User talk:DreamGuy

I periodically go through and clean out the old comments... This is because they refer to old situations or that the comments are otherwise no longer relevant. Those looking for archives are invited to refer to the history.

Note: If you are here to leave personal attacks, false accusations of vandalism, a long tirade about why your cat photo or article about yourself should be left alone as you and only you wanted, nonsensical rationalizations of why vampires, ancient astronauts, werewolves, "creation science" and so on should be treated as completely real and so forth, do not bother, as I'll either just remove them right away or simply point you to the appropriate Wikipedia policy which you should have read in the first place.

Otherwise please add new comments below.

NPOV

I know we've had differences in the past, but I just wanted to say thanks. I admire your efforts towards WP:NPOV. Friday (talk) 03:48, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Any article in particular you are talking about here? DreamGuy 04:21, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Yep. This edit is what I noticed. Friday (talk) 04:25, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah, yeah... I thought that one was pretty clear cut, especially since the Afrocentrist editor there and myself both agreed the link was inappropriate... not sure what the other guy was thinking. DreamGuy 04:41, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Final decision

The arbitration committee has closed Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/DreamGuy with no action taken. →Raul654 22:14, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I'm glad to see that these baseless accusations were ignored as "utterly unpersuasive" by admins on a 5 to 1 decision (and note that the 1 dissent was only asking to look into it longer and not recommending any action against me). I am sorry that so many people wasted their time on a complaint that was created solely for revenge purposes and, for many of the complainants (User:Gavin the Chosen aka Gabrielsimon and three or four other usernames, User:Eequor and User:Vashti, especially), a transparent attempt to remove a major voice in support of NPOV on articles that they were trying to push their own agendas on. Hopefully now they will realize that their complaints are without merit and stop making biased edits (though it helps that Gabriel has been banned for two months already). DreamGuy 05:33, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Congrats also (although it was never really in doubt) I know we butted heads on occasion but your actions relating to GirlyVinyRFC/SqeaukBox thing confirmed my impression of your "decentness" and whilst I didn't get involved once the arbitation had started (SqueakBox had already lost the argument for himself by that point anyway) I kept an I eye on it just in case. --ElvisThePrince 17:54, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. DreamGuy 19:40, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Barnstar

Have you seen this barnstar?

Have you seen this barnstar?

The Barnstar of Diligence may be awarded in recognition of a combination of extraordinary scrutiny, precision and community service.

Regardless of what people say about your temper, you deserve this for your massive and tireless work towards NPOV. ~~ N (t/c) 22:53, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks... It's a never ending battle. DreamGuy 19:40, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

NPOV Award

I give this NPOV award to User:DreamGuy for his tireless, fearless work for the neutrality and his insistence on the necessity of scholarly references. --BorgQueen 23:11, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Indeed you deserve some recognition for your effort. Though your editwarring has been controversial you did contribute greatly for the academic quality and neutrality of wikipedia. --BorgQueen 23:11, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

And thanks to you also. "Edit warring" is another one of those POVs I just see changing it back to the way it's supposed to be and not just letting someone who is doing it incorrectly win out of apathy. All it tkaes for evil to win is for good men to do nothing, yada yada yada. Some people here seem to be more interested in some red tape that will maybe get something wrong fixed two months later, by which times there's already 50 more bad things to fix and a lot of readers who got bad info. That's my philosophy. DreamGuy 19:40, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for your work on reverting all the additions of people.noteroom.com and their associated removal of valid links. Keep it up. --PTSE 22:27, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

thanx

If I didn't think barnstars were so insipidly stupid, I'd award you one for dealing with User:Evmore and the situations created by the same. I don't have the patience for that. -- Krash 06:00, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Myths and other stories

Nice job on summarising the issues. I will read through them and think about it. At present my general feeling is I don't mind giving alternative meanings some air time but i would not want common usage to take precedence over academic usage. It means wikipedia looks very amateurish. Somehting that must be avoided if it is to have any credibility. David D. (Talk) 08:16, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Bigfoot

Howdy, DreamGuy. Given the escalating situation on Bigfoot, I've decided to go ahead with an RfC on Beckjord's behavior. It's located here and is not yet "live". I want to be as thorough as possible, and as you can probably guess, collecting diffs is a tedious task. Your help would be greatly appreciated. If you do help out, please edit only the evidence sections, and don't sign or endorse anything just yet. Other than that, make changes as you see fit. Thanks. android79 02:31, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and I responded to your message regarding the Mythology page on my talk page, if you didn't see it already. android79 02:32, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I, Kerowyn, award this The RickK Anti-Vandalism Barnstar award this barnstar for tireless efforts in reverting vandalism, squelching sockpuppets and generally making Pseudoscience and Mythology marginally more sane places to be.

I assume you'll have no objections if we take this matter directly to the ArbCom? android79 17:19, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• The request is up at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Beckjord. Feel free to add a statement, or to remove your name if you no longer wish to participate. Thanks. android79 22:57, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Me & X images

I reposted the Me & X images you posted on Jan. 9 at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion/2006 January 16 for more discussion. Can you please add your thoughts again if you want to. -Thanks Nv8200p talk 18:30, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I see the guy is complaining about being "harassed" and so forth. Gosh, we're just so horrible for not letting him waste Wikipedia server space so he can put up a personal photo album of tons of pics of himself that can never be used in an encyclopedia. It's admins like him that give the rest a bad name, feeling entitled to break rules themselves while trying to enforce rules on others arbitrarily. We can only hope the guy gets a clue or leaves. DreamGuy 07:56, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Satanic ritual abuse

Hey, sorry about the mixup at Satanic ritual abuse -- there is apparently some bug in the software, because when I tried to save the version with the bare wikilink moved from under the category tags to the "See also" section, it should have told me that you had already saved a version in the meantime, but it didn't. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:38, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Mop

I just got promoted, feel free to let me know when you need help with admin stuff. - Haukur 00:18, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Awesome. DreamGuy 06:23, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Your recent post on Android's page

DreamGuy, if you'll let me know whether you have explicitly asked Elonka and/or Petros471 to stop posting on this page, I'll be happy to tell both of them that any continued posting amounts to harassment. (I see your edit summaries when removing the posts, but I'm talking about asking on your/her page — not everybody reads edit summaries.) Everyking was recently blocked for harassing me on my page, for rather less than what Elonka is doing, with her "7th attempt". She's free to disapprove of your removal of her posts, but that's it--she's not free to harass you about it, nor to badmouth you elsewhere, either. Bishonen | talk 14:45, 24 January 2006 (UTC).

Yup, on their talk pages, I told both to not post here again. More than just Elonka's continued harassment, I am concerned about Petros471 pretending to be a mediator when he/she is suspiciously new here and I already told him that I don't accept some newbie who doesn;t understand policies trying to pretend to be official in some way. I would like him to remove the info on his talk page claiming ongoing mediation when he has no power to do so and I explicitly told him I would not accept him mediating anything. DreamGuy 14:55, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

FYI, my understanding is that anyone can offer to mediate any situation, but accepting their mediation is purely at the discretion of those involved in the dispute. So there may be a thin line between "pretending to be a mediator" and offering to help. Still, once it's clear that one or both parties aren't interested in the mediator, they really ought to let it drop. Friday (talk) 15:22, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I have now, just so there is no confusion, posted to the talk pages of the two individuals involved explicitly telling them not to edit my talk page and that I reject some self-declared mediator who clearly doesn't understand policies and has only been here a month and a half. Here are warnings: Elonka: [1] Petros: [2]. Any further attempt on their behalf to post here or pursue this sham "mediation" will be reported as harassment. DreamGuy 15:26, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

As Friday says, and as I've already written to Petros, I'm not really concerned with the "official standing" bit either: anybody can mediate, if they manage to earn and keep the trust of the involved parties. (An important if.) It may come as a shock to you, but all mediators in this place are basically self-appointed.

Note that I'm not reviewing the whole AfD dispute Elonka considers she has with you; it's the present situation that concerns me, after running across your post on Android's page, and it looks a lot like like harassment to me. (Btw, Android sounds like he's reviewing in greater depth than I've done, so I hope he weighs in too.) If there's more of it from either of them after the warnings I've posted, I will block the culprit. As for the putative "mediation page", it's such a sham that I'm quite prepared to delete it without further ceremony. In the interest of keeping everybody happy, though, I've given Elonka a chance to move her own material on it to a better place, and Petros a chance to show good will by himself marking his page for speedy deletion. Bishonen | talk 16:18, 24 January 2006 (UTC).

I will take a closer look at the whole AfD mess when I have the time; I have a feeling this is going to end up as an RfC. I concur with Bish, the "mediation page" looks more like a "let's gather dirt" page, and it needs to go. Please try to remain as civil as possible with these folks, even if they continue with this behavior; you've got plenty of admins monitoring this. android79 16:25, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks folks... the situation does seem eerily similar to the RFC Gabrielsimon tried against me last summer. DreamGuy 16:42, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Beckjord

Hello,

An Arbitration case involving you has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Beckjord. Please add evidence to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Beckjord/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Beckjord/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Kelly Martin (talk) 01:22, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Myth and Mythology

Cultures cannot believe; the people of a culture can. I am more than willing to change the def, no need to bring it to my talk page.

As far as Codex, he's a pain on Noah's Ark as well. He gets the bit in his teeth and he's just plain aggrevating. He is careful not to violate WP:3RR. As far as what can be done, be more persistant than he. An Rfc is all that can be done otherwise, and frankly he's borderline for an Rfc right now. He seems to have droppped the dates and the newer/later stuff, so progress, however grindingly slow, is being made.

Let me know if I can ever do anything to help, and if I'm ever wrong about something just tell me - I prefer the encyclopedia be accurate, truly. KillerChihuahua^?!? 23:08, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

No, cultures DO believe. Cultures are made up of people. Saying people believe is already included by saying culture, unless there is some culture out there that doesn't contain people. But, more importantly, it has to be a cultural group of some sort. One person or a small group that doesn't rise to the level of a culture of some sort do not have myths, they have folklore or superstitious beliefs or delusions or something depending upon the specifics. It's inherent to the definition.

And, frankly, I CAN'T be more persistent than he. I'm already stretched to the breaking limit as it is, and with Codex and JHCC taking turns to push their religious goals and historical revisionism and try to change defnitions and go against consensus, I can't keep up, and my reverts are already all spent almost immediately. I'm a extremely frustrated that we had all that discussion on the talk page about the importace of not changing the academic definition and not pushing POV and agreeing on what to do, and they are running around changing things left and right based upon complete nonsense. Why did we even have the discussion if these two editors ignore what the eight or ten or more editors had to say on the matter? DreamGuy 23:25, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I had thought this was almost to resolution? I have to admit I have not been tracking the changes. Do you need a third opinion? David D. (Talk) 23:11, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned yes, but it would be a fourth, if you count Codex, altho he hasn't weighed in on this bit yet. KillerChihuahua^?!? 23:14, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

We HAD a resolution, but JHCC and Codex are ignoring the consensus that was established. Yes, we need help here... desperately. DreamGuy 23:25, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm very wary of stepping into this one as it seems to be quite a lively place! However I'd like to change the line that says "In common usage....".The most common usage that I know is the term "Urban Myth' which doesn't refer to something that is untrue but something who's truth is hard to determine due to the lack of specifics of the case and the undocumented way the knowledge has been passed on. All I want to say is "may be untrue". I've put this on your talk page as I don't want to get savaged!

Thanks for your comments on the Religious Tolerence websit problems. After trying to e-mail you and realising I didn't know how to do it I did eventually reply on my talk page. Basically I think the Verifyability proposal needs to be got rid of as it's the first step to censoprship. I think allowing blanket bans on sites will make for lazy editing - as it is these references will only survive if they survive the rigours of the current system! How can it be put forward for deletion? I think it's open to misinterpretation just being left there. SOPHIA 09:38, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Howdy

Do you have anything to add to Beckjord arbitration....Bishonen mentioned that her image gallery had been vandalized by Beckjord after she blocked him. I already put in a bunch of diffs on the evidence page and didn't want to hog them all, so if you want to mentioned Bishonen's comment to me, that would be great. It's a tedious chore but we should all voice our thoughts, especially with the level of personal attacks he has waged.--MONGO 12:22, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't really understand all the hoops arbitration expect out of people... my original comments on the RfAr already listed tons of evidence, and so did lots of other people, and now we're supposed to start from scratch? Copy and paste what we said there over there, that's more than enough toprove our points. Between the RfAr and the RFC we put together it should be done already, shouldn't it? DreamGuy 00:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Not everyone who signed a statement needs to provide evidence. Trust me, after his most recent tirade, I'll be coming up with enough evidence for all of us. android79 00:33, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I basically agree with DreamGuy here. Once a case has been accepted and an evidence page created, no arb is ever again going to look at the statements painstakingly prepared for the Request. (An arb told me this.) So the common notion that you need a complete reformulation for your actual evidence has to be mostly aesthetic, IOW absurd extra work. Copypaste with some up-to-the-minute stuff added is surely good enough. Bishonen | talk 01:59, 28 January 2006 (UTC).

I got the up to the minute stuff from today's tirade and I think sme other newish things. Do we have anything from the RfAr that hasn;t been recycled into the A itself yet? Somebody should pick up whatever else maybe left of the old parts.DreamGuy 18:23, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

My Mistake

Dreamguy, I was the one who put the link to the forumboard, my mistake. MarcusTCicero 02:11, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Not a biggee. DreamGuy 18:23, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

For all admins looking into Elonka's harassment

See Template:Mesopotamian mythology and its talk page... I had a dispute with another editor, explained my edits in the edit comments, and was called a vandal by this guy. Elonka showed up to revert me (when the other guy would have been blocked for 3RR if he had done it), and then she tried to pretend to be a neutral outside party, like a mediator, instead of the person with a highly emotional revenge RFC based upon misunderstandings of how things work in the works. Looks like she plans on stalking me like Gabrielsimon used to do, inserting herself into any conflict I have with anyone to escalate it to try to get back at me. It'd be one thing if this were an article or even a topic she was previously involved in, but she has no knowledge of it and is conveniently deciding automatically that what I say has no merit without looking into it.

Oh, also, FYI: The guy who I had the conflict with on that template apparently claims that Bishonen, Android, Haukur and some other unnamed admins are all my sockpuppets, the idea possibly planted by Elonka herself, because I don't enough know where this guy would have even heard of these people. DreamGuy 13:55, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

And apparently the guy I am in a conflict with there is blindly reverting all of my improvements to Ereshkigal and Template:Mesopotamian myth (monsters) (he has a whole string of these templates witht he same basic problems) also. And also reverting Tiamat to reinsert the bad template. DreamGuy 14:03, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Speaking as your sock, I'm watching, and thinking of posting a message on ANI about this lot. I don't think Elonka reverted the template because she was stalking you, but because she'd received this remarkably frank advice to do it, just 8 minutes earlier. I don't think Geogre's going to like this, btw; only a couple of weeks ago, I was his sock.[3] :-) Bishonen | talk 17:45, 29 January 2006 (UTC).

Oh shit, the truth is out! DreamAndroidBish79GuyOnen 18:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Beckjord

No, I was speaking about myself when I referred to a last ditch effort to assume good faith.--MONGO 19:40, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah, thought so, but it was a little ambiguous, and beckjord try to claim you were pointing out that i had bad faith, so I figured I'd ask. DreamGuy 19:52, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Wicca infobox

I found it easy to agree with you here regarding the infobox. It is superfluous as well as very poorly designed. Most of the linked pages are either pointing to unrelated articles (The Goddess being a fine example), or simply do not yet exist. Thank you for taking care of that misshapen abortion of an infobox.

→ P.MacUidhir (t) (c) 00:42, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. I am just so sick and tired of people creating infoboxes that just do not add anything useful and instead have bad links and so forth and taking it upon themselves to force them on a bunch of articles without even discussing it first.Somebody creating something used across a variety of articles on a certain topic needs to get input from the editors on the articles all across the topic about whether such a thing is even desired or helpful and then if so hammering out what goes in it based upon a broad consensus across the affects articles. DreamGuy 02:53, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Elonka

I don't know if you've communicated directly with each other, but if you haven't you should. (I accept my indefinite block was probably wrong now.) If you can't see a way to drawing a line under this mess that Elonka would also accept, I'd be happy to work on mediating to try to leave us with two reasonably happy Wikipedians - David Gerard 16:55, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I've also started a new subject on WP:ANI, "Elonka mess", and unblocked her - David Gerard 17:10, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. - David Gerard 17:49, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, and she constantly makes other personal attacks as well. She claims that me saying that something she said was a lie is a personal attack, yet on her recent post to ANI she accused me of and User:Bishonen of lying over and over and over again. She simply cannot be allowed to call anything less than flattering about her a lie that has to be removed while she and editors she encourages go around saying nonsense and calling people psychopaths and such. She doesn;t care about rules or process, just forcing her will onto everyone, and she's very smart in how she does it, by specifically contacting editors and admins I had conflicts with in the past so they can all run around and complain andmake it look like a big deal when it's just an editor throwing a tantrum and demanding -- she calls it "non-negotiable" on her website -- that she removes whatever she objects to or else. DreamGuy 13:47, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Wicca: religion or religious movement?

Hi, I'm just wondering why you consider calling Wicca a religion (rather than as a religious movement) to be an "unhelpful personal comment". I was attempting to simplify wording - Wicca is generally described as a religion, and since it has a fairly well-established set of principles that term seems more appropriate than "religious movement", which I might use to describe a very disparate group such as Neopagans in general. Christianity is normally described as a religion rather than as a religious movement, regardless of the diversity of beliefs of its followers. Or are you objecting to an implied similarity to organised Churchianity-style "religion"? I'm not particularly concerned about how it ends up being worded, I'm just curious. What was personal about my wording? Fuzzypeg 02:32, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand what you are referring to here. When I label something an "unhelpful personal comment" its usually something like, for example, somebody adding "Wicca isn't really a religion at all" or "Wicca sucks" to an article. I don't recall saying that to anything about religion versus religious movement. DreamGuy 03:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh wait, I found it by going through the page history... It was a mistake. See, if you check the history there, somebody added "(That's got to annoy Wiccans. Do you think the article on Judaism has to explain that not every Jew is like Fiddler on the Roof or Woody Allen?)" to the article which i went to revert, then somebody else already reverted and you did your change right immediately after that revert, and then my revert with the edit comment aimed at the earlier person popped in, and when doing a revert you don't see if anyone else snuck another change in there or not. So the comment was not directed at you but Mr. Fiddler on the Roof guy. DreamGuy 03:37, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying that. I've just changed it back to religion rather than religious movement. It's an easy mistake to make when there's as much scrappy editing going on as there is on the Wicca page. Cheers, Fuzzypeg 22:46, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

Just a reminder - no good faith edit can be called vandalism. Hipocrite - «Talk» 04:09, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Gee, that's helpful... but then anytime I label something vandalism it's clearly beacuse it is bad faith. DreamGuy 04:47, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I too sometimes question people's intentions with particularly outrageous edits (and my own have been questioned too, I'm sure), but if there's any way to all to view it thru the lens of good faith, you should do so. In fact there've been plenty of actions by longterm, apparently respected contributors that I could swear are just trolling, and sometimes it's quite a struggle to continue to assume good faith. But, sometimes these disagreements are just well-intentioned editors looking at things from radically different points of view. I appreciate those editors who volunteer to do damage control work - it's difficult and sometimes unrewarding, but I think at this point, damage control is arguably more important to the project than creation of new articles. Anyway, I know you do a lot of that sort of thing, and you're very good at it, but I personally think you'd be even better at it if you were less judgemental on others. More flies with honey, and all that. Friday (talk) 15:19, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure, sure, point taken... but I never understood that: who wants flies? DreamGuy 15:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I need your advice

Hi, I'm sorry to trouble you but I need advice and you seem the best person to ask. At the John Byrne article it seems to my mind that someone is attempting to add information, which whilst true, unbalances the article too much with respect the attention and depth of the material presented. I don't object to the underlying principle, that Byrne shoots his mouth off, is an idiot and picks stupid fights, but I'm not sure we need to list every damn time he does so. Surely this stuff could easily be summarised? Could you have a brief look at the following diffs, [4], [5] and [6], and basically let me know if you think I'm way off base or not. I'd appreciate an independent view, and I'm fairly sure you'll give me an honest and more importantly, unbiased opinion despite our previous interaction. Steve block talk 20:21, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Looks like youp're 100% right... Most of that stuff is just not encyclopedic at all. Say he's made controversial statements, summarize a couple, maybe link to someplace that goes into all the detail for those few people who care, but it's just not relevant, and including it is just insane. It's POV pushing by unbalanced coverage if nothing else. If I go to a page about some celebrity (or a field-specific one), I don't want to know about their political views or everything stupid they ever said, I want to know about their professional life -- what they are famous for. Some celebrities end up being more famous for political views, such as Sean Penn or Jeanne Garaffolo (sp) or Charleton Heston or (how can I forget) Arnold Schwarzenegger, but even there it has to be measured for overall fame and importance. The Onion gaffe doesn't even rate, the Wikipedia thing is absolutely bizarre, perhaps some on interaction with other comics personalities but not in long long quotes. A few good external links can take care of all that and be as unbiased as they like. DreamGuy 21:41, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice and the help. I'll keep an eye on this, I completely agree with your reasoning above. Steve block talk 21:09, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Police officer

Are you a police officer ? How else someone can conduct good WP:NPOV and the like ? Just had a hunch that you are a police officer. Martial Law 05:29, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Police officer? No. Author/editor/publisher. DreamGuy 22:11, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

A police officer or a doctor has to be like that or someone can end up dead, wrong person ends up in jail. How do you do it ? Martial Law 00:25, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Objective writing is part of the basics taught in journalism classes. DreamGuy 01:05, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Vantage Press

What do you think of the publisher Vantage Press ? Known link is Vantage Press. They even pay for "controversial" material, and claim they're a subsidy publisher. I see the ads on TV from time to time, have seen their ad in The Farmer's Almanac. Martial Law 05:10, 3 February 2006 (UTC) :)

Since you are a publisher, I thought you might want to examine this, and is there anything in Wikipedia about these publishers ? Martial Law 05:40, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Vanity press, for starters. DreamGuy 05:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Deadly Poison verify tags

Greetings, I don't know if this is the place to talk with you, hope this is ok.

I would like to discuss the comment: "please don't remove verify tag until actual sources verifying it are provided" on the history file. I would really like to help about it, and I already did place some real verifiable sources about the original text and information. I have also requested a checkup for the article information from two of my university main teachers, wich have validated the content for me (note: they did not worked nor validated text and grammar, just content).
So I would like to know why can't the tag be removed, since the article cites more sources than others also with not so wide spread knowledge. The sources cited doesn't need to be web-based.

Thank you for your time. (Deadlypoison 20:37, 4 February 2006 (UTC))

About Renfield Syndrome

Hello, you seem to be the only one who has openly disputed the Sanguinarian article merging with the Renfield syndrome article so I assumed you're the one I have to talk to. As I said on both talk pages, there is no clear reason why these two articles should be merged; Sanguinarians are people who claim that they have a physical disease while the Renfield syndrome is a psychological disorder. I understand how these two can be confused; one could say that Sanguinarians are just people with Renfield Syndrome in denial but as Dr. Richard Noll notes in his books, pacients with Renfield syndrome think that it conveys supernatural powers and first preform autovampirism, as you can note from the article, Sanguinarians do not. --– sampi (talk•contrib) 21:58, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I did not dispute that those two articles should be merged. If the Sanguinarian article says that, it's not entirely accurate. We have those two articles plus Vampire lifestyle with a huge amount of overlap and, to be honest, they all really are pretty bad and could use major tightening up and clarification. We certainly don't need three separate articles for three different names for basically the same thing. Any differences between them should be clarified in one article. DreamGuy 00:05, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

You put in the merge tag so I assumed you disputed that the articles were to be merged. I agree that we should merge Sanguinarian with Vampire lifestyle but that's a different subject. I understand your concern but as you can see the Renfield syndrome article is very well written and it's a term used by some in modern psychology. The behavior exhibited by sanguinarians does not concede with the behavior Dr. Noll describes; people who suffer from the Renfield syndrome crave for blood desperately but it seems that it's believed that sanguinarians have some control. I am not disputing the fact that sanguinarians exist, personally, I think it's insane and the article should be deleted immediately. You argue that there is a huge overlap and I disagree; as I said before, it's a psychology-related article as the Sanguinarian article deals with a form of subculture. Your frustration concerning the fact that there are a number of articles about non-fictional vampirism is understandable but I believe that it's blinding you from seeing the distinction between a psychological term and a somewhat popular belief. --– sampi (talk•contrib) 02:23, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Removing Links from Spiritualism

The links did need some pruning, and I'm glad someone else took a stab at it. But your choices do seem a bit arbitrary: why retain Lily Dale and remove Cassadega? The two towns have almost identical origins and a popular book has been published about each of them. Why remove The National Spiritualist Association of Churches and retain the Indiana Association of Spiritualists? The former is important enough to mention in the article's first paragraph, and the latter certainly seems less significant, don't you agree? Why retain Cao Dai? -a religious movement that draws from traditional East Asian ancestor worship, not from Spiritualism. Perhaps most curious of all-why did you remove the list of well-known adherents and retain the list of critics? Doesn't seem like something a NPOV advocate would intentionally do, does it? I'll put some of the links back, unless you beat me to it. Anthon.Eff 22:12, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

If you want to remove Lily Dale, by all means do so. I did a quick and dirty removal of the things that looked like they needed to go. Any adherent section is an obvious spam and vanity magnet, and those people should already be discussed in the article if they are noteworthy. The critics list was shorter and less likely to be discussed in the article. Instead of putting links back, perhaps you should go through and yank a lot more, as the article is a mess. Putting things back isn't going to improve it, but removing more probably will. DreamGuy 00:01, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm disappointed in your response. The adherents section included Arthur Conan Doyle and Alfred Russell Wallace--if you judge that they are included as "vanity magnets" you must be inclined to Spiritualism yourself. Those links were built up over a period of months, by people who thought they knew something about Spiritualism, and to delete them in such a hurry strikes me as a bit rash. "Quick and dirty" works well in an area where one has some expertise (was it Jack the Ripper?), but when one doesn't know the difference between Cassadega and Cao Dai, one should show a bit more reticence. Anthon.Eff 02:16, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

So remove the spam and clean the article up if you know so much better. You weren't doing it, so please don't criticize someone actually trying to make an effort to clean it up. It looked like the sort of page completely taken over by spammers with no active real editors there, in which something would be better than nothing. Perhaps you heard of Wikipedia:Be bold? DreamGuy 03:31, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I followed your suggestion, moving material on current Spiritualist practice to Spiritualist Church, including the links. The article now focuses on the historical movement, as it should. What do you think? Anthon.Eff 17:35, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Fair use images

DreamGuy, I would appreciate your input on a couple of photos I uploaded under fair use (one of which, Adele Stevens, I have since received the approval of the website to use) which I believe shouldn't be up for deletion. The second photo I am awaiting a response on from the assistant publisher, but either way I feel it is acceptable under fair use (I uploaded it under Promotional, another editor has called it a magazine cover, and if need be it could be listed under a more general fair use template). Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion/2006 January 31 --Alsayid 09:07, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately I would disagree that these are fair use. Simply finding an image on a website and calling it promotional doesn't count. And that one photo is definitely not a magazine cover, so that tag is just wrong. DreamGuy 16:38, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Just to be clear on my intentions, I wasn't simply slapping a tag up there when I uploaded, I honestly felt Promotional was the appropriate one. Anyway, the first photo template I updated, as I received approval from Danni.com provided that a link back to Danni.com is given. The second one I didn't think was a MagazineCover either, but I wanted some feedback before changing someone else's edit. I will now change it to Fair Use In|Alexandria Karlsen, and list my detailed rationale. Thank you for your response. --Alsayid 17:54, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Typhoid Mary image

The image shouldn't have been deleted, there was no copyvio at all. --DrBat 06:07, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

That's your opinion. Unfortunately for you, the people who actually understand copyright law disagreed with your opinion. Restoring the image after it was deleted as a copyright violation is not at all appropriate.DreamGuy 06:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

AriGold said that the image was an image that someone had modified, which was not true at all (which I proved). --DrBat 20:20, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Just curious, how did you "prove" it? By showing me where you found it? A site that says the picture was sent to them (by whom is not stated) and is "apparently the original uncensored work"? Hardly authoritative. AriGold 21:52, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/rage/104720502629520.htm

So you're assuming Rich Johnston is lying about it now? And go on JinxWorld (Bendis's official site) if you're that in denial about it; he'll probably confirm it too. --DrBat 22:04, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't assume, I look for proof. Which that article you listed doesn't provide. AriGold 22:21, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Sure it doesn't, if you're blind.

I wonder if you actually believe what you're saying, or you're just being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn. You replace a high-quality image with a crappy, poorly scanned one. You use the logic that it has to be the actual scanned cover, and not promotional art for the cover, even though many comic-related articles on Wikipedia do the same. You dodge questions (like why you aren't replacing the shb images for Spidey, Bats, and Supes like you are with Typhoid), and then you just deny evidence that's staring you right in the face.

http://newsarama.com/forums/printthread.php?s=6a2dd52de401a9ddbfa3495cff133bcd&threadid=4185 How's this link? Or are they just a bunch of dirty liars too? --DrBat 00:37, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

That new link you provided seems factual, the one your originally provided did not. I'm not dodging anything, I just don't have to edit every article on this site. Not everyone can spend every waking moment here. Some people find certain items of interest and work on them, it's that simple. I dont feel like looking for new images of those other characters. Stating that my not changing other articles is indicitive of why my reasoning is flawed is a weak argument. AriGold 15:36, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

So now that you realize I was telling the truth about my image, and that your reasoning for its deletion was false, are you going to continue with your revertions? --DrBat 20:27, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

It's still my contention that the comic cover as seen by the public is the best use. That is also what was agreed to in the discussion whether to delete the old image. Your original contention was that the art alone would suffice, whereas I thought the comic cover as published by Marvel was the best use It also seems to be the consensus here so far. The discussion with other peers appeared to think that the comic was the better use, not the artwork, so I will continue to use the comic cover. AriGold 20:40, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Beckjord

A final decision has been reached in this arbitration case.

For the arbitration committee. --Tony Sidaway 06:19, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

That was quick... though the results seem worded oddly. Banned from all paranormal articles, banned from all sockpuppets, banned for a year, but "Should Beckjord violate any ban he may be blocked briefly, up to a week in the case of repeat offenses."...? I would assume that violating the one year ban on a sockpuppet would get the sock banned for that year right away and not "up to a week". Weird. DreamGuy 06:26, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Should he violate an article ban after his one year general ban is up, that is, since those are indefinite. Any violation of the general ban will result in a reset of the year. Dmcdevit·t 06:29, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Groovy. Like I figured. The things could be worded a little more clearly though. DreamGuy 16:59, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

May I ask what [7] this was all about? (Why he mentioned me in the first place, this stuff has gotten rather old)εγκυκλοπαίδεια* 23:28, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact

Dear Dreamguy, it is funny to be implicitly labeled as a "defender of pseudoscience" considering that I spent an awful lot of time removing pseudoscientific crap from articles (including from that one, in case you haven't noticed) and marking it as such. And even more time arguing with people who try to put the crap back in (check Talk:Alchemy, for example), and who accuse me of being a rotten materialist atc..

Rest assured that I am a firm believer in science. But it seems that you have a more idealized view of scientists that I do.

As I wrote in the Talk page, I believe that the word "dogma" is a pretty accurate and factual description of the attitude of antrhopologists in the 1980s about Pre-Columbian contacts; but that attitude fortunately seems to have changed after the anse aux meadows and all that. If the word "dogma" is too rude, please suggest another one. However, just omitting any mention of the dogma would imply that scientists were always wonderfully open-mided, which sounds not only POV but factually inaccurate to me. And surely you know of many other situations where the mainstream scientists have been defintely dogmatic and made fools of themselves -- tectonics, prions, relativity, to name a few.

In case you are not convinced, let me tell you that I am a card-carrying scientist myself. So here you have hard evidence that scientists can be quite irrational, stubborn, and dogmatic at times. 8-)

All the best, Jorge Stolfi 02:03, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Dogma and so forth used in that article are words that are inherently biased, as it assumes already that they are wrong on this particular issue. It would be difficult to have worse POV-pushing than that. Objectivity may not be obvious sometimes, but it should be extremely obvious that it is lacking in this case. A great number of other problems were also previously pointed out. Best to go back and actually read through the talk page of the article in question instead of taking it to my talk page. DreamGuy 06:10, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Admin abuse of power on the Angel Long article

DreamGuy, I wanted to let you know that Wgfinley not only reversed your edit that had kept the jpeg in the article on Angel Long, he immediately deleted the image itself! He has unilaterally done this with other images as well, completely ignoring Wikipedia policy and mocking the consensus of its editors in the process. I'm interested in knowing if there's something you can do, or what should be done, as I find this sort of blatant vandalism very troubling. --Alsayid 14:34, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, well, first, that's not vandalism (see Wikipedia:Vandalism#What vandalism is not), so you'd get farther if you were not using incorrect terms to try to make it sound worse than it is. But, yeah, that image and several others (nominated by that editor, I believe) went through the Images for Deletion process and were specifically saved because they DID meet fair use guidelines. In fact the only reason I even had that article on my watch list is because the editor who had listed it was acted out of process and from a failed understanding of fair use laws and I believed he would be back later to try again. By deleting the image outright he clearly went beyond what he is allowed to do as an admin.

I left him a lengthy response on his talk page. Hopefully he will act responsibly and undo his actions. If not, I'll see if bringing it up elsewhere does any good, but there's been a while rash of cases of admins violating policy and getting away with it, even when they clearly have no consensus to do so, because other admins don't want to start a war, which is bad because these people just learn that they can get away with it. DreamGuy 17:26, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, that's why I wanted to run it by you. Thanks. Yes, he has done the same thing with other images he nominated at IFD, and when they were kept, he went in behind everyone and quietly deleted the images anyway. But I also hope he does the right thing now. We'll see. --Alsayid 19:20, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Trancendental Meditation

You may be interested in reviewing recent changes at Transcendental_meditation. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:51, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Image deletion out of process and false fair use claims

Listen, I appreciate you wanting to remove photos that are falsely labeled fair use, but you recently not only removed Image:Angel Long.jpg from Angel Long claiming that it didn't fall under fair use guidelines while ignoring the discussion on the talk page of the Fair use article itself that specifically dealt with this. Furthermore, you deleted the image itself outright without going through IFD, which, when you did try, that image and several others were specifically kept because they DID meet fair use guidelines.

If you felt that the image was not appropriately used, what you SHOULD have done, was either add a small part to the article referencing the fact that video (or software, I forget what it was exactly) was something she did, and then it would clearly fit the fair use policy with no ambiguity whatsoever or take the image to the deletion process and see if others agreed with you. You can't simply take it upon yourself to make a decision and go ahead and do it even knowing that you are opposed on it. We've had extensive discussions on the use of video covers for porn stars, and since the videos are a substantial part of the information in the article, it's clear that they can and do fit. It's what they do, unlike, say, a photo of Ronald Reagan on a magazine cover.

Furthermore, on your talk page you crow about the fact that you tried to get permission from the copyright owners of some images... all well and good, but you didn;t bother in these cases, and it's all but certain that they would agree (it's free publicity for them, the covers are used in promotional catalogs and everywhere specifically so people see them).

Quite simply, your actions here are not at all within line with fair use laws or accepted Wikipedia protocol. I have had classes on communication law specifically dealing with these topics and you are apparently out of your element. But you don't just prevail in a dispute by taking it upon yourself to use admin powers to do what you want to do without gaining consensus.

I would suggest that you immediately undelete Image:Angel Long.jpg because that image was NOT deleted when it was put up for deletion and you are clearly going against the process. I believe you were the one who nominated tons of similar images at the same time, and you deleted any of those which did not get deleted as part of the process, it would behoove yoiu to restore them immediately. I would also suggest you start following Wikipedia policy and not take it upon yourself to play maverick, no matter how well-intentioned you think you are. DreamGuy 17:20, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

My Response

IFD is broken, clear items that should be removed get one vote for retain by the uploader and kept. This image was not being used in an article properly and I removed it. The Fair Use policy is very clear on our use of DVD covers, we lose any defense of fair use on such covers when they are not a critical review of the film in question. There isn't even any mention of the film on that page. DVD covers are not allowed on the pages of the actors, plain and simple, read the tage (Template:DVDcover). It was a violation, I corrected the violation, you incorrectly said I "strictly interpreted" it when on it's face it clearly says what the intent of those images is for fair use criteria. I deleted it on sight once it was being abused. --Wgfinley 17:57, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

What is going on here ? Meow-ouch !

I've seen the weird vandalisim here. What is going on here ? Martial Law 20:10, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Everything that was vandalised, so far, was focused on your cat image. Martial Law 20:19, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Should I have a Admin. "watch" this page, your user page for you ? That is some really weird vandalisim. Martial Law 20:21, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Looks like some IP is doing this to you. Martial Law 07:06, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

My Element

Your comments on my talk page are way out of line. I've been nothing but polite in explaining my reasoning for my actions. If you don't agree with that, that's fine, you don't have to resort to insulting me or whipping out the "I took such and such class an know more than you". If you did then you would have provided an argument of where the image met the four step test, you did not. So, please, continue civil discussion but if you're just going to insult me I'll ignore you. --Wgfinley 04:57, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm sorry, but you are breaking the policies to play cowboy enforcing interpretations of laws you clearly don't understand, and for you to get all pissy about it shows that this is out of ego and not out of trying to improve the encyclopedia. You of course will ignore me just like you'll ignore IFD policy. I was making a civil discussion, and you just labeled them insults and made uncivil responses yourself. Give me a break. DreamGuy 18:13, 11 February 2006 (UTC)