do not conclude the plot is wrong. I put out another POV in that it COULD be not right and why. 2.I do agree with you "the maximum difference between adjacent samples is only 50 ppm, with 95% of shifts less than 20 ppm, whereas the modern shift is already about 100 ppm in the last 200 years. " I dont agree COMPLETELY "If rapid shifts can occur, then statistically one would expect random sampling to capture some." If the results are consistent it COULD be because of the methodology of sampling. 3.I kind of agree with "Third, we know from carbon isotopic evidence that the modern increase is caused entirely by the burning of fossil fuels." I disagree with " That explanation obviously doesn't work in distant past, so there is no reason to expect large rapid changes, like are occuring in the present day, to have occured in the past. " Yes please do tell me in year 357KBC what happen to the hydrates in the sea and any possible weather anomaly - we dont know you dont now - is it possible they had massive fires equating to our burning of fossil fuel. Massive death does cause a carbon release. The key phrase I disagree with is "there is NO REASON.." - its too absolute. 4. The other studies I have also reviewed the data. The good thing I will point out is the Law Dome data does correspond to similar instrumental data. However different location and not as long time period - Once again not another absolute. 5.The statement "generally believed that there aren't any large unsampled variations. Hence your warning is uncalled for and unsupported by existing research." Goes against wikipedia rules in supporting other points of view though may be minority. 6.I even documented in my graph the POSSIBLE outcome of sampling data. Sure you could sample more sporadically but it does show the possibility. And also the well known FACT the more sampling you have the likelihood of increase volatility.

I dont understand HOW one could CONCLUDE my observations NOT conclusions are ABSOLUTELY wrong and deserve zero merit. I respect and qualify your data this in no way means we cant have issues with some things. This ideology of all or nothing - my way or the highway - your either with us or against us - is what will lead to humankind destruction not climate change. For if we can work together we can achieve near miracles.

Well if we cant get this resolved I would request we move into arbritration or other means wikipedia has in "neutrality and respecting other POV". I do understand your POV. I mostly agree with them its just I wanted to let people know who dont spend the time in these areas of study of the POSSIBLE issues.

David

Please see WP:NOR. Your interpretation of the limitations of the data is unique and while it may seem reasonable to you, is not supported by any published research that I know of. I'm sorry if I haven't made the argument strongly enough to convince you, but I do believe that any academic working in a related field would ultimately conclude that the coroborating evidence leaves no room for the kind of spikes you imagine. For example, the kind of methane pulse you suggest would leave an easily discernable shift in stable isotope carbon chemistry, which is not observed. Though you don't realize it, in my opinion, your argument is like saying: "And pigs might be able to fly, but only when no one is watching", but obviously we have ample reason to believe pigs simply don't fly. It is not that your opinions are a minority point of view, within the community of people who reconstruct paleoclimate, they are a nonexistant point of view. If you can produce any published research that suggests that large spikes might be hidden in the data sampling, please do so, but I strongly believe that your conclusion, though it might seem initially appealing, is ultimately not tenable. If your conclusions are original research, and not the result of any published research, then they are not allowed on Wikipedia.

If you want to pursue Wikipedia:Dispute resolution over this matter, you can. I'd suggest that the place to start is asking for a Wikipedia:Third opinion since there are only two of us involved, but you might also consider filing a Wikipedia:Request for comment. Dragons flight 14:02, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

PS. I've copied this discussion to Image talk:Carbon Dioxide 400kyr-2.png and would suggest we continue it there as the more appropriate place for such content discussions.

There you go again - pick up ONE thing on my rambling - yes I agree with you if hydrates were to burst you would MOST likely see it. 1000 years is a long time - anything can happen in 1000 year time period - we dont even have 1000 years of instrumental data THAT WAS THE POINT - not a particularly rambling. I used the publish report therefore that is the report. Just because the scientist didnt say anything about it - it doesnt mean its not there. Lets inverse the Pig flying example - the report didnt mentioned anything about many things doesnt mean its not there. LOOK I DID NOT CONCLUDE - I observed you refuse to observe you are already concluding - you conclude on my stuff - rather than say the odds are - most likely - no you say I am WRONG. Do you know the truth can be in between without anyone being WRONG? Here is the analogy perhaps you can sympathize with. The decision to go to war was based on evidence they believe was real - what they didnt talk of or note was the other side of the evidence. Was their evidence wrong WITHOUT knowing what we know now? Not in regards to reports. Would of it been nice to hear the issues with the report? Many sources were one person. This still wouldnt change the answer to the report - but would put in questions of the Possibility of error. To ignore my comments you are doing nothing less than the Bush administration in regards to going to war.

Well I will try this wikipedia resolution - probably will side with you given I am the underdog. Not to elude collusion but if there were such an opportunity it would be me complaining about at ADMIN on wikipedia who does GREAT work and spends a good deal of time versus me a newbie with some comments.

David

BELOW are my comments on the graph - I dont want to loose this - The figure could also be misleading. According to the data for the Vostok core ([4]) there are around ~360 data points for ~400K years - approx. 1 data point for each 1000 years. The current data from ~1900's to now contains 1 data point for each year. The possibility of variance is great for the near term data. The VOSTOK data does not have the resolution to conclude the years in between data point could not be higher or lower than the data presented. They do point out uncertainty of 2ppm but that represents the data point presented not the possible volatility. So to plot the data together would mean 1 data point for 1000 years would be the same as 67 data points in 67 years. As sample sizes increase the variablility also increases.

As an example the data below contains actual hourly data for a year (dark gray area). If one sample data every 72 hours you get the blue line. The magenta line shows the last 1000 hours of the year. If only presented the blue and magenta line one could conclude we are at historical levels now - which of course is not the case when you look at the complete data set (dark gray area).

[edit] Stable versions

Hi - I saw your note on Brion's talk page (which is effectively the same question I asked several threads up). I don't know, but I suspect the "in progress" comment might be about one of the mechanisms described at m:Article validation proposals, specifically m:Article validation feature (which, at least at one point many months ago, was expected to "go live, soon"). IMO, most of the proposals have far too much procedural overhead to be practical for en.wikipedia ("each article will have a committee of approvers" - yeah, right, good luck with that) and/or would tend to create permanent, forever unchanging forks of articles. I don't think time delay accomplishes much, and still personally favor the approach I outlined at Wikipedia talk:Stable versions/archive2#forking considered harmful. Do you think this would lead to potential legal liability? -- Rick Block (talk) 19:01, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Images scale generic question

I've noticed that a lot of the graphs and charts are not equal on the Y-axis. I was wondering (no pun intended) why if there is a chart going to +3 that it shouldn't go to -3 also. I understand if there's data up to +2 but only to -1 that the other -1 is somewhat meaningless, data-wise, but it skews the way things look I think, to accentuate the larger range in either direction. Thanks. Sorry, specifically looking at two of my favorites to use to exhibit trends, 1000 Year Temperature Comparison goes to -1 but only to +.6 and Holocene Temperature Variations goes to +2 but only -1.5 (inset -1 but +.5) Also, some graphs (such as the Ice Age Comparison showing the coordination between different measurements) it probably doesn't matter the scale being like that. But for something like those or the Five Myr Climate Change. --Sln3412 00:10, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

This is basically a question of artistic preference, about which reasonable people can disagree. Is it better to center the scale so as to emphasize variations about zero (or some other specific value), or is it better to frame the image so as to make full use of the available space and more easily show the variations? Personally, I tend to prefer the latter. This is doubly true on Wikipedia where the use of thumbnails means one wants the variations to be as visible as possible even when shrunk down. I understand that others can disagree with this and prefer to emphasize the center point however. On the temperature plots you mention, there is also an added degree of ambiguity. With respect to what zero might it be centered? I have a conventional choice of mid 20th century temperatures, but someone could reasonably have chosen to measure everything relative to the year 1900 or 2000, in which case the specified 0 could shift appreciably. Given that the center line is itself somewhat arbitrary, it doesn't make much sense to me to center everything around it.

As I said though, in my opinion, this is mostly a matter of taste, and as we all know, there is no accounting for taste. Dragons flight 03:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I am rather looking from the point of if they're scientifically-focused graphs, some of them are better served to pass along information if they're equalized, just to show trends better, but yeah, that's just my taste in looking at data as that... As to the visibility, if it's +2 -10 that's maybe a bit much, but -.6 to +1 is somewhat another matter. Lastly, the 0 as center depends on the average, which would change depending on the time period looked at. (And again, some graphs wouldn't really benefit from centering them.) (But my degree is in computer information systems, not math or statistics. The point of that being, depending on what one is looking for, the sample interval and time-frame is very important in looking at, say, network behavior, but some degree of limit applies; if the shortest sampling interval is 5 minutes, you can't look at 10 seconds (and it's probably not important) and that's on a daily graph; it's much different than re-averaging it into days to show weekly or monthly trends. Depending on what you're measuring.) So. Okay, cool. --Sln3412 01:05, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Commons2

Hi Robert, would it be ok for you to upload new pictures centrally at Commons, so that other language versions of Wikipedia can simply use your images? I always have to download them from the English Wikipedia, upload them again at Commons and then change all wikilinks to the relevant English articles. Or am I making things more complicated than they would have to be? Cheers, Hardern 15:12, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I just saw that someone else already asked you the same question. But see it as a compliment and how much people value your work :) Hardern 15:14, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Toolserveraccount

Hello Dragons flight,
please send your prefered login-name, your realname and the public part of your ssh-key to . We will then create your account soon. --DaB.

[edit] Seeking techie input

I notieced you are the one who added Featured articles to the nav menu, so you look like you know your way around Wikipedia. We need your advice at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Sidebar redesign proposal.

Is the project practical? What are the limitations? Are there structural or system considerations? What options/opportunities are we overlooking? How would the current proposal be implemented? I thought it might be best to get some techie help on this from the start, before we blow this out for discussion to the wider community. --Nexus Seven 03:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Its a small internet after all

Hey Bobby, I just accidentally hit my mouse button when I was looking at the discussion for the new IAU planet standard, and it clicked on your screenname. I would say the odds of that are small but nonzero, like the odds of all the peanut butter on earth being flung off of it to slow its rotation. -Joe (AKA) Theon 22:52, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Footnote bug and bugzilla

Hello, this bug appeared between about 14:00 and 19:40 (UTC) yesterday. If it is traceable to a software change during that time, then there are a limited number of revisions, approximately 16248 to 16256. Among these, the more suspicious ones to me are 16253 and 16256 (mostly due to timing). Does one need to register separately for the bugzilla discussion? (Respond here please.) Gimmetrow 19:20, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

No, I think it is somewhat older than that, and yes you need to register seperately. Neither SpecialDisambiguations nor CategoryTree have any impact on extension rendering, so I would be shocked if those are relevant. Be aware that any email address used for Bugzilla will be publicly displayed. Dragons flight 19:24, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Public email is a bit of a drawback. For the software, is there a great lag between when versions are checked-in and when they become live? Narrowing the window down to about a 6 hours frame when it appeared should help someone. Gimmetrow 19:29, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Categories

The categorization system is having growing pains. There seem to be several different view about what our category system should be; a way to browse, an index of articles, a classification system, and/or a database search tool. Each of these views leads editors to different conclusions about how categories should be populated, and many conflicts result. To deal with these problems, Rick Block and I have been working on a proposal to add the ability to create category intersections. We think our proposal will address these problems and add some very useful new features. We are asking editors and developers concerned with categorizaton problems to take a look. We'd appreciate your feedback. Thanks. -- Samuel Wantman 05:56, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jimbo's authority

I am not trying to be a smart ass, but I am wondering what special authority does Jimbo have? Which policy can I read about this? HighInBC 23:42, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales is the founder of Wikipedia and chairman of the board of the Wikimedia Foundation. He essentially owns Wikipedia, to the degree that anyone does. He has complete authority to do anything he wants, and per WP:POLICY is the only person unilaterally entitled to create and change Wikipedia policy. Many of the core principles (e.g. NPOV), he is explicitly responsible for creating. He is also the person most likely to be personally liable if Wikipedia is ever found liable in a law suit. In essence, it is his site. Most of the time he manages things with a hands off approach that allows the community to evolve on its own terms, but should he choose to step in, his actions are non-negotiable. Dragons flight 23:52, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I see, WP:POLICY seems vauge on the matter, I am going back to article editing. HighInBC 00:24, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Can you elaborate on 'Jimbo's will', what was said in these emails, etc? --Golbez 19:31, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I am not going to elaborate on the specifics of off-wiki conversations, but the comments Jimbo made on his talk page [5] are reasonably representative of his general position on this case. I do intend to follow up on this issue following the conclusion of discussions that are still pending. The focus needs to be on being able to deal with any future similar situations in a way that balances protecting potential victims without being unnecessarily burdensome on well-intentioned contributors. Dragons flight 23:09, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, a draft policy could be useful. Most cases will not be the suspicious though, and any policy depends on what Brad says. We may end up temporarily hiding images every once in a while until more proof comes in if there is suspicion, in the most extreme cases. It might also turn out not to be a legal info reporting problem, if Brad says so. In that case, its just a matter of "is this obvious trolling/attack stuff?", in which case we can rely on WP:AGF more, rather than "wait until there a legal complaint by the person and hope its not that bad". Sexual images, even, in a broader sense, seem to be a point of contention a lot around, so I even started an essay on that related topic too.Voice-of-All 00:38, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I consider the following to be a valid comment and it is being deleted by someone other than yourself, so I will repost it until you reply to it or delete it yourself - This isn't like trying to interpret the will of a dead christ you know, if he doesn't like something let him block it himself. Or if you want to do it then don't hide behind "twas the will of jimbo amen", or you're letting people in on something they don't know wikipedia to be: a kingdom. grendel's mother 14:28, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Barnstar

		The Original Barnstar
		For accurately and thoroughly explicating, during the Publicgirluk photo debate and thereafter, the laws of the United States with respect, inter al., to copyright and obscenity, and for undertaking such explication toward the furtherance of encyclopedic principles and with abiding patience and exceeding cordiality, especially in view of the frequency with which United States law was misstated during the debate, Dragons flight and WAS 4.250 are to be commended. Joe 05:02, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Since you and WAS each contributed importantly, though in the context of different specific issues, to the PG discussion with respect to legal principles, I thought it only fair that each of you receive a similarly-styled barnstar. Joe 05:02, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Permissions

Yes, the permissions email is handled through OTRS. There are a handful of people who specialize in the permissions area though it is accessible to all the people authorized for the info-en queues. Are you interested in becoming involved? The Uninvited Co., Inc. 15:30, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

No, not involved (I do need to put at least some time towards real work), but I am planning to draft a policy on handling unusual licensing claims, ala Publicgirluk, and I wanted to understand who was responsible for permissions right now. Dragons flight 17:02, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Backlog monitoring of WP:AIV

Hi Dragon, WP:WATCH is really useful, and I have User:Dragons flight/Category tracker/Summary embedded on my talk page. Thanks much very for it. I was wondering if you could please add a timestamp of the oldest signature listed on WP:AIV (or display "EMPTY") to your tracker so it could be easier to see at a glance whether there is a backlog at WP:AIV or not and determine at a glance how urgent attention is required? Thanks --  Netsnipe  ►  04:31, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RFA front matter

I like your placement of the numbers as a description rather than a prescription. Would you agree with "a factor" rather than "a significant factor"? Yes, in recent memory, percentages have been a highly significant factor; but that is due simply to bureaucrats' laziness. Numbers are easy to process; reasons and justifications are more time-consuming. A reliance on numbers allows (and indeed has allowed) an "RFA crowd" to exert undue influence on the process, sinking good candidates' chances for trivial reasons (and theoretically causing the promotion of undeserving candidates, though I can't recall any instances of this). — Dan | talk 05:55, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd rather not. I feel the numbers ought to be a significant factor (not the only one mind you), and in at least some cases numbers alone should be determinative in my opinion (>95% = pass, <50% = fail, etc). I feel to do otherwise, for example by trying to judge arguments entirely without concern to how many hold them, risks being very disrespectful to the wishes of the community. Which is inherently problematic since the wishes of the community at large are at the root of what we mean by consensus. See also a related post at WT:RFA. Dragons flight 06:08, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DFBot (tasks • edits • actions log • block log)

As a Member of Wikipedia:Bots/Approvals group I am just letting you know that we are awaitng a responce about your trial run. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 06:17, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Ummm, response to what? Dragons flight 06:27, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

The results of your trial. run Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 06:32, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

It is running the same now as it did before asking for "approval". Aside from a couple feature requests, there is nothing to report. Dragons flight 07:28, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Feature Request? Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 07:32, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

For example, people would like it to be able to recurse subcategorized categories. Such requests, while perhaps desirable, are technically prohibitive right now. Dragons flight 07:39, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sidebar redesign final vote!

It's that special, special time! No, grandma's not coming over. No, not time to clean out the fridge. It's sidebar redesign voting time! Yes, the community has narrowed it down to 3 different options, and a vote for the same old original sidebar is a choice one could vote for as well. Voting for multiple options is allowed, and discussion on the whole shebang is right there on the vote page itself.

You're probably getting this message because the sidebar fairy (JoeSmack for now) noticed you commented on the project at some time over on at Wikipedia talk:Village pump (proposals)/Sidebar redesign. Lovely. JoeSmack ^Talk 06:31, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Box overload

We used to have {{toomanyboxes}} for this... >Radiant< 13:32, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Random note

Just wanted to say that it's comments like this that maintain my faith in the Wikipedia community, that's there's actually some original thought out there, people who know what they're talking about. I dunno... it just hit a chord. I've realized all too clearly lately that the rational, good faith people on Wikipedia don't get nearly enough appreciation for their work... I figure it's the least I could do to mention that your intelligent comments are appreciated. --W.marsh 02:08, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, though somehow I expect to see negative reactions to that. Dragons flight 02:11, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ROUND TABLE (or Round Table (band)) article

"I would like to thank the nominator for pointing out a pervasive problem with Japanese music groups, many of which have now been corrected."

You closed the requested move vote stating that there was no consensus. However, you closed the vote extremely prematurely, with only one support vote. Not only was there 100% or 66% support in favor to move the article (1 support vote cast with bold letters, however if we count the submitter and you, that would be 3 votes cast) at the time that you closed the debate, you cowarded away from actual debate on this topic by closing it prematurely, then declaring a mass rename war on many Japanese musical groups, which leads me to believe that you don't understand existance of cultural differences. Instead of discussion, you decided to go down to the low level of revert wars, and supporting controversial edits that do not have support consensus. Comments left by people who actually care about Japan-related topics have voiced support for the all-capitalised version, albeit mistakenly in the "Votes for Deletion" section, suggesting if democracy was not hindered, the people would have voiced support for the move proposal. As the "iPod Nano" vs. "iPod nano" debate showed, even in US culture, the same WP:MOS-TM was used by both sides, and, well, the debate was settled with "iPod nano", which isn't the conclusion that would have been awarded by simple-minded interpretation. I am disappointed in your action to closed-mindedly cut off the voting and discussion process so early, just because you believed your opinion counted more than others. By doing this you were unable to find what the different points of view were. See also: Wikipedia:Consensus—Tokek 02:50, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

The vote had 10 days which is twice as long as nominal move request is expected to have. It's not my fault that no one was interested. The style guide has a well-established consensus and long tradition. Overruling that takes a considerable show of support, which "ROUND TABLE" does not have. I'm sure that if you brought it to the broader community (e.g. WP:VPP) the result would be the same. I respect that there is a cultural difference here, but Wikipedia is not bound to use English the way that the Japanese choose to use English. Dragons flight 02:52, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

You obviously had an opinion but you decided not to join the discussion but to close the discussion with only three people voicing their opinion. The debate was closed before it even really began. That's one separate issue. In Talk:iPod nano, the same Wikipedia policy was used to debate opposing views, since there can be differences in initial interpretations. Wikipedia is not bound to Japan, ofcourse, but let's not ignore the fact that the band's Japanese, not English. —Tokek 13:03, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

This conversation is nonproductive. If you want additional feedback on whether my actions were appropriate feel free to discuss them at WP:ANI, WP:VPP, or WT:RM. I still maintain that what I did is consistent with community expectations long established by examining similar cases, and that it was the correct result. It is not ambiguous in the way iPod nano might be percieved to be. Dragons flight 14:56, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, if you are interested in making controversial edits to the ROUND TABLE article that is bound to meet some opposition, you should be open to having a discussion about the edits first. If you don't have enough interest in the article to have such a discussion, it may be more reasonable of you if you avoided the edits. —Tokek

[edit] Licensing verification

Overall, it looks good. A couple of specific suggestions:

• Consider removing the designated agent stuff and link to the copyright section of the contact us pages instead. We prefer copyvio reports to go through OTRS rather than to show up as actual DMCA takedown notices, because those mandate more careful handling and tie up more valuable resources.
• I would suggest that the matter of model releases be kept very clearly separate from copyright matters. The GFDL is silent on the matter of model releases. At least in the U.S., editorial uses such as ours do not require them of us or our reusers; the only problem arises if a reuser wants to utilize an image in a noneditorial context, e.g. advertising.

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 21:37, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

On the second point, could you make a suggestion for how you would change it? I agree that we are not generally legally required to have model releases, but many people (Jimbo included) have made it clear that they want to take proactive steps towards ensuring that we do have the model's permission when the image could be potentially embarrassing or cause other harm to the model. Dragons flight 22:07, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:User categories for discussion

Can you add this under the deletion heading on the category tracker? It's a small subgroup, but could benefit from some more eyeballs (also posted this on the tracker's config talk page). -- nae'blis 15:45, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Not possible. The tracking code is based on distinct categories. Since both regular CFDs and User CFDs are labeled simply Category:Categories for deletion, my code has no way to tell them apart. Dragons flight 17:19, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Ahh, thanks, I'll bring that up with them then. -- nae'blis 17:19, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: parentheticals

A very simple check on your part should have shown you I was not "fairly new". And while I agree parentheticals should be kept simple, they also should not be false or misleading. RandomCritic 20:25, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing misleading about calling Nemesis a star. And I assummed you were new because your talk page only goes back a couple months. Sorry about that. Regardless, I am reverting Nemesis. Dragons flight 21:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] need help with sidebar redesign

Hello,

A consensus has been reached for the proposal Sidebar redesign. I need some help programming it, if you could either help me directly or refer other people.

• Is there an easy way to use the parser functions to correctly parse nested and adjacent if statements?
• What is the server load Wikipedia can take? I read it has 2000 requests / second and 100 servers, but I don't know how much time could be allocated to some parsing.

I have thought of the following approaches and I don't know which one to take. The first two propose to override the entire sidebar - navigation, search, toolbox - and use some sort of code to evaluate if statements. The first would probably take less time, but the second might be better. The third doesn't seem very elegant but might work.

• use html and some syntax, maybe {{{#static:variable_name}}} to designate static variables retrieved as messages, which would be substituted first. The sidebar would be cached. For every page request, something like {{{#dynamic:variable_name}}} could be used, and if statements would be parsed.
• store all of this as a lamda expression, which would be evaluated with - as a parameter - an instance of a $sidebar_functions abstract class, providing code for functions such as "start_header()", "end_header()", "add_list_item()", etc.
• edit MonoBook.php and somehow move the "interact" box below the searchbox, and add the horizontal line to the toolbox.

All of these could additionally use MediaWiki:Sidebar2 so that it would remain backwards compatible with other skins and all of the other sites powered by MediaWiki.

Thank you very much. --gatoatigrado 02:03, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

dragons did i say something to offend you? why are you replying to everything but this? if you don't want to get involved - it might get sort of messy - that's fine. --gatoatigrado 03:26, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

No, no offense. Just that your question is complex and I need time to think about it. Sorry not to warn you. Dragons flight 03:52, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

no problem. DavidHOzAu seemed to think that we should go with the quick hack. I coded it up, minus the toobox, at User:Gatoatigrado/sidebarhack. I know I'm not very good at formatting things, but it should work. If the current skin is monobook and MediaWiki:Monobooksidebar is defined, it will use a simple "* #searchbox" to insert the searchbox. Perhaps because it is sort of backwards compatible - it's unlikely anyone would have an empty box with the title "#searchbox", it could just override MediaWiki:Sidebar. A perhaps better counterpoint would be that it couldn't be cached - the "#sidebar" box will show up - and even if it was manually removed if the skin wasn't monobook, the search box might be pushed down too far. I'm trying to keep information updated at the programming talk site if you want to reply there. --gatoatigrado 04:16, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Energy portal

Hi! As a contributor to WikiProject Climate change, I thought you might like to be aware of the opportunity to contribute to the new Energy Portal, now that there is one... No need to reply. Gralo 17:19, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] sidebar done

Everything should work now. The code for the toolbox is much more concise. --gatoatigrado 20:29, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Backlog tracker

Hi, I was wondering if you'd be able to work out a way to track articles tagged {{importance}} for more than 6 months. There is a massive backlog there and if the tag hasn't moved in over 6 months then it's time to start cleaning/deleting/merging these aticles; as is the categroy is too huge to tackle.--Peta 00:37, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] hey

I was wondering, where do you get these graphs and pictures from?

Hamza Yousaf October 11, 2006

I make them from various published data and other sources. Dragons flight 06:06, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] commons:?

Hi Dragons flight, I noticed your "category tracker" thing with your bot. Would you be willing to set it up to run in Commons, too? It would be enormously useful in bringing attention to some of our hideous backlogs. cheers, pfctdayelise (translate?) 13:30, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Invitation to join WikiProject Environment

Hi there, I notice your background and interests. I am seeking to expand the membership of Wikipedia:WikiProject Environment to create a more informed vibrant environmental community on wikipedia. Would you be interested in joining? If so please put your name down on the project page Alex 15:25, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your admin suggestion

Thanks so much for your suggestion I should seek adminship. I've thought about it, but my opinion at the moment is that I don't have enough longevity quite yet (I registered my account in February but didn't become active until around July 1). Better, if I decide to seek to become an admin, to wait a bit longer until that's no longer an issue in many people's mind.

I originally came to the project to add article content (as opposed to writing on admin and arbitration pages and the like), and someone else suggested I need to add to my mainspace editing before I pursue an RfA. I think I will take that suggestion, more for the fun of concentrating on writing the articles (and attaining 1FA would of course be nice) than for editcountitis reasons, but accomplishing one will address the other as well.

Before I would meet a lot of the RfA !voters' standards I probably need to do some more anti-vandal work (although there have been some attacks on a couple of my watchlisted articles this week so I've gotten to do more recently) and participate in deletion debates (I will admit XfD has never been a focus of mine, though I have participated in a few where the focus was of interest). So I'm not going to pursue adminship right at the moment, but it's very possible I will do so in the future, and if and when I do, I'll be sure to let you know about it. Regards, Newyorkbrad 22:19, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] model calibration

D.hawes 16:31, 11 November 2006 (UTC)Hello Mr. Rohde, I am somehwat curious about certain features of your graphic overview of Phanerozoic carbon dioxide. If I read the graphic correctly the time series runs from right to left. All models approach a carbon level slightly higher than the quaternary average. Since they approach the average from above and never fall below, I assume that the quaternary average itself is taken from a different source (i.e. not a model average), and it appears as each of the models is overestimating carbon levels for the quaternary. In terms of economic modeling this suggests a weak calibration to the baseline and raises several questions about the validity of the model. How do you explain the fact (given I am not misinterpreting here) that the models do not appear to make good predictions for the Quaternary; and how important is this to the credibility of the estimates that go back even further in time? Thanks, D.hawes 16:31, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I haven't checked whether they all miss a little bit high, as you say, but it wouldn't surprise me if that is the case. The Quaternary is heavily influenced by ice age cycles (Image:Carbon Dioxide 400kyr.png). However from a modeling perspective, the cause of those ice age cycle fluctuations in carbon dioxide is A) not well understood, and B) not well resolved. The models are most successful at capturing geochemical processes (e.g, volcanism, erosion, etc.), whereas the more complex changes in biological processes over time (which apprently drive the ice age cycle in carbon dioxide) are more uncertain. Secondly, most of the model reference data is resolved only at the several million year level, so short-term fluctuations, like those observered during the ice ages, are largely washed out. The geological data used should capture changes in CaCO3 precipitation and ocean chemistry which are indicators of long-term (> 10 Myr) shifts in atmospheric composition, but because they don't capture the short term fluctuations, there will always be added uncertainty on moderate time scales, like the Quaternary. That doesn't necessarily make the models wrong in the long-term. To give an analogy, one could look at an environment (e.g. desert, grassland, rainforest), and be able to make reasonable estimates for how much it rains there in a typical year, even without knowing how much it rains day to day or month to month. The modeling is sort of like that. They look at big picture issues in the hope of capturing long-term fluctuations. How well do they suceed? That is a hard question to answer. Perhaps the best answer I can give is that I would probably not rely on the models alone, but require multiple lines of evidence before accepting their estimates as accurate. Thankfully, independent measurements do tend to support many of the gross features captured by the models. Dragons flight 19:33, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Self admitted plagiarism

To answer your question, I committed plagiarism on the articles Prema Sai Baba and Sathya Sai Baba by copying ideas from non-reputable publications, such as

• quotes of claims of omniscience on Sathya Sai Baba from Brian Steel's homepage
• warnings agains the internet on Sathya Sai Baba copied from an article by Nagel called "For and Against Sathya Sai Baba on the Internet"
• discrepancies between in claims made about Prema Sai Baba copied from an article by Nagel, called "Sai Baba as Shiva-Shakti"

As will be clear, I cannot cite my sources, (i.e. credit Nagel and Steel) because their writings are formally non-reputable. I can not link to their articles because of an arbcom decision regarding Sathya Sai Baba, so you have to find it by googling. Andries 18:49, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

You may be interested in the short essay that I just wrote. User:Andries/Wikipedia:plagiarism. Andries 20:33, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Category needed backlog

I noticed in your backlog tracker that the "category needed" backlog is shown as 18 articles when, in fact, the project has close to 23,000 articles needing categorization. The difficulty probably came when the project was reorganized into months. Cheers! johnpseudo 20:44, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't do subcats. Sorry. Dragons flight 05:44, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AFD summary

I really like your AFD summary tool, it is an excellent alternative interface. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 17:37, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Summaries of ongoing AFDs --> Open AFD debates sorted by age (Dragons_flight summary tool)

Hello Dragons_flight! As I suggested back in October [6] on the Talk page for AFD_summary and more recently in Talk:AFD, I went ahead and changed the link text on WP:AFD. It was:

summaries of ongoing AFDs

but I changed it to

Open AFD debates sorted by age (Dragons_flight summary tool)

The intention was in part selfish, because I had problems remembering how to invoke the tool, and in finding it on the AFD page. If this causes any problems, please revert. EdJohnston 19:32, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No follow

Hi there, still me being boring. I appreciate there has been some discussion on nofollow on wiki-tech lists but there is some sort of established consensus on the issue at en: Wikipedia:Nofollow at meta Meta nofollow and also from Jimbo Jimbo to Wikitech-l. Don't you agree on a kind of democratic basis that if there is a reasonably community majority on something the tech side shouldn't do a Unilateral Declaration of Independence on it? It should at least be reopened where it was discussed last time? --BozMo talk 14:32, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] From Walt

please do not critisize my page so badly (im only thirteen). From: User:walt wingfield

It would help if you gave me some idea what this is about. Dragons flight 21:02, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MP interwikis

Hi, you claimed to have restored the interwikis 'with an other languages link' on the main page. But there is no such link that I can see. Did you mess up? ;) --Monotonehell 23:21, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

It is accomplished in javascript, which means you need to clear your cache (ctrl-F5 for most browsers on Windows). The link is at the bottom. Dragons flight 23:24, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, for some reason the first two times I refreshed it didn't come up. I just tried again and after a lonnnng time the page refreshed for some weird reason. Great work! --Monotonehell 23:31, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

You appear not to have seen my most recent post at Talk:Main Page#Provide a way to get to all the Wikipedias. I await your reply. Thanks! —David Levy 15:28, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Considering bugzilla request for "Complete list" feature

Hi. Thanks again for putting "Complete list" at the bottom of the interwikis on the English Main Page. I'm considering putting in a bugzilla request for a feature to allow something like that to be easily done on any page. See meta:Meta:Babel "# 19 Suggestion re handling long interwiki (interlanguage) lists". What do you think? --Coppertwig 13:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Go ahead if you want, but I don't think we are yet at the point where it is likely to be a priority. Dragons flight 17:53, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Opus Dei RFC

Hey Drags-- we worked together on Stormfront a while back and I was wondering if I could ask a favore. After lots of NPOV problems, I have recently done a major rewrite on the Opus Dei article and am requesting comments on its talk page. I don't know if you know much about Opus Dei-- I still don't actually know that much about them, but you strike me as a fair, honest judge of articles, and I have no clue what your religous point of view is, which makes you an ideal candidate to serve as a fresh pair of eyes. Could you look over the page and comment on whether the rewrite is an improvment and maybe help out in the ensuing discussion? --Alecmconroy 09:03, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for thinking of me, but I am so overextended right now that I don't think I will have the time. Dragons flight 17:52, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Since you appear to be a sane admin...Help?

I had an image that I had contested the delete of image deleted by Betacommand without comment in this recent set - I had posted a comment at their page. I have been involved in the discussions about the use of promotional tagged images at some length in the last two days. I resposted another image to the same page, and it was immediately marked by User:Abu_badali for deletion. The same user then has attacked dozens of images uploaded with a promotional tag in only a few minutes, using the argument that any image marked with a promotional tag should be deleted because it could hypothetically be subsititued with a free image as long as the person is living - in this case many of the images marked were provided by the artists to me directly, inclusing some because no free or even promotional image existed. User:Abu_badali then began marking other images such as CD covers I have posted with the so-called rationale they should be deleted because few pages linked to them, which would delete 99% of the album cover images on Wikipedia, as well as likely 98% of all images. This is an obvious personal attack, and yet another example of editors gone wild, which I am now expected to spend hours contesting every one of these CSD's or have someone destroy hours and hours of legitmate work and Wikipedia page layouts to match. I ask for admin assistance on this issue, please, this type of stuff is getting insane on here. A review of User_talk:Abu_badali, and now comments being posted on my page, indicate this user engages in this kind of behavior on a repeated basis. I have never asked for an Rfc before, but there is certainly a need for one here, in addition to a block. The timing of the original issue might also suggest a sockpuppet relationship between Betacommand and Abu badali. And as a Wikipedia user and professional journalist, is it just me, or is there a motto on Wikipedia that for every person engaging in this kind of attack behavior there are a dozen apologists? Tvccs 11:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay admins and apologists - if there was any question about intent, harassment, legitimacy, use of a CSD bot, etc. regarding User:Abu badali - in the middle of his dozens of CSD requets in a few minute span of my images was an image he deleted from the Cadillac Catera page. This was not an image I'd created, it was a free image from another user and marked as such, it was simply one I'd replaced with a promtionally tagged image at one point, which was then reverted, and which I'd subsequently left alone. Abu badali removed a completely free image from a page, the same type of image used to illustrate hundreds of cars on Wikipedia, using the rationale "23:04, November 27, 2006 Abu badali (Talk | contribs) m (rm purely illustrative use of unfree image per WP:FUC#8)". I am completely sick of this stuff, and of the people that apologize for the type of behavior exhibited by this and similar users. Is there anyone sane that has a bot thay can remove his CSD's? Tvccs 11:46, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard"

And now I get to offer a clarification/correction - it appears the image that was removed from Cadillac Catera was a second image - not the free image at the top of the page, which I thought was the case as in checking the top image tag, it indicated it was no longer linked to any page, and I thought I was seeing a cached page version which still had the image after deletion. Everything else I stated stands, and that was hopefully the only image I've uploaded without a totally clear source. I'm so glad NOT to be dealing with this. Tvccs 12:40, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Apparently my doubt in my abilities was vastly unfounded

In a way, I was waiting for fear of failure; in another sense, I wanted to wait until the environment at RFA was less poisonous, or someone asked to nominate me rather than self-nom. Perhaps I was a bit hesitant; I wasn't going to send thank-you cards, but the emotional impact of hitting WP:100 (and doing so unanimously!) changed my mind. So I appreciate your confidence in me at RFA (and the prodding), and hope you'll let me know if I can do anything for you in the future, though I doubt it for the near future while I learn... Cheers! -- nae'blis 22:55, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Holocene Temperature Variations

Hello, I was wondering how you weighted the sources of your temperature curve: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png Since "The records are plotted with respect to the mid 20th century average temperatures" I would have expected that the thick dark line indicating the average temperature would hit the zero during the 20th century. It really seems to me that you just took the average of all the other curves and plotted them without any weighting. It is still interesting to see how temperature has varied during the holocene at different places, but adding an average curve of "random" sources has not much significance. I´d suggest you remove the thick dark line, or make a new graphic maybe containing the average of some sources which are related to each other (for example several Greenland borhole samples). After all I appreciate your work, Im glad that there are people like you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.206.29.33 (talk • contribs).

Yes, it is just an average, but an average across widely scattered locations should, on the face of it, be more representative of average global climate than an average across several closely related sites would be. For example, North Atlantic climate is strongly influenced by the decline of the Laurentide ice sheet in ways that the Southern Hemisphere was not. While it may be interesting to consider those variations, you can't do that untill you have some sense of what was "typical", which is what my figure aims to provide. Note that the large scatter is shown to indicate the range of regional variation. As to why it doesn't hit 0 during the 20th century? Well the black line never really reaches the 20th century, for starters. As stated on the image description, these represent multi-century scale fluctuations, so the fact it doesn't capture the 1950s (for example) is not intrinsically surprising. The scale alignment was based on high resolution records that do (the inset plot). Dragons flight 16:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criteria for deleting The Plimptons

Hello, over at [7] it says that it is not a ballot for whether to delete pages or not, but all the bumff pages[8] seem to be geared towards counting votes. Can you clarify the ambiguity?

Most AFDs are decided in a way that closely follows the prevailing view (if one exists), but the tally of votes is not inherently binding. A closer may disregard the strict numerical tally if given good reason to do so. For example, if the tally seems strongly contaminated by "votes" from a large number of users who just registered new accounts only to vote, then the views of established Wikipedians may be given greater weight. Dragons flight 20:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Cool, so its a bit flexible like that. Thanks.--81.155.36.6 23:27, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] minor change to template:RfA

Okay, I'll bite. Is there any reason your bot would not be able to handle a change of "Ending" to "Scheduled to end" on Template:RfA? Both WP:WATCH and WP:BN seem to be handling the MrDarcy example fine so far. Crossposted to the other two BotOps mentioned there. -- nae'blis 23:25, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

"Ending" is the keyword used to identify the closing time as the stuff that comes next (which has historically been necessary because some people choose to write dates in a variety of different formats). Hence yes, removing the word "ending" will break the bot unless I updated it before hand. Dragons flight 00:29, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I checked with Tangotango and Oleg A., and they said it would not cause a problem there. How difficult would it be to switch the wording your bot triggers on? Is there a compromise wording that would make it easier? -- nae'blis 19:43, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I've modified it so that the "ing" is optional. It will trigger on either "ending" or "end", and consider everything that follows to be the timestamp. Dragons flight 20:16, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Marvelous, thank you for the rapid response. :) -- nae'blis 09:44, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry

I wondered if you had the data points for the graph you put together at http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Five_Myr_Climate_Change_Rev_png ?

I have been trying to draw data off the png to get an indication, over the last 700k yrs, of the 1000yr variances over the cycles your graph shows.

Robin

[edit] AfD Summary requests

Your AfD summaries are really useful, so thanks. A small request would be to make the section headers for each day formatted as links to the AfD page for that day. —Doug Bell ^talk 07:37, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Another thing that would be helpful is to include the name of the last successfully parsed page when there is a parser error. This will make it much easier to locate the offending page. —Doug Bell ^talk 12:48, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vote stacking

I concur with that block; it seems like the best way to prevent further escalation. (Radiant) 11:59, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category tracker

Your excellent category tracker is very useful for the maintenance cats, however where they are dated by month, we have introduced an artificial category "all articles with problem X" (solely for the purpose of tracking I think). Would it be possible for the tool to keep track of and accumulate one level of subcats when asked? Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 12:24 10 December 2006 (GMT).

Those categories are useful for other things than tracking, and some of them aren't even tracked at all, like Category:All orphaned articles. Although I strongly think that one should be, as there's six months worth of backlog there. --Derlay 00:36, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Graphics Lab

I saw your name listed on Wikiproject Illustration or the list of graphic artists, and I thought I'd let you know that a Graphics Lab has been created on EN. Based on the highly successful French and German graphics labs, it seeks to better organise and coordinate our graphic design and photo-editing efforts. Up until now, there has been no common space on EN where users could ask for maps, charts and other SVG files to be created. What's more, the Graphics Lab has discussion boards, tips, tools and links; in sum, a good common workspace. Come help us out! The infrastucture is already in place, and now we need participants. :) --Zantastik talk 01:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)