User talk:Raul654

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For your tireless work in making Wikipedia better, for keeping Template:Feature up-to-date, for doing the grunt work of cleaning up Wikipedia:Featured article candidates, for mediating in disputes, for adding lots of really nice pictures, and for still finding the time to work on articles! In a few months you've already become a highly valued member of the community. Stay with us and don't burn out, please. --Eloquence Apr 10, 2004


advise

Never attempt to explain throughput vs response time (Chen 1989) to a system administrator unless it fits his theory of the day. - O^O

There is no system. Why would you try to administer what does not exist? Raul654 23:13, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
When modeling a system that does not exist, does one use a queue depth of zero or infinity? - O^O
One digital path ends with a divide-by-zero exception, the other with a stack overflow. Buddha tells us to choose the third path. Mu. Raul654 23:28, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, the path of Z. Buddha is wise indeed; he lights the way to coherency of memory and finity of state. - O^O
Cache coherency is a devil's bargain. One cannot follow the path to Nirvana without accepting multiple states of being. Raul654 00:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Poke back

Yeah, I'm here. What's up? —Khoikhoi 01:45, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Check your email. Raul654 01:56, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry about that, check it now. —Khoikhoi 02:20, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Uh, yeah, I'm poking back as well. Email received and replied to. Who knew we'd get recognition for our obsessive compulsive editing behavior anyway? ;) Tombseye 03:08, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

While we're on the subject of, uh, stuff, I got another question. Just out of curiosity, what are Watchmen's chances? Tombseye 03:37, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It looks all right - you might want to drop Zzzz a message on his talk page asking him to follow up on his comment. Raul654 03:43, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah I dropped him a message and nada so far. Everybody else is cool with it so far and if we do a checklist of Zzzz's comments, they've all been met. I could pester him some more if that's the hold-up. Tombseye 03:46, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to thank you for your consideration of other people's work. Trying to improve the WC article and being ignored is a real boost in confidence, and gives me more reasons to work at WP. --Panairjdde 09:08, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Huh? You do realize that I made five different changes to the blurb in response to requests you made on the talk page [1], which is far more than any other article I can remember. Raul654 02:01, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not too sure what the deal is here, so I can't comment on that specifically, but it seems to me that yesterday's featured article went fine and you were very responsive to comments and suggestions. [Pats Back]. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch televison for a month. Badgerpatrol 02:11, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The change is made

As you'll no doubt notice, I placed the new version of FAR today and a notice directing people there from FARC. I hope this doesn't catch you off-guard but it had been five weeks, there was general consensus, and it had been roundly announced, so I thought boldness was in order. Marskell 09:45, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

Thanks for scheduling the apocalypse, I'll have to make sure I stick around that day. Also, thanks for all the work you do on FA generally. Dragons flight 16:30, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

:-) William M. Connolley 17:40, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Userpage fix

Yes, that was a typo. Thanks for fixing my user page. How embarrasing.... But nice to know somebody reads them. --J Clear 01:14, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome :)
I regularly vandali...erm, "tweak" other people's user pages :) Raul654 02:22, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I know you're busy and pretty stressed, but...

I just noticed that the temporary block notices on Lir's talk and user pages don't agree on the expiration of the block and neither agrees with the block log. You reset the one year ban on Jan. 31, the last blocking action taken against Lir, which is why I'm asking you to look into it. I would change them myself, but don't know if I'm missing something. Thanks. —WAvegetarian•(talk) 20:25, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Assume the date on Lir's user page (April 13, 2007) is the authorotative one. Raul654 21:06, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Press release - 1000th featured article

Hello Mark, for today's press release a graph comparing the growth of featured articles on ENWIKI and DEWIKI has been chosen to be part of the selected material for media purposes. Thus I would like to inform you that I have created an English language version in slightly improved quality. Perhaps these two graphs should be exchanged. Just have a look here. Best regards --Marbot 20:56, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Raul654 21:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings, Mark!

If I may be so WP:BOLD, may I suggest Lindsay Lohan for the featured article for 2 July 2006? Given that's her 20th birthday, it made sense to me, anyway ;) RadioKirk talk to me 21:19, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies for the reminder if you've seen this... ;) RadioKirk (u|t|c) 17:33, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! :) RadioKirk (u|t|c) 12:55, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

United States article nomination

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/United States

Hi, even though most of the people (with some being administrators) are supporting the article on becoming featured, there are still those that object, and most of their objections are based on how the article is "too long" and needs to be shortened. I just want to bring to your attention this dilemma that if information gets removed to help trim the article, then others will object simply because it's not "comprehensive." Hope you understand. Thank you.--Ryz05 t 23:08, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Malmedy

I agree that O'Reilly does not deserve his own section, but do you really think that the "legacy" of Malmedy includes what this goofball said on his stupid talk show?? I'm thinking of removing any mention of it in the article and instead including it on the O'Reilly page. Stanley011 02:48, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you had asked me after the first time, I would have said no (and in fact, I did say just that on the talk page). However, after teh second, he's caused a suffecient controversy to warrant some mention. I am in favor, however, of adding more (non-O'Reilly) legacy to that article, and at some point I also plan to merge the contents of the malmedy massacre trial article back into the malmedy massacre article (it should never have been split off in the first place). Raul654 02:51, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Renominating featured articles on the front page

If an article has been featured on the main page over two years ago, could it be renominated? Is there a guideline for this? Cheers, jaco♫plane 20:14, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And, out of curiousity, do you ever worry we'll run out of FAs if we keep trying to have one up everyday? CanadianCaesar Cæsar is turn’d to hear 09:50, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
To answer Jacoplane's queries in reverse order - insofar as main page featured article policies, there's nothing written down anywhere. For over two years now I've been making it up as I go along (sssh - don't tell anyone! I don't think anyone's caught on - I've got them all fooled :) For this reason, however, precedent becomes a very important guide. I believe around New Years 2004 (end of 2004/beginning of 2005) I asked what people thought about the possibility of "re-featuring" articles and, if memory serves, it was almost unanimously negative. I was considering it then, but set the idea aside. I admit as time has gone on, the idea of never featuring the same one twice is one I've grown to like.
To answer Caeser's question - yes, I worry about that constantly. However, we are generating about 45 new featured articles per month (none of which, save about 4 articles that were featured, defeatured, and "refeatured) have appeared on the main page previously (we are also defeaturing about 15 articles a month, most of which have appeared on the main page, so the net change in featured articles is about +30 per month, or about one per day). Thus, every month, the pool of potential main page articles grows larger by about (45 new FAs that have never appeared on the main page - 30 used per month=) 15 articles. So running out is not a realistic worry at this point. Raul654 10:00, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Also, one last thing to keep in mind: the current pool of potential main page articles is HUGE - 273 (it's easy to count using a spreadsheet program). That means we could shut down the FAC for 9 months and run purely from what we have in the tank now. Raul654 10:08, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Football (soccer)

I see you have marked this article as featured based on the votings/comments from the community, however discussion was still commencing and I am seriously in question of this article because it fails FA criteria 2a. Can you please look over the article again? Thanks! — Wackymacs 12:35, 10 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Swainstonation RfC

I have opened a RfC on this user and was wondering if you might certify it. Thanks. — ceejayoz talk 05:19, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm of the opinion that he should be allowed to remove warnings from his talk page; I also don't think very highly of RFCs (they're pointless - they do literally nothing). I have been keeping an eye on him, and I was going to let the recent 'dumbass' edit summaries slide, but if he keeps it up, I'm going to give him another block. However, I think you need to disengage, and stop commenting on his talk page - IMO, it's going to escalate the situtation. Raul654 05:26, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Right, so why waste your time commenting on my RFC when you could spend that time catching real vandals on recent change patrol, and you are making it sound like you are my big brother, please do not publicly say you are "keeping an eye on someone", it sounds creepy, just a heads up.--The Nation 04:33, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Much like ceiling cat, Raul sees all. Raul654 04:38, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What?--The Nation 04:39, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How did the United States FAC fail?

I'm not sure why you failed that nomination even though most people voted in support. I kindly ask you to provide an explanation. Also, when can the article be renominated? Finally, what can be done next to help bring the article to featured? Thank you.--Ryz05 t 15:22, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

today's featured article - Colbert at WHCD

That thing's been sitting there forever, what's the process and/or timetable for it to get a date? --kizzle 07:31, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are 39 requests ahead of it in the queue! Raul654 21:23, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh wow! Take your time then :)--kizzle 21:32, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mosque

Mosque, which is a featured article scheduled to be shown on the Main Page on June 14, now sports disputed tags in two different sections. What would you advise to do in this case? I don't think it's a good idea to show to the world an article with disputed tags. Pecher Talk 16:51, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Are you still on Wikibreak?

{{fixit}}. --Avillia (Avillia me!) 08:37, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Music samples

You did a lot about sound samples on Wikipedia so I thought that you may be interested in the proposed guideline at Wikipedia:Music samples. Regards, Jogers (talk) 12:35, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Burnout

Sorry to see the wikistress level going up. Keep your spirits up — you've given a lot to Wikipedia, and we all realize that. Cheers. AnnH ♫ 13:02, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I request you the same. As a small bit to reduce your stress, I've done some edits to bring NPOV to the article on Maneka Gandhi. I've specifically addressed your concern that the article focusses too much on her family ties rather than her individual accomplishments. I've added some citations and will edit the article further when I get time. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 13:44, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Don't worry, Mark. I'm sure a little ceiling cat-related activity will lift the spirits right up! *ducks* Linuxbeak (AAAA!) 23:21, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
have a beer. Screw that - make it two Although don't drink and edit! -- Rick Block (talk) 01:32, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you all. I'm very grateful for all the wonderful, supportive comments I've gotten both on this talk page and by email. A word of explination - I was/am weary of having to put out forest fires all the time. At the same time, I was feeling under-appreciated for the work I do on wikipedia.
Oh, and Linuxbeak, your comment did make me laugh. Raul654 04:46, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I award this Ceiling Cat Barnstar to Raul654 for being a sick bastard. Linuxbeak (AAAA!) 05:35, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mosque article

Someone let me know yesterday that the mosque article is the subject of two disputes. As you're aware, I had scheduled this as tomorrow's main page featured article, but it can't go up while the disputes are going on, so I've taken it off the queue. Please let me know when the disputes are over and I'll fast-track it back onto the queue. Raul654 10:23, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Message received. Hopefully we'll get everything straightened out soon. joturner 18:06, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Selena FAC

I wonder why you removed the Selena FAC early, there was only three objections along with 4 supports, one of them was fixed but Petaholmes became inactive soon afterwords. And Rory096's was very questionable. Thanks Jaranda wat's sup 02:16, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can you add a few extra days to the FAC and see if I could fix Rebecca's objection please as that was the only key objection left. Thanks Jaranda wat's sup 03:01, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh I give up on Rebecca's objection, I can't really expand the article without becoming too crufty. Thanks Jaranda wat's sup 03:07, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you want, I can put it back on the FAC for a few more days. Raul654 03:16, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thank you Jaranda wat's sup 03:18, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FIFA World Rankings

Forgive my impertinence. I was marking the {{facfailed}}s and reviewing the archived nominations, and I was wondering if FIFA World Rankings should get a little more time? It seems like the nominator is actively responding to the objections, and the objection that there's a copyvio in the history seems... strange? If really a problem, couldn't we delete that version? —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 02:16, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'll give it more time. Raul654 02:27, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nice Job on Writing Your Articles

I'd just like to say good job on writing all these "featured" articles for the front page. I've read quite a few of them now and they're always very in-depth. It must take you a very long time to write and research a new topic to write about everyday, while also keeping things varied and interesting.

Keep up the good work. I look forward to reading your articles in the future.


Thanks

John Pearce

Sorry!

Dear Raul654,

I apologize for nearly losing my temper about the June 8th featured article.

You "won" because you proved your point, and I accept that,

(but I still call it the World Cup and not the world cup finals!)

I think we had this debate because I lost my temper too quickly when you didn't "get ploughed down" (in other words, accept

what I was saying), and my safety valve was about to burst (I was really ticked off).

But anyways, that is all behind us, and I hope we will be able to be on better terms in the future,

Most sincerely,

Jean-Paul 10:18, 15 June 2006 (UTC) Parlate Italiano?[reply]

Apology accepted. Raul654 17:17, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reverted vandalism (not sure)

Maybe we haven't met before, but I know I could help here. First of all I found this [2] and reverted it. It was from an anon IP (195.70.32.136). In my opinion it was nonsense and I reverted it. If you consider it was not, you can revert my changes. Hoping to help you, juan andrés 23:12, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the edit you reverted [3] was nonsense and reversion was in order. Raul654 17:13, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Opposition to homosexuality

Hi, you appear not to have closed the AfD for this page yet have carried out the redirect (which was the obvious consensus). The page that needs properly closing is this. --Wisden17 00:29, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

done. Raul654 17:17, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

DYK on main page

Would you mind giving an opinion on the inclusion of the Banu Nadir item on DYK? I can see the merit of including it, but I am slightly concerned at the message it appears to be sending out. The article from which it is drawn seems to suffer from some POV issues, although I must stress that I'm not any kind of an expert on this subject. It's a given that Wikipedia ought not to be censored, but I wonder if that can be taken as far as pointless inflamation of religious tensions. Again, I can see both sides of the argument here- but I would appreciate the viewpoint of a third-party with more experience of process and protocol than I. Badgerpatrol 03:33, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Image Tagging for Image:Don_King.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Don_King.jpg. The image has been identified as not specifying the source and creator of the image, which is required by Wikipedia's policy on images. If you don't indicate the source and creator of the image on the image's description page, it may be deleted some time in the next seven days. If you have uploaded other images, please verify that you have provided source information for them as well.

For more information on using images, see the following pages:

This is an automated notice by OrphanBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. 04:09, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Chapterage

There's renewed discussion about whether and how to set up [a] US wikimedia chapter[s]. Among other things this could help better organize meetups, gatherings at large events and cons, and local outreach. Cf. the mailing-list and meta-page on the topic... both of which could use TLC. +sj + 17:08, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi

You seem to be well-versed in policies and so on, so I have a question. People are claiming that guidelines, being "guidelines," not "policies," only have to be followed on a voluntary basis. What's your take on the situation? Exploding Boy 17:35, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion: A policy is something that must be followed; an actual guideline (as opposed to something that someone has unilterally decided to call a guideline) is something that you should follow unless you have a damned good (convincing) reason why you shouldn't; (and "because I don't agree with that guideline" is not suffecient) Raul654 18:28, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'm talking about a guideline that has been created by consensus, and is tagged as a Wikipedia guideline, not, for example, something someone has on their user page. Several users recently, when invited to comply with the guideline, have refused on the grounds noted above. The page on policies and guidelines states that guidelines are "actionable," which I interpret to mean "must be followed, or may result in a block." Would you agree? Exploding Boy 00:42, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"I don't have to comply, it's only a guideline, not a policy" is, in my considered opinion, not a suffeciently compelling reason. Raul654 02:52, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Depending on the circumstances, a block might be appropriate. Raul654 02:59, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I completely agree. So would you agree with my interpretation (that refusing to follow a guideline is blockable)? Exploding Boy 03:00, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Potentially, yes. We have guidelines for a reason. Raul654 03:01, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. This is all annoyingly vague (not your comments, but the guideline / policy thing). Apparently some users feel that guidelines are merely suggestions, to be followed only if they happen to agree with them. Some users have refused point-blank to comply with carefully written, consensus-made guidelines and have challenged their enforcability vs. that of policies. I've asked for clarification on the Village pump and the guideline/policy page, but so far to no avail. Unfortunately, no one seems to actually know, and the wording "guideines are actionable" is vague. Exploding Boy 03:00, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The entire process by which guidelines and policies are generated is vague. The difference is one of degree, not of kind. Both represent our best practices and both are created through consensus and experience (along the lines of - 'hrm, this practices works well. Let's make it the standard'). However, a policy is something you must follow, whereas a guideline is something you should follow unless you can come up with a reason you shouldn't. In other words, guidelines are not absolutes, but are more than mere suggestions-which-one-can-ignore-because-one-doesn't-like-them. Raul654 03:11, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, well thanks. While I totally agree with your interpretation, I'm going to wait for some more input before engaging certain users on this issue again. Exploding Boy 03:18, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Blondin Award

The Tightrope Trophy

Glad you're feeling better! In recognition of your always well-balanced editing, you are this year's recipient of the Bishonen Tightrope Trophy, a coveted award bestowed on the few who carry the wikipedia on their shoulders. (The image represents the amazing Charles Blondin carrying Jimbo Wales safely across the Niagara Falls.) Bishonen | talk 17:46, 17 June 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Re: Bird identification

Thanks very much for pointing me in User:Jimfbleak's direction. I've asked him his opinion on the identity of that baby gull. --Kurt Shaped Box 00:35, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tony Blair issues

Hi - I've just added some discussion points to the Tony Blair take page - you may wish to give a view. SP-KP 11:44, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Chromatophore

Hi Raul654. Thanks for promoting the chromatophore article to FA status. It being my first, I must admit to feeling quite pleased with myself. Now to find another suitable stub and see if i can repeat the process! A quick question perhaps you could answer for me. I notice the article doesn't have a bronze star at the top right. Is it my responsibilty to add it as nominator? If so, could you tell me how to do it. If not, how/when does the star get added? Thanks again! Rockpocket 02:20, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For compliated reasons, I don't add that template to articles when I promote them. However, I've gone ahead and added it to the chromatophore article. Raul654 02:24, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ahh. I see. Thanks again. Rockpocket 02:47, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Happy Birthday!

The Wikipedia Birthday Committee wishes you a very happy birthday! Enjoy your special day.

Many happy returns!!!

Thistheman 04:26, 19 June 2006 (UTC) [reply]

Why, thank you :) Raul654 04:41, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wishing you all the best on your birthday! From the Wikipedia Birthday Committee.

Mr. Turcottetalk 16:59, 19 June 2006 (UTC) [reply]

Nice Work

Nice work reverting vandalism on the AIDS page, you let the inappropriate comment stand for all of four minutes. Kudos! BigNate37 08:34, 19 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Azeris extension

Hey Raul, how's it going? I have a small favor to ask. Can you extend the time for Azeris as an FA candidate? Although the majority of people think it's up to snuff (granted many of them are Azeris so I'm going by non-Azeris here), Tony1's brought up some copyedit issues that are pretty dead-on and I'm just one guy who wrote up most of the article and then copyedited it, but it's been a little time consuming and I'm going to need a little more time. Possibly someone else may help out, in which case this process should end sooner rather than later. We're talking within the week hopefully. Say, if YOU have time, feel free to copyedit as well. Let me know and if you have someone you can suggest who isn't busy and can help out, then let me know. Ciao. Tombseye 06:44, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Sound of the day

You've be active in a number of sound uploads, so I thought you might be interested in this. The idea is to first build up a "sound community" outside of the featured content system, before we pursue anything like WP:FSC.--Pharos 13:19, 20 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

image uploading

Re: wiki commons, That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for pointing that out. --Rajah 07:59, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Matthew

Hi there. You don't know me but I borrowed your quote from book of Matthew. Thanks. Lingeron 08:41, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Glad I could be of service. Raul654 17:03, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Global Warming on front page

Thanks for helping to keep an eye on the article while it's on the front page. Do you do this for all front page articles, or is this a special effort? --Stephan Schulz 08:56, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Experience has taught me that controversial articles need a certain amount of babysitting while on the main page. Raul654 17:02, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FAC

Hi Raul, I hope you don't mind but I deleted an article which was a FAC. I did this because it was a stub, and so clearly a joke/mistaken nomination. I've left a note on the User page of the person who nominated it explaining to him, and pointing him in the direciton of more information of what FAs are. I'm not sure if what I did was right, as I guess I'm treading on your toes a bit, but with something as obvious as that I thought that the best policy was to be bold and simply archive it before any more people waste their time looking at the article to find it is a stub. --Wisden17 14:39, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't exactly call the removed article a stub, but yes, it doesn't meet FA requirements. Raul654 17:26, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well it has two stub templates on the page, and is only about 12 sentences long, but either way certainly not FA. --Wisden17 19:26, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Global warming picture

I've reuploaded that problem image as Image:Global Warming Predictions Map 2.jpg, and it has a completely different stored filename (one without "/ad/" in it). Just reuploading the image with the same filename seems to use the same storage location, so that doesn't get around the problem. It's possible that deleting the image completely and re-uploading it with the same filename might work, but I've not tried that yet.

Adblocking does seem to be the problem - I disabled my adblocker and could see the original image, and now I've reenabled it and I can't again, but I can see the replacement image. I've been bold and changed the link on the FA template and the article, at least while it's on the Main Page - apologies if I've trod on anything in the process. I think there's a Bugzilla report related to this problem - if I can find it I'll update it with this workaround. — sjorford++ 18:32, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I saw (Raul sees all). Anyone with a mozdev login should file a bug report (to get wikipedia whitelisted). Raul654 18:33, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The file paths are based on a hash of the filename, so the location is fixed for a given name. People have complained to our devs for a long time to try and get a caching scheme that avoids "/ad/" but so far to no avail. Approximately 1 out of every 256 images are placed in that branch. Dragons flight 18:43, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I figured it was some kind of hash. If our devs won't fix it, hopefully theirs will. Raul654 18:50, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm fairly certain the problem is triggered by several different adblockers, not just Adblock, so ultimately it's something we need to be aware of at our end, despite Brion's opinion to the contrary :) Apparently image storage is due to change completely in the foreseeable future, so this problem should go away. What I was going to suggest is if there is some way of getting a list of all images in the /ad/ directory, so we can be aware of this problem in advance and perhaps re-upload as many of them as possible with different filenames, but that was before the figure 1/256 was mentioned - that sounds like a helluva lot of images. I guess it's just something to be aware of, on the Main Page particularly. — sjorford++
I've figured out a way to highlight such images using CSS - I've tweaked my adblocking software to allow those images through and then added this line to my monobook.css:
img[src*="/ad/"] { border: solid red 25px !important; }
So I'll keep an eye out for future main page images with the same problem. — sjorford++ 11:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent. Thank you. Raul654 11:55, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use woes

Hi, Raul. I'm experiencing fair use woes again. Maybe you could help? If so, please see my note on User_talk:Danny#Fairuse_woes. Best, El_C 03:30, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's actually pretty easy. Put a description explaining why you have to use that particular image in that/those particular article(s). See Image:DeWeldon Gagnon.jpg for an example. Raul654 03:33, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
These are low-res pictures of major Israeli public figures taken from newsources. What to do in such a case; what rational is suitable? El_C 03:38, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, for reasons that I'm sure you well know, we prefer copyleft images to fair use ones; fair use ones should only be used if no copyleft ones are available. The first thing to do would be to check Flickr's creative commons searches ("the first one - Attribution License", and the last one - "Attribution-ShareAlike License" - are both acceptable), and maybe piddle around on google images and see if anyone has personal ones they might be willing to let us use. If none of that works out, then you can safely say that no copyleft equivalent is available and fair use is OK. Beyond that, it's for education purposes, and it shouldn't negatively impact the re-sellability of the photo (e.g - low res). Raul654 03:44, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Perfect, thank you! I'll do it right now. Best, El_C 03:45, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

En garde, the cat and I fight to the death!

The ceiling cat and I have fought a good fight tonight. For now, I have prevailed against its onslought into the random articles. You too have taken some swipes at the evil cat and its appearences. For that, thanks. It's annoying getting rid of the aol vandal's work each night. Kevin_b_er 08:13, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/We Belong Together

Hi Raul. This one was posted on June 3rd, but has never been closed. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 19:56, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's been removed from the FAC page and the talk page has been tagged as facfailed. It doesn't get any more closed than that. Raul654 10:21, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Main Page

I recall TFA's talk page was the place to submit specific main page requests. Is this still true? The format has apparently changed for this and I know there's been talk about it. Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America) is my 2nd FA and I want to request it for 21 Aug, the 94th anniversary of the first Eagle Scout, Arthur Rose Eldred. What is the current process for this? Rlevse 10:18, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests Raul654 10:20, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Linday Lohan

Hey Raul! I was thinking that featuring Lindsay Lohan on July 2nd wil end up sparking up more complaints about TFA that day. The anti-TFA cabal's going to have a field day with the article's placement on her birthday, similar to that of Kadie Strickland, and is going to flood the mainpage with the same dead argument about TFAs that's been beaten for the two past month. Wouldn't it be better to feature her on July 3rd instead, that way she's still featured recently but causes less controversy? -- SmthManly / ManlyTalk / ManlyContribs 12:01, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've just about had my fill of people complaining about this kind of stuff. I intend to leave it as I have scheduled it. Raul654 19:19, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

History of New Jersey

Hey Raul,

I was wondering if History of New Jersey is going to find its way up to the main page ever. I put the request up back and Feb, and I have yet to see/hear anything new in regards to it finding its way to the main page. May you give me a status update on it.--ZeWrestler Talk 14:07, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Scheduled for July 4. Raul654 19:18, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

De-listing

Regarding de-listing FAs I was wondering whether tough ones have been closed in the manner of FAC itself (a single, well-founded, and actionable objection is enough to remove its status) or whether it's been like other processes (no consensus between the comments in total means the status quo remains and FA status is kept). This springs from Wikipedia:Featured article review/Hinduism which I don't know what to do with. Marskell 14:08, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proliferation of metadata templates

I noticed that many metadata templates have been created and are used in many articles. I know you have nominated some for deletion, could you nominate all other metadata templates (you can find them in Category:Title templates) for deletion? Just one thing: I think the only useful templates are {{featured article}} and {{featured list}} so I would prefer we keep them. Thank you. CG 19:59, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I nominated {{Part-of}}, {{Coor title d}}, {{Coor title dm}} and {{Coor title dms}} for deletion. CG 09:55, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I would have nominated them myself if I had gotten back earlier last night. Raul654 15:45, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Azeris

Hey Raul. I believe all the issues have been resolved to everyone's satisfaction. Thanks. Tombseye 20:12, 23 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hurricane Katrina

I would appreciate some kind of explanation regarding your promotion of Hurricane Katrina to FA status. FAC instructions clearly state "Consensus must be reached for an article to be promoted to featured article status. If enough time passes without objections being resolved, nominations will be removed from the candidates list and archived." At the time of your promotion there were numerous outstanding unacknowledged and unresolved objections yet you went ahead and promoted it anyway. If the instructions of FAC have changed, you need to update the template and remove the above-mentioned quote. If the instructions haven't changed, you need to explain your actions. I would prefer to have this issue resolved amicably, but am prepared to bring the issue to the arbitration committee if I must. --Jayzel 16:26, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Silence does not help Wikipedia's credibility. --Jayzel 22:57, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First, not all FAC objections are equal. Objective ones (factual inaccuracies, copyright issues, 'etc) are far more problematic than subjective ones; that's assuming they have any merit at all (because not all objections are even correct). So, to be blunt, consensus does not mean unanimous.

Now, as to the specific objections to the hurricane katrina article, the outstanding objections were:

  • 63.23.19.22 - ojected "per Wackymacs", who withdrew his objection and supported, rendering this objection was moot.
  • zafiroblue05 - objections that the criticism of the government section (which is actually a summery of a much longer article) is too short.
    • The FAC objections specifically say to use summary style; his objection seems to be that it follows that style.
  • Worldtraveller - Objected that that the article specific image widths instead of defaulting to user preferences. True and valid, but very minor.
  • Avenue - Same as Zafiro.
  • Jayzel - Your specific objection was addressed, at least to some extent. Nagin and Blanco are mentioned more than once each, and it links to both their names. Raul654 00:45, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Nope, that was one of many reasonable objections I had. FAC instructions clearly state: "If enough time passes without objections being resolved, nominations will be removed from the candidates list and archived." This did not happen. My other unacknowledged and unaddressed objections included: "First, as Louisiana and Mississippi were the hardest hit areas, why is there no discussion about how these state and local governments prepared for the storm?" (Some info about Louisiana was added after the article was promoted to featured status); and "You also haven't acknowledged my concerns re: local and state 'reponse' to the action." {This is still unaddressed). Lastly, most of Avenues objections weren't addressed and fixed until also after the article was named featured. It doesn't matter if people now support the article, the problem was that they didn't at the time the article was promoted. The FAC instructions unquestionably need to be amended. As it is now written it is misleading at best and outright false at worse. --Jayzel 01:07, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My regards

On completion of around 35,000 edits by me, and having seen several nooks and corners of the Project, I found you really deserving of the award Order of the Upholder of Wiki: presented to Raul with compliments and regards! --Bhadani 17:39, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To-day, I completed 15 months of my wiki-life. Still I feel that I have a long way to go! This is just a very small present from me in honor of your contributions and initiatives. Your Rules are really wonderful. Please accept the small present. Regards! --Bhadani 17:39, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why thank you :) Raul654 19:20, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

hi, may i ask if there is a reason why the The Illuminatus! Trilogy featured article, which was requested for TFA on 12 march 2006, has still not yet been scheduled to appear on the mainpage? is there a specific reason why it cannot appear, as many later requests have been taken but this one has not? thx. Zzzzz 18:53, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Articles featured on the main page are not decided on a first-come-first-serve basis. I try to limit the number of science-fiction related articles on the main page to about one (or at most two) per month (for system bias reasons). I just today scheduled the three laws of robotics (which had been requested since january) for July 5. Raul654 19:16, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

BOT - Regarding your recent protection of Wikipedia:Featured articles:

You recently protected[4] this page but did not give a protection summary. If this is an actual (not deleted) article, talk, or project page, make sure that it is listed on WP:PP. VoABot will automatically list such protected pages only if there is a summary. Do not remove this notice until a day or so, otherwise it may get reposted. Thanks. VoABot 23:49, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Page saved. --Jayzel 00:35, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mosque

It's not ready for the main page just quite yet, as you can see by the edit history. BhaiSaab talk 07:05, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh, indeed. Now it's not just {{t1|pov or even just {{disputed}}, but rather {{totallydisputed}}. joturner 13:11, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

These votes...

Are these votes really you? savidan(talk) (e@) 22:00, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I am sure they are: Raul quite understandably doesn't like any of these fancy widgets. Just look at the TFD and DRV for {{good article}} [5] [6] -- ALoan (Talk) 22:09, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Aloan took the words right out of my mouth. I feel strongly about keeping metadata out of articles (which makes our database significantly easier to reuse); doubly so for those metadata templates that break the standard article layout. Raul654 22:11, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree these fancy little absolutely-positioned things should go. That said, I feel compelled to point out that the coordinate templates aren't, I think, metadata: they show data about the subject of the article, not about the article itself. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 22:19, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Seems ironic that you would be one of the biggest opponents of metadata and yet be in charge of the FA process. Anyway, did someone mess with your picture? savidan(talk) (e@) 00:15, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you'll notice, with the exception of template:featured article (which I fought tooth and nail) and the link-FA template (ditto), there is no featured-article related meta-data in articles; everything is kept to talk and wikipedia namespaces where they belong. Raul654 02:23, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Today's FA is "Yada yada"

Little tidbit from my page: the OED now has "featured additions". Latest FA is "yada yada". :-) Bishonen | talk 23:44, 26 June 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Linky! Raul654 06:33, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. Seeing as you are the featured article director, I was wondering if albums could be choosen to appear on the main page, or do they fall under the catagory of "promotion"? For instance, would such an album as Illmatic be denied, given these circumstances? Chubdub 01:11, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, I have no problem with putting an album as the main page featured article. Raul654 06:32, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification

I am seriously entertaining the possibility of placing the page State Military characters of Fullmetal Alchemist up on the FA pages, but before I do I want your very qualified opinion on whether this is article is best qualified as an article, or as a list. When this went up on peer review there was enough ambiguity to suggest that it could have been either, and I would rather file my FA request the right way the first time around. Thanks in advance :) TomStar81 06:28, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Although it doesn't have a list form, it strikes me as being suspiciously like a list (of characters). It is lacking a proper introduction, at any rate. Raul654 06:29, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I know. Thats one of a few things that I have yet to tweak before putting in for an FA request. Thank you for your input, I apreciate it. TomStar81 08:18, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Dr. VS Mani

This article was created by me quite a while ago. It was listed as a copyvio, which was left unchallenged because of my failure to look up my watchlist carefully. I supposed that I had reworded and changed various sentences of the article to make it look different while keeping the facts same. A discussion for the matter is taking place here. I would definately appreciate it if you could advice me on the same. And I am aware of Meta:Avoid Copyright Paranoia. Thanks and regards, --Nearly Headless Nick 09:39, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please advise

Hi, since you're an upstanding member of the community I thought I'd come to you for advice. I have encountered a new user exhibiting troll-like behaviour called User:Nietecza whose contributions have solely comprised edits linking Poland with Anti-Semitism (see them here). I tried to give them a friendly word of advice and this was the reply I received. I will soon have to cut down on my wiki time, so what do you recommend I should do? It will probably be only a matter of time before other users notice these contributions and also grow concerned. Thanks for your help. All the best, Brisvegas 12:48, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's been noted that once a discussion degenerates into name-calling, someone will inevitably be called a nazi. Since User:Nietecza actually started with that accusation I'm left to wonder...where can the duscussion go from there? --Doc Tropics 22:23, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dumb newbie question

Hi Raul, I love your Laws! I have a dumb question: if someone is accumulating too many wiki-cookies for good deeds, is it possible to convert them to "ribbons" as I've seen done with Barnstars? If so, how? I goofed around with the mark-up for a while but got nowhere. You're a resident expert so I thought I'd ask you. BTW - It's not for me but someone else wondered and now I'm trying to figure it out for her. If you have time to answer you can post it here and I'll be watching. Thanks in advance for your patience with a newbie :) --Doc Tropics 22:23, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There's no rule one way or the other.
You might want to photoshop them together into a single image and replace all of them with that single image. Raul654 18:06, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your help, I appreciate it. Sounds like a good "rainy day project"...oh wait, WP is my rainy day project :) --Doc Tropics 20:19, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actuary and FA

Re:this edit - I meant to put it under 'Business, economics, and finance' but I messed up :) Raul654 22:55, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, thank you! :) -- Avi 22:57, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Webster

A couple of hours ago the Daniel Webster FAC failed. It only recieved two votes, one up and one down. Even failed nominations are helpful in valuable feedback; with this nomination's minimal feedback this entire nomination has thus far been pretty much useless. The one negative vote claimed that the article contained elements of a POV and the examples listed and others indpendently found were immediately toned down (frivolous stuff about respectibility and strong intellect). The point is that I don't see how a future renomination can possibly pass if the article is so substandard as to worthy a failing without actionable feedback and I was hoping that you would be willing to reopen the nomination in an attempt to gain that; two votes either way and a discussion between two people can hardly be called a candidacy. TonyJoe 03:05, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bangladesh

Hi Raul, Bangladesh is now the only country-related FA left in the queue. The last country article to be featured was Pakistan which appeared on main page on May 29, 2006. Bangladesh was nominated in mid april, and now in the last quarted of the queue. So, would you please consider having it in the main page sometime in July? Thank you. --Ragib 04:33, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot for scheduling it for July 14. --Ragib 07:05, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Blu Aardvark

This case has closed and the final decision is published at the link above.

For the arbitration committee. --Tony Sidaway 00:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Acknowledged. Raul654 18:05, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Promotional zoophilia

Hello Raul

Any justifications for your reversion? JHartley 06:25, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have replied at Talk:Zoophilia Raul654 06:29, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the prompt reply Raul. JHartley 06:44, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Gremlins

Hi Raul, would Gremlins 2 be a suitable article to propose for the main page, or is it too trivial? CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 08:18, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have no issues with featuring it at some point. Raul654 04:24, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Zoophilia - thank you

I didn't realize you were still watching this? Or did you pick it up on Recent Changes patrol. Either way, I thought that as you're (apparently) watching it, you'd like the following information.

Following the FAC review, I've decided to try and move key areas to their own articles, in summary style, which the review really made me realize were not rounded out. Zoosexuality and the law is one written since FAC review, and the unpublished draft Animal pornography another.

I'm having to take a break from working on these though, to fix up the Neuro-linguistic programming area, which was heavily damaged by forged cites from a recently blocked sock-master HeadleyDown, after which I'll be coming back to fix those up and get the main article ready for FAC 2.

It was a tough article to get ready, and FAC review has helped clarify a lot for me about how to improve it further. Many thanks for your help and support, for running F.A. -- and see you around on this or other articles.

08:51, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Richard III (1955 film) FAC

Hey, uh, this article has been up at FAC for quite some time, and consensus has been reached for quite a few days, with 3 Objections withdrawn (1 weak), and 5 Supports (1 weak). So...what's going on? ....(Complain)(Let us to it pell-mell) 01:54, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Has Monocrat withdrawn his objection? Raul654 18:04, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, he most certainly has. Sorry for the late response, I was expecting you to post on my talk page ....(Complain)(Let us to it pell-mell) 01:07, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WikiStress

I noticed your WikiStress meter is up high, is there anything I can do to help lower your WikiStress? Minun (talk) 14:45, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Micronation FAC

A user tried to create a FAC for Micronations at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Jasper High School, which I moved to its own subpage at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Micronations, before I realized that there was an orphaned (and apparently never properly completed) nomination from a couple of weeks ago at the correct location: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Micronation. Not sure how you want to treat this. — TKD::Talk 18:15, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Put it on the FAC (which I see you have already done). Raul654 18:03, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lindsay Lohan FA

You made her the featured article for today - this also coincides with her birthday. Did you intend for this to happen? --NicAgent 02:05, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it was specifically requested for today. Raul654 02:08, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder who's the secret admirer?  ;) (Not me, though I welcome the move.) —an odd name 17:58, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
User_talk:Raul654#Greetings.2C_Mark.21 Raul654 18:01, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

BOT - Regarding your recent protection of Lindsay Lohan:

You recently protected[7] this page but did not give a protection summary. If this is an actual (not deleted) article, talk, or project page, make sure that it is listed on WP:PP. VoABot will automatically list such protected pages only if there is a summary. Do not remove this notice until a day or so, otherwise it may get reposted. Thanks. VoABot 17:01, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Featuring Lastovo

Please don't feature Lastovo for the time being. Some images appear to have been mislabeled as GFDL or public domain -- see User talk:Luka Jačov. I'm removing them (the user is trying to restore them), but the whole article should probably undergo copyright review.--Eloquence* 17:50, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is no problem cause images are self-made. Luka Jačov 17:57, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have just reverted to the version from a few days ago that didn't have a trivia section (sans the pictures eloquence removed). Trivia sections are very, very bad writing. Converting well written prose into trivia lists is a major step backwards. Raul654 17:59, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As far as the pictures - a couple of them look self-made, but the one of hte island looks like it was taken from a jet or helicopter. Raul654 18:00, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to continue this on Luka's talk page.--Eloquence* 18:07, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've recheduled another geography article in Lastovo's place. Raul654 18:21, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok remove disputed picture but just give the article back. Luka Jačov 18:25, 2 July 2006 (UTC) Could you please anwser me? Luka Jačov 18:42, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've listed the article at WP:FAR because it has some considerable problems that need to be solved. I'd also support putting off its display on the Main Page for now. Besides the image copyright problems (which are apparent), it needs some more work to actually be ready for the Main Page, because it seems not to meet important FA criteria. Todor→Bozhinov 18:43, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Before it can go on the main page, the image issue needs to be worked out to Eloquence's satisfaction, and the trivia section must be removed (FAs should avoid lists in general, and should never, ever have trivia sections). I'm not sure what other issues Todor is referring to though. Raul654 18:45, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Remove pics remove trivia just get it back... Luka Jačov 18:59, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So could you please return it back...:-( Luka Jačov 19:16, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Raul, I've listed the issues with the article at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Lastovo. They include a badly needed copyedit, more refs, better formatting (the article uses hyphens instead of dashes), etc. I'm not sure whether these could prevent it from hitting the Main Page, but it simply doesn't look ready this way. Let alone those copyvios. Todor→Bozhinov 19:17, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The number of refs is fine, and hyphens versus dashes are a trivial issue. The images eloquence flagged are not used in the article any longer, so I don't see any reason why this shouldn't go on the main page. Raul654 19:25, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, it's OK now. I was referring not to the number of refs, but to several unsourced statements and some weasel words, but they were in the Trivia section that was removed. I'd be happy to see it on the Main Page now. Todor→Bozhinov 19:31, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have been of the same opinion regarding Luka Jacov - see my opinions i have posted on User_talk:TodorBozhinov user talk page. I have ancestry linked to the island and only want to contribute to that particular article to make it better. I was excited to see it nominated for the main page, but understand that it is probably not fit to be put there due to current concerns. Please let me know what needs to be done, and if the chance arises to link it to the main page then that would be great. I also ask if Luka has done contributing to the article then please refrain from dominating the article, especially when your opinions are in the minority or go against the general concensus reached in peer reviews and the featured article process. Best regards Uvouvo 04:12, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Cryptography

I just wanted to say thanks for your hard work on featured article status. I can tell it opens you up to lots of criticism, and you probably don't get much appreciation for it. My first foray into the Feature Article process with Cryptography was a good experience, and I hope to continue to be involved. But anyway, Thanks! Mangojuicetalk 20:00, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lastovo copyvios

As I said, I suspect there are more copyvios throughout the text -- see User talk:Luka Jačov; the user has been warned about copying and pasting text in the past. Some quick checking immediately turned out a copied passage from http://www.adriatica.net/croatia/feature/lastovo_en.htm , i.e. the text from "Origins of the Lastovo Poklad" has been copied verbatim. The site has a copyright notice from 2000, and archive.org turns up a copy from 2002, while the Wikipedia article was created in 2005. I really think the article needs to be subjected to systematic copyright check, with possible deletion of many old revisions due to copyvio.--Eloquence* 20:10, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dont worry we've got the permission... Luka Jačov 20:43, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are too many issues cropping up for me to be comfortable running this article on the main page. I think I'll put this one on the back burner for a while. Raul654 20:45, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me user Eloquence is not quite sane person and he is trying to sabotage article apparence for the reasons only he knows you really should put article... Luka Jačov 21:01, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keeping ourselves lawsuit free is definitely in the best interests of the project, and that's what Eloquence is looking out for. Raul654 21:03, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Come on this paranoia should be stopped nobody is going to sue cos of couple of pictures us in worse case they are just goin to tell us to remove the content. Most people and especially small comunities like Lastovo would be more than happy that their picture appear on wikipedia. Picture are taken by Lastovo tourist community that gave blessing of appearing their picture on wikipedia... Luka Jačov 21:09, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the point you are making - however, there is no such record of any of this on the image pages of the various images, or linked into the text in teh article, or in the permissions queue of Wikipedia's email system. Until these issues are straigthened out, it shouldn't go on the main page. Raul654 21:21, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

could you please reply me.. Luka Jačov 21:17, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ok remove the picture and diputed text and then its suitable Luka Jačov 21:25, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is everything ok now? can u put it back? Luka Jačov 21:43, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, as I said, I think this article needs a good looking over first. I'll let people comb over it first and it everything is settled aftwerards, I'll put it back into the queue. Raul654 21:47, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think its not fear... Luka Jačov 21:52, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok I am going to ask for permissions, Can you give me your mail so they could send you aswell? Luka Jačov 22:36, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Have everything cc'd to: permissions (at) wikimedia (dot) org Raul654 22:37, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Also, make sure the terms of the permission is as clear as possible. Vague permission grants are not helpful. Raul654 22:39, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What is cc? Luka Jačov 22:41, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I ve got permission for image Fumari.jpg. Luka Jačov 23:16, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have been of the same opinion regarding Luka Jacov - see my opinions i have posted on User_talk:TodorBozhinov user talk page. I have ancestry linked to the island and only want to contribute to that particular article to make it better. I was excited to see it nominated for the main page, but understand that it is probably not fit to be put there due to current concerns. Please let me know what needs to be done, and if the chance arises to link it to the main page then that would be great. I also ask if Luka has done contributing to the article then please refrain from dominating the article, especially when your opinions are in the minority or go against the general concensus reached in peer reviews and the featured article process. Best regards Uvouvo 04:12, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Coulter Confederate flag edit

I'd like to ask you to revert your recent edits to this very sensitive section. (I don't revert people myself.) The "kente cloth" quote is taken out of the context of a long article about the confederate flag (it was comparing two textiles, each of which could be seen by someone who wanted to as a symbol of slavery). Whoever posted the quote asserted that it generated controversy, but nobody could ever find any actual public debate or argument about it (other than assuming from their own POV that it was controversial). The edit not only removed the request to provide evidence of the controversy, but removed a link to the full text of the original article where folks could make up their minds about the "cherry-picked" nature of the quote in context. (My belief, which is shared by others in talk, is that the quote WAS cherry-picked to make it seem as though Coulter was being critical of negroes (both American and West African.))

The remaining link is not to full text of the article, but only identifies a book in which the article may have been reprinted. Since most viewers don't have the book, they can't even tell if the link/reference is valid.

Additionally, I don't understand the comment you made about "wrote about writing," or whatever it was. If there was some clunky language, surely it could have been fixed without removing all the other stuff. Lou Sander 22:46, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The quote does not come from the jewish world review article; it comes from Coulter's How To Talk to a Liberal book (which I do not own so I cannot provide a specific page number; I found it by searching the web for that particular quotation). However, it is definitely misleading to point to the jewish world review article as the source of the issue when the quote itself is taken from coulter's much more widely read book.
That's why JWR wasn't sourced for the quote, but as a way to look at the whole thing in the Confederate flag context. I'm guessing that the book didn't just repeat the columns verbatim, but that it embellished them. The kente quote in the article seems (to me) to be an expansion of the kente quote in JWR. Maybe I ass-u-me too much about that. Lou Sander 03:31, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And yes, it did cause a controversy - "Since Coulter’s topic was the Confederate flag issue, a confrontation of some sort was inevitable. Previously Coulter had written a column on the Confederate battle flag which pointed out that slavery had existed longer under the Stars and Stripes than under the Stars and Bars, that the flag symbolized more than the slavery cause, and that, in any case, there were no visible pro-slavery advocates around to make leftist concerns about the implications of its presence valid. These mildly expressed views were a call to arms to the Cornell vigilantes." [8] - and that's coming from a arch-conservative David Horowitz.
Now THERE'S yer trouble, or actually two of them -- 1) there WAS a controversy, but nobody ever provided a citation for it. Not only that, but a well-meaning person deleted the call for a citation. And 2) the controversy was about the Confederate flag part of the article, but the quote alleging a controversy was from a minor kinte cloth paragraph. IMHO, he/she who used the kente quote was trying to impute racism to Ms. Coulter. Why else would they quote a paragraph that was only used to illustrate Coulter's flag argument? Lou Sander 03:31, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As far as the sentence I removed, it was horribly clunky: She wrote that it is wrong to condemn the Confederate flag on the grounds that it was a symbol of slavery by writing: (emphasis mine), but this could probably be fixed with some rephrasing. Raul654 22:59, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Clunky, yes. Horribly clunky? Well, OK, maybe. ;-) I didn't see it because it's hard to separate the plain English in an edit that includes a lot of reference stuff. Lou Sander 03:09, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bluegene/p

It is indeed to achieve a capacity of 1 Petaflop at least. Take a look at the discussion, if you need I can provide additional info.

The documents you cited are ancient - the powerpoint was two years old, and the article was 3 years old. In that time, I know of at least 3 other projects that claim they will be the first to achieve a petaflop. Take those claims with a large grain of salt, and the older documents in particular are not valid. Raul654 02:34, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

{{Spoken Wikipedia}}

I have an idea you might like regarding the {{Spoken Wikipedia}} template. I have just noticed that similar ideas have been suggested some time ago. You can find (and modify, if you like) my proposed template at User:T J McKenzie/Spoken Wikipedia, and here's what it would look like:

There is a spoken version of this article.

This could be put at the top of an article, as, for example, {{otheruses}} is. Benefits include the following:

  1. No icon anywhere.
  2. It's wrapped in {{selfref}}, so mirrors that blank that template won't need to worry about the metadata.
  3. The link is to :Image: rather than Media:, so interested people can find out relevant information about the recording, but people who aren't interested don't need to put up with this information being in the body of the article.
  4. At the top, it can be read easily by eyes or a screenreader before reading the rest of the article.
  5. It will simplify the task of people uploading recordings; it makes no difference how many parts they upload the recording in, and they needn't specify the date in two places (as with the status quo, where they have to specify it in both {{Spoken Wikipedia}} in the article and {{Spoken article entry}} with the actual recording).

In its current state, this would be used in conjunction with a suggestion that has recently been revived. If that suggestion isn't put into practice, then this template would also need 

<includeonly>[[Category:Spoken articles]]</includeonly>

thrown in, too.

I believe that if this goes ahead, then the changeover would require a bot to move all the existing transclusions of this template up to the top of articles. I hope this wouldn't be too difficult.

It has just occurred to me that the {{selfref}} wrapper may not be necessary. Do mirrors usually copy the Image namespace over? If so, then the link wouldn't be broken at all, and it's not as if it says something like "Wikipedia has a spoken version of this article.". I don't know. What do you think?

I hope you like this idea. It could help solve your issue with the proliferation of icons. If you do like it, we can suggest and support this idea at Template talk:Spoken Wikipedia. T J McKenzie 03:41, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! The spoken article template belong at the bottom of the article, in the external links, where the documentation says it should be. It should NOT be placed at the top of an article. Raul654 04:01, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Why does this template belong in external links? --T J McKenzie 09:39, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Because it has been decided that the spoken template is roughly equivalent to the sister project templates, and teh external link section is where those belong. Moreover, it is in very bad form to start putting large banners all over articles. Raul654 22:15, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I fully agree that in its current form, the Spoken Wikipedia template is far too cumbersome to go at the top of articles. However, what I've suggested above is much more discreet; more discreet than, for example, {{redirect3}} is in Rocky Mountains, where it runs onto two lines in my browser; and at least as discreet as pretty much all of the Disambiguation and redirection templates. --T J McKenzie 06:32, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pope Pius XII

Thanks for putting this on the main page. Your changes to the intro are fine, but there are some capitalization errors both added and preexisting that don't seem to be getting responded to at Wikipedia:Main_Page/Errors. Joturner has summed it up there. Are you the only one with the ability to edit the TFA on the main page? savidan(talk) (e@) 05:00, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Alison Krauss

Hiya Raul! As you may or may not know I've been working on Alison Krauss for a while now, and have it nominated at FAC. Currently the voting stands at 3 oppose, 2 support, 0 neutral, and I would have absolutely no issue with it failing, my working on the article to fix anything requested, and nominating again. However, despite repeated attempts over a long period of time to get the three oppose voters to re-examine the article (Their only requests were to make the article more comprehensive and I've added a very detailed "Artistry" section after the style of Mariah Carey, filled out the bio info, and fixed up the references). What is the proper conduct in this situation? The voting stagnated after the three opposes, but I've fixed their requests and they haven't even responded on my talk page let alone the FAC. I'd hate to go through all the work of fixing the article up, re-nominating it (though, I've already done the fixes they've requested so I don't really know what else to do) and having the FAC fall apart again with unresponsive opposition. What should I do? Staxringold talkcontribs 22:22, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thank you, Raul! That was such a nice thing to do! I swear I'll continue to work at fixing any objections people bring up, I was just worried by the 3 who stopped responding that brought voting to a near-stop. Thanks again! Staxringold talkcontribs 23:03, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fumar

I also got permission for that picture as well and told the guy to send permission to permissions@wikimedia.org as well. If it didnt come maybe its because guy doesnt knows english and he send it in italian. If you want check it let some Italian speaking user send him mail: info@gianfrancogervasi.it . Luka Jačov 11:21, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Gotcha. I have fixed the image page accordingly. Raul654 16:54, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So does he speaks english? Luka Jačov 19:03, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, but an immediate family member of mine speaks italian natively. Raul654 21:38, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Iqbal FAC

Hi Raul654 - is there a particular problem to fix with this article? I've addressed most concerns. There have been a couple of anons engaging in revert wars and violating WP:NPA, but the main issues have been discussed and solved[9],[10]. This Fire Burns....Always 03:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm hesitant to promote until I see the people who registerd teh objections agreeing that they have been addressed. Raul654 04:00, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The 1st person to object was user:Anwar saadat. I've addressed his objections, but as you may know/did not know, Saadat is a continual opposer of Indian subject FACs/RfAs and violator of WP:NPA - the problem has been serious enough for several users to ask that he be taken to RfC[11]. Also his two points here[12]:

(1) Article is "poorly written" and "difficult to pin-point Iqbal as progressive and regreesive": the fact is, the article must not offer an opinion about Iqbal. The article tackles his life and work in a most chronological manner, separating poetry from politics. Iqbal's opposition to Western values like secularism cannot be branded as "regressive."

(2) It is not fair to assume that Iqbal was secular pre-WWI because of his rigorous Islamic faith and grounding. "Law practise" is the correct use of British-Indian-English.

Saadat placed a similar "object" vote on Sikhism, citing user:Zafiroblue05's objection but did not rescind his objection when Zafiroblue05 himself did so.

I'm not trying to malign this user, but I have legitimate reason to point out that his object vote is not WP:AGF. Any valid reasoning has been addressed by me. And user:Arniep cited Anwar's rationale, which has been addressed. Nevertheless, I respect your concern and hope you'll let me know what you think now, so I can get to work on it. Thanks, This Fire Burns....Always 04:28, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Knights of Columbus

Hi,

How do I get the FA star on top of the newly FA'd Knights of Columbus article? --Briancua 23:55, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RN beat me to it - [13] Raul654 06:49, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Problems with Andy's suggestions

Date links. AndyZ has been advising people to act contrary to the MOS, not in compliance with it. Being linked from the WIAFA page legitimises this. Rebecca 02:35, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh dear... Raul654 02:36, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

NPOVing the zoophilia article

Hi Raul. I believe you are the more independent of the editors on the zoophilia artilce. Which of these versions of the opening do you consider the more neutral and less argumentative: My version: [14]

Or the more recent version?:

[15]

I have placed some more argument for this on the zoophilia talkpage.

JHartley 06:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Using this diff - I think your version of the introduction is generally better, although there are a few things I would tweak. In order: "perform sexual acts with animals" is far less kludgy than "exercise their philia". The "Legal and ethical experts...zoophilia should be illegal" sentence is probably too specific and too hotly debated to go into the intro; I think it should be stated later in the article. I have no opinion on which paragraph (the DSM or the crime against nature paragraph) should go first, but I think your version of the crime against nature paragraph is clearly better. And I'm very much in favor of using a simple {{otheruses}} rather than the more detailed 'here's a defintion before we actually define it in the article' otheruses template. (and while I'm on that note - I fail to see Zoosexuality and zoophilia are seperate topics deserving seperate articles) Raul654 06:32, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks much Raul. I'll see if I can make some satisfactory adjustments. I appreciate your input. JHartley 07:03, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Iqbal Article

Hi, I have very genuine concerns about the factual accuracy of the Iqbal article. I think it would be great if somone who's not from Asia to discuss this issue in an unbiased manner. I'll make further comments on the talk page. --66.25.124.237 07:01, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Article request

Mister Essjay - I'd like to request an article on Advocatus dei (God's advocate) Raul654 06:09, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Article writing? Is that for the encyclopedia thing I keep hearing we have on here? Oh, and it's Doctor Essjay, you lowly Ph.D. candidate! ;) Essjay (Talk • Connect) 07:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lastovo

Did you got permission from this site www.lastovo.net cause I did so if you didnt send them mail again. Regards! Luka Jačov 11:50, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I got it. I have updated Image:Kuzma.jpg accordingly. Raul654 15:12, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Admin actions

Where on earth have I commented on an admin action aside from an admin's own talk page? Everyking 18:41, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I had forgotten we had carved out that exception for other admin's talk pages. However, that exception was *not* created to allow you to harass others. Raul654 19:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In the future, please carefully review situations before commenting on them. Everyking 03:45, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Based on your comments to EM, and your previous violations, and your recent edits to several Ashlee Simpson articles, the arbitration committee is currently discussing a series of modifications to our previous remedies. Raul654 03:47, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I will be fascinated to see how these modifications can be made to work within the context of the existing ruling. My comments to EM are protected by the ruling, Ashlee Simpson articles have nothing whatsoever to do with the ruling, and as for "previous violations", I haven't been blocked in months—and you in fact were the one who unblocked me on that last occasion. Everyking 04:02, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As you have a well established record of testing the boundaries of such remedies, and as there has been little apparent change in your behavior since we institutied it, in all likelihood, the new remedies will be more encompasing and permanent in duration. Insofar as Ashlee Simpson, since you have gone back to your old editing habits, we will have be reconsidering our decision to let you edit those freely. And as far as me unblocking you - I did it contigent on you changing your behavior and avoiding conflict. Shifting the harassment from the ANI to their individual talk pages is hardly an improvement. Raul654 04:09, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Mmmm hmmm. Can you explain exactly what you find objectionable about my conduct on the Ashlee Simpson articles? I have been significantly less aggressive on the matter than EM, confining most of the controversy to the talk pages, so why does EM get the the apparent backing and me the opprobrium? This was an equally good question 18 months ago, but I don't remember getting an answer back then. Everyking 04:15, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Which of the two of you had multiple arbcom cases revolving around a tendancy to cram ashley simpson-related articles full of cruft, when everyone else in the community said otherwise? Raul654 04:51, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How's this going? Is it all being done in secret? Or has it been dropped due to lack of substance? Everyking 06:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum to "Here is my attack"

Well, I hace confessed to vandalizing for the past several months, and for permanently scarring my reputation. I want to state now that Tex's contention that I haven't left is entirely false, I only came back on the 23rd to voice my opinion against RobChurch, and his RfA. Well, my attack: I am sorry for being the CIyde vandal and for my attacks on John Reid. I am sorry that I came here, stressing myself, and others out. To further emphasize this, I did create an account with the intention of it being constructive after a three month long meltdown. Hopefully, I will be able to edit constructively, and I am sorry for all the trouble I cause. Yes, people reform, and to be honest, the point of the vandalism was to attract attention to what I see as incivility, and the reasons several of my friends have left here. But vandalism is vandalism, so I better quit before I get in trouble. I am sorry I was ever apart of the project. I DONT want to be a Brian Chase. But, at least I did edit here constructively for a year and three months before I went haywire.εγκυκλοπαίδεια*14:34, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Addendum: It is my wish to make it clear that I want to return to the encyclopedia, and I am asking that my block may be lifted so I can continue my work here. I sincerely apologize for my actions. Because you are a beauracrat, could you restore my old pages as well? I am truly sorry, and I especially apologize to John Reid. εγκυκλοπαίδεια*16:45, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Replied on your talk page. Raul654 02:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FFX FAC

Heya Raul; I was wondering if anyone has approached you yet asking for a July 19th selection date for a front page display of Final Fantasy X. Is this still possible? Thanks! — Deckiller 18:08, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure how the front page thing works, but maybe FFX can take the 11th instead of Microsoft as (perfectionist side speaking here) I've got some tidies I'd like to do before it goes up. (I don't personally mind if it means another month or two wait). RN 21:30, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I actually did make the request a while back, but it hasn't been accepted or rejected yet. I appreciate your offer of the 11th (and would gladly accept it if Raul couldn't find another way to fit it in), but if possible, I'd prefer the 19th (which is still an empty slot at the moment) since that will be the fifth anniversary of FFX's release. Ryu Kaze 22:45, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like you got it, so congrats on that! BTW that was an interesting main page run with Microsoft yesterday - not the usual entire-article edits that often happen but some good tweaks and interesting comments! RN 20:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks a lot! Ryu Kaze 02:21, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You're welcome. Raul654 02:28, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Good article

Hi, I'm wondering if you have time to speedy delete the above recreated metadata template (as you closed the original debate, it has since been recreated and speedy deleted a couple of times). It places a star in the top corner of an article. Thanks. Niz 12:00, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

UPDATE: its since been speedy-deleted by another admin... now you may be interested in the new deletion review at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2006 July 8. Niz 12:57, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Email for you

Email headed your way. Can you let me know whether in fact it is important, or what you think? Many thanks :)

FT2 (Talk | email) 18:04, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalsim?

Hello Raul. (Note wasn't signed in when I reverted) Why do you consider my addition to culture:United States vandalism? This information is verifiable and true. ? Would you like to re-write it?HappyVR 18:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is factually incorrect, not to mention ludicriously biased, to the point of being vandalism. Raul654 18:19, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What about gauntanamo bay, bombing of vietnam, operation in iraq(illegal under international law). All these are examples of the systematic (state sponsered) abuse of other human beings, which includes murder, multilation and terrorism.HappyVR 18:25, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not going to debate this ridiculous point. Raul654 18:26, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FA date request

While you generally try to make FAs completely random in when they appear on the main page, if I provided 50-100 possible dates for you for Sesame Street, would you consider? They'd be essentially random to even the biggest Sesame afficiado, but have meaning. -- Zanimum 19:03, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

50 to 100 dates is overkill. How about you provide 2 or 3 dates in July or August? Raul654 23:10, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh. I thought you were against scheduling FA appearances altogether. If you didn't mind, November 8 is the anniversary of the show's first broadcast, that would be the best date. August 17, August 3, August 31, August 19, August 20, August 15, in that priority order. I'd like to not have it in July, as there's still a lot of work to be done, despite it being an FA. Thanks! -- Zanimum 19:49, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies, not only are you not against it, and have a page for requests. Oh boy. -- Zanimum 19:55, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Happy

did you see the diff?? - CrazyRougeian talk/email 04:26, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I so object. Email me for more discussion of this if you want. - CrazyRougeian talk/email 04:27, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What's going on, Mark? Are you unblocking - or have you accepted my position - or are you still thinking about it? - CrazyRougeian talk/email 05:10, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. - CrazyRougeian talk/email 06:04, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My unblock

I appreciate you unblocking me, and I appreciate Bishonen's contacting you. I would prefer that my account remain blocked for a year though. I intend on taking a vacation from Wikipedia, but the damned thing's gotten rather addictive. Right now I don't have the time or the will to engage in a lengthy process with Arbcomm, and would prefer a decided course of action be made without all the mess. A year-long block should solve the problem. My past arguements and the quality of the some of the Islam-related articles demonstrate the point I make on the POV-bias here, and I only request that people take a look at it. The problem is for everyone to see, and I really can't stomach trying to draw attention to these problems again. His Excellency... 19:51, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Half-archived noms

You just archived these five noms but left them them on FAC too; where do they stand? Khan Wali Khan Museum of the Portuguese Language Leonhard Euler Aortic dissection Charmander —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 02:43, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ooops. I wanted them archived. Raul654 02:44, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks :-) —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 02:46, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A simple problem that takes forever to describe

Hello again, Raul. Someone, User:Jboyle4eva, recently nominated the World Cup to be a featured article. That's not really the problem, though. He filed the current nomination, which should be Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/2006 FIFA World Cup at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/2006 FIFA World Cup/Archive1. This meant that is was impossible to edit the nom from the FAC page. I fixed this, moving Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/2006 FIFA World Cup/Archive1 to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/2006 FIFA World Cup. Simple enough. The real problem lies in the fact that the World Cup already has a failed FAC nom in its history. That meant that Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/2006 FIFA World Cup/Archive1 already existed. Jboyle4eva "solved" this by moving Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/2006 FIFA World Cup/Archive1 to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/2006 FIFA World Cup/Archive2. I cant move Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/2006 FIFA World Cup/Archive2 back to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/2006 FIFA World Cup/Archive1 because I'm not an admin. Hopefully you can help with this dreadfully tricky-to-describe problem that really isn't that hard. I hope. Cheers, RyanGerbil10 (Drop on in!) 06:08, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. Raul654 06:19, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A quick solution, indeed. Thank you. RyanGerbil10 (Drop on in!) 07:34, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal relating to Today's featured article

I've made a proposal over at today's featured article. Being the FA director, I wondered if you had an opinion on this somewhat academic issue. --Oldak Quill 09:48, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Forza Italia

Thanks for the message - I was there! You can tell your father he was right to throw you in the air! it was one of the most emotional experiences of my life, up there with the children being born. I just wish I could have followed the team back on back to Roma - but the real world is calling as well as Italia. Giano | talk 19:44, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Blue Gene

Hi Raul654

Would you be willing to explain to me what the purpose of the Blue Gene supercomputer is?

  1. Is it a supercomputer built to design the next generation of supercomputers?
    No. Computers-that-design-other-computers is science fiction, at least for the moment (there are some genetic algorithms that can come up with original designs, or have been known to infringe on patents, but their applications have been limited). For Cyclops64, every bit of the VHDL code is written by Monty (the project leader) himself.
  2. It's fairly simple to understand what the Earth Simulator is doing, but why do you need a supercomputer to design supercomputers? Is it in order to design circuits used in microprocessors or is it to design new materials to make smaller components (e.g. transistors)?
    As I said above, the purpose is not to design other supercomputers. However, as good as computers are today, there are problems in biology, physics, 'etc that are still far beyond the current generations of computers. Off the top of my head, very high resolution MRI machines require computing power on the order of a supercomputer (which is why this is the very first application for Cyclops); ditto for phased array radar. Beyond that, bioinfomatics problems (protein folding, genome decryption, 'etc) require large amounts of computing power; in physics, high resolution simulations of atoms in fusion events require computing power orders of magnitude beyond what is currently possible (And there are applications that require even more power than that)
  3. The Cyclops64 article states 'The Cyclops64 project aims to create the first "supercomputer on a chip"'. Does this mean it is a project to build one supercomputer on a chip that will be used for other purposes or is it a project to build a regular supercomputer that will design a supercomputer on a chip?
    The purpose of the project is to design a Cyclops64 chip (a single integrated circuit) which can be used in a number of applications. (PS - I should clearly state - my answers here apply only to Cyclops64; Blue/Gene is a family of projects, and 'Blue/Gene' by itself usually refers to Blue/GeneL, which I have almost no direct knowledge of) Raul654 01:19, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks in advance,

- -  sYndicate talk  23:22, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. - -  sYndicate talk  15:16, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New Userbox

Hi Raul,

I couldn't resist making the following userbox after reading the attached link and after being insulted regularly by trolls I decided to fight back. Feel free to remove this from your talk page if you don't appreciate the humour. = )

Cheers,

 Netsnipe  (Talk)  05:45, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]



Hi Raul, re your note on commons:User talk:Raymond de, I found that Template talk:PD-CAGov suggests that works by the California government may not be public domain after all, and that the template on Commons now redirects to the copyvio template. I've replaced the image on Shielded metal arc welding and Welding with a US Gov't image, so there isn't an immediate problem. --Spangineer[es] (háblame) 14:41, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Noted. Raul654 06:52, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Small request...

I really hate to ask, but would you mind trying a tad bit harder to include an edit summary? Seems to be very hit-or-miss with you. I know it's not required, but it helps out. Thanks. --LV (Dark Mark) 21:16, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All is Well?

The mosque article is now rid of {{fact}}, {{pov}}, {{disputed}}, and {{totallydisputed}} tags and the near lack of changes since late-June seems to indicate that all is well. Do you think it's ready for its Main Page appearance or is it really deserving of a {{calm-between-the-storm}} template? joturner 19:08, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Italy beat France

Hi Raul,

Just to let you know there's been some debate (at Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors#Errors in In the news) on the use of defeat or defeats, beat or beats in the ITN section. In British English (in which the 2006 FIFA World Cup article is written) teams are always referred to in the plural, so the current form "Italy beats France" is wrong, and jars to people from Britain. "Italy defeat France" was changed to "Italy beat France" as a compromise - it's the correct present tense form in British English and since it's also correct as a past tense form in US English it doesn't jar so much. I'd appreciate it if you could change it back to 'beat' (and maybe put a note informing others that the plural form is intentional and correct). Cheers — SteveRwanda 14:52, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, someone's just made the change. Sorry to bother you! — SteveRwanda 15:07, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reverting unfree image cleanup?

Hi. You just used rollback on my image cleanup at Wayne Gretzky. Can you clarify whether this was an error or not? Jkelly 16:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It was not an error. I made it very clear on the talk page [16] that that image should not be removed until and unless a suitable replacement image is found (the two free images in that article being of particularly poor quality do not qualify as a suitable replacement). Furthermore, your edit added the same image to the article twice, which is why I had removed it earlier [17] Raul654 16:32, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Joel Brand

Thank you. :-D SlimVirgin (talk) 02:06, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're most certainly welcome. Raul654 06:08, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

License tagging for Image:Varian Fry.jpg

Thanks for uploading Image:Varian Fry.jpg. Wikipedia gets thousands of images uploaded every day, and in order to verify that the images can be legally used on Wikipedia, the source and copyright status must be indicated. Images need to have an image tag applied to the image description page indicating the copyright status of the image. This uniform and easy-to-understand method of indicating the license status allows potential re-users of the images to know what they are allowed to do with the images.

For more information on using images, see the following pages:

This is an automated notice by OrphanBot. If you need help on selecting a tag to use, or in adding the tag to the image description, feel free to post a message at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. 07:58, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Lastovo images

So did you received information about licence? Luka Jačov 09:06, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, but he did give a specific permission to use the images. Could you email him and give him a nudge? Raul654 17:10, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm concerned about this article. It's scheduled for the main page in about a week (24 July), but has two images without a copyright tag (Image:SLB.jpg and Image:Kuzma.jpg) and there are some comments from its review made on 4 July that still have not been addressed. Pagrashtak 18:08, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We have specific permission to use the images; the only reason they don't have a tag is that the copyright holder didn't mention terms as applied to others. However, I feel this is a relatively minor issue. Raul654 18:13, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As you might be aware, specific permission is not sufficient. The images must be licensed under a free license or released to the public domain. Pagrashtak 06:41, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

TFA: July 25th

Hi Raul - in the article Alpha Phi Alpha that is slated for the main page, I have a concern about the first sentence which ends "...founded by the blacks." I strongly object to the use of the word "blacks," (seems crude and derogatory - not just in the racial sense, but it seems as if it is talking about crayons or paints, not people) and I request you to change the word to "African Americans," as it is already linked to an article called African Americans. Cheers, This Fire Burns Always 13:18, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

At the very least, I think you should change the wording to "Black students," although I disagree with it just as much. This Fire Burns Always 13:22, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have changed the main page blurb to 'African americans'. Raul654 06:56, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Alpha Phi Alpha

someone is vandalizing the Alpha Phi Alpha article which is scheduled as featured article on July 25. This user has repeated vandalized the article for months. The users, who are one in the same are bobbydoop and mikeandike, however; he now edits without signing on, saying previously that he has forgotten his password. I guess he was waiting for it be featured before reverting back to a version that must be at least 4 - 5 months old. any help you can provide will be appreciated. Ccson 22:10, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

He's using AOL, which greatly complicates matters. If he tries any funny buisness on the day it is featured, he'll definitely be blocked; if he persists, I'll block him. Raul654 22:15, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You are using the 1908 Convention photo for the featured article summary. As the main contributor who nominated and worked to featured article status, I don't like this picture because it's very difficult to see. I would prefer in the order displayed

Thanks for featuring the article and for your continued watch. Ccson 14:53, 15 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd prefer to keep the current photo - for main page purposes, we prefer public domain images to fair use ones. If you can suggest an alterative (non-fair-use) image, I'd be happy to hear you out. Raul654 06:53, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have updated the intro paragraph in the artilce, so it doesn't match the intro for the Featured Article page. Can you review and see if you want to change the article's intro or the one you created for the July 25, main page? Also, removing images from your pageCcson 03:19, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You might be interested in

This [18] edit, I'm not sure about you, but it looks like a personal attack to me.--Crossmr 23:32, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm inclined to give DyslexicEditor the benefit of the doubt. Raul654 23:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

BOT - Regarding your recent protection of Lee Atwater:

You recently protected[19] this page but did not give a protection summary. If this is an actual (not deleted) article, talk, or project page, make sure that it is listed on WP:PP. VoABot will automatically list such protected pages only if there is a summary. Do not remove this notice until a day or so, otherwise it may get reposted. Thanks. VoABot 07:01, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FA stars no longer in classic skin?

Hi - Do you have any idea why the FA star no longer shows up in classic skin (it used to, maybe a week ago). I can't find what's changed (not template:Featured article, nothing I can find in common.css). Any ideas? Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:36, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What's Rick doing, bear baiting? ;-) —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 16:26, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hell no. I just thought Mark would be likely to know about this. I'll ask at template talk:featured article. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:45, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Alison Krauss

First off, thank you again for restarting the stagnated FAC, it really helped the article out a great deal. Also, I've listed Krauss at TFA/requests, and I was wondering if she might sneak in for July 23rd? I'm asking on your talk page (in addition to TFA/requests) because you've already scheduled Read my lips: no new taxes (a great article) in that day's slot. As far as I can see, Read my lips has no connection to the date (and actually a large connection to the upcoming date, August 18, when the speech was given) and the 23rd is Krauss' birthday (a nice connection). Thanks no matter what decision you make (I've listed a couple of August dates as well, from album releases). Staxringold talkcontribs 19:45, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to politely reject your request - it's a huge pain in the ass to move articles once scheduled, so I generally avoid doing so unless there's a really pressing reason to do it. Raul654 06:51, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Problem with TFA

Hi Raul,

First, thanks for scheduling Battle of Smolensk (1943) for TFA! However, there is a slight problem with the text at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/July 29, 2006 because the "More..." text does not point to Battle of Smolensk (1943) but to Battle of Smolensk which is a disambig page. Can you please change the link (I can't since it is protected and I'm not an admin)?

Thanks in advance, Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 20:37, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Staxringold got it [20] Raul654 21:42, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

hy.wikipedia.org

Hi, how's it going. The Armenian Wikipieda (hy.) now has over 1,000 articles, so an update on the en main page is in order. Thanks. --DanielNuyu 22:22, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Updated - in the future, however, there are more appropriate places to request this than my talk page ;) Raul654 07:00, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FA History

As director of Featured Articles, I thought you would know which article was the first featured article, and secondly, where the idea of having featured articles came from. Perhaps that would be something informative to add to the FA page itself. --Jay(Reply) 00:14, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lee Atwater issue

Hi Raul,

I think I was the reason you placed the Lee Atwater page under protection: I had deleted a quote from the article. I have given my reason in the discussion page under "Career".

FAR changes

Hi Raul

I've proposed a new lead for the FAR page that involves the merging of minor and major reviews, to be called simply FAR. Thus, it would be a binary rather than a ternary system. The main contributors/reviewers to the room have agreed to the revised version (after I made a few changes to satisfy objections).

I intend to paste in the new text in a few days' time if there are no fresh criticisms. Please let me know if you have qualms about the proposal.

Tony 15:42, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wrongly placed featured article stars

I recently ran across an instance of template:featured article which had been misplaced in Prince (musician) by an anon here. Admittedly, it was only there for about a day, but it still seems problematic that there is no centralized method of determining if the featured article stars are wrongly placed. As the featured article director, I was hoping you would know something about this. savidan(talk) (e@) 00:03, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Featured articles is to be considered the (only) authorotative source for which articles are or are not featured. If an article is not listed there, it is NOT a featured article and any such stars are to be removed. Raul654 02:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Is there some way to automate comparison of Wikipedia:Featured articles with the articles that have template:featured article on them? Could this be run by a bot on a regular basis?—WAvegetarian•(talk) 00:09, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Aeon from the Mediation Cabal

Hello Raul654, I'm Aeon from the Mediation Cabal. Wing Nut has requested Mediation in order to settle disputes over Fossil record. Please respond back to me if you are willing to talk this out in Mediation. The Mediation Cabal is informal so there is nothing to lose. Aeon Insane Ward 04:16, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Featured article

Can we put a World Jump Day article for the tommorow's featured article instead of Enceladus? --Emx 14:06, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

World Jump day is not a featured article. I have fixed the nomination you made (by listing it on wikipedia:featured article candidates) Raul654 16:17, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitration

Hello Raul, please help with a case about alleged adminship abuse by JzG, which had been rejected by three arbitrators before an administrator warned the accused one and undid part of his actions. The conflict is going on and I do not know how to find a solution. The only arbitrator who has sinced voted on the case is one who in my eyes is in a conflict of interest as he did a very similar block on me in the past that I think was abusive and that was undone by Theresa as it lacked any evidence of wrongdoing by me. I had suggested a change to the blocking policy but the discussion about it has up to now been inconclusive due to a lack of participants. Socafan 02:10, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

hey!

the sentence on Ann Coulter wasn't that bad, I was just trying to find a compromise between the two! :) --kizzle 05:39, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re My request

Thank you, Raul. I await the final outcome, then. Redux 23:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Mark. I just wanted to thank you for your work during my request for Oversight status -- although I feel I really should be apologizing for getting you more work ;). I really appreciate it. Redux 02:53, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Problem with Article of the day newletter

Hello, could you take a look at Village pump (technical)#Wikipedia e-mail newsletter hyperlinks include ending ")"? It's quite a serious problem and I was infomed you are the one I should inform. Thanks, --Timichal

Hi Raul654. I want to ask you how would you feel about having lists featured on the Main Page a couple days per week. There remains the question of where on the Main Page to put it, but I just wanted to know if you agreed in principle. Thanks. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 14:36, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not fond of the idea, no. Setting aside for a moment the serious practical issue of there simply not being any more space on the main page (which is already rather crowded), I do not believe that a list is something that readers will find engaging. Raul654 16:38, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. Thank you. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 12:42, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Gregorian chant

I noticed you closed the Gregorian chant as an Failed FAC even though it only had one objection, from User:Tony1 which was met and he crossed out the vote and I don't see any more opposes. Can you relist it or promote. Thanks Jaranda wat's sup 22:52, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok thank you Jaranda wat's sup 22:57, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mandy Moore

Question... User:Jaranda closed down the Mandy Moore FAC. However, it got a single vote, which was an object - the objecter said they were objecting because Wikipedia has too many entertainment FAs. So obviously, that vote doesn't count. I didn't get any other votes at all either way. So - it neither failed nor succeeded and I am unsure of what to do with it. Mad Jack 23:11, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have restarted the nom afresh. Raul654 06:11, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Appreciated Mad Jack 06:17, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FAC

Hi Raul, I was wondering why Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/New_York_City failed after about four and a half days on the FAC page? I was under the impression that articles were generally given five days, and where an effort was being made to address objections articles were given more time. I had certainly been making a major effort to resolve problems with the article, as you can see from my comments on the page and the edit history of New York City. Thanks. –Joke 23:15, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the fact that the article is a work in progress. However with the FAC as unusually busy as it is, I decided to process some of the older noms a bit early. Keep working on the objections, and feel free to renominate it in a couple weeks. Raul654 22:08, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fair 'nuff. I noticed it looked pretty busy. –Joke 00:05, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Libya FAC

Hi! Are you sure about this? I realise the article is quite good and some big problems have been addressed, but it is still being fixed (I hope) and not yet stable, with an ongoing copyediting effort. Although the article has already spent almost a week in WP:FAC, I think the process should be given some more time, especially since the article did not previously undergo peer review. —xyzzyn 23:30, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

P. K. van der Byl FAC

Mark. This one has been open for debate for near 3 weeks now. Perhaps that is enough?. Most of the concerns raised have been addressed and the current score is 1 "weak 0bject" (where the voter had promised to reverse his vote, but has overlooked doing so), 1 Object and 3 Supports. That is not many votes, but they are all appear to be from credible contributors. Any chance of closing the debate and promoting the article?. Bob BScar23625 04:24, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd still like to get some input on it, which is why I elected to leave it there a bit longer. Raul654 22:09, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Mark. Bob BScar23625 05:43, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome. Raul654 05:57, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Surprisingly, I wish to contact you about FAC...

A little boost

I've never seen so many FACs! It's been over 40 for weeks now. I hope it's not too stressful. Here, have this cookie to give you energy to deal with the FAC horde. I would be lying to say I don;t feel a bit sorry for you, usually July is a calmer season on Wikipedia. Good luck, RyanGerbil10 (Drop on in!) 05:18, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ta-yuan

This article you have in the FA listings was renamed Dayuan. I thought you'd want to update the FA list. It was changed some time ago. Rlevse 21:42, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. Raul654 22:06, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Phone call

See your email and call me. Danny 01:06, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot - your email did not include an area code. Should I call the cell phone number I already have for you, the one listed on the press room, or something else? Raul654 01:10, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you yet again

Hi Mark. I really want to thank you for the follow up on the request on Meta. I really appreciate you taking time from your own editing to make sure the request got carried out. It looks like the Stewards went a couple of days without visiting RfP.. Thank you so much, again. Cheers, Redux 01:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The list

here's the list of accounts:

  • User:Mikenish
  • User:LooperM
  • User:Plarr9

- Amgine 02:51, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

BOT - Regarding your recent protection of Jim Inhofe:

You recently protected[21] this page but did not give a protection summary. If this is an actual (not deleted) article, talk, or project page, make sure that it is listed on WP:PP. VoABot will automatically list such protected pages only if there is a summary. Do not remove this notice until a day or so, otherwise it may get reposted. Thanks. VoABot 05:01, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

BOT - Regarding your recent protection of Wikipedia:Press:

You recently protected[22] this page but did not give a protection summary. If this is an actual (not deleted) article, talk, or project page, make sure that it is listed on WP:PP. VoABot will automatically list such protected pages only if there is a summary. Do not remove this notice until a day or so, otherwise it may get reposted. Thanks. VoABot 05:02, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bot notices

If you protect a page with InUse as the reason please put that in the protection summary (as opposed to just the article). The Bot can, but does not list such protections on WP:PP, because when I unprotected pages that were protected for too long (like 30-60), I need to know the reason why, as some pages have a good reason for long term protection. Also, since the protecion sumamry not only appears in the protect log, but as an edit in the page history, its useful for editors to be able to see why it was protected. I'd whitelist you from the bot but no other admin seems to have this problem that I know of.Voice-of-All 19:08, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

regarding protection of Ann Coulter page

I cannot seem to see why you've protected this page. I am guessing it's in response to two incidences of vandalism by an IP user beginning with 84.*. Though I think protection of the page is going a bit too far after only two incidences of vandalism here. Anyway, in reverting and protecting, you've also reverted a series of edits that I made that I consider productive and non-vandalism, and you left no explanation for why you reverted that? I wasn't even edit-warring with the 84.* user in the first place. Kizzle reverted him/her first, and you reverted the second one. My edits seem to have been caught in the crossfire somewhere,... Dr. Cash 21:20, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My bad - I have unprotected and reverted to the last pre-84* version. Raul654 22:51, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:FAC#Macedonia (terminology)

Hey Raul. Great job, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes! We still have unstricken oppositions by Tony and Joelito regarding 'lists'. 10 others (last was Sean WI) have reconsidered and now 6 support and 4 went neutral. There have been three attempts to rectify that, all unsuccessful. The main reason is that all editors (me included) like the current format:

[[Macedonia/n/s (foo)|Macedonia/n/s]] (as a foo) refers...

All Macedonians 'mouse-over' in their brains when they use those terms! I managed to add some more text after these oppositions, but have no answer yet (maybe I was too hard in ...opposing the opposers). I've posted a rationale regarding why I think these oppositions are unsubstantiated and haven't received responses to that either. I've included similar precedents I found and read all requirements, but I thought I should ask what you think with your experience in this field. So here goes: Is this a list? :NikoSilver: 00:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In re: RFCU talk

I believe the point, or WP:POINT as our accusers will no doubt cry, is that we aren't into masochism; we're not encouraged to keep working by being abused. If the community is particularly interested in having the service we provide, they will quickly file the matter in /dev/null. Until they do, we've redirected RFCU there. Essjay (Talk) 13:48, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the brick

I think.  :) I wasn't trying to be biting, per se, just bored with the repeated drama. User:Zoe|(talk) 15:06, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pet Skunk "globalize" template

Hi Raul,

Please see Wikipedia:Featured article review/Pet skunk. I strongly feel that this article needs to reflect a global view, or otherwise be de-listed as a featured article. It just won't do to have a FA which reflects the situation primarily in one country (when that article is not about that country). I have not replaced the tag (after re-reading that section I see I was perhaps a little hasty), but I still think that the article needs to be globalised. Mere brief mentions are made of skunk ownership in countries outside the USA, while a great deal of text deals with skunk acquisition and legality in the USA. In other places, the USA is assumed to be "the nation of default, if no nation is named", for example: "Nationwide Domestic Skunk Petition" (National? Of which country? Hmm, let me guess...). Under the "Organizations" section, only two "other" countries are merely mentioned by name at the end of the section, after several paragraphs giving a lot of information about organisations in ONE country. I'm not on an anti-American crusade or anything: I have as much respect for that country and its people as I do for any other. I do believe, though, that the English language Wikipedia needs to be held in strong check to counter the systematic bias towards the USA. It's fine to have lots of featured articles about American things. It's not fine, however, if featured articles which are supposed to be about subjects not exclusively associated with one particular nation, show a viewpoint which 99% reflects the situation in one country only, with mere brief mentions of other countries. Any thoughts? EuroSong talk 20:48, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bulbasaur

With the amount of vandalism, I think a sprotect is needed. Since you unprotected the page before, yould you have a look? Thanks -- Chris 73 | Talk 06:45, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We do not protect FAs as a matter of policy - see user:Raul654/protection Raul654 06:48, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
However, I'll be happy to checkuser the guy and block him for a good long time. Raul654 06:49, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Note - he was using AOL. IMHO, we should just get it over with and block account creation and anonomyous editing from AOL with the message: "Due to AOL's badly designed infrastructure and refusal to impliment technical solutions that would aid Wikipedia in serving AOL users, Wikipedia has decided to terminate editing rights for AOL users who do not already have accounts" Raul654 07:00, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd support that — it's the best alternative. It would sacrifice a slight bit of inconvienence from a few editors in exchange for a better overall reputation (and less work for us). — Deckiller 07:28, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think it would help to 'motivate' AOL into supporting XFF. Raul654 17:33, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In this case, though, the vandal found an unprotected template (Template:Pokenum) that was embedded in the FA summary (Wikipedia:Today's featured article/July 28, 2006) and vandalised that. The result was that his genitalia appeared on the Main Page. See Talk:Main Page for commentary on this. Can't we have some procedure or automatic check that prevents unprotected templates from appearing on the Main Page? Or, better still, something that refuses to allow any templates to be embedded in the Main Page components? --Heron 20:30, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There was a report (I'm thinking from Angela, but I could be wrong) that AOL *was* supporting XFF; did this not pan out? Essjay (Talk) 00:27, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, the report was that they are "planning" to support XFF. They don't actually support XFF yet. And, in fact, the timing of the announcement was rather questionable. Within hours of Tim's modifications to the blocking mechanism going live (finally giving us the ability to block all of AOL except for already-registered users), the announcement that AOL was finally in the process of adding XFF was made. I do not find the close timing of these announcements to be a coincidence. Raul654 00:32, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, so it's just a stalling tatic. Damn them and their tricky ways! Essjay (Talk) 00:36, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Is there some page to voice support for an AOL block? If there isn't, can you think of an appropriate place to raise this as a proposed blocking policy?—WAvegetarian•(talk) 00:21, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
WP:CENT? Not sure. Highway Return to Oz... 06:51, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Stable articles

Just letting you know that I agree with the stable article outline you posted on slashdot. Never having looked at the mediawiki code, I'm not sure whether this is really a consensus or a "who's going to put in the effort to code it" problem, but I hope some progress can be made. On a side note, do you happen to know whether anyone has thought of implementing a Harvard option to Cite.php? The code needed to parse "Harold, P., Maricar, M., Stubbins, P.J. and Groper, P.E.R.V. 2002. etc." and output "Harold et al. 2002" is trivial. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 10:24, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(1) Danny told me during a phone call that the developers will be putting no effort into changing the Mediawiki code so as to support stable versions. How accurate this claim is, I cannot say. (Danny was using this to argue in favor of the current stable-versions-now proposal. My reply to him was that if the developers do not want to invest the time to impliment, thus requring us to use the kludges in the the current stable-versions-now proposal, then the need for stable versions must not be as pressing as he claims it is). (2) Rob Church is the one who wrote cite.php; he would be the one to talk to about that. However, I doubt there is much inclination to support harvard referencing, because the system we have now is quite good already and there are more pressing tasks for the developers. Raul654 00:41, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the comments. On number 2, I think we have a lot of "legacy" users (those dusty academics) who'd be contributing more if they could use the familiar Harvard system. I'll think on it, don't really have the time myself at the moment. I'll check Rob Church. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 00:48, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitration work

Hi Mark, since returning to active status on the Arbitration Committee, on July 7th, you haven't participated in any cases beyond the main RFAr page except to vote on one injunction. Having inactive arbitrators marked as active greatly slow down the process, becaue it means the other voters have to overcome that with a higher proportion than should be necessary voting. Could you eithr move yourself to inactive status so that we can mark that on all current cases, or get more involved in current cases? Thanks. Dmcdevit·t 18:31, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ping. In fact, it doesn't look like you have voted on a case since Guanaco, MarkSweep, etc. in April. And your userpage says you are out of town at the moment. If we had one less arbitrator active, for example, the Saladin1970 appeal could be closed right now. Instead we have to wait for another voter, which will probably not be you. Dmcdevit·t 04:02, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Before posting main page articles

Something to add to your checklist: Check for and protect or substitute templates used in the first paragraph, as this was one of the recent ways to add wild and crazy images, etc. to the main page, and it is not as easy to fix as vandalism right on the main article. —Centrx→talk • 20:25, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, yes - I should have realized that before hand. Raul654 00:20, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi

Maybe my previous comment was lost in the sea above. Thought I should remind you...:NikoSilver: 00:59, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mail

Hi, Raul. I tried to send you a "thank you" email, but the message was returned to me. Apparently, your server has blocked mine, or something of the sort. I just thought I'd let you know, in case this is something you'd have to look into. In any case, I just wanted to thank you for forwarding my message to the ArbCom mailing list. Cheers, Redux 17:57, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Non third-party use photos

Hi. You uploaded some photos from the DC meetup for non third-party use. The image usage policy does not allow them anymore and, as such, either the license would have to be changed, or you'd have to moved them to a non-Wikipedia server. Otherwise, eventually, they'd get deleted. Thank you, bogdan 19:52, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Disney's Animal Kingdom

I'm not at all a fan of menageries, even those that undertake conservation activities but concomitantly move (or the support the moving of) animals from their natural habitats, so I'm not sure what my particular thoughts are apropos of DAK. Irrespective of that, though, your Florida pics, most notably those of the kangaroo pair and okapi are ridiculously awesome; good on ya. Joe 20:21, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

*hides under desk in fear of flying genitalia*

Hi Raul, I guess you heard about the minor... what's the word... disaster that was Friday, I just want to say that I can completely understand if you have any reservations with featuring another Pokémon article on the Main Page. Hopefully you won't get much backlash because of this, any article deserves the right to have its day, and I think quite a few people brushed up on policy. ;) We've had to protect quite a few templates, the vandals (with AOL accounts) have learned they can add huge huge images of reproductive organs to 403 articles in one edit, and we're having to protect most of them, I don't know updated you are on the situation.

Thank you for giving Bulbasaur... a chance. Cheers, Highway Return to Oz... 23:17, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Message

(Moved from your userpage. Essjay (Talk) 06:59, 30 July 2006 (UTC))[reply]

Hi Mark, I am not vandalizing your article, I am trying to reach you but I don't know how you can message an admin in wikipedia, anyway, I thought if I added this here you will get it or at least if another admin saw it he/she will pas it to you. So, my message is, you reversed my change in the Yom Kippur article, the fact that it was Ramadan was very important both strategically and phsycologically, I edited the article again, please read the Ramadan Choice section. KingTut1982 07:30, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Colbert

Sorry to be impatient once again, but when does the Colbert dinner get picked up on the request page? I feel like it's an orphan waiting sadly in an orphanage waiting to be picked up by parents. --kizzle 20:39, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rudolf Vrba

Thank you, Raul. :-) SlimVirgin (talk) 07:30, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested front page article

I'm not sure if you get informed of these things anyway, but just in case you don't, can I draw your attention to this? Just in case you were thinking of using the article before that. Thanks :) Soo 13:08, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Transfer of power

So, you're now in-charge, eh ? -- Sundar \talk \contribs 14:05, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My Arbitration case

I noticed you were the only arbitrator left. Just like to warn you that I stoppped doing these things about two weeks ago, as proof, please see the messages on my talk page, cheers —Minun Spiderman • Review Me 11:34, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Raul

I just noticed that here it says... 

Raul654 maintains a very small, unofficial list of featured articles that he does not intend to appear on the main page.

...but the wikilink comes to your user page. Where do you keep said list? (No real reason just being noesy) --Monotonehell 00:35, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

He keeps it in his head. Some things are not written down. -- ALoan (Talk) 09:28, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My guess is that he's very busy running Cuba right now...
Cuban president Fidel Castro (pictured), citing health problems, temporarily relinquishes duties
to his brother Raúl.
;) --Monotonehell 09:59, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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